Friday Favourites

  Every Friday I'll be presenting some graphics, a font and a cut file that have caught my eye.  This week I bring you a gorgeous set of watercolour images featuring floral cameras with birds, an elegant serif font and a set of kitchen-themed monogram frames.

  So first of all, the Watercolor Spring Floral Camera Bundle.  These watercolour images are just gorgeous 😍.  There are 10 PNG images in the set featuring old-style cameras adorned with flowers, birds and butterflies.  

  I used one of the bird images to create my own decoupage sheet, which I then assembled and put in a box frame.  I love the end result.  It was given as a gift but I plan to make another one to put on my own wall.  All of these images would look lovely on a variety of projects, like greetings cards, notebook covers or wall art.

It's difficult to see the 3D in this photo, but it looks great in person!

  

This week's font is Rise of Kingdom.  This elegant, serif, all caps typeface is available as a free download from Creative Fabrica.  There are over 100 pages of free fonts available on the Creative Fabrica website so it's well worth a look.

  I recently used the font to create this kitchen sign, which also happens to be the cut file of the week:

  The split monogram frame comes from the Laser Kitchen Split Monogram Svg Bundle, although I got it as part of the Cute Paper Craft SVG Mega Bundle both from Creative Fabrica.  (The latter is an absolute bargain by the way, with over 300 sets of SVG cut files for only $11! I might have to do a separate post or two just for that.)  

Happy creating!

Romantic Parisian Tag

  I recently completed a class on Creative Fabrica about creating a digital tag - From Paris With Love - Create a Romantic French-Inspired Digital Tag.  I really enjoyed it and ended up with a very pretty tag that I really like.

The end result.  I went a bit off-piste, but I like it.

  All the materials that Traci uses in the class are provided and she explains everything really clearly.  Despite the class being demo'd with Photoshop I was still able to follow along using Affinity Designer. However if you are using a program other than Photoshop it would help if you were somewhat familiar with it so that you can replicate what Traci does. 

  The techniques that I learned were actually super helpful in helping me to create the tag that I designed for this post.  I will definitely be putting my newfound knowledge to good use and creating more tags and background papers.  In the meantime you can download a sheet of the tag I created here.

  To view the class you will need an All Access Subscription.  The subscription allows you to download absolutely everything on the site with no limits!  There's a great deal on at the moment where you can get yearly all access for just £4.59 / $4.99 a month (usually £26.99 / $29 per month).  I'm not sure how long that offer is going to be around so get it while you can.  Just head to the Creative Fabrica homepage and click on the "Upgrade Now" button on the blue banner at the top of the screen.

Friday Favourites

  First off I have to mention this incredible, huge bundle from Digital Attic Studio on Creative Fabrica.  The Ultimate Vintage Bundle consists of 60 individual sets including digital papers, backgrounds, junk journal kits, ephemera and clip art. Even if vintage isn't your thing there are so many elements to choose from that you're bound to find something that you like.

BUT, it's only free for a limited time.  The bundle expires at 23:00 (GMT) on 18th January.

  I created this tag using a handful of elements from the Vintage Celestial Bundle - just one of the kits available in the full bundle. 

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For the font I have chosen Underwood Champion from Creative Fabrica.  It's a retro, typewriter font with a slightly grungy texture.  I used it to create these sentiment strips mentioned in this blog post.

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And finally for the cut file I've chosen this cute Welcome Sign from Design Bundles.  The design is listed as a laser cut file, but could definitely work with paper too.  It comes in a layered version or a flat version.  If you're familiar with any graphics program you could modify the files to create your own layered version as well.

Happy creating!

Rest In Pieces Coffin Box

Some affiliate links used. If you follow a link and then make a purchase I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. 

All of the products mentioned in this post are products that I have bought and paid for myself.

So yesterday while I was organising my latest batch of cut files I was hit with a sudden compulsion to make a coffin box 🤷.  I really don't know where that came from, because none of the files that I was organising were even remotely Halloween related! I could have purchased or downloaded one but I felt like I wanted to make my own, so I did.

• For the text and cross I used the Kiss My Lips font.  It's actually not a "spooky" font, but I thought that it would give a great dripping blood effect.  In Canvas Workspace I welded the words "REST IN PIECES" together and the letters T and I to make the cross. 
• Then I cut all the elements from black card.
• After assembling the box lid and base I used a synthetic bristle brush to paint a very light coating of silver acrylic paint and bronze gouache on to the coffin lid to distress the black.
• I also used the synthetic bristle brush to roughly paint over the text with silver acrylic paint. (I didn't want neat, even coverage.)
• With a very small amount of scarlet red acrylic paint I roughly painted over the silver, being sure to leave some of the silver showing.
• With a fine detail brush I used the red acrylic paint to saturate the drips.
• Finally I glued the text and cross onto the front of the coffin lid.
• Fill with treats (or tricks!).

