Bunny Birthday Card

 

 

Issue 2 of the Little Claire magazine has been published and if you buy it for £5.50 you will get a cute little bunnie stamp, some fantastic background papers and some great tutorials. This is a card I have made using the stamp and I have to say it was a delight to work with such a lovely image.

 

 

what you will need:

Little Claire magazine issue 2 free Bunny Stamp

5 1/2" x 5 1/2" base card

Nit Wit Collections, One Birdie Lane paper pad - white flowery

white card to stamp onto

black Versa Fine ink pad

red paper

Creative Expressions Delicate Daisies Complete Petals dies

Tattered Lace Essentials Circles dies No. 8 & 9

die cutting machine

Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads - Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade

Cut n Dry Foam

colouring in implements

Tonic small flower boot punch

small heart punch

ring binder punch

Glossy Accents

faceted red gems x 3

golden beige organza ribbon 1 1/2" wide

Cut the red paper to around 4 3/4" and stick onto the centre of the base card.

Cut the One Birdie Lane paper to mat and layer onto the red paper and stick into place.

Punch 4 small hearts from the red paper and stick into place at each corner of the base card.

over the hearts with Glossy Accents and leave to dry.

Cut a circle of red paper using the Tattered Lace Essentials Circles die No 9.

Using the Little Claire Bunny Stamp and the black Versa Fine ink pad stamp the image onto white card.

Using the Tattered Lace Essentials Circles die No. 8 cut out the stamped image.

Colour in the image and mat and layer onto the previously cut red paper circle.

Stick the Bunny topper onto the base card.

Using the sentiment "Happy Birthday Lovely Lady" from the Bunny stamp and the black Versa Fine ink pad stamp the sentiment onto white card.

Trim the sentiment to size.

Using the Tim Holtz Wild Honey Distress Ink and the Cut n Dry foam shade the edges of the sentiment.

Mat and layer the sentiment onto red paper.

Stick the sentiment onto the base card.

Using the Creative Expressions dies cut out the daisies from white card (the smaller daisies have two layers and let lager Dasey has three layers).

Using the Tim Holtz Distress Inks Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey and the Cut n Dry foam apply colour to each layered section of the daisies (I alternated the colours using one colour for one layer and the other colour for the next layer).

Stick the flowers together.

Stick the flowers onto the base card.

Using the ring binder punch cut out 3 circles from the red paper.

Bevel the punched circles.

Stick one circle at the centre of each flower.

Using the Tonic small flower boot punch cut out 3 flowers from the white card and colour each flower using the Tim Holtz Wild Honey Distress Ink and Cut n Dry foam.

Stick the flowers into place around the edge of the topper.

Stick a red faceted gem in the centre of each flower.

Make a bow from the golden beige organza ribbon.

Stick the bow to the base card.



Tree O of Birds dinkie stamps Card



Little Claire have a new set of dinkie stamps out and they are so sweet and understated. This is a card I have made using the new stamps ...... just lovely to work with.

what you will need:
Little Claire dinkie Tree O of Birds clear stamp set
Little Claire Dinki Text Stamp Happy Birthday Mrs Lovely
Little Claire Dinkie Text tamp To Loveley You
Prima Marketing Doodle Deux 6" x 6" paper pad - blue leaves & flowers
Magnolia Doo Hickey hearts border die
die cutting machine
5 7/8" cream base card
cream card to stamp onto
colouring in implements of your choice
red card
brown Memento ink pad
Tim Holts Distress Ink - Vintage Photo
Glossy Accents
brown craft paper
1/8" red satin ribbon

Cut the red card to mat and layer onto the cream base card and stick into place.

