Craft for the Craic, June Theme Create something Masculine

Over at Craft for the Craic this month, we've chosen to have a Masculine Theme.

So this is my creation, The card is about A5 in size . As my starting point I made the shirt using a piece of white card, then made the waistcoat, jacket, tie and buttons, pieced it altogether and then attached it to the card

I had so much fun making the first one that I made a second one.

 

The part I found a bit fiddley was the tie, its made from satin ribbon and keeping it in place was a challenge

 

On the inside I created an opening to hold a gift card

 

So its a card and gift in one

 

 

Hope this might encourage some of you to have a go and we'd love to see your masterpieces on the Craft for the Craic blog, In fact pop by and see what the rest of the team have created and keep an eye out for a mid month post

 

 

As always -thanks for dropping by and see you again soon I hope :)

 

Pixie

 

Craft for the Craic - Anything but a Card.

This month at Craft for the Craic we have a great new challenge - Anything but a card

I decided I'd try something completely different and I headed to the kitchen!!!!

My friends and family heard this and were hysterical with laughter - to say I wouldn't be known for my culinary skills would be a bit of an understatement, still I welcomed the challenge.

 

These are best described as savoury 'buns'

 

Ingredients are :

120g of self raising flour

120g of grated cheese

100mls milk (full fat)

1 egg

Half an onion finely chopped

Half tablespoon olive oil

Teaspoon baking powder

Herbs : parsley, thyme, chilli powder 

Seeds : Pumpkin, sunflower, sesame

Chopped sundried tomatoes

 

The herbs, seeds and tomato are added to taste

 

Method :
Sift the flour & baking powder together.
Mix egg, milk & oil together.
Add to the flour.
Add the cheese and mix well.
Add in the herbs, onion, seeds and sundried tomatoes - stir well
Keep a small selection to sprinkle on top of the buns
Note - its best NOT to put the sundried tomato on top as they burn

Spoon into bun cases, I used 9 - sprinkle the seeds
Bake for approx. 25 mins at 180 degree ( Gas mark 4)


The bit I cant share with you - is how tasty they were, what I can tell you is even my family said they were really nice and asked if there were anymore .... High praise indeed from them :)
We tried  them warm, had them cold and even cut in two with a tiny bit of butter- I didn't poison anyone and they asked when I was making them again

As always thanks for dropping by and now I know I can be a 'domestic goddess' (!!!!!) normal paper crafting services will resume again next time. In the meantime if you'd like to see what my fellow design team have created - have a look on the Craft for the Craic blog page - they'd love if you stopped by


 

Craft for the Craic - Luck of the Irish

For various reasons its been a while since I blogged but over Craft for the Craic this month the theme is the Luck of the Irish

 

So I decided it was time I got back to doing a bit of crafting.

 

My offering is very suitable for this time of the year that means its green and simple :)

 

What 'inspired' me for this one was Valentines day actually - WHAT I hear you all cry????

I like to use my stamps and punches in multiple ways and what do you do with your heart shaped punch once Feb 14th is over .... Make shamrocks of course

 

 

 If you look closely you'll see that each leaf is actually made from 2 heart shaped cut outs that have been folded in half, then placed on the card with the straight edges against each other.

It just adds a bit of dimension to the card- To finish off I made a stem from some left over scraps and popped a gem in for a bit of sparkle

 

 

Then to finish off the card I used a bit of ribbon  and a tiny shamrock in a glass bead that was floating around in my stash.

 

 

 

I thought it could be used as St Patricks Day or a Good Luck card,

 

So that's it for this month - pretty straight forward and simple, As always thank you for taking the time to drop by and I hope where ever you are in the world  that you have a very happy St Patricks Day or as they say in Irish  Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh



Craft for the Craic - Something Glittery

This month over at Craft for the Craic the challenge was 'Something Glittery'

 

And this is my glittery bauble

( sorry the photo isn't the best - but the lighting at the moment doesn't help much).

 

Its made from a 12" x 12" sheet of card stock - double sided would probably be best, But I figured that out when I was putting it all together - oh well!!!

Also required is double sided tape, glue, ribbon, glitter and butchers twine.

There is a bit of measuring involved and maybe the way I've described it makes it sound complicated - Believe me once you start , its very straight forward

 

Cut the 12"x12" sheet as follows :    Two strips of 1” x 12”

                                                           Four strips of 1.25" x 8”
                                                           Two strips of 1.5” x 10” strips

 

Take two of the 1.25" x 8" strip and glue\ tape together, (this would be in duplicate)
Take the two 1.5" x 10" strips and glue\tape together 

End up with two 1" x 12" strips,
                     two 1.25" x 16" strips
                     one 1.5" x  20" strips

I used a score board, marked each strip at half inch intervals and folded into valley and mountain folds ( i.e. folded like and accordion)
I then laid them out as shown below : 12" strip,  16" strip,  20" strip, 16" strip and 12" strip

 

There are  lots of YouTube clips on line that can explain how to make the rosettes more succinctly than I can, Basically take each strip, glue the start and end together and make the rosette shaped 'flowers' as shown below

 

Using a wet glue and brush I painted the edges of each rosette, liberally sprinkled glitter over them and allowed them to dry over night.

