Hello, Crafters.
I hope you have enjoyed a great weekend. After church yesterday we went over to Vicki and Leigh’s for lunch which was a barbecue with about 90% of the vegetables grown in their garden. They are very much into healthy eating and have recently started a plant-based diet. At the moment it’s very experimental and not yet full-time!
V&L’s garden is pretty big but not massive. Leigh gave me a tour of the all the vegetables they’re growing and I was amazed at the ingenuity they have applied to vegetable gardens. Hubby said they should set up a stall outside the house to sell their vegetables……there are just so many! Vicki and Leigh would love to lead the “Good Life”, i.e. be self-sufficient! (It’s the name of an old but fabulous TV series here in the UK). Leigh has built several frames and covered them in netting to protect the vegetables from the birds……and their three chickens! They have espalier fruit trees against some of the fences, as well as nine different varieties of tomatoes! tomato plants One of the frames with netting also has an irrigation system linked up to the rain water butts!
Then Leigh showed us the crazy golf games he’s building for a three-day event that’s being held at their church. It’s being arranged for the children and being done in such a way that everyone can stick to two metre’s social-distancing. After lunch, we played with a different garden game Leigh had bought which is called Ladder Golf! See the two photographs lower down!
I managed a bit of crafting yesterday evening and I decided to finish off a card I had hoped to get made in time for yesterday’s video but it wasn’t meant to be! The problem I encountered was trying to colour the baubles. I very patiently coloured all three using Mossy Meadow and Pretty Peacock Stampin’ Blends, but I wasn’t happy with them. Yesterday I decided to give paper piecing a go and chose the 2019 – 2021 InColour 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) Pack. I stamped the baubles on the DSP but I eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn’t working because Pretty Peacock is such a dark colour. I was beginning to feel like giving up but then I decided to give cardstock a try!
This worked a treat because I was using my Stamparatus and I was able to stamp as many times as I liked and achieved some very dark images. I didn’t punch the images with their respective punches because I didn’t want the edges left on the baubles because I was using them for paper-piecing! I painted the top part of the baubles using my Gold Wink of Stella Glitter Pen which is still going strong!
Vicki’s go to throw her golf strings at the ladder. She has to try and get her string to stay on the ladder, and if possible knock others off!
I adhered my fussy-cut cardstock baubles in place and they looked brilliant. I wanted to add a bit of colour to them and added some white dots using my white gel pen. I was particularly pleased with the large bauble on the front of the card! The sentiments are from the Peaceful Nativity Stamp Set and read REJOICE FOR UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN and MAY HIS LIGHT SHINE IN YOUR HEART THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.
This is what the ladder looks like after we’ve thrown our golf strings at the ladder. You get three points for the top rung, two for the middle rung and one for the bottom rung.
All the other details about this card are in yesterday’s video. I just wanted to show that a floating gatefold card can also be used for Christmas card. That’s it from me today. I look forward to being back with you tomorrow and in the meantime please take care and stay safe. Happy crafting.
JanB. xx
Great card, beautifully done.
Many thanks, StampingDani. xx
Just loving these cards Jan…Will be making a few of these for birthdays and Christmas. Be safe & TYFS
Many thanks, Claire. It’s a great fancy fold, isn’t it! xx
Terrific card! My Christmas cards are already finished using the gate fold format – the addition of floaters would have been fun – will certainly try soon! LADDER GOLF will be the perfect addition to family beach week next summer! Thanks for sharing the fun idea and photo.
Many thanks, Billie. My goodness you are so well organised! xx
What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon! Love your cards. I’m still new to card making so “paper piecing” is a mystery to me. It sounds like all you did was fussy cut around the ornament and then added some ink to highlight the bauble.
Many thanks, Lisa. Paper piecing is one of my favourite techniques! Normally you would an image that’s just an outline, e.g. a Christmas bauble that doesn’t have a pattern on them. Then you stamp the image onto your card and then stamp it again on a piece of patterned paper. Next, you cut out the shape from your patterned paper and adhere it over the stamped image on your card. You only cut out the part you want from the patterned paper – in this case just the body of the bauble not the fitting at the top. You would paint the fitting. On my card, it was different because the images already had patterns on them. So I decided to stamp the image onto coloured cardstock and then cut out the bit I needed. This technique works especially well if you have, say, a lady in a dress and you stamped the lady on a piece of patterned paper and then cut the patterned dress out and adhere it over the stamped image. You may like to watch this video I made three years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTFwdDsAxhI. I hope it helps. xx
Thank you! I know exactly what you are talking about and will watch your video.