Little surprises....

I've had a lovely weekend away, relaxing instead of working 😊 

My good friend Julie Clark ran my crafty Saturday with the help of my eldest daughter Robyn....as it all ran nice and smoothly I'll certainly let do it again. 

Today I had to go into work (thought normally closed on Mondays) to pack up some orders. 

The girls had cleaned up, and all was nice and tidy. Robyn had also been playing with my gilding polishes, she liked the new technique we can up with for creating a mixed background....so here's my card I completed using her background. 

 

I really love this set of dies, and you know it's one set I've not taken note of the name....oops

Here's the background and colours used in polish.

   

The sponge used is like a natural sponge, bought for all of 39p from home bargains (£1+ in other shops) and it's just been cut up into small chunks. 

Dip the sponge into your polish but don't add too much, dad your sponge around the page and mix with your chosen colours. (Can be done with paints and ink also) 

I cut out 4 borders & 4 corners with the backgrounds in white, layered them up on my card. 

 

For my center I used the matching background die, cut out the largest one, cut this in half then glued together to create something near a square 😕 

  

I layered up with a pierced square firstly in white, then changed my mind and used it in the coloured card. Added some pretty ribbon and large stamped tag...

 

 Hope you like my card, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me... 

 

Crafters are so similar.....

I've often seen horrid comments on some of the most beautiful cards, I.e you copied that off....,not your own design....etc etc

Well today and many other days, I've seen cards that are very similar to ones I've made previously. 

I don't always share all my cards made, but I do love how crafters who have the same product can see how different dies work together. 

Today's card was the one I was meant to post the other day, but I liked my poppy card more....

 

For my card I have used the coconut white and rich plum foundations card, I started by cutting out the centre striplet die 3 times, and then found the best pierced square that fit to help with my layering up. I layered my cut card onto the rich plum card. I layered onto the white card using foam tape, and mat and layered again onto the plum & white. 

 

I took my outer die from the Gillian set and cut both layers together. I then used both Gillian dies to cut out my centre with the coconut white card. 

I used the plum card I'd already cut from my background pieces and glued the Gillian die cut on flat, and fastened flat inside the centre. 

 

I used a matching coloured ribbon to counter balance the flowers on the other side, which are the new release cape Daisy's and the flourish is frondils..and stamped a best wishes. (Because I generally forget to stamp my sentiment before putting my cards together 🤔) 

This card I found on Sue Wilsons craft page on Facebook this morning....just to show all great crafters think alike ha ha ha.....

 This card was made by Sue Wilson 

Is it too early for Spring?

While browsing my Facebook, I seen a card I think Sue Wilson had made with her new butterfly border....it reminded me I'd not posted up my card 😳

Today's meant to a day off, but does anyone actually get a day off? 

I've done shopping, cleaned out the dog run, and cut the grass 😮 and as per usual cooked tea. 

Here is my card I'd made to post over the weekend...

 

I've used Sues, new butterfly border and in the pack you get 3 dies, the butterfly strip, and 2nd strip which is an outer layer and then a centre strip with all the little dots.

I started by cutting out my strip of butterflies in cream with the centre strip, I then created a frame using the strip. I cut the outer butterfly layer in a lovely lemon colour. I layered my front onto lemon and the cream at the back. 

 

     

I stamped out Johnathon Lockwood's Mondays Child verse on cream card, and went around the edge with the centre dotty die to create a matching frame, and layered on the lemon card. 

  

I cut the pair of bold scrolled vines, these are stunning and will work with a lot of flowers. After watching Johnathon on hochanda today, I think these will be fabulous with the poppies.....so watch this space 😉

The flowers I've used are Sues caped Daisy's, again new releases. I've shaped these by laying them on my stamp mat, and and prodding my tip of tweezers into the end pod and layered them up, the centres are pretty flat so I just used the end of my wooden poky tool to add a bit of shape up at the edges and added my pearly centres. 

Don't forget, please do ask any questions, request any pictures of anything your not sure of......I'm easily found on Facebook as Franki Clark or at Franki's Craft, Chat & Coffee page. 

Thank you for popping by.......

P.s if you like my blog, please please share 👍🏻 xx

My bonny wee card.....

As promised, my card on a Scottish theme...

I was gutted to find the Ross papercraft show at Meadowhall Edinburgh had to be cancelled.

