Scrap busting inspired by Natalie Bowers.

Last week I managed to make some cards while I was looking after Grace.  It was school holidays here in NZ and I had her on Tuesday for the day.... Morning was spent at the swimming pool - boy is that girl a little fish... she has improved immensely over the last 4-5 months.   And our afternoon was spent in the craft room.   She made a card copied from one of mine and made some lovely watercolour powder backgrounds.  I had been watching this video from NB Cards...(Natalie Bowers) - where she used Aperture dies with some of her scrap backgrounds....  I had cleaned out all my backgrounds when I relocated the craft stash back into the craft room - so I had to make some more.  Love her colour combo of Wilted Violet and Peacock Feather Distress Oxide inks, so smooshed some onto some card to make my backgrounds for two of my cards... and the third one used some of Grace's gorgeous background. 

1st card

For this one, I used a Tim Holtz Sizzix die set.  Added the background behind the die cut panel.   Added a Prettty Pink Posh Sentiment die on vellum shadow and finished with some home made gold dots.

2nd card 

Used more of the first background for this one.  Another of the dies from the Tim Holtz/Sizzix set.  Sentiment from a Gina K set called Birthday Sparkle and more home made dots. 

3rd card

This time I used an Altenew die - Leafy Border and a sentiment from Altenew Classic Greetings embossed in black and cut with the matching die, with Grace's background. And more of my homemade dot embellishments.

 Still lots more to share over the coming days. 

  

It's been awhile!

 Well it seems like forever since I last posted.   Life has taken over.... Work has been busy, and I've been decluttering and packing up my craft room - We are getting the whole house re-carpeted. It won't be for a few more weeks till it happens but as I need take everything out of the room, I decided to purge my stash as well.   It's been slow going!   Lots of boxes of stuff in the garage.   I have been a bit crafty - made an explosion box card for my friend, Pearl, for her Mum's 90th 

And a couple of cards for upcoming posts for Die Cut Divas -  

And the last two Sunday's Grace and Florence have stayed while Mum and Dad went to Puppy Training with Coco.   Both days Grace and I crafted.   She has taken a liking to try to replicate cards I've made and in particular loving to stamp and stencil cards.  I forgot to take a pic of last weeks, but today I remembered.   This week she wanted to use Altenew Ambridge Rose stamp and stencils.  

She picked out her own colours - first one used pinks and purples inks from Altenew and Neon Hero Arts inks for the second one.   The backgrounds were made using a "smooshing tool" )see this video from Natalie Bowers on how to make the tool!)  It's a great way to smoosh without too much mess.  Grace had such fun making the backgrounds. 

A fun afternoon had by one happy 5 year old.  The other little one has a cool time playing with Pop - and eating lots of watermelon!  

Just a Note Floral layering dies.

I've been using some of my new stash over the last little while...I got this card finished yesterday but didn't get to photograph it till late this afternoon.   My day was full on crafting with Grace as it was my day to look after her during the school holidays.   Her wish for the day..... to spend it "doing arty crafty" with Nanny.  More on that later...

Here's a card I made using Altenew's Craft A Flower - Dahlia April Heather Layering die. 

I googled this flower and got some ideas of colours - luckily Altenew had some suggested colours on the packaging, so used Buttercream, Magenta and Snapdragon inks together with Lagoon and Emerald for the leaves.  I cut the dies from an off white 240gms Fabriano card and used the inks to blend. The flower layering is nice and easy with Altenew's Keyhole layering.   For my background, I spritzed the ink left on my sticky mat after inking the leaves and smooshed it onto some card. I added black splatter with some Indian Ink mixed with water.   At the same time as getting the flower dies, I also got Altenew Scripty Sentiments dies.  I added some clear packing tape over some black card and die cut the sentiment.  Arranged my floral dies and the added splatters of Fossilised Amber Distress Spritz. 

As both my flower dies and the sentiment die are new, I'm adding to Darnell's NBUS challenge. 

And here are a couple of pics of our day today 

We tried so many different techniques...  dry and wet embossing, learning about using watercolour pencils, painting with watercolour paints, using "magic powders" and much more.