Supplies

Coffin cut file for ScanNCut (free download): https://www.dropbox.com/s/220ywu7exj30ig9/coffin%20box%202.fcm?dl=0

Rest In Pieces text for ScanNCut (free download): https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2eyxfje0h8rcpc/rest%20in%20pieces%20text.fcm?dl=0

Kiss My Lips Font: https://www.creativefabrica.com/product/kiss-my-lips-3/ref/98543/

Arteza Acrylic Paint: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/acrylic-paint/products/acrylic-paints-set-12-colours

Arteza Metallic Acrylic Paint: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/acrylic-paint/products/metallic-acrylic-paint-set-12

Arteza Metallic Gouache Paint: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/gouache-paint/products/metallic-gouache-artist-paint-12ml-tubes-set-of-36

Arteza Detail paint brush set: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/artist-brushes/products/detail-paint-brush-set-of-15

Black card: https://tidd.ly/3GPZosv

Friends Are The Flowers in The Garden of Life - With Free Download

I made this for a friend a while ago.  It's been a while since I've seen it, but the adhesive failed so she asked me to fix it and now that I've seen it again I really love it!

The base is an MDF shape that I picked up at a craft show.  I covered it with a couple of coats of silver acrylic paint.

The flowers were made using Tattered Lace's Floral Layers Rose die, which makes really lovely layered flowers, but sadly has been discontinued.  However any floral dies would work.  Same for the foliage.

I designed the sentiment in Canvas Workspace, positioning all the letters so that there was some overlap, then welding them together so that the sentiment was a single piece.  I cut 4 layers from 300gsm card and glued them together to get a solid, dimensional appearance.  Download the SVG cut file for the sentiment here (personal use only please).

To arrange the flowers I used hot glue to affix a piece of acetate to the back of the watering can that extended from the top to the handle and then used hot glue to stick down the flowers. Then I cut cut some foliage, doubling up the layers again to give them some rigidity, and just slotted them in around the flowers.

Fonts:

King Basil
Lily Bloom Regular
The Bravery

Beachwood Sans

Tattered Lace Sensational Flower and 3D Flower Pot Dies

*This post contains affiliate links.  If you click on the link and subsequently make a purchase you will not be charged extra, but I will receive a commission.

A few weeks ago I managed to snag a great deal from Create and Craft.  The offer was to get the Sensational Flower and Flower Pot die sets at effectively half price (BOGOF).  It looked so cute and I like the 3D element and I like miniature stuff so.....

The flowers and pot come with Charisma (which for the uninitiated is a pre-coloured image that fits the die perfectly that can be downloaded from the Create and Craft website).  The flowers come in yellow and purple, with a couple of additional stems and flower heads so that you can decoupage or fill out the bouquet.  If you have access to a graphics program the colour could be changed to anything you like!  So you could have sunflowers, gerberas, daisies or other similar flowers. I actually recoloured both colour options using alcohol markers because they came out a little more pastel on my printer and I wanted a bold colour. 

The pot comes in terracotta only but again could be recoloured and the die set comes with some additional lacy details that could change the look completely.  I'm going to see if I can get a glazed ceramic look by using Glossy Accents.  You could even stick two halves together to get a free-standing pot and flower display.

The BOGOF deal is no longer available but at the time of publishing you can still get the Sensational Flower die set and the Flower Pot die set for £14.99 each from createandcraft.com.

Snowflake Christmas Card

Every year Christmas manages to sneak up on me! You'd think by now I'd have cottoned on, but come the beginning of December I'm always astounded by how close the big day is.  I have managed to make a few Christmas cards though.

This card is based on an old design that I made with white and Kraft card.  The snowflake is actually a doily (Couture Creations Cecily Doily), but I thought that it looked very much like a snowflake and would look great against a snowy background.

I cut the doily in half and placed each half at the top and bottom of the card.  I added a few pearls to some of the circles within the doily for a bit of extra prettiness.  The "Merry Christmas" sentiment is from another Couture Creations set - Merry Layered Stars.