 

Using a combination of double sided tape and glue between each rosettes- I stacked them as shown.

To ensure it all stayed together - I feed the butchers twine through from bottom to top. Created a loop so it could be hung up. 

 

To finish it all off - I created two bows, one in satin ribbon, the other in organza, I layered them over each other and stitched them to the butchers twine . For an extra bit of bling - I added the bauble at the bottom.

 

And voilà - my 'something glittery

 

 

As always thanks for dropping by - I hope this encourages some of you to have a go.

For those who may be calling into me  over the next while - In advance I apologise for the glitter that will be all over you (despite my attempts to clean it up).

But hey at this time of the year everybody should have a little glitter and be fabulous :)

September - Anything but a square or rectangle over at Craft for the Craic

This months challenge over at Craft for the Craic is  - Anything but a square or rectangle.

 

I embraced this task by completely ignoring my tendency to create cards and I went with something completely different.

Please scroll to the bottom of the blog to see the finished articles

Quite often I hear people say how expensive crafting is - in this case it cost precious little and I'm happy with the outcome. I started with some sheets from an old calendar- I'd kept it much longer than I should have, only because I liked the pretty colours and knew I'd eventually find a use for it

I turned the pages over and marked the bottom of it at half inch intervals

At the top  - I moved the rule in a 1/4 of an inch and measured half inch spaces

Then its a case of joining the dots so it results in an isosceles or an equilateral triangle shape,

a bit like this  /\

 

Using a blade and metal rule - cut along the lines and it results in this

 

Using a cocktail stick- wrap the strip around it, starting at the wide end and holding it tight

 

As you near the narrow end - add a little glue and continue to roll tight

It should look a little like this when completed

 Continue to wrap and glue until a collection is created. I put them on the sticks in some polystyrene packaging to allow the glue to dry.

To toughen them up and ensure they lasted longer I gave them a coat of gloss sealer   

 

 

Voila - the finished beads

 

There's 100's of different ways of using these but I made a necklace and bracelet combination.

For an added bit of interest I put tiny flower shaped beads between my paper ones.

 

 

   

 

Thank you for dropping by - I hope you found the blog interesting and useful. Paper weight and length of the triangles will have an effect on the beads - so have a bit of fun trying different combinations.

 

 

 

 

Craft for the Craic - August Photo inspiration

This month over at Craft for the Craic the photo below was our inspiration for the challenge. Thanks to Eithne for sharing  her garden with us.   

 

 

I started with two rather plain hardback notebooks

 

 

And finished up these

 

 

For the black one : I used some thin funky foam to form the 'wilderness', it was a first for me as I'd never used it with the die-cut machine, it was very easy to cut. I layered it up putting a repeat cut pattern in cream slightly off set between the layers to show it off, as without it just seemed rather dull. Beneath the die cut - I used some skeleton leaves, The blossom was made up from layered up flowers from my stash. A bit of bling was added to finish it all off

 

 For the green and purple one : I used re-cycled materials that were die cut. For the flowers I used recycled envelopes - I stitched them together instead of just gluing them, The greenery was cut from an old Christmas card,  the flower box is an old brown paper bag and the trellis came from the dividers that are usually used in A4 folders

 

As always thanks for dropping by and hope you like this months creations

 

Craft for the Craic - Wings Challenge

Over at Craft for the Craic - the challenge this month is Wings





Seen as I'm such a huge fan of Butterflies and Fairies, my natural inclination would have been to pick either of these but i decided to set myself a bit of a challenge and steer away from the obvious. Heres what I created - it looks like a pretty average card but the surprise is on the inside

I have the cutest set of litte duck stamps and I thought rather than just stamp them onto the card - I'd delevop the idea a step further. The 'ducks' start off like the one on the front of the card - just wearing his feathers!!!! included in the stamp set are 'clothes' for the duck, so its easy to stamp them, colour them and layer them up as fits the occasion. 

So having prepared the individual parts, each one was cut and layered, glued and then to strengthen them, they were laminated. 

Then they were stuck to the pegs, tiny magnets were attached to them   

 

Easily creating fun, useful fridge magnet note holders

So thats my take on our 'wings' challenge  and not a fairy or butterfly in sight :)

Thank you for taking the time to pop by and hope to see you back again soon