Brand new challenge blog

Hey guys

Hope your well and have been enjoying the recent nice weather we have been having, although today was full of rain but hopefully the sun will continue to shine through! 

I have news of a great new challenge blog that's launched so here goes! I have been lucky enough to work with the amazing Teri from delicious doodles on her new group 'Delicious Darkness' 

The 13th of this month saw the launch of the new challenge and I am so sorry but I have been really in posting my design team make. I figured after Uni finished I would have more time to get on top of the things that started to slip while I was writing my dissertation but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

Here is my design team creation for delicious darkness! 

Teri makes the most amazing images and they are a dream to colour in. This image is called 'Back Widow' I'm not sure why I picked this one as I'm totally scared of spider haha! 

The web background is cut on the Silhouette Cameo in dark purple, I used purple instead of black just to give a different dimension to the backing pattern. The image is coloured using W H Smith pencils recommended to me by the lovely Lisa over at Pinky Lisa's Inky Crafts. I would also like to wish Lisa a speedy recovery as she has been a bit unwell recently. 

The challenge can be found here :- http://deliciouslydarkchallenges.blogspot.com/

I really hope you can join in and show us what you can create over on the dark side! Just remember to have a read of the rules page, we don't have many but will save any confusion. 

Keep crafting and I'll see you all soon! 

Love Richard

(Remember to join my blog and leave a comment :-) ) 

Just For Fun July Challenge

Just For Fun - July Challenge.

Welcome back to my blog guys, hope you are all doing well even if the last few days have been a bit miserable due to the weather. 

We had a bit of a restructure in the way in which the the Design Team is operating, so, instead of monthly themes we are going to be ANYTHING GOES every month as we all know how much you love to let your creativity flow without restriction. We also will not be having a mid-month inspiration anymore as we have joined team A and B together into one big super-team. 

Here is my inspiration for you guys! 

Materials used are - Craftwork Cards Backing Papers. 

                                Sue Wilson Dies from the California Collection

                                Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes (Colours to follow)

                                Ribbon and Beads from my stash and a 6x6 card blank.

I hope you will come along a join in our challenge. You can submit any kind of craft and not just cards so let your imagination run wild and join in.....

Please click follow at the top and please leave a comment in the box below.....

I would also like to enter this card into the following challenges -

Fantasic Tuesday - Anything Goes

The ABC Challenge - O For Orange

Crafting From The Heart

Creative Fingers

613 Avenue Create

Crafting At The Weekend

Loves Rubber Stamps

Until next time....Lots of love and crafty hugs.

Richard 

JFF Design Team Member 

As Time Goes By

Hey guys, 

For this next card I have a slight confession to make! I didn't make this card in its entirety! My grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last Friday and my sister wanted to help make a card from her and her son rather than just made by me, I was really proud of some of the choices she made although I did guide her in the right direction with some of the things she wanted to do haha! 

We have used dies from the Sue Wilson Italian collection and heat embossed a sentiment which says 'As Time Goes By' 

We misted some white paper roses with cosmic shimmer vintage mica mist and I made some hat pins using the beads in my stash! 

I have some more anniversary cards coming up so keep your eyes peeled. :-) 

Hope you are enjoying the tennis and let's hope this weather keeps up! 

More coming shortly! 

Love and crafty hugs

Richard 

X x x

Golden Peacock!

Hey guys, 

How are you all doing.......?

These last few months have been so busy and lots of changes have happened which has forced me to leave my crafting behind temporarily! I just completed my degree in Archaeology at the University of Manchester. Writing my dissertation took so much of my time and drained any brain power I had left I couldn't think creatively for crafting. 

I moved house and all my equipment has been in storage until I could find a suitable place for it all. My sister kindly gave me access to her garage and I have a lot of work to do for it to be a working craft area but I am so grateful to her for the space. She lives two doors up so it's nice and handy! 

Today I have a male birthday card I made. I didn't get chance to get a picture of the card with the sentiment attached but you get the general idea of the theme. 

The black card stock is heat embossed with the tail section of the main image using ranger perfect medium and cosmic shimmer black detail embossing powder. The gold card is from my stash and I think it was originally purchased from pay-per-box. 

The main stamp is from inkadinkadoo and is a gorgeous peacock. I love their stamps and due to the colour of the rubber you can always find them in your stash because the bright green stands out a mile! I used cosmic shimmer flake and glitter glue and cosmic shimmer golden gilding flakes! 

I hope you all like this card as I really do struggle to make cards for men! Anyone would think I had a natural advantage due to been a man but I really don't like making them haha! 

I have a couple of posts which are all going to live in the next day or two! I'm playing catch up so sorry if you all feel bombarded! 

Crafty love and hugs! 

