Thank You

Good Morning.

A bit early for me to be this organised, right? Today I am having a 'Sofa Day' which will work out as I had made this card yesterday (and a coupe of other quick thank you cards). For my 'Sofa Day', I am going to do this step by step and write a few wordy blurb for it, call the hospital to make various appointments for various people in the family, dad's accounts, my online bills to pay, reply to lots of emails and messages that I have not been able to get back to in the last few days and have a catch up on FB which I have not been able to do either. Chocolate, popcorn and lots of coffee and tea to keep me going...

Today's card is one to say 'Thank you' ... I am lucky enough to have so many wonderful family and friends who love me and support me and I feel I don't say a thank you often enough. So here is a THANK YOU for all of you...

Clarity Groovi Plates used:

A5 Square - Nesting Squares, Straight and Diagonal Grids

Border Plates - Funky Henna, Bunting Wave, Lace 1 Border, Straight and Diagonal Perforating Borders

On regular parchment paper emboss the outermost square.

Just inside the square, emboss the lace design.

Emboss the flowers on the lace design.

Colour, on the back, (I used distress markers) between the lace design. From the front perforate using the 2-needle tool around the lace and square.

Cut between the perforations with parchment craft scissors or snips.

On blue parchment paper, with the glossy side up, emboss the outside 2 squares from the nesting squares plate and flower from the funky henna plate. This flower is going to be made up in layers so I embossed parts of it on regular parchment paper and the blue parchment paper.

Perforate the lace borders from the front using the straight perforating border plate.

This is where the design I had in my mind started changing. I found out that I did not want to use the outermost square I had embossed in this design. And instead of working everything in straight lines and squares I wanted to change angles. So I placed the diagonal perforating border plate at an angle to perforate the lace border.

Perforate a different border from the diagonal perforating border plate outside of the three sides of the smaller square. Once all the perforations are done, emboss the dots on the back by placing the perforated lace patterns on the appropriate straight and diagonal grids (Oops, I forgot to take the photos for these steps) to do the white work around the lace.

Emboss "Thank you' from the bunting wave border plate.

Colour on the back parts of the flower design. Perforate, on the front, inside and outside the3D flower elements using the 2-needle tool.

Cut between all the perforations on the blue parchment piece and the flowers. I also embossed the flower petals on the blue parchment.

Mount the pieces on blue parchment and black card using brads and the 3D flower elements on the main flower with brads. Stick this on a white folded card.

These are the other 2 quick 'Thank you' cards I made yesterday.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,

P.S. Tomorrow, watch fabulous demonstrations by Maria Simms and see the inspirational samples by the Clarity design team tomorrow on Hochanda (Sky 663, Freeview 39, Freest 817, online at www.hochanda.com) between 13.00-14.00 and 17.00-18.00

Take Care. (((Big Hugs)))

Love and laughter

Tina

Blue Happy Birthday Card with a Random Shoe

Good Afternoon.

And that is the title one gets when one shows the card to her teenage children and asks for a title for this project! Lol. But seeing as it made me giggle, I went with it. The 'random shoe' is from the www.claritystamp.co.uk Twas The Night baby groovi plate.

Groovi Plates Used :-

Baby Plates: Twas The Night 1 - Shoe, Universal Framer, Nested Squares, Numbers Groovi inset + Ovals & Tags

Border Plates: Diagonal Perforating Border Plate, Nested Tags

A5 Square Plates: Nested Square

1.) Emboss the outline of the shoe using the no.1 embossing tool on regular parchment paper.

2.) From the baby nested squares, emboss the outer 2 squares so the shoe is slightly offset from the squares.

3.) On the other side of the shoe, using the Universal Framer baby plate, emboss the greeting "Happy Birthday". I did not try to keep the letters straight on purpose as it would have been a major fail for me without drawing out guidelines. If you want the letters in a straight line, draw faint lines with a white pencil and ruler and when finished, rub off the pencil lines.

4.) Using the Nested Tags border, emboss a tag outline around the greeting.

5.) Repeat for the number at the top of the design, using the baby Numbers inset plate.

6.) Emboss the daisy border from the Diagonal Perforated Border plate inside the double square outline and randomly inside the tags.

7.) Remove the parchment from the border plate, turn it over to the front, and position it to perforate a lace border outside the design. Using the 1-needle tool, perforate the zig-zag border as seen in the photo below on all 4 sides.

8.)  Remove the parchment from the border plate and perforate around the shoe with a 2-needle tool.

9.) On the back emboss the shoe with the large ball tools and/or shader tools.

10.) Colour the design on the back using colour pencils or felt pens. I used distress markers to colour the design

11.) Using parchment craft scissors or snips, cut between the outside zig-zag perforations and the perforations around the shoe.

