Christmas Greenery

Posted: November 21, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas inchies, Darkroom Door, Elizabeth Craft Designs, Gina K, global postmarks, Penny Black, postage stamps | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

Yes, finally a Christmas card post. I have been playing around with paper napkins for some of my Christmas cards. All the designs in today’s post use panels from a greenery + berries design. I peel off the printed layer from the three layer napkins or serviettes (depending where you’re from) and glue it to cardstock. I’ve used both double sided adhesive (pricey) and glue sticks (slightly curls the cardstock). Either option works I just need to take some time to flatten the glued panels.

Sometimes when attaching the fragile napkin layer to the cardstock you get some creases; I think they add interest and texture so I don’t let them worry me. I used my cricut and the Echidna Studio stocking design and mitten designs to cut out large features to add to an embossied background.

I also used the lovely postage dies from Elizabeth Craft and the Darkroom Door Global Postage and Christmas Inchies stamps to add postmarks along with small sentiment stamps from Penny Black to add words. For the card below I simply cut the word joy using a PB die and added it to a large panel. You could definitely make all these cards with patterned papers or your own painted or printed papers. I just get tempted by the beautiful paper serviettes out there and end up buying them for craft and dinner!

I am packed up ready to do Christmas card making with some friends from church tomorrow. We are making 2-for-1 cards to give to the residents in a local nursing home. I’ll try and share a few of the designs next week. Have a lovely weekend.

Stencilled Tendrils

Posted: November 14, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: AALL & Create, twirling tendrils stencil | Tags: , | 3 Comments

I would call this a watercolour/inkblending/stencil mashup which is probably not the catchiest name! Regardless of the name, I like the result. I used blending brushes to blend three distress inks through the beautiful ‘twirling tendrils’ stencil from AALL & Create.

Salty ocean, chipped sapphire and seedless preserves will always be up there with my all time faves so I blended them onto hot press watercolour paper through the delicate stencil. After blending I gently spritzed water over the panel so come of the ink would move into the surrounding area. In places it reminds me of the crackled lines you get with batik.

I chose the layered sentiment because it mimicked the curls of the stencilling but was bold enough to stand out over the busy pattern.

The Magic of Brusho

Posted: November 4, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Background Stamps, Brusho, contemporary, cricut, Penny Black | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

I’ve said it before but here is more evidence, Brusho watercolour paint powders make magic! I embossed the ‘contemporary‘ background stamp from Penny Black in a copper colour (I think it was ‘Penny‘ from Brutus Monroe) on hot pressed watercolour paper.

You can see the pattern in the background stamp is made up of curved and straight edged shapes. The embossing creates enclosed spaces on the panel and the the brusho powders get trapped in the spaces.

There are a couple of ways to trap brusho in an embossed design, you can spritz the embossed panel with water then sprinkle some brusho over the top, or you can sprinkle the brusho first then spritz. I often end up doing a bit of both. For this panel I think I spritzed some water first then sprinkled both blue and green brusho over the wet areas. My aim was to keep some sections blue, some green and others a mix of the two colours. I also wanted some areas to look speckled and other sections to look softly blended. Less water keeps things speckled; more water gives the paint more time to dissolve and blend.

I had some bronze shimmery cardstock which matched the embossing powder so I cut the ‘thank’ and ‘you’ on the cricut. I stacked two layers so the words would stand out from the busy background.

Handpainted blooms

Posted: October 28, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted | Tags: , | 3 Comments

I’ve been putting together some gift collections of cards, no overarching theme, just a selection with greetings or blank options. To do so I’ve raided my stash of panels or as I’ve called it before, my ‘pile of possibilities’!

This handpainted watercolour panel was in the pile and I couldn’t say how long it’s been there; long enough that I can’t remember which paints I used. It is on cold pressed watercolour paper and I added some gold cord wrapped around several times before I attached it to a card base

Initially it was going to be a portrait oriented card as shown above and below but when photographing it I turned it on its side and quite liked it that way too. What do you think? There is no sentiment so the person who receives the gift set can make the final decision.

The happy cut-out

Posted: October 22, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: cricut, Dies, Penny Black | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Today’s card is very similar to yesterday’s. I used the cricut to cut the letters H, A, P, P &Y from a cream panel which reveals the patterned paper layered below it. Because the patterned paper is the same size as the card front there is a border revealed by the smaller blank panel.

I’m know there are various ways to get the same effect but in some way it is easier to let the cricut cut the large letters in a straight line rather than expect myself to glue the cut-out letters in a perfect row! I used a Penny Black die to cut the little birthday word from pink cardstock. The patterned paper is one of the bonus pages you sometimes get in paper-crafting magazines. I think it’s the first time I’ve used one but I have a little stash which I will continue to put to use.

The map card

Posted: October 21, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Collage cards, cricut, Spellbinders | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

I’ve recently been using the cricut to cut letters in different fonts to complete my cards. I took the process a little further by cutting words out of the card front in order to reveal some coloured paper behind. This one shows a vintage map; tomorrow’s card features some patterned paper from a magazine.

