More Decoupage Flowers

So, I might be a little obsessed.  After my first marathon flower making session I was inspired to dig out some of my old die sets to create even more.  I was shocked to discover that some of said die sets had not been used since they were bought in 2018! I'm not even sure that they're still available to buy.  I did buy the Tattered Lace Floral Decoupage Delights Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 USBs though, because as I said I might be a little obsessed!  Vol. 1 sold out in record time, but at the date of writing this Vol. 2 is still available from Create and Craft TV.

The flowers shown here are a mixture of old dies and a handful from Floral Decoupage Delights Vol. 1.  I haven't even made it to Vol. 2 yet, so I see a lot more flowers in my future 🔮.

EDIT 13/02/2022

The Floral Decoupage Delights USBs are no longer available, but individual SVG cut files and corresponding Charisma artwork can be downloaded from the Create and Craft website.

DIY Decoupage

If you read this blog then you'll have noticed that I'm partial to downloading graphics and fonts.   Well, with all the weekly freebies available and the occasional purchase I've amassed a LOAD of digital images and graphics.  Rather than leave them to gather cyberdust I decided to try my hand at creating my own decoupage. 

Working from the base image of a floral corner I removed parts of the image in stages; the base layer had the flower arrangement with leaves, for the second layer I deleted the leaves, for the third layer I deleted more of the flowers and for the final layer only a single flower remained.  I looked at where the elements overlapped as a guide to creating the layers.  My Brother Scan N Cut made quick work of cutting out the layers.

It makes a really pretty card with the arrangements placed in opposite corners and finished off with a simple, stamped sentiment.  Preparing the images did take a little time, but now that it's done I can achieve the same result again easily as well as being able to resize the elements to suit different projects.  This is something I'd definitely try again with other images of floral arrangements.

L'amour est la cle

When it comes to craft supplies I'm a hoarder.  I can't bear to part with the smallest scraps of paper or a bit of ribbon that came with a gift or some old cardboard that could be used for some project or other.  So in an attempt to destash I decided to make a heart wall hanging out of old cereal boxes that I've been putting aside for a while.  

I made a large heart template on a piece of A5 card and then traced around that on the large panels of the cereal box.   After cutting them out (4 of them) and punching holes so that the finished piece could be hung, I stuck the 4 hearts together to get a thick, chipboard type of effect.  I also used the heart template to cut a heart from a piece of woodgrain effect paper.  NOTE - I suggest placing the heart stack underneath something heavy to prevent it from warping as the glue dries.

I cut the flowers with my ScanNCut using a pattern that I designed myself and coloured them using Spectrum Noir alcohol markers, before layering them together.  The leaves came from another die set.  I also used some Katy Sue Flower Soft for the flower centres. 

I gave the padlock die cut the same treatment as the hanging heart in that I layered up several die cuts - 5 from plain white card and one from gold mirror card - to get some dimension.  I then went over the front and sides with copper gilding wax to take away the white edges. 

The lettering was die cut using Sizzix Brush Alphabet dies and then I added a few freehand hearts to finish it all off.  I decided to go with French as it was a present for my (French) friend's mother.  To finish it off I used some thick string, which gave it a bit of a rustic feel.

In case you're interested in any of the supplies that I used:

• Sizzix Brush Alphabet dies: upper case / lower case
• Tattered Lace Lock & Key dies
• Layered Flower SVG file - download for free
• Wood background papers*
• Coloured wood grain digital papers*

*affiliate link

Redbubble Round-up

This post contains affiliate links. If you click on any of the links and subsequently buy something, I will receive a commission.

I joined Redbubble about two years ago because I really wanted to create art and share it.  As my house is slowly being overrun with craft and art supplies, creating art digitally was a great way to express my creativity without needing lots of space and bulky supplies to do it.

I tend to be quite reticent when it comes to my art (which isn't a great strategy), so I've decided to produce a weekly Redbubble Round-Up where I'll be sharing what's new in the world of Merry Makewell Designs as well as highlighting other works that have caught my eye.