Cut the Doodle Deux blue leaves paper to mat and layer onto the red card but do not stick into place.
Cut the brown craft paper to 2 3/8", stick onto the right hand side of the Doodle Deux paper and cut to size at the top and bottom.
Shade the top, bottom and right hand edge of the brown craft paper with the Tim Holts Vintage Photo Distress Ink using the Cut n Dry foam to apply the ink.
Using the brown craft card and the Doo Hickey hearts border die cut a border strip.
Straighten off the strip by cutting the plain side down.
Shade the heart side of the border using the Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink and applying the colour with Cut n Dry foam.
Stick the straight side of the hearts border to the brown craft paper all ready stuck to the Doodle Deux paper and trim away the excess at the top and bottom of the border.
Using the Little Claire Tree O Stamps and the brown Memento ink pad stamp the image of the little bird with a heart on it.
Shade the stamped image with the Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then colour the heart red.
Using the Little Claire Dinki Sentiment stamps "To Lovely You, 100% Awesome and You`re a Lovely Friend" and the brown Memento ink pad stamp the sentiments onto the brown craft paper.
Cut a piece of the red satin ribbon long enough to lay over the brown craft paper and leave enough to wrap over the top and bottom of the paper.
Cut a smaller piece of red satin ribbon and tie it to the longer piece of pre cut ribbon.
Lay the ribbon over the join between the two pieces of brown craft card, wrap around over the edge of the paper and secure at the back with tape.
Move the knotted piece of ribbon to where you would like it to be and secure in place with a drop of strong glue and allow to dry.
Trim the knotted ribbon to size.

Using the Little Claire Tree O Stamps and the brown Memento ink pad stamp the images onto cream card.
Colour the images using colouring in implements of your choice making sure that the heart on the bird/heart image is coloured in red.
Make the border around the images extra thick and cut the images squares out.
Stick the images onto the base card at a jaunty angle and make sure that the bird/heart image is at the bottom of the card.
Add Glossy Accents to the heart on the bottom of the card and allow to dry.

Little Claire October Stamp Challenge - My Favourite Little Clire Stamp

Today Little Claire are launching their October Stamp Challenge and the theme is "Favourite Little Claire Stamp". I have to say that I do have stamps which I go back to time and again and I suppose they are favourites but I think that my favourite stamp is the last one I bought or the one I used on the last card I made. This is the card I made as part of the Little Claire design team and I got this lovely little stamp last week at the GNPE in Harrogate, I love the fact that it comes as 4 individual stamps.

If you have a favourite Little Claire stamp then why not make something gorgeous with it, send a photo of it into the competition and you could win these lovely goodies.......

 

£10.00 Voucher to spend on LC Website

 

what you will need:

Little Claire Lets do Lunch stamp

Little Claire Rebecca`s Really Useful Female Stamp Set

black Versa Fine ink pad

Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads - Wild Honey, Fired Brick, Ripe Persimmon

fancy square dies 3 1/2" & 4"

die cutting machine

6 " x 6" white base card

Do Crafts Garden Party paper pad

paper flower template from Pinterest

white card to stamp onto

orange paper

green paper

yellow paper scraps

colouring in implements of your choice

1 1/4" cream lace

1/4" yellow satin ribbon

Tonic small flower boot punch

small dragonfly punch

small hole punch

Cut a square from the white card using your fancy square 3 1/2" die (I have had my die many years and the packaging has long since gone so I do not know what make it is but I have seen that X Cut do a very similar die).

Stamp the Little Claire "Lets do Lunch"image onto the die cut square using the black Versa Fine ink pad (I used the flowers on the tree and the Tulips more than once to build the picture and fill in the space).

Colour the image in.

Cut a square from the green paper using the 4" die.

Mat and layer the image onto the green paper.

Cut the orange paper to mat and layer onto the 6" x 6" base card but do not stick it down.

Cut the green paper with small daisies from the Do Crafts Garden Party paper pad to mat and layer onto the orange paper and stick onto the orange paper.

Using the Garden Party paper which is white with large flowers on it cut to 11.5cm x 11.5cm.

Mat and layer the paper onto the orange paper.

Stick the papers at a jaunty angle onto the green daisy paper.

Cut the 1 1/4" cream lace ribbon so that it is long enough to secure around the back of the papers.

Cut the 1/4"yellow satin ribbon to the same length as the lace ribbon.

Stick the lace to the card about 2" up from the bottom of the papers at its middle and wrap the ends of the lace around the back of the papers and secure with tape.

Place the yellow satin ribbon over the lace and secure the ends of the ribbon around the back of the papers.

Mat and layer the topper and papers onto the 6" x 6" white base card.