12.) Take a piece of scrap parchment paper and emboss on it. No need to be precise as you can see. This is therapy after trying to emboss and perforate really precisely. Yes, it looks messy! But it doesn't matter!!! We are going to punch out flowers from this section and it will all be fine (I hope).

13.) See ... Once the flowers are punched out, instead of translucent flowers, we now have white flowers without going through the hard work of punching out each flower and embossing each flower (I like short cuts). I also punched out flowers from the blue parchment paper. I stuck the flowers on using quickie glue pen.

14.) On the same shade of blue parchment, emboss the 4th square in from the outside from the Nested Square A5 plate. I embossed on the matt side because I wanted the front of my piece to be the bright glossy blue.

15.) Position and stick the piece, front glossy side up, on the Diagonal Perforated Border plate again and perforate the zig-zag border. I used a different border from the plate but you can use the same border as the other piece.

16.) Cut out between the perforations and mount your work on card stock and blue parchment as seen in the photo. I finished off with glitter on the shoes because a girl can never have enough sparkle and for the flower centres I used platinum liquid pearl dots. Here's an extra gigantic image to see the mounting and liquid pearl dots (I would have like to say see the glitter too but my camera decided it did not want to catch the glitter in the photo) and the finished project.

Happy Crafting. Take care. (((Big Hugs))

Love and laughter

Tina

Twas The Night...

Good Evening,

Who watched Barbara on Hochanda showcase 'Twas The Night..."? Although I was unable to get samples to her for the show, I did prepare a step by step with a couple of the plates from the collection and with the help of lots of other plates.

Here is what I created ...

Lets start with the plates I used:

Baby Plates: Twas the Night, Nested Circles

Border Plates: Perforated border plates Diagonal and Straight, Border 1, Occassion Border

A5 Nested squares

I created the card using the new parchment colours green and red and these tools and materials:-

1.) Stick the green parchment on the bauble plate, glossy side up, and emboss the design using the no.1 tool.

2.) Still working on glossy side up, stick the parchment on the A5 nested square plate so that the bauble is slightly off set into the inner square. Emboss the squares.

3.) Using the straight perforated border plate, perforate the slot design, matt side of the parchment facing up (this is the front of the card), from the bauble to the top of the inner square with the 1-needle tool.

4.) Stick the parchment, glossy side up, on the baby nested circles plate and emboss around the 4 circle from the outside, leaving out the section where the previous bauble was embossed to make this look like it is at the back.

5.) Emboss the reindeer and stars design in this second bauble. I only embossed the stars that were whole and filled in the remaining stars by moving the parchment around the plate. Also emboss the top of the bauble and the ribbon from the bauble plate. Turn the parchment over, stick it matt side up,  to the perforated straight border plate again and perforate the slot design from the bauble ribbon to the top of the inner square.

6.) Emboss, gloss side up, "Merry Christmas" on the side of the card from the occasions border plate.

7.) Emboss the dash pattern from the Border 1 plate on either side of the wording.

8.) With the matt side up, stick the parchment on the perforated diagonal plate so that the second border on the plate fits between the 2 square outlines and perforate the hexagon design only, leaving out the hole between each hexagon.

9.) Turn the parchment over so it is glossy side up and align the holes using pins before sticking it down in place. Emboss the hole between each hexagon. Repeat the above perforating step and this embossing step to create a border outside the card using the first border on the plate.

So this is what it looks like with all the embossings and perforations from the plates. I have no idea where the green from my green parchment paper has gone in the next few photograph! It is the same piece of green parchment.

10.) I embossed the design, from the back, inside the baubles using a small shader tool and a hockey stick. The little 'snowflakes' are embossed with a small star tool.

11.) Using the 2-needle tool, on the front, perforate inside the stars and the moon.

12.) Cut between all the perforations of the moon, stars, slots, hexagons and outside border design using parchment craft scissors or snips. I also coloured on the back with colour pencils the Christmas tress, cottage and reindeer.

13.) Thread a piece of ribbon through the slots above the baubles.

14.) Add a bit of sparkle on the baubles with a Quickie glue pen and ultra fine glitter powder. Mount the piece on red parchment (14.5x14.5cm), white card (15x15cm), black card (15.5x15.5cm) and white card (20x20cm). Stick a bow on the top of each bauble.

Hopefully all the steps made sense and I am looking forward to seeing everyones creations using these Christmas plate. My place on the sofa is booked for the rest of the shows by Barbara and Paul tomorrow on Hochanda to watch all the wonderful demos and all the inspirational examples and samples by Clarity's amazingly talented design team.

Happy Creating. Take Care. (((Big Hugs)))

Love and laughter

Tina