I'd already bought lots of new craft stash I thought out craft Scottish friends would like...I.e embossed thistle & tartan card,  tartan card which is popular for Christmas too...lots of new Sue Wilson dies. 

But your all more than welcome to come visit my wee shop in Darlington for slice of yummy cake & cup of coffee while you have browse through the stock or even a bit of demonstrations on pixie powders & gilding polish....

For now, back to my card. 

 

My friend Julie was working with me yesterday, and was amazed how I worked...

I pick my card theme, browsed through my dies.....decided yes they work together and let it all fall into place as I went along. 

I started off by cutting out the Belgian collection Background die by Sue Wilson (no surprise there eh? 😜) and trimmed to the edge and layered onto my tartan card. 

I then cut out 4 of ravello striplet. 

  

I attached a strip at either side of the tartan card and then cut up 2 of my striplets so to have the centres left over and attached them in between the ends as below.....

  

I trimmed the edges of the centre pieces, and stamped a little verse from Johnathon Lockwood's Autumn wreath stamps...layered it in to my tartan card and the add a piece of the die cut on either side..

 

I layered my full card on to tartan and white card, added a couple of bows in red and a green ribbon. The little pearl gem, I found in the local £1 shop for 8or 10, they are a brad but I bent the legs and snapped them off. I finished the card with pearly gems....

Hope to visit you all in Scotland soon.....xx

Decisions decisions......

Today I made a card with my Scottish friends in mind due to the Ross Papercraft show having to be cancelled. 😪 

Only then, the new releases from Sue Wilson arrived....so I had to make a card with them too....so which should I show today? 

Such decisions are so hard to make 🤔 

As promised, it's not Christmas.....I hope you all like butterflies.

 

I've used the double pierced square frames for my mat and layering, and they fit perfectly around the butterfly frame, the centre and single butterfly are all part of the same set of dies. I've also used the flower cluster die.

My colours white, wisteria and a dark purple ribbon. I stamped with my silver encore ink, using the Johnathon Lockwood's Autumn stamps. 

The pearls I've used, are the creative expressions double row, but I've cut them down the middle to twice the amount. 

 

So tomorrow I'll post my Scottish themed card....and it's a birthday card too 

Autumn rainbow....

I managed to get my card made nice and early in the day, but then the evening has just vanished....

Today's card is made using Johnathon Lockwood's Autumn stamps, it's a beautiful set of stamps with lovely litter verses on.

 

To start my card I cut out a square using the pierced square dues from Sue wilson, the gold is in the largest from set A and white is largest from set B.

I've inked the edge with vintage photo distress ink, and stamped and embossed the corners in gold. 

I'm sorry but never took note of the layered squares in the centre but if you measure the die against your card you'll be able to find the one that suits best. 

On the white i stamped and embossed with the falling leaves background stamp. Again from Johnathon Lockwood range. 

I then sprinkled the mango, peacock green and candy pink pixie powders, I only spritzed lightly to activate the powders, not to soak my card. 

   

To colour my stamped corners, I puffed a bit of powder onto my craft mat and used a water brush to colour were I wanted it. I'm not a huge colouring person but I find working with these powders helps to do more stamping as I'm not worried of the after work. 

I mat and layered my layers....

 

Stamped my chosen little verse, which suited my card perfectly and used the pierced tags, used a teal ribbon and a glass heart to finish the card completely.....I do hope you'll give the powders a try, I'm certain you'll love them just like me 😘

I've got that Autumn feeling......

So this evening I had my craft class, it'll be around 6yrs since this group started. Though only small, it's very friendly. 

After class, I got on with card for today (evening)  I've used Johnathon Lockwood's Autumn range of stamps, which I fell in love With, as soon as I'd seen them on tv. 

 

Today I've used the pixie powders again, starting to become a favourite product of mine....colours used are plum twist, lava red and rich gold. I spinkled the powder onto my card and spritzed with water, and took a 2nd piece to get a print. I've then used Johns falling leaves background stamp, with flitter flake glue and copper flakes to create my coloured background. 

 

I also used Johns Autumn wreath elements stamps, to stamp my wreath, the happy birthday and the extra leaves added as embellishments. 

  

I used black archival ink to stamp my images and cut out by hand. I used a banner from the frames and tags range, and stamped my happy birthday. 

