Cry England!!

Hi Blogland, No project today I'm afraid! I'm too nervous, anxious, excited even.. There is a little event going on in South Africa Today, some say an epic is about to take place, we will see!!.. If you have no idea what I am talking about England play Germany at 3pm...!! wowza!!
So, I will just leave you with this.. If it doesn't give you goose bumps, then you are probably not English, or maybe you are and are just not interested in the footie.. Either way, have a great day and enjoy the hottest day of the year so far... COME ON ENGLAND!!!!!!

KING HENRY V:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Red, White & Father's Day too...

Hi Blogland, you'll probably be pleased to know that I'm not going to mention the football in this post! Oh shoot, I just did..! I'm still going to continue my Red and White theme though,so here's today's offering..
I stamped my Poppy image onto a White piece of card using Black Momento ink.
I then coloured it in using Copic Pens and then glazed the whole image with some Glossy Accents and once dry I mounted the image onto some complementary Maroon & White card stock.I embossed a piece of White card stock using the Goochie Script Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.
Again, mounting it onto some Maroon card stock and then applying it to my base card which I had already added a punched border to using the Martha Stewart Flower Bed Deep Edger Punch.Completing the project by adding the stamped image to the card.
It's Father's Day here in the UK today,so "Happy Father's Day" Dad, I know he likes to pop on here every now and then and see what I'm up to..
Have a great day everyone, thanks for checking us out.
See you soon
Andy.

More Red & White....

Hi Blogland, I hope things are well with you? So, today continues with the Red & White theme, as England are still in the World Cup, Just!!
I said in my last post that I thought the States would need a little bit of luck, and they certainly got that by way of our Goal Keeper!!! Anyway, we are still there and have all to play for.. So, bring on Algeria on Friday!!So here we are with Today's project..I cut out a few rectangle mats of card stock in Red and White and embossed the top White piece using the Jules Jewels Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.I then cut out squares of card stock, and again embossed the top piece of card.Then, from a sheet of Holographic Butterflies,I turned one over and attached a foam pad.Leave the backing on the foam pad and dust the sticky side of the peel off with an anti static bag. This will de tack the peel off allowing you to apply it to your project without it sticking to everything.Remove the backing of the foam pad and apply it to your project.Finishing off with the Martha Stewart Pop Up Butterfly Punch down one side..
I actually did this card in a few different colours as it is very quick to do..Always up for a challenge I received a comment from Yvette in response to my last post. Yvette is Dutch but lives in England, and she challenged me to make a project in Orange, the Dutch national colours.. You've got to admire a nation that can carry off orange, so here it is Yvette... "Heel succes Nederland" I hope that's right?
Have a great day everyone, and thanks for checking us out..
See you soon.
Andy.

This England..

Hi Everyone, well the day is finally here.. Now, I know it's not every ones cup of tea, but every now and then something comes along to unite the nation, well most of it anyway.. This evening sees the start of England's world cup campaign.. Our first game is against the States. So, once again guys, "Good Luck" I think you're ganna need it... the States that is....
I'm looking forward to joining the estimated 20 Million Englishmen, and Women, watching the game tonight here in the UK... So, COME ON ENGLAND!!!!
I have decided to set myself a little challenge.. yeah like I have the time to take on more work!! Anyway, I have decided that as long as England stay in the World Cup I will complete all of my projects in just Red & White...At first I thought that this would be quite limiting, but to be honest it's been really quite easy coming up with some ideas. I don't know about you, but when I have every colour of paper, ink, stamp, punch etc I own out in front of me inspiration eludes me. Yet just having a few products to play with has really made it easier.. Mental note to self for next time...So here's what I came up with..I stamped my image using Momento Tuxedo Black Ink onto white card stock.I then coloured the image in using a selection of Copic Pens.. I thought I'd keep the England theme going and chose the team's strip. Which was fortunate as I could leave most of it White!! Once coloured I matted the image onto some Red Mirror card, White card stock and then a final piece of Red.This was then mounted onto my base card where I added a border using the Swiss Cheese Edger Punch and a Simple Sentiment..
So, all's left to say is.....

Thanks for checking us out, see you soon..
Andy.

