Out of Season Quilts

I haven't posted in quite a while as a lot of my spare time over the past few months was spent making table decorations and tags for favours for a charity fund raiser which was held last month. We also had a lovely holiday in Florida in June and I enjoyed spending some of it with my friend Linda and also got to meet up with my friend Kelli who I worked with years ago when I lived in Florida. I haven't seen Kelli in 22 years but it felt like only yesterday when it came to chatting with each other. The whole family enjoyed the holiday and I have to admit a lot of crafty shopping took place:) My goodness the crafty shops were amazing, so big and so well stocked - I must have been grinning from ear to ear and didn't know where to look first! In all the excitement I forgot to take photos inside the shops but we went to JoAnn, Michaels and a wonderful shop in Lakeland called Violette's Scrapbook Store with room after room of tempting goodies. They had a fantastic room for classes and I saw some brilliant projects on display for upcoming classes. It really is a must place to visit if you are in the area, just wish I lived a bit nearer to it!

Anyway enough about shopping, now onto making! My friend Linda is an avid participant in the Merry Monday Challenges and creates a card for nearly every one of the challenges set each week throughout the year. It's such a great way of building up a stash of Christmas cards and I keep meaning to join in on the fun, but of course nearly every week time just runs away on me too quickly. The Merry Makers are taking a well earned break during July and August so in those months Linda and I are going to set weekly challenges for each other so she keeps up with making her Christmas cards and I get a start on making mine. If you would like to join in with Linda and me for either or both of the challenges set, we'd love to see your cards - just leave a link in the comments section on Linda's blog or here so we can find your card/s.

So Linda, it's challenge time and the theme I picked for this week is "A Cosy Quilt for Christmas". Not only do I absolutely love quilts but Linda gave me an amazing package of goodies in Florida and included MFT quilt dies that I absolutely love and can't stop using - thanks again, Linda!

Dies - Die-namics Diagonal Quilt Square Cover-Up (My Favorite Things) & Mini Snowflakes (Lawn Fawn)
Stamp - Very Merry Christmas (Hero Arts)

As Christmas draws closer I always seem to be in a rush to make tags as well as cards so for our weekly summer challenges I'm going to try to make a tag to match the challenge card. Lol I'll probably be doing well to make two Christmas cards each week so we'll see how it goes with the tags:)

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Die-namics Pierced Rectangle Frames (My Favorite Things) & Mini Snowflakes (Lawn Fawn)
Stamp - Woodland Wreaths (Wplus9)

While I'm showing you a Christmas card and tag in July, why not a St Patrick's Day card in July too! This is the card I sent to Linda way back in March and never got around to blogging.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9) & Shamrock (Impression Obsession)
Stamp - Celebrate Everyday (Hero Arts)

I'm delighted to see Linda has posted her challenge, you can find it here over on her blog. It's a great one and I can't wait to get started on it!

Happy 4th of July to all those who are celebrating! We have our own celebrations going on here with our older son's birthday today:)

Scrappy Happy Weekend

Over the weekend I continued with the plan to use up more of my card and fabric scraps to make some more cards. I got a bit carried away and made the following four cards plus blocks to go on future cards.

I forgot to take photos of my scraps before I started and I've completely used up some of the patterned paper scraps but I had a little bundle like this put together at the start of the weekend with fabric, card and even envelopes from bills.