Richard 

X x x

Cheeky 50th birthday card!

Hey crafters! 

Hope your all well! 

A friend of mine asked me to make a card for his sisters 50th birthday. Of course I agreed and then he said he wanted it to be a beach theme card! His sister was been taken to the Dominican I think (memory like a goldfish) so I told him to leave it with me! 

Of course what happens is life gets in the way and with the goldfish memory problem I left it until the last minute! My dissertation was due the same day he needed it and everything not just crafting seemed to fall by the way side! 

I had coloured the image a few weeks previously which had been sent to me by my aunt who stamped some her more humourous images for me to play with. I apologise for not knowing the name of the stamp but I will ask her for it unless any of you lovelies knows what it is and can leave the name in the comments box! 

Here is what I came up with at very last minute. 

I think these ladies are so cool and full of life! I would for sure be the one on the end with the martini when I grow up! 

Hopefully I will have another blog post for you soon! I have a paper due in tomorrow on gothic a architecture in relation to cathedrals so I will mostly be working on that tonight! :)

Love and hugs 

Richard x 

Stained Glass Sparkle

Morning crafters! 

How are you all? 

For today's make I want to show you a dazzling glittery card I made by mixing and matching some of Sue Wilson's dies from the Italian collection and I will also give you a slight walk through if how I achieved this stunning effect so you can all try it for yourself :-) so here is what I came up with :-) 

Here's what I did -:

I got the outside frame of the Sue Wilson die called Umbria in holographic silver card. I then took some card stock and applied a sheet of double sided sticky sheet but left the top backing sheet on the card and run that through the grand calibur using the inside die from the Calabria set from Sue Wilson. I used fairly thick card stock for this to ensure that the die did not cut all the way through and only cut the layer of the sticky sheet. If done right it should look like this -:

I then removed little parts of the backing sheet. I made sure I did this in a symmetrical fashion like a stained glass window would be. You can remove as many or as few bits as you wish. I wanted to get a few different colours in this design so I didn't remove much. After I was happy with the sections I had removed I took my Martha Stewart ultra fine glitter and rubbed it into the exposed parts. Here is what you should have after -:

Continue in the same fashion until you have the desired amount of colours you want. As a tip the general rule of thumb is you should use your darkest colour first and work up to your lightest colour as you might get some dark stuck in the lighter colour. I want edit o use the black glitter last to give my centre and aged look.

I then took the Faux Quilled Blooms die set from Sue Wilson and cut three flowers and placed a black half back pearl in the centre of each one and the centre of my stained glass centre piece. I also hand tied a satin ribbon bow in chocolate brown. 

Here is a picture of the finished project in day light to show the sparkle! 

Colours of glitter used are -: fire Opel, golden beryl, Charoite, carnelian and hematite. 

Please feel free to comment and don't forget to click follow at the top of the page

Love and hugs

Richard 

X x x

Strawberry dipped in chocolate!

Hey guys hope you are all well! 

The one word wonder today over at Mad Grafters Giggles was the word pink! I wanted to give the idea of strawberry and chocolate so this is what I came up with! 

I havnt applied a sentiment yet because I could find one in my stash that I liked enough that felt like it fit the theme! 

The pink card is Bazzills card stock and that is cut out using the largest die from Sue Wilson's Tuscany set from the Italian collection. The brown is the middle size die from the same set and the inner pink is the smallest die from Tuscany also! 

I used sue Wilson's faux quilled blooms for the flowers and spritzed these with some cosmic shimmer vintage mica spray. The colour is tarnished gold. The butterfly was sent to me in a swop by the lovely Sue Isherwood! It was plain white but I coloured it using some distress ink by Tim Holtz in the colour victorian velvet! The backing see a pink and cream paper covering the top and the bottom and a cream ribbon running up either side! 

I welcome all comments and questions! Don't forget to click follow at the top of the page! This is a new blog and your support means the world to me! 

Until my next blog post I'll say goodbye! 

Love and crafty hugs! 

Richard 

X x x

First attempt at a Rick St Dennis digi stamp

Hey there guys! Hope your having a great week! Almost the weekend!!!!!!

This post is my very first attempt at not only a Rick St Dennis digi stamp but also my first attempt at digi stamps in general......and who better to start with than Rick! 

I fell in love with this image the moment I saw her! She is of course the Crazy Queen of Hearts! Here is what I came up with -:

I coloured the queen using watercolour pencils and gave a pale blue outer edge to make her pop off! I took some playing cards and distressed them with a Tim holtz distress stamp pad in Tea Dye and arranged them in a royal flush.....all hearts of course! 

The Queen is such a fun image and I thought purple would be the perfect colour for the dress as purple is the colour of royalty and also my fave! 

