'NJ's Crafty Tips' - Distressing

Hello lovely crafter's. It's that time of the month again where I show you a crafty tip. This month I am going to show you how to make a 'Distressed' looking card. I absolutely love distressing things! It is one of my favourite techniques. Here is the card I am going to show you how to make this month.........

To make this card you will need the following crafty goodies..

A4 white card/Tilda Fruit Garden Paper pad/a large doily/Tim Holtz Distress Inks Peeled Paint & Antique Linen/Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad/Gorjuss The Owl Clear Stamp set/Promarkers in the following colours....Pastel pink,Honeycomb,Oatmeal,Tan,Henna,Pastel yellow,Yellow,Lime green,Pastel beige,Blender/1 sheet of green Co-ordinations card stock/Sizzix embossing folder/file/seam binding/lace/ribbon/white flowers/hat pins/vintage buttons/craft basics.

If you don't have all of the above goodies then don't worry, just use something you already have in your crafty stash or change the colour scheme to suit your own taste.

Heres how to make the card.....

Take  your sheet of card, mine is 290gsm.

Score down the centre

Fold over to make an A5 card blank

Lay the card landscape on your mat then cover with decorative paper using double-sided tape

Ink the edges using the Peeled paint distress ink. Use a sponge to ink with

Ink onto the paper as well to create a border of ink

Take a large doily, I'm using one from an assorted pack that I bought from a cheap shop. I think I paid about 99p for a pack.

Use a craft knife to carefully cut out the centre of the doily, put to one side you will need this later

Using the same ink & sponge, carefully ink the doily. Dab on the ink

Next scrunch up the doily

Carefully unwrap it

Cut through to break the circle

Attach a length of double-sided tape across the card, about 2.5cm from the bottom edge. Lift off the backing

Starting at the left side attach one end of the doily to the tape. Stick the rest on pleating as you go along

Cut a length of seam binding to fit across the card. Ink with Antique linen distress ink

Scrunch as before

Stick across the card as shown, using double-sided tape to stick the ends inside the card

Attach across the seam binding a length of lace

Stamp the image onto white card and colour in

Cut the image into an oval shape, I've used my X-cut shape cutter system

Ink the edges with the sponge

Cut out a larger oval using the Co-ordinations cardstock

Use an embossing folder and run through your embossing machine

Use a file to sand the embossed oval

Scrunch as before and ink the edges. Don't worry if it tears, this adds to the distressed look

Use pinflair or another silicon glue to attach your image to the green oval

Ink the doily centre that you cut out earlier and scrunch

Attach double-sided tape directly to your card in the centre, lift off the backing

Attach the doily centre

Use Pinflair to attach the green oval and image to the doily centre

Tie a bow using ribbon and lace together and glue to the top left corner. Finally, embellish with hat pins, inked flowers, curly stems, leaves and vintage buttons

At this point you can choose to add a greeting of your choice. I have left one off so I can decide which occasion to use it for later. I do this with my cards sometimes, so I can look through my stock of cards for any upcoming occasion and add the appropriate greeting at that time.

Here we have the finished card you saw at the beginning....

I love this technique. I've got to say along with stamping and colouring, distressing is a favourite of mine!

I hope you have a go at this. It is really enjoyable to do and the results are random too. Each distressed piece of work will differ from the last. Thats the great thing with this technique, the more distressed the better!

So scrunch, tear and sand away as much as you like!LOL

Hope you have fun and a very happy crafting from me....

lots of love

NJ XXX



A Gem Of A Challenge 35 - Monochromatic

I am entering the following card into the

A Gem Of A Challenge 35 - Monochromatic.

http://pinkgemchallengeblog.blogspot.com/

I have chose to use red for my Monochromatic look. The challenge says shades of one colour. I have stamped the image with tuxedo black memento ink. It is a Kanban Moulin Divas - Tre's Chic stamp. I stamped it onto Bristol Board and coloured it using just one Polychromo pencil in Deep Scarlet Red. In some areas I coloured very lightly, such as the skin tone, and the gloves and dress I used more pressure to get a deeper tone. I also blend with paper stumps and low odour thinners.