As I just uploaded a new sticker design to my shop, this week I'm looking at STICKERS.  Stickers come in up to four sizes ranging from around 100mm (about A7 size) up to around 30mm (about A4 size) depending on the design.  Buy any 4 and get 25% off or any 10 for 50% off.

First up is my new design "Choose Love Floral Heart".  This would be great on the cover of  a journal.

Choose Love Floral Heart

I love this "Autumnal Floral Book Stack" by Emma Mildred Riggle.  It would work for a scrapbook page or in a bullet journal or planner.

Autumnal Floral Book Stack

Another good scrapbook or planner option is this cute combination of vintage camera and old maps - "Travel".

Travel

You get four stickers in one with this cute set of flower doodles.  I  like that they're black and white so could be coloured if you wanted.

Flowers

And finally, "Lotus Birds".  It features two of my favourite things - flowers and birds - and the colours are perfect.

Lotus Birds

Patchwork Butterfly Birthday Card

My friend asked me to make her mum a 60th birthday card. I make a lot of cards.  I even send some of them to friends and family for various occasions, but I have never made a card for someone to give to someone else.  It was different, trying to make for someone whose tastes I didn't know that much about.  It didn't help that the only direction that I received from my friend was to "make it nice"! 😒
I ended up making a variation on a card that I'd made before that I thought was really pretty,

I made a patchwork base using 4 blocks consisting of 4 strips of patterned paper.  Each block was rotated through 90°.  I cut the Tattered Lace Red Admiral Butterfly from gold mirror card and then cut another from which I separated the butterfly and flowers.  I placed those elements on top of the first die cut, lifting the wings of the butterfly and using foam tape behind the flowers to add dimension.  I also used the mirror card to cut the sentiment.  The card was finished with gold flatback gems in each corner and a couple of pearls for the flower centres. 

I really love how it turned out, and it went down very well with my friend's mum too 😊

Sparkle ✨

Over on the AAA Cards blog the challenge this week is a sketch:

Here's what I made:

I used masking tape to create the band where I wanted the colour to go, then I dabbed Distress Stains (Mermaid Lagoon, Wilted Violet, Festive Berries and Worn Lipstick) randomly over the exposed area [I really love that combination of colours].  The colour was a bit intense so I used a tissue to take off the excess.  After drying with a heat tool, I stamped the sparkles and the sentiment with embossing ink and then covered with gold embossing powder.  

That was where I planned to leave it but some of the masking tape damaged the card as I was taking it off and this flower happened to be lying around and it matched the colour scheme pretty well, so it became part of the design.

Easy Watercolour Backgrounds

Watercolouring in card making is everywhere at the moment, so I dug out my set of Reeves Water Soluble Wax Pastels to have a go at creating some simple watercolour style backgrounds.  I simply scribbled pastels in similar shades onto a white card blank in vertical, horizontal and diagonal stripes, then used a wet paintbrush to go over the colours and blend them a little.

Hello Greetings Card - ombre watercolour background

Have a Beautiful Day greetings card - watercolour background with glitter blutterfly

I used ordinary cardstock for these so the colours did not move as much as if I had used watercolour card, but I quite like that effect.  The first butterfly was cut using Sizzix Thinlits die set Butterfly #3.  The second used an ArtC stencil with BoBunny glitter pastes.  It's much more lovely in real life.

I like the simplicity of these.  The watercolour effect is a great backdrop that doesn't really need much else to make an attractive card.  This would be a great technique for making men's cards; a bold sentiment and a well-chosen stamped image or die cut would be all you'd need.

Bold Florals - Just For You Card

I had some flowers left over from my paper flower pot project, which didn't really suit that display, but a single one as a statement embellishment on the front of a card looks pretty good.

Bold Floral Just For You Card

The background was made with a scoreboard that came free with a copy of Crafts Beautiful magazine.  It is quite similar to the Xcut Quilting embossing folder which is a favourite of mine.  I used Sizzix Embosslits heart and leaf dies for the flower petals and leaves.  The flower centre was created by colouring a thin rectangular strip of card on both sides, then snipping into it at regular intervals along its length and rolling it up and fanning out the cut fringes. I found a sentiment that matched the colour of the flower and also used a similar colour for the card base.  A few gold gems helped to add some interest and also complemented the gold foiling on the sentiment.