Hi Everyone, you know when everything comes at once! and you think you are just not going to get round to finishing everything, and then you do, and then wonder what all the fuss was about!! Well that was me this weekend! I had a friends birthday party, my parents Wedding Anniversary and also a buying trip down to Dorset..
The Birthday party on Saturday was an absolute blast!! Karaoke is not my thing at all, but after a couple of pints of dutch courage I found myself, NO! honestly, not even a GALLON of dutch courage could get me up and singing.. But I did have a boogie, (the old Andy "Two step" has served me well over the years!) and I think I do recall finally giving in and belting out a rendition of 3 lions!! Well, the "World Cup" is only just around the corner and I've got to get some practice in for Saturday's game against the States!!! So, to all of our American followers, Good Luck Guys!! Anyway back to my weekend.It always make me smile that your evening can go from looking like this ...to this in a few short hours!!!LOL.
I hate having to rush a card, especially for a very dear friend, but sometimes, when you know you don't have much time you stop faffing around and thinking to yourself, does this go better here?, or here?, would it look better in this colour? or that?... aarrrgghh just stick it down and get on with it!!! was what I was telling myself...Anyway here is the card I ended up making..
My friend is a complete purple freak! and over the years I have made every single card I have sent her Purple, and this year's was no exception..I started off by cutting out some shapes in Lilac & Green Mirror Card using both the large and medium Martha Stewart Pop Up Water Lily Flower Punch.And layered one of the large Lilac images on top of one of the large Green images.I then added one of the smaller images, cut in Lilac on topAnd finished off the centres with some Lilac Gem Stones.I then layered some smaller flowers on top of each other.Attached the larger flowers to my aperture cardfilling in the spaces with the smaller flowers.Finally attaching 2 larger flowers to a piece of clear thread so that the image was able to spin in the aperture.I'm glad to say that she loved it! Phew!!!It was also my parents 41st Wedding Anniversary on Monday, so I made the same style of card, this time in a dusky Pink.
Also on Monday Jo and I went off on a little buying trip down to Dorset to visit one of our suppliers, Do Crafts.. We all know how great their range of products are and the products we saw which will be coming out very soon are no exception.. So keep an eye out on the website for all the new goodies...
Thanks for checking us out..
See you soon,
Andy.

Crackle effect

Hi everyone, and how are you today? We are all probably aware that distressing is "in" at the moment, if it hasn't got Tim Holtz's name on it then it's not worth doing. Well, that's not totally true, as there are so many amazing things going on in the crafting world besides distressing.. but I must admit it is the current crafting buzz word..
So today's project features a distressing technique called Crackle which we have been teaching in our lessons this week. We called it "Slap, Crackle & Pop" as the technique involves you slapping on some paint, watching it crackle and then seeing your elements pop off of your project. There is a quick way of doing this which is to use Tim's Crackle paint..As with most things, there is more than one way to do it! So here is how we did it with products that most of us should have in our crafting stash...First of all I cut out some card shapes from the Indie Art cartridge using my Cricut Machine. These images were cut out at 2" Real Dial Size...I covered one of the imageswith some Gold Acrylic Paint.Once the paint is dry, add a generous amount of PVA clear drying glueand spread a thickish layer all over the image.Whilst the glue is still wet paint on your top coat of colour trying not to blend the paint and the glue to much.Then heat with your heat gun. This process is to dry the Acrylic paint quickly but you could quite easily just leave the paint to air dry and it will still crackle.The reason that you get a crackle effect is that the Acrylic paint dries quicker than the glue. As the paint dries the glue is still wet underneath and sort of stretches and splits the paint, forming a crackle effect. As the glue dries clear the initial undercoat of colour is revealed....I love the effect that the crackle gives but was not over the moon about the paint as it dries to a matt finish. Most Acrylics have an oil or wax in then so once dry you can always give them a buff with a kitchen towel to give them a shine. I did this but also added a bit of sparkle by way of some Iridescent Sparkle Spray. This gave the image a varnished and sparkly look.Repeat this process on the Club, Spade & Diamond using the correct coloures accordingly.I then took a 5"x5" piece of White card stock and a 5 1/4" x 5 1/4" piece of Gold card stock.I repeated the paint, heat, Glue, Paint, heat process on the White piece of card but this time using some Moss Green Acrylic Paint. I hope you get the idea that this is a distressed Poker table!!? Once dry, the now Green piece of card got a spray of the sparkle and then was layered onto the Gold piece of card.This was then mounted onto a base card with my card images mounted on top.
I punched out some card images from an EK Success border punch and positioned them down the side to complete the project...
So, something a little bit different for you to try and is great fun to do. The results are quite random and you'll get a different effect each time you do it, so why not give it a go?
Thanks for checking us out...
See you soon.

Andy..