It’s been snowing

Posted: January 8, 2026 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Brusho, cricut, Darkroom Door, Echidna Studios, snow flakes, snowflake digital stamp set | Tags: cricut, Darkroom Door stamps, digital stamps, Echidna Studios, Fabriano Watercolour Paper | 1 Comment

It’s been snowing quite a bit around here and we’ve had some very cold nights. A few of those nights happened to be while our furnace was not working but it’s fixed now and all is warm and cosy again! I am sending these out to a couple of friends who will totally get the snowy themed greetings, people who know about the beauty and length of a Canadian winter.

Believe it or not I did not create these cards at the same time but I’m pretty sure I ended up using the same supplies. The single snowflake card above was made with a watercolour panel I made years ago when experimenting with brusho. I probably sprinkled the brusho on watercolour paper then spritzed it with water until I was happy with the result. Even after you are happy with the result it can change as the paper and paint dry. I liked the panel so much I hoarded it, waiting for the right design. I am trying not to do that so much any more as I am very keen to Use What I Have (UWIH does not make a catchy acryonym so I am still playing with the category title). I paired the panel with one of my daughter’s snowflake designs available in the Echidna Studios etsy store as a print or cutting file. There are 6 snowflake designs in the set and I think they are beautiful.

The second card was also made with brusho but I sprinkled it over an embossed panel. I embossed the Darkroom Door snow flakes background stamp with clear powder then covered it with brusho watercolour. I cut the words with my cricut to get a size that would show up on the busy background. Happy New Year and thank you for dropping in here.

HB shimmer on black

Posted: December 30, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: cricut, Finetec paints, Hand drawn | Tags: cricut, Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Hand drawn, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints | 2 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before I have a ‘pile of possibility’ which is actually a box filled with panels that might be good for a future card or project. This painted and doodled panel came from that pile. I think I created it when I was teaching shimmer paint on black watercolour paper back in 2021!

I have a selection of metallic paints, also called mica or shimmer paints from Finetec and Kuretake. They all work well on black and show up more dramatically than on white or pale coloured paper. My next bookmaking project will be an art journal made up of black watercolour paper pages so I’m planning to put my shimmer paints and markers to use along with opaque paints and markers.

To turn this panel into a birthday card I doodled with white gel pens then cut the HAPPY letters on the cricut and paired them with a smaller die-cut ‘birthday’.

The Magic of Brusho

Posted: November 4, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Background Stamps, Brusho, contemporary, cricut, Penny Black | Tags: Brusho, brutus monroe embossing powder, cricut, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps | 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.

The happy cut-out

Posted: October 22, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: cricut, Dies, Penny Black | Tags: cricut, Penny Black creative dies | 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: Heather | Filed under: Collage cards, cricut, Spellbinders | Tags: collage, cricut, Spellbinders | 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.

Snow on snow on snow

Posted: January 13, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: cricut, Echidna Studios, gel press, grafix, My Favorite Things, snowflake digital stamp set | Tags: cricut, Echidna Studios, gel press, gel printing, grafix | 6 Comments

Today’s cards were gel printed using snowflake masks I cut on the cricut using the Snowflake Digital Stamp Set from Echidna Studios. I love how detailed these snowflakes are; there are six in the set and I have printed them, foiled them, cut them and now gel printed with them.

I remember when I first saw the six pointed detail of a snowflake that had landed on me. It is not always possible but occasionally the flakes are very distinct and separate instead of in clumps and I am always amazed by their beauty.

I cut my stencils from Grafix matte dura-lar as it is semi-transparent and light weight. On the panel above I made a pale print with blue and white then, after it had dried created a dark print on the plate which I pulled on the same paper but with a transparent medium (either transparent white paint or more likely matte medium). The little sentiment is from AALL & Create ‘everyday sentiments’ set.

On this second card I used a pale blue paint which didn’t give me a very bold print but pulling it with gold paint created a soft shimmery effect.

Always looking for the matchy-matchy, I found a scrap of cardstock in the same blue tone and cut a mat and sentiment using MFT little lowercase letter dies.

Winter Wedding cards

Posted: January 6, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: cricut, Gilding Flakes, Penny Black, Skyward | Tags: cricut, Gilding, Penny Black stamps | 6 Comments

We attended a New Year’s Eve wedding last week and a couple of days before I realised I had no wedding cards on hand. I went to the ‘pile of possibility’ which is a shoebox full of panels yet to be made into cards. There are watercolour, alcohol ink, collage and stamped panels in the box.

The galaxy style alcohol ink panel above caught my eye along with what I think is a stamped and gilded panel which you’ll see below. Both seemed fancy enough for wedding cards…but how to use them?

The gilded panel below was very pretty alone so I didn’t want to add much to it. The alcohol ink panel was also pretty but worked well with die-cut silver snowflakes.

