A Flock of Parrots

 

I've had fun playing with the bargain parrot die set that I bought last weekend

Despite the terrible puns on the sentiments - Happy Bird Day and Aparrot'ly Its Your Birthday!!

I enjoyed paper piecing together the parrots from brightly coloured paper scraps.

Trip to Craftmania, Gt Yarmouth

 Whilst my daughter went on all the rides at Pleasurewood Hills Theme Park, I took the opportunity to visit Craftmania nearby and ended up with this haul!

Craftmania is run by Jamie Rodgers, who also owns Creative Expressions. However, the shop stocks lots of other brands such as John Next Door, Hunkydory, Scrap Boys, Ranger & Julie Hickey 

I loved his own brand Happy Birthday to You die, and quickly rattled off a couple of cards using it.

The place is stuffed full of tempting papercraft goodies, and I came home with stencils, dies, inks, stamps  and a Junk Journal Book by Ciao Bella

They also have an amazing inspiration Room  with loads of cards made from their products, plus some real bargains from the end of ranges, where I picked up this parrot die set

and some vintage swan papers at knock-down prices. I can highly recommend a visit to anyone who is in the Norfolk/Suffolk area, but you will need some time to wander around it. Just as I pulled up, a lady parked and went inside, whilst her husband or partner got out and took a dog for a walk!

They also have an online shop too www.craftmaniacrafts.com which has free postage on orders over £15. 

Having a Play

 

Having finished all my Christmas cards and with plenty of time on my hands, I got out the Cosmic shimmer polishes to have a play with. The Blushed Peach opal polish is great because on black card ( above) it comes out pink, but on white card it goes on as a peachy cream! Two shades for the price of one.

I also wanted to make some some masculine cards, as they make great metallic type backgrounds used on embossed black and kraft card stock

Paper Cuts - Holly Berry Die

 

A while ago I bought this Holly Berry die from Creative Expressions, so now its time to make some Christmas cards with it!

This one just uses a burgundy and gold mat with matching ribbon to set it off

Whilst this uses a vintage printed vellum ( that I have had for years!) with some Nuvo drops to highlight the berries. Three different cards in different colour schemes and styles to show how versatile it can be!

Die Cutting

This weekend I've been using my Big Shot and doing lots of die cutting - this cute mouse and toadstool is from Creative Expressions and is from their paper cuts Edger range

I've made several variations of this cats climbing over grid - but this is the first time I have used a yellow scheme

It's difficult to make Get Well Cards for men, who don't really want flowers or cute animals! I thought this simple card would fit the bill for a builder friend who hurt himself recently.

More Embossing with Gilding Wax

Now that I have made most of my Christmas cards, the pressure is off and I can play and experiment a bit more! So I dug out my gilding waxes and embossed some black card. This embossing folder was a freebie a couple of years ago and the stag stamp and die were from the majestic moments from Simply cards magazine.

You can't see the glitter in the photo, but this card really does sparkle!

The waxes are a mixture of alchemy waxes by Imagination crafts and and metallic wax from Creative Expressions

This card was going to be for Christmas, but I was a bit heavy handed with the gold gilding polish, so covered it up with a die cut spaceship!

Christmas with Gilding Wax

I've got the gilding waxes out again and made a start on Christmas 2017 - I think this snowy village scene was a freebie from a crafting magazine a while ago

I also made this general card using one of my favourite 'Script' embossing folder

Gilding Waxes on White Card

After having fun using the gilding waxes on black  - I thought I try them out on white card. Obviously the effect is a lot more subtle, but still gives a lovely sheen!