My favourite die from WPlus9's Quilt Cuts 2 set is the star die and I used it and the inlaid die cut technique for all of my cards. For the first two cards I used some rainbow coloured fabric which I had left over from a quilt I made years ago.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Scalloped Squares (Spellbinders), Tags & Bookplates (Docrafts)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

Die - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9)
Stamp - It's Your Day (Hero Arts)

I love greens and blues so I have loads of scraps in these colours left over from other projects. In my stash of plain card scraps I have lots of kraft and white so used a combination of patterned and plain scraps to make the following cards.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Scalloped Squares (Spellbinders) and Thanks Stamp & Cut (Hero Arts)

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp) and Tags & Bookplates (Docrafts)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

Whenever I can I like to use recycled materials on my cards and now, thanks to the blue and white patterned insides of envelopes which came with bills, I have some blocks lined up for another card. At least there's some upside to bills;)

Love Quilt Block

My piles of scraps, both card and fabric, are getting out of hand so I'm going to make a few sets of quilt cards to try to make at least a little dent in these scrap piles. It will be fun sorting through the scraps and picking out the card/fabric that will go together.

For this card I die cut the quilt block from some scraps of patterned and black card. Then using a piece of label as an adhesive backer I inlaid the die cut pieces to make the mini quilt block.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9) and Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp)
Embossing folder - Quilted (Tim Holtz)

The block was framed with a die cut scalloped square and I added a wood button to finish the block. The block was mounted on an embossed background which my friend Linda sent me - thanks again, Linda:)

This in turn was layered on kraft card which had been die cut using a die from Simon Says Stamp's Bundle of Stitched Shapes.

I'm submitting this card into the Die Cut Diva's Love Marriage and Anniversaries Challenge.

Moo-tiful Birthday

Barb over at the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Group has come up with a yummy colour combination for Flickr Challenge #17. Here are the colours we have to use -



The colours don't have to match shades exactly, so in the end I substituted a hot pink for the rose pink as I have lots of hot pink card which I never seem to use and thought it might go well with the other bold colours. Hopefully the bold colours I used won't hurt your eyes too much! I wanted to make a colourful background for the fun cow from Simon Says Stamp's Birthday Farm Animals set and made it with scraps of card and a die from WPlus9's Quilt Cuts 2 set. Instead of messing with a glue stick I find adding a large sticky label behind the frame of the quilt block is a quick and handy way to adhere the small pieces.

Stamp - Birthday Farm Animals set (Simon Says Stamp)
Die - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9)

After stamping and cutting out the cow, I added some colour and shading.

Then I paper pieced the birthday banner and birthday hat. These days I can't seem to make a card without adding clear Wink of Stella and on this card added some shimmer to the hat and banner.

Quilted Thanks and Bookmark

I knew it wouldn't be long before I'd want to play again with the Quilt Cuts 2 dies from WPlus9 and this morning used them to make a card and matching bookmark.

Die - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Stamp - Making the World a Better Place (Hero Arts), Papers - Snippets (Studio Calico) & Basics (Pebbles)

After die cutting and assembling the quilt blocks, I layered them on a strip of paper which I had punched with Fiskars threading water punch. The sentiment was stamped with faded denim distress ink. To finish I added a wooden button threaded with twine.

Then I made a little bookmark with another block. I layered the block on a scallop square die cut and sandwiched a large paper clip between this and another scallop square die cut.

I'm submitting these into Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge. Hope you're enjoying the weekend:)

Quilt Block Card Set

I wanted to make a set of cards to include with my Mum's birthday present so pulled out one of the dies from WPlus9's Quilt Cuts 2 set.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamps (Hero Arts) - Dolls, Everyday Sayings and It's Your Day, Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

Having dabbled in quilting in the past, I just LOVE this set and am looking forward to making lots more blocks in the future, using fabrics as well as paper. It will be a perfect way of using up some of my mountain of scraps.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts) - Dolls & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

Anyway I still had Studio Calico's Snippets paper out on my desk from making this card the other day so decided to use the same papers again.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts)- Everyday Sayings & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

After die cutting and putting together the quilt blocks I added little heart gems to the centres. Then using Nestabilities, I die cut scallop squares to use as a border around the blocks. The sentiments were stamped using Hero Arts Cup O' Joe shadow ink.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts)- Everyday Sayings & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

I'm submitting this card set into Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts) - It's Your Day & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

The birthday girl should be here any minute so I'm off to get the cake ready!