The panel on the card above features the Penny Black stamp ‘skyward‘ stamped on vellum with sticky glue ink and gilded either with foil or gilding flakes( sorry I can’t remember which.) It looked quite magical so I might just have to try and gild a stamped image again to see what happens. I hunted for a font that was similar to the one featured on the wedding stationery then cut initials using the cricut. The font I chose (which is not an exact match) is Linotype Rowena Pro Medium. I had a gold envelope which matched and a pearly silver one for the other card.

The wedding was lovely, ceremony at the church in the morning, party to ring in the new year at night!

Although it would have been good to have wedding cards on hand already I enjoyed customising these two for the bride and groom. And speaking of weddings, it is my wedding anniversary today. My husband and I were married on a summer’s day 35 years ago in Canberra. We looked a bit older and colder at last week’s wedding!

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Gingerbread Set

Posted: December 10, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: cricut, Echidna Studios, gingerbread set | Tags: cricut, Echidna Studios, Ranger Distress inks | 3 Comments

So far I have baked two batches of gingerbread for eating and cut one cardstock batch for card-making! The gingerbread set is a digital stamp and cut-file set from Echidna Studios and I have had a delightful time baking/making these samples.

I used the cricut to cut all the gingerbread shapes from a light brown cardstock which wasn’t gingerbread coloured. It was just for a test run. As it turned out when I blended rusty hinge distress ink over most of the cookies and vintage photo over just the edges the colour was very much like my real gingerbread!

I cut all the ‘icing bits’ on the cricut from white cardstock. I added double sided adhesive to the back before cutting so I wouldn’t have to use liquid glue for all that icing!

I don’t need nine gingerbread themed cards right now so I arranged eight of the cookies on cute check patterned paper for a photo and made the gingerbread man into a card.

I glued two more gingerbread men to the back of the decorated one for more dimension and added him to my card. The festive striped paper is from Simple Stories ‘Simple Vintage Yuletide’ paper pad. To tone down the vibrancy a bit I layered a piece of vellum on top cut with scallop scissors which I still have from long ago. The sentiment is from the PB ‘holiday snippets’ set.

I might make a few more cards or perhaps use some of the ‘cookies’ as gift tags. For now I just think they look very cute on that check paper.

Vintage Stockings

Posted: November 26, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Christmas stockings digital stamp set, cricut, Echidna Studios, Gina K, holiday flora embossing folder, mittens | Tags: christmas, crafting, crafts, cricut, diy, Echidna Studios, Penny Black creative dies | 4 Comments

I have more vintage papers on display in today’s cards. These stockings are examples from my recent Bookish Christmas card class where we used book pages from carol books, dictionaries, recipe books and more to add a vintage charm to our cards.

I collaged the vintage papers together then cut stockings from the collaged panels using my Cricut and the Christmas Stocking digital cutting file from Echidna Studios. I love the shape of this stocking my daughter designed; I think I mentioned last year, it makes me think of Narnia with that curly toe!

The cutting file includes a cuff for the stocking so I cut them from shimmer cardstock then added all sorts of foliage cut with Penny Black dies.

I hope you’re not tired of the mittens that I bombarded you with last week but as you see I also cut some from the collaged vintage papers and added some foliage, gold buttons and bakers twine.

I’ve been using a lot of embossed backgrounds in my Christmas cards this year. There are so many pretty ones including the Gina K ‘holiday flora’ one shown below and the Stampin up ‘exposed brick’ and ‘timber’ shown behind the stockings at the beginning of this post.

Today’s post features affiliate links to The Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Cozy Knitted Mittens

Posted: November 22, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: cricut, Echidna Studios, mittens, my designs | Tags: cricut, Echidna Studios, Penny Black stamps | 1 Comment

More mittens! To see mini mittens click over to yesterday’s post. I cut the mittens for today’s cards using the ‘Mittens’ digital stamp & cut-file set I designed for Echidna Studios etsy store. It’s the same set I featured yesterday but with a digital file I can cut whatever size I like. The large mitt is 4″ long and the two green mitts are 3″ long.

I cut them all from Neenah natural white cardstock along with some buttons. I cut the cuff and Charlie Brown style zig-zag from burgandy cardstock.

To get the knitted look I stamped the mitts in antique linen distress ink using the Darkroom Door ‘knitting’ background stamp and the cuff and zig-zag in aged mahogany ink. For some depth I blended ink around the edges.

The little buttons continue to delight me so I embossed them with clear embossing powder then coloured some thread with distress markers and threaded it through the little holes.

I found Christmas patterned paper from a Graphic45 pad and cut frames using the Waffle flower A2 layer dies. For the green cuffs and snowflakes on the pair of mitts below I used some textured polka dotted cardstock along with an embossed dotted background.