Blog Candy & Hat Pins!!

Hi Blogland. A weird title for this post I grant you but all will become clear as you read through today's post!First things first. The winners of our 30,000 visitor Blog Candy. I say 30,000! In fact we have had over 40,000 visitors since we started our little Blog in July 2009! I was having a tour of our Blog the other day and tidying a few things up and noticed a stats button I never even knew I had! It tells me where everyone visits us from and gives a true visitor number. I had taken my 30,000 figure from the NeoWorks Scroll at the bottom of our Blog. I have only had this for little over a year so I guess it only picks up stats from that period of time.. So, the winners of our newly named 40,000 visitor Blog Candy drawn at random are.......Drum Roll please..... Cricut Straight from the Nest Cartridge... Winnie and the winner of the Cuttlebug Companions Set Cindy Loo is Charity Crafter aka Leigh.. Congratulations ladies. I have e:mailed both of you to let you know you are winners and to arrange delivery or collection of your new stash!!
Thank you to everyone who left comments and good luck for our next Blog Candy contest.
So on with the crafting side of today's post.This Month over at the Cuttlebug Spot it's all about embellishment's on your crafting projects. Of course, as it's the Cuttlebug Spot Embossing will also be involved!!
Today's theme was to incorporate Hat Pin's onto your project! I like to think outside the box but for this project I stuck with the obvious.. Well, obvious to me anyway!
I've always wanted to do a project just in one tone of colour, particularly in Grey's. Not an easy colour to work with but am pleased with how the whole thing turned out!!You probably know that I'm well into my Digital Stamps at the moment! I got this image from Sassy Studio Designs. Once printed, I coloured it in with my Copic Pens (Cool Grey #1 and Cool Grey #5 and Strong Red for the lips). Of course she had to have a glaze of Glossy Accents to finish her off!Once the image was dry I added a selection of feathers to the hat,popping on a hat pin and some beads I had left over from an old Pinflair Kit. Looking at the image now I think the pin is not in proportion to the hat, but I think anything smaller would get lost on the image..For the base card for the image I embossed a piece of White card stock using the Flourish Embossing Folderand matt and layered it onto some Silver and White card stock.I then cut out some layered shapes from the Storybook Cartridge using my Cricut. Looking back, a Nestabilitie Labels shape would have worked easily as well!!Just for fun, and because I wasn't sure in which direction I was going to take this project! I cut the frames in half!!These were added to the front of an 8" x 8" easel cardwith the embossed image placed over the top of them. It looks like the frame shapes are much bigger than they actually are, almost like one of the Grand Nestabilitie Labels.. I think this is a great way to get more out of your standard Labels Dies if you don't have the Calibur or the Grand Dies!For the step of the Easel card I used one of the new X Cut Border Dies.These Border Dies are really quite big compared to say one of the Marianne Designs Creatables Borders. OK, maybe not as detailed, but for this project size does matter!!They are about 8 1/4" long so in fact too long to use the standard Cuttlebug Plates if you want to use the whole of the die, so therefore I had to use the longer Cuttlebug plates.To cut the die, you will need an A and B plate followed by your card stock and the die,finishing off with your C plate and pass through your Cuttlebug Machine.To emboss the die, turn the die over keeping the card stock within the die.As the die was so long I added a strip cut form the Spellbinders 12" x 12" Tan Mat and passed it through the Cuttlebug.. Absolutely nothing happened. I guess these Dies are not as deeply cut as the Nestabilitie Border Dies which is what the Spellbinders mats are designed to emboss.I could have added a shim of card stock but seeing as I had my No Shims Required Mat to hand I just popped this on followed by a second B plate this timeand passed it through the machine twice..Eh voila!!I then added it to the base of the Easel Card.I really wasn't sure where I was going to place my stamped image. So YES, I just shut my eye's and went with it!! It really could have gone anywhere, good job I had it up the right way!!The easiest part of the whole project was the sentiment. The new Do Crafts Promotion for March/April is now in stock and one of the new items is this sentiment sheet.. The perfect match for this Grey/Silver/White card....And there you go... I hope this gives you some ideas for you projects, and don't forget to hop on over to the Cuttlebug Spot to see all the other Design Teams projects.
Thanks for checking us out.
See you soon.
@ndy

Cuttlebug DT - Anything Fall...

Hi Blogland. I hope you all had a great weekend?
Here we go again with another DT entry for the Cuttlebug Blogspot. This weeks theme was "Anything Fall". Pop on over and see what the other DT Members have made. Here's what I came up with.It's a traditional easel card popped onto it's side.
Here's a step by step if you fancy giving it or something similar a go.
I started off by cutting out some decoupage from the Joanna Sheen set of House Mouse called Fruit & Nut.Matted it onto some Burgundy Mirror card,followed by some White card stock and then again another layer of the Burgundy.I then took a piece of White card stock and coloured it using Crushed Olive Distress Ink.
Embossed the card stock through the Cuttlebug Machine using the Fruit & Vine Embossing Folder from Sizzix.Once embossed, I went over the image again with the Crushed Olive Ink to highlight the raised impression.
Adding a little bit of Brushed Corduroy Distressing Ink to the leaves,and the vineand some Victorian Velvet Ink to the Berries.Finishing the berries off with some Crystal Stickles, putting it to one side to dry.Once dry, I matt and layered the imageusing the same card stock combination as I did for the decoupage image.I then set about making the easel card. I used an 8" x 8" card, folding one side in on it's self to form the easel.I then matt and layered the card with some Gold Mirror and some Plum card stock,turning the easel on it's side for something a bit different than the norm. And then mounted my decoupage and embossed images to the card.
I was very happy with the layout, as the decoupage with the berries matched the embossing folder almost perfectly. But it needed something.
Trawling through my stash I came across my "On the vine" 12" border from Spellbinders.. Now, these go through the Cuttlebug perfectly. Here's how to use them if you are unsure.To cut it out, take your A and B platesand lay your card stock and die on top, finishing off with your C plate and cut.To emboss it, turn your die over so that the cutting edge is facing upwards still with your cut image inside it.Add your tan matand a shim (extra piece of card stock).This time you will use a second B plate instead of your C plate. Pass through the machineand pop out your now embossed vine.I added some blobs of Pinflair Glue to add a bit of dimensionand applied it to the project.It really adds a touch of opulence to the card I think.Although it now made the other side of the card a bit bare.So I cut out a sentiment from my Cricut Machine which I had prepared on my Gypsy Machine so that I could weld some letters together. I used the Storybook cartridge for the capitals letters and Plantin Schoolbook for the lowercase letters.And there you have it.... I hope you like it and it gives you some ideas. Don't forget to leave a comment. Apart from I enjoy reading them it will enter you into this Months BLOG CANDY where you have a chance to win the Pink Journey Cricut Cartridge...
Have a great day everyone, see you soon.
Andy.