This design, although simple does take a bit of time to complete because of adding small dots of glue to the doily die cut and sticking on the pearls, but could easily be modified to make it quickly reproducible.

• At first I created the background using paint splatters on blue card, but to save time I used a graphics program to create my snowy background. Download it here. 
• Use a double sided adhesive sheet with the doily die cut or a brayer to apply the glue to save time
• Use self-adhesive pearls or pearl enamel drops (much less fiddly than loose pearls).

I have an extra Cecily Doily and Merry Layered Stars set on eBay if you'd like to recreate this card:

Get the Cecily Doily Die
Get the Merry Layered Stars Die Set

Freebie Friday - So Special Card Front

This post contains affiliate links which means that if you follow the links and then make a purchase I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

I'm a bit of a craft supply junkie - whether it's physical or digital products my house and my hard drive are chock full with supplies that I love, but hardly ever use, but shopping for craft supplies is only half the fun.  There's joy to be found in the making too, so I'm making a concerted effort to use what I've got.

A little while ago I downloaded the graphics pack 'Herbaceous Greens'.   It is a set of watercolour greenery - branches, foliage and individual leaves - as well as 9 seamless patterns.  I used it to create this lovely A6 card front, which you can download for free from here (personal use only please):

You Are So Special A6 card front - Free Download

If you like the look of the set you can get the complete pack for just $1 (until the end of October) from The Hungry Jpeg.

Quick and Easy Hanging Heart

This post contains affiliate links.

My friend came to me a few days ago to ask for my help to make a last minute teacher gift.  She requested a hanging heart that said "Athrawes gorau" (Best Teacher in Welsh) and personalised with the teacher's name and her son's name and featuring the colour purple.  

To make the heart I cut five hearts from white 300gsm cardstock, and one from Kraft card.  I punched holes in each of the curves at the top of the heart then stuck all the layers together using PVA glue 

with the Kraft heart at the back.  (I used my ScanNCut to cut the hearts but a die would also work.  If you don't have a die cutter or cutting machine I recommend using a square or a rectangle.)  To prevent the stack from warping I put it under a heavy stack of books as it dried.  When dry it feels very sturdy - like chipboard.

Meanwhile I found some pretty digital background paper and in a graphics program I used the heart template as a guide to place the text before cutting it out with the ScanNCut and sticking it to the top of the heart stack.  Incidentally the fonts that I used for the teacher's name and the sentiment are Old Emma Decorative and King Basil (which I love).

To finish I printed out some flower and leaf graphics, cut them out and added them to the heart.  It's not very clear from the photograph, but I printed three of each flower, cut each one gradually smaller than the last and then layered them up to add some dimension and make them more interesting.  I threaded some thick string through the holes to create the hanger.

Download free floral graphics here and here.

Freebie Finds - Free Graphics and Fonts

This post contains some affiliate links (denoted by *). If you follow the link and subsequently make a purchase, I will earn a commission.

Welcome to my weekly(ish) round-up of font and graphic freebies floating around the web right now.  If you're into digital crafting or creating digital art then these free resources are worth seeking out.  Most come with commercial licences so that you can create products to sell, whether they be print-on-demand patterns and designs or to create physical craft products, but be quick as they are generally only available for a limited time.


Creative Fabrica have just released a brand new free graphic bundle*, featuring 16 graphic packs including watercolour florals, cute cat illustrations, various SVG cutting files and more.  It's definitely worth taking a look at.  

Free Graphic Bundle Vol 5 | creativefabrica.com

This Street Scene Builder* would be perfect for 'New Home' greeting cards.  Adjust the scale and colours to create your own unique urban landscape artwork.

Street Scene Builder | creativefabrica.com

Over at Creative Market I'm loving 'Contemporary Graphic Huge Set Vol.1'.  It's a bumper set of 100 graphic elements that can be combined in any way you like to create abstract designs that could be used to create framed artwork, greetings cards, background papers, t-shirt designs and so on.  

Contemporary Graphic Huge Set Vol 1 | creativemarket.com

At Design Cuts you can download 'Watercolor and Chalkboard Patterns, Vintage Papers and Textures' a set consisting of watercolour patterns, a chalkboard pattern, a marble pattern, vintage paper and a texture.  The great thing about the Design Cuts website is that they also provide a tutorial to give you some ideas about how to use the free designs.  

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

Freebie Finds - Free Font and Graphics Downloads

This post contains some affiliate links (denoted by *). If you follow the link and subsequently make a purchase, I will earn a commission.