I downloaded a free paper flower pattern from Pinterest and re sized the flowers on my computer and then cut the templates  out and traced them onto the Do Crafts Garden Party red spotty paper but if you cant find a template or don't like using Pinterest you could always use flower dies or shop bought flower embellishments. The largest flower is 3.6cm, the next flower is 3cm and the last flower is 2.2cm. You will need 1 x large flower, 2 x middle flowers and 1 x small flower.

Cut the flowers out and tint the edges of the petals using Tim Holtz Fired Brick Distress Ink and Cut n Dry foam to apply, bevel the petals.

Using the Tonic small flower boot punch and the yellow paper scraps punch out 4 flowers.

Stick the yellow flowers to the centre of the Garden Party dotty flowers.

Punch out 4 green dots using the small hole punch and stick a dot at the centre of each flower.

Stick the flowers onto the card.

Using the Tonic small flower boot punch and the Do Crafts Garden Party dotty paper punch out 4 flowers and 2 flowers from the yellow paper.

Punch out 4 dots from the yellow paper using the small hole punch.

Stick a yellow dot at the centre of each of the red dotty boot punch flowers.

Punch 2 dots from the green paper using the small hole punch.

Stick a green dot at the centre of the yellow boot punch flowers.

Stick the boot punch flowers onto the card.

Using the Little Claire Rebecca's Really Useful Female Sentiments Stamp Set select the birdie flower stamp and the sentiment of your choice and stamp onto white card using the black Versa Fine ink pad.

Cut the sentiment out.

Tint the edges of the sentiment using the Time Holtz Distress Inks Wild Honey, Ripe Persimmon and Fired Brick and applied using Cut n Dry foam.

Stick the sentiment onto the card. 

Punch out 2 dragonflies from the orange paper and stick onto the card.



Little Claire October digi Stamp Challenge



Today Little Claire are launching their October digi Stamp Challenge and the theme is Ribbons & Pearls. I thought that as this is a magical time of the year I would do a magical/mystical type of card for my inspirational card as part of the design team. If you would like to take part in the challenge just make a card using a digi stamp and ribbon & pearls and send a photo of it to Little Claire and you could be the lucky winner of this prize.......

FIVE - LITTLE CLAIRE DIGI-STAMPS

I thought I would do more in-depth recipes for cards made using digi images because it is sometimes difficult to work your way around a computer if you are not confident and believe me the digi images are so easy to use. The first thing I will mention is that I use Serif Craft Artist as my graphics program and if you have a different graphics program it will still do the same things as my Serif but I can not talk you through it the way I can with a Serif program.

what you will need:
Lttle Claire Whisper a Wish digi stamp
Little Claire dinkie text To Lovely You
Little Claire dinkie text Happy Birthday
black Versa Fine ink pad
5 3/4" x 5 3/4" white base card
Serif Craft Artist graphics program
Daisy Trail Midnight Garden digi kit - bought from the Serif Daisy Trail on line shop
blue line card
good quality 220gsm mat white print paper
220gsm white paper
black card scraps
lacy butterfly die
solid butterfly die
Midnight Blue Cosmic Shimmer
blue & purple chalks and Cut n Dry to apply chalks
black fine tip pen
Glossy Accents
3 small pearls
small pearl heart embellishment
Gelly Roll silver glitter pen
8mm wide black lace
Gutermann blue metallic thread & needle

