Crafting with a friend- fun afternoon of creating.

One of the best things about paper crafting is sharing it with a fellow crafter, and yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with my friend Suna at her home in Orewa. It's about a 30-minute drive from my place, and it was well worth the trip.

I arrived around midday and we got straight into crafting. After about an hour of creating (and chatting!), we took a break and walked to a local café just five minutes from her apartment for lunch. After a delicious lunch, we headed back for more crafting before I left for home at 4.20 pm.

Despite spending over three and a bit hours together, I only managed to complete two cards. Then again, there may have been a little too much chatting happening!

My first project was a Christmas card featuring some recently purchased poinsettia-themed sticker tape.

I placed a strip of the tape across the centre of my card panel and then used two dies from the Spellbinders A2 Curved Borders One set to divide the panel into two sections. I chose a stitched border for the top section and a plain border for the bottom, adhering both pieces back onto the panel while leaving the decorative tape visible in the centre.

The sentiment is from Rosie’s Studio Hearth & Home and was stamped onto the lower panel using Nocturne Versafine Clair ink.

To finish the design, I created a poinsettia using a new die set. Although the set includes three layers, I felt the largest layer was too big for this card. Instead, I cut two of the smallest layers from red cardstock and layered them together, then cut the middle layer from green cardstock. For the flower centre, I used white cardstock coloured with a yellow Posca Glitter pen. The set also includes foliage dies, which I cut from green cardstock.

I'm really pleased with how this card came together.

My second card also showcases a new die set featuring an arched panel and a flowering branch.

I cut the branch twice from white cardstock. For the base layer, I coloured the branch using a grey-green Spectrum Noir marker (thanks to Suna and her pens). On the second die-cut, I coloured the flowers with pink Altenew ink and then carefully fussy-cut them out. The die design makes this process surprisingly easy, with cut lines that clearly define the flowers and buds.

Once everything was layered together, I adhered the floral branch to the white arched panel. For the background, I added a piece of blue watercolour paper from a Scrapbook.com paper pack to the card base. The die set also included a couple of extra floral elements, so I created a small cluster in the top corner. After that, I decided the card didn't need anything else. Sometimes the simplest finishing touch is no extra embellishment at all.

The cards were fun to make, but the real highlight of the day was spending time crafting with a friend. We shared stamps, dies, ideas, and plenty of conversation. There's something special about being able to bounce creative ideas off one another while working on projects side by side.

I'm entering my second into Darnell's NBUS challenge.  All the dies used from the one set are having their first outing.