Text Accents

I've been watching a lot of YouTube for inspiration for mixed media and also making my own embellishments.  I see a lot of people use Tim Holtz's Idea-ology word stickers for text accents.  I don't have any of those, but I do have a few mini alphabet stamps, so I thought it would be fun to make my own (and less expensive too).

For these I used a Dovecraft set, which I got on sale for £1 at Hobbycraft.  Stamp any words that you like then cut out the strip.  It's a quick, easy and cheap way to add text accents to projects, with the added benefits that you only get the words that you want as many times as you want.  The stamp sets come in various styles, so could work for lots of different types of projects.

This is not a sponsored post and does NOT contain affiliate links.  These are my own opions based on products that I have bought.

Hummingbird

I made this card for the CAS on Sunday challenge #42 - Sequins Celebration and Crafty Little Fairies - Sparkle and Bling challenges.  I got a set of adorable mini stamps by Hero Arts, including a lovely hummingbird set, which I've used here.  I then painted the hummingbird with mica powders - I love the shimmery effect, although it doesn't really show up very well in the photos. The flower was coloured with watercolour pencils.  

Now, when it comes to stamping and colouring, I'm as fresh as a daisy.  One of the things that I noticed was how the mica powder "paint" partially obscures the black, stamped outline.  If I was going to repeat this card, I think that I would try using an embossing powder, which would then act as a resist and keep the outline crisp and sharp.

I didn't read the challenge properly - I missed the part about "celebration", so I went back sand stamped "Happy Birthday" at the top.  I actually prefer the original version. What about you?

Clean and Simple

I've recently discovered that in card-making circles CAS means clean and simple.  Generally these cards should have white space (or other plain colour I suppose) with few layers and minimal embellishments.

I think that these two cards meet the requirements.  In the first card the topper has beern embossed and inked, with organza ribbon placed behind it across the card.  The sentiment has been stamped.

The second card is quite similar to this one, but I quite like that layout. I made the flowers out of organza ribbon then drew on the stems and leaves.  The pink is a tad more neon than I was expecting when I ordered it!

I'm entering the following challenges:

Card 1
Crafty Ribbons - Anything Goes
Little Miss Muffet Challenge - Button Bonanza
CAS-ual Fridays - Three Thirds
Less Is More - Flowers 
Cute Card Thursdays - Handmade Embellishments 

Card 2
Crafty Ribbons - Anything Goes
CAS-ual Fridays - Three Thirds
Less Is More - Flowers 
Cute Card Thursdays - Handmade Embellishments 

Cardmaking Challenges

One of the most difficult things that I find when sitting down to craft is thinking of what to make.  I sit down with all my crafty stash around and... nothing.  Without a pattern, or a plan or some sort of guide it can be overwhelming.  There's simply too much choice.  What materials should I use, how does everything go together, what layout would work best, what colours should I use, which embossing folder, which dies, which papers, and so on, and so on.

So I decided to find a few papercraft/cardmaking challenge blogs to help me out.  Having someone else come up with the idea leaves me free to focus on the making.

Here is a card that I made with a summery theme.  It's a bit of a departure for me as yellow is not one of my "go to" colours.

I used the Sizzix Tim Holtz Rays Texture Fades embossing folder on yellow card stock and highlighted the raised areas with yellow ink.  I've tried to emboss the rays but I think I need more practice with that.  The butterfly and flower are from the Sizzix/Hero Arts stamp & die set, which I've coloured in with Spectrum Noirs.  The small flowers are also die cut from Creata patterned and glittered paper.  The sentiment came with the latest issue of Papercrafter magazine.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Cute Card Thursday - Here Come Summer

Crafty Cardmakers and More - It's a Bug's Life

C.R.A.F.T Challenge - Make Your Own Embellishments