I carefully cut around the image with my craft knife and added feathers to make a skirt, the circles are Nellies multi frame Flower 3. I attached the larger circle underneath the feathers.

I used a small feather and the smallest die from the Nellie set just below the head.

I have matted and layered her onto an A5 base card which I have covered with decorative paper, a piece of mirri card to the left which I have used a punch to create a lacey border. Ive embellished with lace, ribbon, a flower and candi.

I hope you like this card and thanks for looking,

love NJ XX



I'm a PanPastel challenge winner...woooo hooooo...

Happy Sunday everyone, hope you've all had a good week-end.

Well I just had to share yet some more good crafty news....I just found out tonight that I won the PanPastel challenge that I entered last week!

How fab is that, I have won a PanPastel trial kit that I can't wait to use. Hop over and have a look at the challenge, the theme this week is animals.

http://panpasteluk.blogspot.com/

Thanks for sharing in my crafty joy,

happy crafting,

lots of love NJ XXX

Design Team Project for the Glitter Geeks Challenge

Hello my lovelies. Well so here we are Friday night, I hope you are all looking forward to a fab week end ahead!

As you may have read in my earlier chatter I am now a Design Team member for the fabulous Glitter Geeks

http://glittergeeks.blogspot.com/

This weeks challenge is to use a Digi stamp called Rudy,

so as soon as I saw him I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I decided to make a Christmas scene and I printed out 9 Rudy's, because that is how many Santa used to deliver our pressies!LOL

Can you remember all their names.........if you can't here's what they are all called...

Dancer, Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, Cupid, Comet, Blitzen, Donner and of course my favourite Rudolph the red nose reindeer.

So heres what I made........

A Christmas Scene...

To make this I used thick A4 white card for the base and covered in Christmas themed decorative paper. I inked the edges with red ink.

I printed out 9 Rudy digi stamps and coloured them in with my Polychromo pencils. I made sure I coloured 1 Rudy with a red nose and all the other's with a brown nose.

I then drew tabs at the bottom of the feet and carefully cut out the images making sure the tabs are attached to the feet. These tabs are glued down to the base, this is how the Rudy's are able to stand up. Once cut out, put aside till ready to use.

I then made a sleigh out of red card and covered with decorative paper. I used a santa head topper, and stuck it to the top of the head rest on the sleigh. I cut a bauble die cut so that it would fit just under the head making it look like Santas body. I attached the sleigh to the base with pinflair and then glued various diecuts and embellishments in and around the sleigh.

I used pinflair to then stick each of the Rudy's to the base. Make sure you have two rows of 4 and  Rudolph at the very front. Apply the glue to the tabs and press down firmly. I then used red stickles on top to blend them into the rest of the colour scheme. Add various embellishments and die cuts to the base to make a Christmassy scene. Finally I wrote the names on the fronts with a fine pen and threaded red ribbon through from the front to the back and tied in a knot so this looks like the reigns.

The great thing about this project is you can use any colour scheme you wish and vary the embellishments to suit what you may already have in your crafty stash!

I loved making this and it is now sat on show in my dining room.

I hope you join us at this weeks Glitter Geeks challenge, I would love to see you there,

have fun, happy crafting and have a lovely week end,

lots of love NJ XX



Birthday Card for Christmas

I have made this card using the Sarah Kay Christmas Preparations stamp.

I have made this card with a difference, it is actually a birthday card. It is ideal for anyone celebrating a birthday either on or around Christmas. I know a couple of people who do, so it is still keeping with the Christmas theme, but because of the colours I've chosen it is ideal for a  Christmas Birthday.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

A Gem Of A Challenge - Challenge 34 Sketch & Stitching Real or Faux

http://pinkgemchallengeblog.blogspot.com/

For my card I have turned the sketch all the way around just to make it a little different.

I am also entering this card into:

Sarah Hurley - Challenge 54 Buttons

http://sarahhurleychallenges.blogspot.com/

I hope you like this card and thanks for looking,

love NJ XX