I Matt and layered using foundation rich plum card, and finished the card off with a plum ribbon bow. 

By the light of the silvery moon.....

It's the Lat Wednesday of month, do you know what that means? ......

It means my friend Dawn Watson is coming to the shop to run the workshop today.

It's always nice to have a new face with different ideas to your own. To talk about a variety of products, 

And to share ideas and inspiration. 

So my card today, is quite a simplistic card using Dawns original idea. 

 

For today's card, I used Sue Wilsons sun ray die but instead of cutting the card, I used my tan mat and embossed the image into the silver card. I cut out a piece of silver glitter card to make the moon (as it is on my card) larger. Matt & layered on to black card, then embossed a further piece of silver card with the snowflake folder again from creative expressions. Layered this onto black card, then finally white.

  

I used my Santa and reindeer die and fir trees from 2015 festive range of dies, and cut these in black card and trimmed the trees to perfectly on the card. 

Quick, easy simple card but very effective and great for Christmas cards when you need to make bulk packs. I'm 

Finally finished.....

Well here is my sparkling white and silver card, finally finished. 

I started this card around 2 weeks ago, and I have learnt I really must put more time aside for creating. 

I really do love Sue Wilson cutting dies, and Johnathon Lockwood's Christmas rose stamps. 

 

What I have done here is, taken a piece of card and embossed it using the Sue Wilson Ivy embossing folder.

I've taken the reversed side (de bossed side) and scraped over the glitter sparkle paste. 

I used the double pierced oval frames to create the frame and the gorgeous Peace frame for the centre.

I've not used glitter card at all, but cut my pieces and either sprayed with aero glue or used my stick too glue pen and sprinkled on glitter.

I've then stamped out the Christmas roses, used sticky embossing powder, glittered and cut out, finally adding a lovely glass heart pin.

Another Johnathon Lockwood retail day....

This weekend we've had a fabulous time, with Johnathon Lockwood here Saturday & Sunday. We've had some really lovely ladies joining us from further afield and all gone home very happy with their pieces of art work. 

A couple photos from through out the day, lots of happy smiley people xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look who I met.....

Sunday was the first day of the trade show at NEC Birmingham, was a nice drive down with my daughter in law and a lovely day was had by us both. Until time to go home, and was charged a robbing £12 for parking!! Nice drive home too not too much traffic thankfully and roads were clear all the way home :-)
But.....I got my shopping list of Johnathon Lockwood, and placed my order for next weekend 😇 hope all those coming to the class have their credit cards with them ha ha.
And, look who I bumped into also on the Creative Expressions stall, an absolutely lovely lovely lady

(not my best picture admittedly)

I mainly hung around at Creative Expressions stall, and placed my little order (£1000 by time I added my top up on the web).. and now I've told off Johnathon he'd got his dates mixed up and had to cancel his class this weekend arghhh

On the Positive side New stock has arrived today, with more to follow tomorrow and then next week too..... phew so much excitement I could burst :-)

Johnathon Lockwood's class is now 13th March, and is fully booked. If you are interested in any of his future classes and would like to be contacted regarding them, please contact me on either 01325 461043 or email me at acraftytouch@hotmail.co.uk titled Johnathon Lockwood, just in case your email should go into the spam folder. 

Where does the time go...........

I can't believe we're half way through February already.. What happened to January?
This month is an exciting month for traders, we have the big show to look forward to, and see all the up and coming new products set out for the next year ahead of us.
This month I have the privileged of Johnathon Lockwood  http://johnnextdoor.blogspot.co.uk/
coming to the shop and doing a workshop.. we've not had a peak at what we'll be working on, as we've been promised new stock again.... spoilt rotten we are.
Here are a few cards I've been working on and not posted, sorry....I just don't know where the time goes?

this card was made from the idea Johnathon gave us on his last visit to the shop.

I love this little card, was nice to see my customers surprised when i told the fern strip was actually the snowflake one they'd bought at Christmas :-)

this design was made on my silhouette, the flower used is the Sue Wilson Orange blossom range 

 

See, I have been busy :-) If you would like to ask any question regarding the cards I've made, dies and embossing folders used. Please feel free to email me. or find me on facebook @

https://www.facebook.com/frankiscraftycafe/