Open up the Serif Craft Artist program on your computer and select "blank project" from the Get Started section.
Select A4 portrait from the Page Set Up section by double clicking on it.
Craft Artist will now take you to a page with digi kits on it and if you have purchased the Winter Garden digi kit it should appear in this section. Scroll down until you get to the Materials section and select the blue mushroom image by right clicking on it and it will appear in the Materials Sidebar. Click on the Done button at the bottom of the digi kit browser to close it.
On your A4 work space you will notice two rulers above and to the side of the workspace and if yours is like mine it opens by default in cm so to change this hover your cursor in the corner where the two rulers meet and right click, select inches from the drop down box.
You need to draw guide lines so move the cursor to the left hand ruler and left click and drag the red guide line out to 4 3/4". Hover the cursor over the ruler at the top and drag the red guide line down to 4 1/2".
Bring the blue mushrooms background image from the Materials section of the side bar by left clicking on the image and drag it onto the A4 work area and place it at the top of the work area within the guide lines.
Re size the image by hovering the cursor over the white square at the corner of the image till a double headed arrow appears, left click and drag the image to the correct size. If you need to adjust the size further repeat the last steps with any of the white squares.
You need to move the image from the edge of the work area because when you print an image the printer will leave a white border around the edge of the A4 paper and you do not want this to appear on your background image. You will notice a grey square with cross hairs at the top left of the image, left click and drag the image to a more central position on the work area.
Place the 220gsm white mat print paper in the printer.
Click on the file tab at the top of the screen and select print from the drop down box, select properties from the print pop up box, select photo from the properties pop up box and then select OK from the tab at the bottom.
When the image has printed take the paper and place it back into the printer exactly as it was loaded before (this is important because you are going to over print the digi stamp and it is essential that the images line up).
Left click on the insert tab at the top of the screen, select photo from the drop down box, select from file from the drop down box, select the Little Claire Whisper a Wish digi stamp from the place you filed it which will be displayed in the insert photos box, click on the open tab at the bottom of the box.
A cross with a box beneath it will appear on your work area, left click and drag the cursor, as you do the digi stamp image will appear.
You need to make the digi stamp transparent so you can see the background behind it and place it in the correct position for printing, so take the cursor over to the transparency slider bar at the right hand side of the screen, left click the button and drag it half way along the slider.
Grab the grey cross hairs and drag the digi stamp until the bottom of the image lines up with the bottom of the background.
Re size the digi stamp as before by left clicking on the white squares at the corners and drag to size.
Make the image no longer transparent by placing the cursor over the transparency bar button, left click, drag the button to the left till it reads 0%.
Remove the background image by clicking on it and then press delete on your key board.
Over print the digi stamp image using the same print technique used before (the printer will only print the black of the digi stamp as it assumes you are printing onto white).
THAT IS THE END OF THE COMPUTER/PRINTING STUFF FROM HERE ON ITS NORMAL CRAFTING......

You may find that you can see the background through the silhouette image and if this is the case simply colour in the image with the black fine tip pen (very therapeutic).
Cut the image to size (4 1/2" x 4 3/4").
Using the Gelly Roll silver glitter pen draw a faint line over the spiders web.
Run he edges of the image along the black Versa Fine ink pad (don't be too heavy handed as the Versa Fine ink pad is very juicy and you don't want to have splodges).
Apply the Glossy Accents to the dew on the mushrooms and allow to dry.
Mat and layer the image onto white 220gsm paper.

Cut the blue linen card to mat and layer onto the base card but do not stick down.
Stick the image topper to the blue linen card.
Stamp the Little Claire dinkie text "To Lovely You" and "Happy Birthday" using the black Versa Fine ink pad.
Cut the sentiments to size.
Colour the sentiments using the purple and blue chalks and applying with the Cut n Dry foam.
Stick the sentiments onto the card.

Cut a piece of the black lace so that it can lay on the card and wrap around the back of the card.
Take the Gutermann blue metallic thread, thread the needle and sew a running stitch along the edge of the lace.
tick the lace onto the card, wrap around the back and secure with tape.
Stick the blue linen card onto the white 5 3/4" x 5 3/4" base card.
Stick the little pearl heart embellishment to the card.

Using the butterfly die and scraps of black card cut out a lacy butterfly about 4cm and a small solid butterfly (my die has both of the butterflies but if you do not have the solid butterfly simply colour in the printed butterfly on the topper with the black fine tip pen).
Spritz the lacy butterfly with the Midnight Blue Cosmic Shimmer and allow to dry.
Stick the solid butterfly flat onto the card.
Fold the wings of the lacy butterfly back along the body and stick to the card covering the solid butterfly.
Stick 3 small pearl gems along the butterfly`s body.

USING A GRAPHICS PROGRAM IS ALWAYS A BIT SCARY AT FIRST BUT THE MORE YOU USE IT THE MORE FAMILIAR YOU WILL BECOME WITH IT AND THE RESULTS ARE AMAZING, SO PLEASE PERSEVERE.........