Welcome to my weekly round-up of font and graphic freebies gracing the web right now.  If you're into digital crafting or creating digital art then these free resources are worth seeking out.  Most come with commercial licences so that you can create products to sell, whether they be print-on-demand patterns and designs or to create physical craft products, but be quick as they are generally only available for a limited time.


At The Hungry JPEG there's a free font bundle worth $104 available to download.  The bundle consists of 25 fonts in a variety of styles with a few bonus graphics thrown in as well.  In order to access the download simply share the deal via Facebook or Twitter.

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At Creative Market one of the free goods of the week is "Herbaceous Greens" - a watercolour, hand-painted foliage clip art collection consisting of 62 individual elements plus wreaths, arrangements and seamless patterns.

Herbaceous Greens - Watercolour Clip Art Set | creativemarket.com

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Also at Creative Market are these adorable Summer Posters,  They would make great thank you/ greetings cards for teachers.  You could also take the designs into a graphics program to manipulate the colours or add additional elements.

Summer Posters | creativemarket.com

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Over at Creative Fabrica I discovered the "Manbow" font*.  It's a fun, art-decoesque font that comes with various options such as dots, stripes and shading.  I have quite a few art deco dies and digital images, so I expect to make good use of this.

Manbow Font | creativefabrica.com

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And finally, although not quite freebies, there are some great $1 deals* to be had at Creative Fabrica like this set of 4 graphics packs by PrettyGrafik.  These would be great for summer projects, kids' parties and also posters, clothing and soft furnishings for kids. 

PrettyGrafik 4-pack | creativefabrica.com

And in case you missed the offer deadline, you can still get each of the 4 graphics - Luau Party*, Super Hero*, Super Hero 2* and A Mother’s Love* - for $1.50 a piece.

Freebie Finds - Digital Crafting and Design Downloads

This post contains some affiliate links (denoted by *).

There are so many great font and graphic freebies to be found on the web.  If you're into digital crafting or creating digital art then these free resources are worth seeking out.  Most come with commercial licences so that you can create products to sell, whether they be print-on-demand patterns and designs or to create physical craft products, but be quick as they are generally only available for a limited time.

Over at designbundles.net the freebie of the week is a gorgeous set of 16 Mermaid Texture Digital Papers.The colours are a deliciosus combination of shimmering purples, pinks, turquoise and blue. 

Download for free or if you have missed the deadline make a purchase.

Offer ends in:

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Next, CACTUS PARADISE vector set on PIXELSURPLUS.  A set of 30 vector cactus illustrations and 2 seamless patterns (email sign-up required to download).

Cactus Paradise vector illustration set

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The Nordic-style NORTHERN WOODLAND ANIMALS* set on Creative Fabrica is so cute!  Consisting of 14 vector animals, 30 vector landscape elements, a wreath, a landscape and a seamless border, the set definitely reminds me of Christmas, but could definitely embody any occasion or time of year by adjusting the colours.

Offer ends in:

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Lovely Flowers - Free Printable

Over at Design Cuts the latest freebie of the week is Lovely Colors Flowers by Bloomart.

 

I used the free set to create an A6 card front, which would be perfect for Mother's Day which is right around the corner.  I created two versions - one with the sentiment "With Love" and one with no sentiment so that you can add your own touch with stamps, a die cut or whatever you fancy.  There is also an extra sheet of flowers with the bouquet separated into layers so that you could decoupage them if you wanted to.

To access the printables simply click on the images below.

A6 Lovely Flowers Printable - no sentiment

A6 Lovely Flowers Printable - with sentiment

A6 Lovely Flowers Printable - decoupage flowers

Download the free graphics over at Design Cuts - but hurry, the offer ends at midnight Thursday 22nd Feb (that's tomorrow!)

Choose Love - Free Printable

Happy Valentine's Day!  In honour of all things love and romance I created this poster as a reminder to always choose love.  Download the A4 poster here.

If you'd like to create your own projects you can get free downloads of the floral digital elements from here and this and 99 other wood backgrounds from here.

Bloom and Grow - Free Backing Papers

I love the idea of designing my own backing papers, so, with a little help from Daisytrail and CraftArtist 2 Professional, I did just that.  I used the Bright Blooms free digikit to create a set of 6 x A4 backing papers in soft shades, perfect for Spring.

  

  

  

As the true test of a backing paper is its usability, I had fun being my own design team and made a set of cards to show the papers off.  They work really nicely together.  Download the papers and use them in your own projects, then leave a link to your creations in the comments 😊.