To create this birthday card for my son who just returned from visiting our family in Australia I had fun positioning the map behind the cut out to reveal some of the places he stayed. The map page is from an old atlas I am using for collage. The birthday die-cut is from the Spellbinders ‘serenade sentiments’ set which also has co-ordinating shadow dies. (currently the shadow for the word ‘birthday’ is missing somewhere in my work room!)

I wish I could tell you which font I used on the cricut but it appears I didn’t record that important information, something tall and bold! You could also do this technique with alphabet dies, the trick is to have dies open enough to show a decent amount of the paper behind. When cutting the letters out of course I am saving them in case I can use them on another card.

Shimmery Foliage

Posted: October 14, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, Dies, Leaves, Leaflets, Airy, Finetec paints, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

Recently a friend and I got together and worked on wreath style wedding cards. Mine is featured further down in this post. After my friend left I used some of the die-cut foliage leftovers to make her a birthday card. You can see a few matte green leafy branches plus more cut from gold, bronze and reddish shimmer cardstock. I arranged it all either side of a stamped and embossed banner. This sort of a card takes a while to arrange in a balanced way so once I had it looking good I took a photo so I would be able to glue it all down again in the same way.

All the die-cutting was done with Penny Black foliage dies from a variety of sets. The curly twirly birthday sentiment is from the Taylored Expressions set, ‘In & Out Birthday’ embossed in gold powder

To make the wreath card I began by stamping a rough circle using gold watercolour paint on a jar lid. It was the lid of the lentil jar so yes, I had to wash it carefully before it was returned to the jar.

I arranged die-cut foliage around the gold circle not with perfect symmetry but I aimed for balance.

I cut the A, & and L on the cricut using the Linux Libertine Display G font. Both cards were made on cold pressed watercolour paper which has a nice creamy colour and soft texture.

The garden book

Posted: October 7, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Handmade book | Tags: | 8 Comments

Back at the end of winter my daughter asked if I would like to make her a garden book, as in a book to record what’s in our garden, what is planted where and when it blooms. She wanted to record what is happening in our garden from month to month. I really enjoy making books so I said yes.

Ideally I would have provided the book at the beginning of spring. Fast forward two seasons to the end of summer and I finally finished the book!

She created a scale plan of our two tier flower garden and printed it several times to be included in the first signature of the garden book. The pages are drawing paper, the covers are heavy cardboard covered in vintage song pages and floral napkins. The vintage song pages came from the Paling’s Annual No 23 of National and Patriotic Songs. The price on the front is 1/6 and it was published in 1914.

Naturally I chose a couple of pages featuring flower related songs. I used the coptic binding method I learned in an online workshop taught by Ali Manning. I wholeheartedly recommend Ali’s workshops; I have completed a few and will be doing more!

Even though I took a long time to deliver the requested book my daughter has been taking photos and notes during the spring and summer. You can see a glimpse of the garden in the final photo below.

Some New Paint

Posted: May 19, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Effulgence, Penny Black, Rockwell art, Tim Holtz | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

Recently a friend introduced me to some new watercolour paints. It was during a class and she introduced us all to the new paints both by using them in her projects and by saying how much she loved them. Now it just so happened that my birthday fell soon after that class and suprise, surprise I received some new paints for my birthday! (And by ‘received’ I mean I asked my husband if he would like me to order myself some new paints as a gift from him. Of course he did!)

The new paints are from Rockwell Art, a Canadian company. They have a range of watercolour paints including a line they call ‘self evolving’ mineral pigments. The pigments granulate and break into different colours as you add water and the water moves the paint. Both cards featured today were painted with just one paint colour, ‘deep soul’. As I added water the paint separated into blues and burgandy-browns.

I applied the paint in curved stripes and sprinkled salt here and there while the paint was still wet to get the speckled effect.

Because I had worked from dark to light it seemed appropriate to add flowers looking towards the light. The die-cut flowers are from Tim Holtz ‘wildflower’ set and the stamped flowers below are the Penny Black ‘effulgence‘ cling stamps.

Stripes & Daisies

Posted: May 16, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted, Tim Holtz, Watercolour, wild flowers #1 | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Back in February, I posted a pile of watercolour possibilities; you can see them here. The very bright strip on this card is one of the panels I painted during a watercolour technique class. I didn’t note down the exact paint colours but it would have been a limited palette of only 3 or 4. My guess is a yellow, a blue and a pink.

I used only half the painted panel on this card which means I can make another card or decorate the envelope. The background is so bright I liked crisp white daisies on top, it was a bit like putting together a summer outfit. The daisies were cut with Tim Holtz wildflowers dies and it looks like I cut 2 from white and one from cream cardstock. When I added the photos to this post I thought, ‘oh no! Did I add a cream daisy in?’ I pulled out the actual card and the daisies are indeed all white. Sadly the angle and lighting when I took the photo seems to be suggesting otherwise.

To just have one daisy was too stark so I added the other two to create a little more texture but no competing pattern or colour. I might put a sentiment on when I send it or I might not; we will see. Thank you for all your lovely messages about my Dad’s birthday and the card I made. The community of people who read my blog are so thoughtful; I always love hearing from you.

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