Shiny Happy Crafters..............

Good morning blogging chums. Hope all is calm in your bit of the world. 

I'm back to work today (boo hoo!) and doing extra days this week too (boo hoo hoo!) so with friends funeral on Thursday, its not going to be the best of weeks.

I was due to visit John last Wednesday for a catch up, exchange of Christmas pressies (yes, it had been that long) and possibly helping him prep for his Hotjohnda shows (yes, the channel has been re-named as he was on so many times last week lol!!!). However, during a chat on the phone the day before, his sniffing and coughing alerted me to the fact that he was not a well boy.

Now, friend he may be, but a germ ridden one at that, so I said I wasn't going to risk catching the lurgy by visiting and ending up spending the rest of my holiday in bed with tissues up my nostrils, sucking a Fisherman's Friend (they are throat sweets for those not familiar with the UK lozenge market and thinking I had an unusual cold remedy). But, as I had some of the stamps and dies he was using, I made some samples for John for the show to help.

These (and the Christmas pressies) were exchanged in a wet layby on the A4600 as John was en route to the studios so I dread to think what the parked up truckers thought as we ooohed and ahhhed over the bags and waving cards about (at arms length to keep away from the lurgy).

Now,this is one of the samples I made for John and a couple of you noticed its TV appearance.

Ingredients

Cream card base

Black card

John Lockwood Daffodil Burst stamp

SW striplet outer edge die

Acetate

CE double sided sticky sheet

Double sided tape

Gilding Flakes (a random box of mixed leftovers)

Ranger black archival ink

Teeny gold bling

Krylon Gold Leaf pen

I do this slightly differently to John and Sue but John did actually demo it my way on his last show. I stamp the acetate, let the ink dry for a bit, then stick the sticky sheet on top of the inked image. I find by doing this, the ink stays sharper as its, in effect, stuck to the acetate so it cant smudge or fade off.

I then peel the backing off the other side of the sheet and pop the flakes on. The acetate piece is recessed so to add a touch more flaking to the edges of the next layer, I just ran some double sided tape around the edge and gilded that.

A run around the bottom black layer with the gold Krylon pen finished it off.

Hope you managed to see John's brilliant shows. I will be featuring my other samples over the coming blog posts.

Right, busy week so onwards........................

TTFN

Ang x

House of Cards August Challenge. . . . . . . . .Metallics

Good afternoon folks. Hope all is well with you and yours. 

Just to clarify Janice, it was John's idea to call you all Duckettes, not making the decorations lol!!! In fact, he mentioned pinching the decoration idea hahaha!!! Actually, a few of you mentioned about doing them yourselves and I am more than happy for you to run with any inspiration. . . . . . hey, I don't have that many good ideas so grab em while you can lol!!!

Today is the start of another month so, as well as being the lovely Nesta's birthday (cue fanfair. . . . . ) its time for another challenge at House of Cards and this months' subject matter is. . . . . . . Metallics!!!

So, lets see you all join in and have a go. Would be great to see some of you talented guys and gals enter.

Metallics put me in mind of Christmas (I know its only August lol!!!) so that was the route I went.

This is where the gilded gold funky foam decoration from my last post (here) ended up.

It started off like this. . . . . . . 

Sue's die cut out of funky foam 3 times, glued together and topped with card cut with the same die and gilded with gold flakes (Love this die!)

Ingredients

Cream card

Brown metallic card 

Brown funky foam

Brown card (Lidl)

Chariot of Fire gilding flakes (Indigo Blu)

Sue Wilson Snowflake Lattice embossing folder

Cosmic Shimmer Golden Pearl pearl PVA

Teeny gold bling (Mei Flower)

Larger bling - these were clear, so to make them brown, I coloured with gold Krylon pen then quickly dusted with brown mica whilst the gold ink was still wet. Leave to dry and you're good to go. 

This hopefully shows you the depth of the piece, yet it comes in just under the 5mm posting depth (guess it would depend on the thickness of the funky foam you have). Hopefully you can pick up the metallic nature of the brown card too.

Enjoying my time off although the weather wasn't great at first. No doubt there will be a blistering heatwave just as I go back into work.

Anyone going to the GBCF at Stoneleigh next weekend? I'm going on the Sunday and meeting up with the lovely Mrs H so if anyone else is going and fancies a cuppa at lunchtime, the more the merrier.

Anyhoo, this won't get the lady a baby as my lovely Mum used to say (don't know if its some weird Malaysian saying that's got lost in translation lol!!!)

So, get yourselves over to House of Cards and have fun with some metallics!

Happy Saturday all!

TTFN

Ang x

Season's Greetings. . . . . . . . Silly Season in My Case!!!

Good morning one and all. Hope all is well with you. What a beautiful couple of days we have had and an overnight torrential downpour in the early hours yesterday kept the garden fresh and watered.

However, what sadness at what has happened to flight MH17. It made myself and Mr Duck thank our lucky stars. As some of you may know, I'm half Malaysian and when we go to visit my family, it tends to be at this time of year. When next we go, it will be with some fear and trepidation after this. My thoughts are with the poor lost souls and their devastated families.

Thanks for your enquiries about my Bevelled Glass Striplet cut. I'm going to rename it the Slicing Striplet as I have managed to cut the same finger with it again but in a different place!!!

They are similar to paper cuts. . . . . .don't look much but hurt like h**l.

If it happens a 3rd time, I shall contact Craft Lawyers 4 U hahaha!!!

Now, today's card is the first festive card at The Pond this year. I was trying to be ironic by photographing a Christmas card with my beautifully fragrant Amber Queen rose lol!!!

It was born out of the card I showed here as I used the circle of stripletting cut from the centre to make this one.

I did take a pic of the process on my phone but that is away for repair but it is similar to this snap that I took for another card.

I cut a circle the same size from a 6x6 cream card base I had made and stuck a piece of double sided sticky sheet to the back of the aperture than stuck the stripletted circle onto this.

Indigo Blu Royal Peacock gilding flakes brushed over and rubbed in.

I then peeled the backing off the double sided sticky sheet and stuck another 6x6 piece of card to it to neaten the inside.

Bit of bling coloured with metallic Promarkers added and a sentiment.

I must confess,with the sentiment, I did do it on the actual card base in Versamark and mica and it looked lovely. I then reached for my trusty hairspray to "fix" the mica and proceeded to spray it with. . . . . . .shaving foam!!!!!!!!!!

After a few naughty and unrepeatable expletives, I had to re-do the sentiment, this time on another piece of card in copper embossing powder. Not how I wanted the card to look but I wasn't going re-do that lovely centrepiece again

Right then, before I forget, Karen (Karenlotty) sorry, I thought you sussed the edges on the White on White card but I misunderstood so I've taken the following snaps to show how I line up my Striplet on the card and cutting plate to get the edge that way. . . . . . . 

Hope that now makes sense chuck? You could obviously cut the entire die along the edge and then cut off what you don't want but that would waste card (and we don't do that folks, do we lol???)

Jacquie, Stoneleigh Park is in Warwickshire, in between Coventry and Leamington Spa. I'm lucky as its only just over 10 mins by car from me.

Ita, so sorry you're back in hospital matey. What on earth has that GP been doing to you? Take care chuck. We are all wishing you well.

Have a great weekend folks. German GP for me but only highlights boohoo.

Be good.

TTFN

Ang x