Any one familiar with the book or film Alice in Wonderland will know that all the white roses in the kingdom were painted red at the Queens order so I wanted to emulate this in some way on the card so I took my white roses and coloured them on the tips with my spectrum noirs! This technique could also be applied to Halloween cards! The hearts were left over from from a heart lattice background I cut on the Silhouette Cameo which I decided to keep as all crafters know anything that looks useful (which is pretty much everything) never goes in the bin! This time it paid off and I coloured them with the same spectrum noir red but because the card stock was white pearlescent it took on a darker look! 

The sentiment just screams Helena Bonham Carter from Tim Burton's dark version of Alice in Wonderland and I simply printed this out on white card and coloured with Tim Holtz Victorian Velvet distress ink! 

I welcome all your comments and please click the follow button at the top of the page! 

Hope you all have a great evening! 

Love and crafty hugs! 

Richard 

X x x

New Sue Wilson Die!

Hey guys hope your well! 

My new Sue Wilson dies arrived last night and could not wait to play with them! 

This is what I came up with! 

For the focal element I cut a full mat from the frame die from the Calabria set in blood red card stock and then used the inside die from Calabria to cut out in black! 

I used some double sided sticky sheets in the back of the black and applied Martha Stewart ultra fine glitter in garnet and gave it a rub rub in with my finger to make it shine. I then peeled the backing off and laid it in the centre of my red frame! 

The sentiment is from heartfelt creations and was embossed using cosmic shimmer black detail powder on the same blood red card.

The roses are plain white and spritzed with cosmic shimmer vintage mica spray in marigold. 

I made the stick pins with beads my dad bought me from michaels in Florida! I could find my red flat back pearls but used my spectrum noirs to colour some white ones! 

I have a new post coming up later for a card which is not usually in my style but I had so much fun making! 

Hope you all have a great day!

Love and crafty hugs! 

Richard! 

X x x

White on white!

Today I decided I wanted to make a card that was clean and simple, just one problem I don't exactly do clean and simple haha! 

This is what I came up with! 

First I cut a a piece of glossy white card and laid the second largest die from the Californian Collection Decorative Frames (set B) from Sue Wilson in the centre then took the next sized die down from the same collection and placed that in the middle. I ran these through the grand calibur and I got a nice cut out in the main square and also a smaller cut out which I have stamped on, also a frame from the space between both dies was left over, I havnt used it on this card but will use it on another at a later date! 

I took a stamp and used my embossing pad to stamp the image on the card and used cosmic shimmer true white detail embossing powder. 

I then embossed some buttermilk card with an embossing folder from x-cuts called 'quilting' and stuck this on the back of the main card stock.

The sentiment is from heartfelt creations and I used rich cocoa momento ink because I thought black would have been quite out of place. The flowers are from poundland and were a great bargain. 10 for £1.......how amazing is that!!!!!!!!

Feel free to leave a comment below

Happy crafting guys! 

Love and hugs 

Richard x 

Another play with vinyl!

Hey guys! 

How has your day been? 

Today I have had another mess about with cutting vinyl on the silhouette cameo! 

The effect that comes with cutting vinyl is just amazing! I put white card behind the glass to show it off but this can be changed at anytime to another colour! I might try different colours behind it to see how it works! I love how the black looks but I have lots of different colours that I need to experiment with! I think I may make something for my sister using red vinyl and a black background! 

Please feel free to comment below! 

Love and crafty hugs

Richard! X 

MY FIRST DESIGN TEAM CREATION

Hey guys and gals! 

This month will see my first creation showcased on the Just For Fun Challenge Blog

This month over on the Just For Fun Challenge Blog we are celebrating Easter. Easter is a great time of year. The sight of spring is just around the corner and everything starts to return back to life, trees are turning green and if your lucky you will have your spring bulbs ready to appear any moment. 

Easter to me screams pastel colours, chocolate and baby chicks. For my design team post I wanted to try and be a little different and this is what I have come up with -:

I thought it would be cool to be quite daring and use some black pearl paper with a gold shimmer from PayPerBox. The Image was cut on the Silhouette Cameo which I can not rate highly enough. 

For the backing I wanted to evoke a feeling of the foil from a wrapped Easter Egg. To get this effect I used Silver Dream Gilding Flakes from Cosmic Shimmer. I applied this to the card base using double sided adhesive sheets from Creative Expressions. 

Click here to watch my first ever tutorial video on this method of applying Gilding Flakes. Its not the best video in the world but it should help give you an idea of the technique.

I hope that you will come along and join us for this months challenge. I can not wait to see all your creations.

Happy Easter and don't eat too many Eggs haha

Happy Crafting! 

