Roll on the summer ...

It might still be the middle of winter and the weather we have been having recently is so far from anything summer-like it's hard to remember what summer is like. But a crafting session making butterfly pictures and I can forget about the hurricane force winds and torrential rain for a short time.

I recently discovered affordable box frames from Ikea and have been having fun making pictures to go in them. I love the butterfly pictures I have seen in the shops and decided I could make even better versions of them.

 

I have a cute little butterfly sizzlit die which I used. The best, but most time consuming, part is playing with all the patterned papers I have and matching them with a background I think goes. They came out really well and I even got an order for a bespoke one.

I surprised the little girl by adding her name to the picture and she was delighted with it, matching perfectly with her newly decorated purple and pink bedroom!

If you like the pictures, check out my Folksy shop where you can buy them. The shop is a new venture - a place to sell my pictures and cards and allow me to expand my creative output! Don't worry if the pictures have gone though - mail me and I would be happy to create a new one just for you.

Now - back to dreaming about balmy summer days and fluttering butterflies ....

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Christmas craft fair - decorations for the tree

Last year one of the school mums and I discovered that we both like crafting. Melinda has an amazing stash of crafting goodies and we decided that once Justin was at school full time we would try to get together every Thursday morning for a bit of crafting for the soul time.

Coming out of that was the idea that we would take a table at the school Christmas craft fair and so we started in September making lots of different things that we could sell. A huge number of the items have been inspired by Pinterest and we have had great fun making them all.

We started with some decorations for the Christmas tree.

I had seen the simplest wire angels, made from butterfly paperclips, that I was desperate to make. Unfortunately the wire paperclips for these are not generally available to buy in the UK (even on eBay!) but fortunately Melinda is from the US and often goes back on holiday so managed to track them down and came home with a large supply of them. 

So we set to and made large and small angels, with a mixture of ribbon colours and a mixture of bead heads. The final touch was to add a label and the finished angels have gone down a storm with all who have seen them - creating orders way beyond the Christmas Craft Fair. So glad other people liked them too ...

Another decoration I made for the tree was a simple wooden star. I bought the stars from our local craft shop and drilled little holes in the top of each one. I then cut a square of hessian (from my stash of things I keep that will come in useful some day!) which I attached to the star by threading some bakers twine through the hole in the star and through the hessian. The finishing touch was a simple button with some bakers twine threaded and knotted through and glued into the middle of the star.

I also made a snowflake decoration, but didn't have time to make lots of these and ended up keeping the prototype for myself. It was made by cutting a snowflake out of sticky back glitter foam using one of the dies from my Sizzlits snowflakes set, sticking the remaining square onto white felt and attaching a button to the middle with a knotted piece of bakers twine in the middle.

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Recent cards using my Big Shot

I have had the chance to use my Big Shot die-cutter recently on a few cards, and to try out some of my new dies.

One of my favourite dies is the Sizzix Bigz Die - Pear although I hadn't had a chance to use it,  until now. I saved the the card from a Stella & Dot jewellery box (I loved the colour and pattern) and paired this (ha ha!) with some brown striped card, also saved from some packaging a long time ago. This was for an anniversary card and reads "You make the perfect pear". Next time I will print the sentiment out so it is a little neater (the perfectionist in me is never happy with my handwriting!)

I also had fun with the Sizzix framelits die set Banners/Pennant with stamps to create two cards: one for my lovely mummy ...

 ... and the other for Sophie's class teacher.

The teacher's card reads "Thanks ... for helping us grow" and I wrote the name of each of the 29 children in the class in the flowers below. I hope she likes it!

The paper on both bunting cards came from the family calendars we have used for a few years now and the white flower lace on the birthday card was from Poundland, so all the cards were a great way to use up my huge stash of card and paper - very satisfying!

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Summer heart wreath

I bought a woven heart wreath earlier in the year which I decorated and hung outside by our front door. I started with little Easter eggs, then changed that to spring flowers (sadly I forgot to take a photo of this).

Last week I decided to become summery with some butterflies and dragonflies, although summer doesn't seem to be coming just yet! It is our street party in a couple of weeks so I decided to be patriotic and chose red, white and blue colours for the decoration.

I used my Big Shot die cutter to cut out the butterfly and dragonfly shapes in craft foam and then painted them with glitter paint to add a touch of sparkle. I also changed the pink bow from my Easter/Spring version to a red gingham bow and then attached each shape by sewing it on with red thread.

I am so pleased I bought this heart and know I will have lots of fun changing it to suit the season.

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

I've got a new toy!

I had my little Sizzix Tag-along (now called the Side-kick) die-cutter for my birthday about six or seven years ago and I have loved creating cards with it ever since. Once I figured out what it could do, I started lusting after it's grown up brother the Big Shot but I could never justify spending the money to upgrade.

I recently got the chance to buy a Big Shot for half price (thanks to a school mum who is a Stampin' Up demonstrator) and after not very much soul searching I went for it. AND it is awesome!!!

The next thing I needed to do was get some more dies: my existing sizzlit dies still work in it but don't take advantage of the heavy-weight capability of the Big Shot so I bought some Bigz dies that can cut everything from paper to fabric and even aluminium. I bought directly from Sizzix and chose all the dies from their clearance sale (saving up to 75% on some of them!) which meant I could justify buying a few more and also didn't feel so cross over the £7 postage they charge.

I have had lots of fun over the last week playing with the new dies and creating a bunch of cards: take a look at what I've done so far ...

