Sunday 21 May 2017

Say It With Flowers - CD Sunday

This time around it's my turn to pick the theme for the CD Sunday Challenge Blog. The design team try to come up with themes that will encourage more people to take part so I'm hoping my theme will inspire lots of you to make something (it doesn't have to be just cards) and enter the challenge. The theme I chose is 'Say It With Flowers' and I decided to make something other than a card and go over the top with the flowers!


I'm sure most people have come across one of these before - it's called a floating cup because it appears to be staying up on it's own. The secret? A bent fork LOL! Basically you glue the prong end of a fork to the saucer and then the handle end to the lip of the cup. If you go to YouTube you will find loads of tutorials showing how to do this.


First I bent the handle of the fork so it would curl into the edge of the cup and used a hot glue gun to stick them securely together. Once it was stuck I then glued the prongs of the fork to the saucer after bending them so they would fit flat on the saucer. I needed to support the weight of the cup until the glue had dried. At this point it was a little unbalanced so I rescued some small stones from the garden and glued then to the saucer. The stones and the fork handle were then covered in green paper so that if they showed through any gaps in the flowers it would look like foliage.


Next I printed papers from CD roms onto card and paper and set about die cutting lots of flowers. I've listed the Cds and dies used at the end of this post.
Once I'd made enough flowers I then glued them to the cup and saucer, overlapping some as they would if growing in real life. I then glued pearls, gems and stamens to the centres of the flowers and added some foliage. Looking through my stash of gems I found the small silver beads that were joined together. I wound it in and out of the flowers to make it look as if it was flowing through them.
People usually use a cup and saucer bought from a charity shop but I wanted a plain white set so that I could also decorate the outside of the cup with more flowers and not be dictated by the colours in the design of the cup. I bought these from the Range, I think they were about £4 - £5.


I used several Cds from Creative Crafting World - Perfect Essential Companions Disc 1 and 2, Perfect Papercrafting Companions Disc 1 and 2 and Perfect Floral Companions Disc 1. I also used a Serif digikit called Frou Frou Elegance and some Sharon Duncan and Kanban Cds but didn't make a note of the names.
There's a long list of dies I used!
Sue Wilson Camellia - Open Petals, Complete Petals and Faux Quilled Blooms.
Tonic Dies - Apple Blossom, Magnolia Flora, Gerbera Daisy, Sweet Melia, Woodland Aster and Sunburst Gazania.
Crafter's Companion dies - In Bloom, Pretty Petals, Leafy Flourish, Die'sire Itsy Bitsy Bloom, Die'sire Blossom - Fleurs and Die'sire Petal.
An X-Cut flower die, one by Memory Box and 3 that were free in craft magazines.
The theme runs until Saturday 3rd June at 1 pm. Don't forget to use something from a craft Cd - just one small flower or butterfly or sentiment counts! And remember to name the Cd you've used in your blog post. I'll pick my 3 favourite entries and the winner will receive a prize from me - Good Luck!

I'm also entering this into:
Crafty Gals Corner - Add Flowers. I made the Design team's Top Three!
Country View Challenges - Flower Power

Saturday 6 May 2017

Anything Asian - CD Sunday

Pop over to the CD Sunday blog to see if you were the lucky winner of our birthday prize!
This week the theme was chosen by Jane and she wants 'Anything Asian'. I decided to include the Giant Panda on my card which was very simply made.
I took a backing paper from Joanna Sheen's Oriental dreams Cd rom and opened it in My Craft Studio. The colour was slightly too yellow for what I wanted so I altered it to be greener - I like this colour a lot more. I glued the backing paper to an 8 by 8 card and put 3 drops of Tonic Nuvo drops in 2 of the opposite corners. I embossed a plain piece of dark green card with an embossing folder, the edges look like foliage while the middle isn't embossed.


The embossing folder came with a set of stamps and were free with Papercraft Essentials magazine. I stamped the 2 pandas onto white card and cut them out - the string on the balloon was tricky! I added a little colour to the female's hair bow and the balloon the male was carrying. I also used Glossy Accents on the balloon. The panda's were then glued to the embossed layer. Quite a quick, simple card so I decided to knit a little panda!


I'm afraid he/she turned out a little scary! I'm not the best knitter and the pattern was a bit unclear in places. Panda's don't have white around they're eyes but it would have looked really odd with 2 black patches and a black bead so I cut a circle of white felt before adding the bead. 
The challenge runs until Saturday 20th May at 1 pm. Don't forget to include an element from a craft Cd rom and to name the Cd in your blog post.