Love Richard 

x x x

Vinyl Monogram on Glass

Hey there crafty guys and gals.

How have you all been? Things are really busy for me at the moment with university and work so my crafting has taken a bit of a back seat in my life......but now it's spring, the geese are making lots of noise in a morning and the flowers are starting to come back to life! Could things be any better! 

Any one who knows me knows I treated myself to a silhouette cameo recently! Since I bought it I have been so impressed by the quality of the cut files and the machine itself and I have been itching to try vinyl! I managed to get a really good deal on some and here is my first creation! 

Just to test how easy using vinyl was on glass I bought some cheap clip frames from Wilkinsons for £1.50. The size is 10 inch by 8 inc.

I made this one for my mum, her name is Mandy so 'M' could be for Mum or Mandy. 

I was surprised at how easy it was! I suggest anyone with a Silhouette tries this method! 

Here is another picture to show the size, sorry for my taste in Blu-Ray, I know it won't appeal to everyone but it is one of my fave films since I was a small child 

I would love to hear your comments and feedback :-) 

Also don't forget that the mid month inspiration for the just for fun challenge blog will be due later today! Can't wait to see all your creations and hope you like my Easter themed card which will be live later today as well! 

Happy crafting! 

Love and hugs 

Richard x

Silhouette at Twilight!

This is a top secret post! It's my grandfathers birthday on the 25th of this month and wanted to make him something to keep. I came accross this cut file in the Silhouette Store and just fell in love with it. I added the name (you can add anything you want, I picked grandad. And cut it out!

I then made the backing using distress inks. I think the water is made with broken china, peacock feather and faded jeans. The sky is brushed cordouroy, chipped sapphire and either a touch of peacock feather or faded jeans, I can't remember exactly off the top of my head. 

Do you guys do that as well? Get so into crafting that after the process is complete you sometimes don't even know what you did haha! 

Anyway this is going into a frame to give to him on his birthday! My grandfather is one the best men you could wish to meet! I hope he loves it! My sister said 'it's ace' which is so,etching coming from her haha! So doesn't really pay any attention to anything crafty so that's a big thumbs up I think on her part lol! 

Golden Opulence

I love bling and what better than cosmic shimmer gilding flakes and gold card stock! The sheer indulgence of gilding flakes is almost as satisfying as a triple chocolate fudge cake without all the calories! 

Rich golden gilding flakes make up the background of the gorgeous curly cue cut from the silhouette store is totally opulent. The sentiment was cut out in Cadbury purple to stand out and the black bow is hand tied. 

This was for a university friend who celebrated her birthday last week! 

Card for a sick friend.

My friend had to have an operation recently and she has been poorly for quite awhile now and I wanted her to know I was thinking about her. 

The background, sentiment square and flower were cut on the silhouette cameo and the bow was hand tied by myself. The flower has an 8mm flat back pearl in the centre as do some of the larger background flowers. 

I'm loving this classic elegant look that is not fussy. All the cut puts are mounted on silver board. 

Good Luck Card

We have a simple card today which was made for someone leaving work to start their own business! I wish him all the luck in the world! 

Here I used a sheet of paper and tore it down the middle, I used this for the shape of the inked portion of the card. I used three different distress inks to create the ombré stripe. Off the top of my head I think they were chipped sapphire, tumbled glass and broken china. 

I heat embossed the leaf from the stampology collection called autumn leaves. I used cosmic shimmer detail black embossing powder. 

The sentiment is from an unknown collection of stamp I have and was stamped simply using stazon black ink. 

I struggle as do most people with making male cards and think this design is just perfect! 

Introduction to myself

Hey guys! 

Just wanted to give you a quick introduction to myself and say a massive HELLO!!!'m

My name is Richard! I am 28 years years of age and was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. 

I am currently studying Archaeology at the University of Manchester and in the process of writing my dissertation! :-/ 

I started crafting when I was a small child with my Great Grandmother Winifred who taught me how to crochet! She was amazing and would sit for hours with a hook and some cotton. I just wanted to spend time with her because as I said she was amazing and one of my best friends when I was growing up so I let her teach me and I still crochet 25 years later. 

Here she is long before I was born. 

My aunt Denise made the most amazing cards so I wanted to try my hand at this new world of crafts so I spent an afternoon with her having lunch and drinking tea and she helped me figure out how to make a wedding card and a a good luck card and I was hooked ever since. 

I stopped making cards for a long time and this last month I have started again! I want to take the time to share them here with you all! If you want to know anything regarding techniques or where to purchase anything drop me a line. I'm happy to answer any question you may have! I can do a tutorial if you want me too on anything that's confusing or new to you all! 

Happy crafting guys and gals! 

Love Richard x