Dies used (in order from the top):
Sizzix Bigz die - caged bird (656634)
Sizzix Sizzlits die - butterfly #12 (656512)
Sizzix Bigz die - daisy blast (657390)
Sizzix Sizzlits die - heart, lace (657418)
Sizzix textured impressions embossing folders - flourish, dots & ribbon set (656980)
Sizzix Bigz die with textured impressions - flower #2 (657362)
Sizzix Framelits die set with stamps - flowers, doodle (657580)
Sizzix Sizzlits die set - bird set #2 (657080)

And with the extra bits from the Daisy Blast card above, I created skirts for some little fairies!

I haven't been too ambitious with the heavy duty Bigz dies yet and still have some other dies that I have yet to use so watch this space ...

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Valentine's cards for charity

My husband is running the London Marathon this year for a charity called Whizz-Kidz. He needs to raise £3000, so I came up with the idea of selling hand-crafted Valentine's cards to help add a little towards his fund-raising target. All the money I raise from the cards will go to this amazing charity, who help give disabled children and young people the chance to enjoy a full and independent life.

So far I have orders from my Mum and my Dad (so lovely that I can always count on them to support us!) and a school mum plus promises of a few others - let's hope romance is still alive and kicking and helps Jase raise a bit more money. 

Here are the designs ...

I made some Valentine's cards a few years ago (before baby number two came along) that I sold in a local shop for local crafts people and I managed to sell quite a few which was nice.

© 2012 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Flower bouquet die-cut card

When I got my Ellison Tag-a-long die-cutter (now called Sizzix Side-kick) several years ago, it came with a bouquet die-cut. This cutter looks very complicated and not for beginners and I have avoided using it ever, knowing that it would take a bit of practice to create a decent die-cut.

Anyway, I had a friend's birthday coming up and a free half an hour with both children at school/nursery so I decided to give it a go. I played with different colour combinations and cut some of the different elements out, before realising that I needed a single base to glue the individual flowers on to. I chose to cut this out in green for the flower stalks and leaves, then gradually built up the bouquet a bit at a time. I glued all of it flat except for the large yellow flower and its orange centre which I lifted off with some foam sticky pads. I added a touch of colour to the middle of the lily flowers by brushing lightly with a pink ink pad.

I decided to have the bouquet coming out of a sparkly pink square to add some more colour to the card and added sparkly pink individual flowers cut from the bouquet to the bottom of the card. It was all finished with a pink ribbon and matching bow and a happy birthday stamp that I overwrote to make the the colour stronger. I then edged the card using the pink ink pad.

Overall, I was quite pleased with the end result but it hasn't turned out to be one of my favourite cutters and I can't see myself doing it again that often.

© 2012 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Christmas cards

I recently made my first Christmas card for this year (for a friend who lives in Malaysia so it had to go in the post early!) and it reminded me how much I like making Christmas cards but also how much work it is to make enough for everyone!

The first Christmas I was a stay-at-home Mummy I set to and made cards for all 60+ people on our list and I also made a large number for my husband to send to work contacts. The next year I made for the the good friends on the list and the year after that I made for the very good friends on the list ... 

I still have aspirations to make all my cards but the reality of two children under six has put that idea on hold again for this year at least. So for those of you who get a hand-made card this year - consider yourself the very, very good friends!

The cute puffy reindeers came from Paperchase last year and I painted them with silver glitter to add the obligatory sparkle. The snowflake stamps were a (self-bought) Christmas gift last year from Muji. I stamped them in dark blue (which came with the stamps) and silver for a bit more sparkle.

Previous years' designs have all been created using my Sizzix die-cutter and include snowflakes and various designs of Christmas tree.

So if you are making your own Christmas cards this year, have fun and I will try to do better next year :o)

 © 2011 Nicola Noble

Monkeying around

It's a friend's little boy's first birthday today and in keeping with the cake she has made, I decided to make him a monkey birthday card. I have a set of jungle die-cutters with a very cute monkey which I have made several time before. It looks very complicated, but I am always pleasantly surprised by how quick and simple it is to make.

I made it on a green card initially before deciding I didn't like it, so cut the decoration out of the card, keeping a wider green border which I then fixed onto a white card, and then added 1 today in green. I don't have any number cutters so I used an upside down lowercase L for the number 1! I finished with a touch of glitter paint.

The other animals in the jungle collection are a lion, giraffe and elephant. I have used these on other cards and embellished them with a "funky" square surround and some foliage. So cute ...

© 2011 Nicola Noble

Card time

I have been making a few cards recently and I am really pleased with how they came out.

The first card was for a friend's little boy who turned one. I created a simple 1 card for another friend's daughter last year and I loved the design so much that I decided to do a boy version. I was planning to do it in blue but didn't have any blue buttons; I think the green worked much better.

I bought some new cutters for my Sizzix die-cutter recently (I have been so good for so long in resisting) and have been itching to use them so a couple of imminent birthdays gave me opportunity. One of the cutters is two cute presents and I cut out a selection in black and white, silver and bright pink. I then dressed the presents with toning shades of paper, ribbon and stick on pearls and rhinestones and stacked them on a long thing card.

The other cutter is a dragonfly. I bought this as part of the fairy party plans for Sophie's fifth birthday in March (plans in progress to do an activity table where the children get to cut out their own dragonfly and stick it to a mini peg with a magnet on the back - happy to receive any other suggestions as to what I could do with the dragonfly/ pegs). I made two cards with this using a corrugated black background onto which I stuck the cut dragonfly and the silhouette. I like the outcome and think they make good cards for men. I love the dragonfly cutter and think it will work just as nicely in pastels for the ladies - watch this space ...

© 2011 Nicola Noble