Garden Party Papers & Embellishments

Here at Little Claire we are quite taken with the new Garden Party collection of papers & embellishments and we would like to share a couple of ideas with you using this range;

A little while ago our Lyndsey sent in these lovelies:
 

Everlasting Card, designed by Lyndsey

 And a cutie little bag:

Garden Party Papers - Bag, designed by Lyndsey

And how's this for a pot of flowers:

Lovely!
We currently hold the full set of the Garden Party range and the papers come in pads of 6x6, 8x8 & 12x12 together with lots of ribbons, stickers, gems and all sorts of lovelies!

Here is a card designed by Georgina, again using the Garden Party papers & embellishments:

Georgina has featured Travelling Daisy one of our 'Loverly Jubblies' stamps as the stamp has a Union Jack to support our GB team in the Olympics.

and if you look at this close-up of 'Daisy' you can see that Georgina has paper pieced her clothes, again with the Garden Party papers. (great textured effect)

You can see the pink & green papers on the card above that have been used on the clothes, and the ribbon, 3D embellishments & paper flowers are also from this collection.   

So if these beauties have wetted your appetite, take a look on our web here

Little Claire x








  

First week into the Summer Hols.....

.... so we may be a bit hit & miss with our posts but here are two lovely cards that we just had to share with you, both made by one of our DT's: Gaynor

designed by Gaynor

 Here are our Cutie Patooties Bert & Mary and Gaynor has used some of the fab Garden Party Papers that we currently have in stock (this is one of Gaynor's favourite stamps) and part of our collection of 6 Cutie Patooties.
And here is a super baby card:

'Babies are....' designed by Gaynor

 All the blues for a baby boy, this card has been made using our stamp set: 'Babies are such a nice way to start people...' and this set comes complete with 6 stamps and the text 'babies are such......' included.
See how Gaynor has used paper piecing for the dungarees and she has stamped the hat twice and then used a selection of the other designs from the set to create the background - lovely!
This stamp set is for both boys & girls:

Before we go, hello to our new followers, hope you enjoy our posts, if there is anything that you would like to see here on our blog, do let us know either comment or contact us: info@littleclaire.co.uk and we will do our best to please!
Little Claire x   
          

Little Claire's Weekly Project...Bright Blue Skies

Hello me lovelies,

Its Gemma here, it's my turn for the Little Claire's weekly project which i have made card using a gorgeous little stamp set called Bright Blue Skies which you can buy from here

Here's the card we are going to make today...

Ingredients

Little Claire's Bright Blue Skies

Little Claire's 'Claire's sentiment' stamp set

Butterfly punch, Ribbon, Gems

14.7cm x 14.7cm square card {you can use a A5 card & cut down to 14.7cm}

12.5cm x 12.5cm square card

3 pieces of blue card...1st piece 14cm x 14cm, 2nd piece 12cm x 12cm. 3rd piece 14cm x 6.8cm

2 pieces of backing paper...1st piece 13.7cm x 13.7cm, 2nd piece 11.7cm x 11.7cm

2 large blue scalloped circles

2 large plain white circles

1 small blue scalloped circle

1 small white plain circle

Promarkers...oatmeal, blush, ivory, grass, lime zest, leaf green, burnt sienna, cocoa, terracotta, duck egg, aqua

Instructions

1) Take your 14.7cm square card & cut a panel off the front of your card measuring 7.4cm width.

2) Take some ribbon and attach to the inside of your card, just like the picture, now wrap it around your card and adhere the ribbon to your card to keep the ribbon secure.

{don't worry where the ribbon is attached inside your card this will be covered}

3) Emboss your piece of 14cm x 6.8cm blue card, now matt & layer your largest piece of blue card & your largest piece of backing paper. Now stick both panels into your card. 

4) Stamp your chosen image onto your large white circle & colour, i have chosen to colour my image with Promarkers. Now stamp your chosen sentiment onto your small white circle, now matt & layer both circles onto your blue scalloped circles.

   {this is what your card will look like after step 6}

5) Take some ribbon and attach to the front of your 12.5cm square card about half way up the fold of your card.

6) Turn your card over so the back of your card is now your front of your card. Now matt & layer your 12cm square blue card with your 11.7cm square backing paper, next you can stick this to the front of your card. Wrap around your attached ribbon & secure with some adhesive.

7) Using foam pads you can now stick your image to the front of your 12.5cm square card along with your sentiment.

8) Now stick the smaller card onto the larger card like shown above.

9) Open the smaller card & tuck in the flap of your larger card inside, like shown.

10 ) I matt & layer the spare large blue scallope & plain white circle and stamp a sentiment that came with the Bright Blue Skies stamp set,  i then placed this inside of the smaller card.

1  

11) Now it's time to do the exciting bit which is to embellish as you wish!!

 I hope you liked my tutorial & found it easy to follow…please do leave a comment 

 to let me know what you think, Thank you!!

 For any ingredients you need to make this card please do visit Little Claire’s

 because they have a fantastic range of products for you.

 Hugs and xxx

 Gemma

No cards today....

... as we are busy packing ready to go to the Artstamps show at Wrexham tomorrow; we set up our stand and the show is open on Saturday, if you live nearby please call in and see us, we will have some lovely new stamps on display and drop us an email if you would like anything brought to the show for you: Little Claire

No cards but here is a lovely pic of our Carol with a handsome visitor to Little Claire Towers this morning:

This is 'Charlie' who has decided that he likes to drop by and pay us a visit, he is such a charmer with the most amazing blue eyes (we tried to get him to open them for this pic) such a big softie, so of course we can't resist him!
Happy days!  We will be back tomorrow with a New Project idea.

Little Claire x
  

Here is another cutie....

... a card we have made using the Princess Tree cutting die:

this die makes for a lovely tree and is available on our web but as the following card shows, you don't just need to use it as a tree at all:

We have used the shape of the die to create lovely swirls at both the top & lower edges of our card, so more than 1 use (which is always good!)
If you like the butterflies that are featured too, then these are from our set Butterfly Tree  which is a super set  of 9 stamps:

and you can see the group of butterflies on the left are the ones used on the card with the Princess Tree cutting die.  
Little Claire x

Die cuts on our cards

We sell a good range of Cutting Dies on our web (all at competitive prices) and here is a card we have made using a selection of the dies:

On this card we have used stamp: Trailing Birdhouse and the flowers have been made using: Cottage Cutz flower 1  the leaves: Spellbinders Foliage & the Butterfly is: Cottage Cutz Butterfly Mini and they all go together really well.
Here is another card:

and this time we have used: Cheery Lynn Snowflake 7 together with our: At Home stamp, we like the unusual shape of this die and it works really well with our 'At Home' stamp turning it from a lovely general design straight into one perfect for Christmas cards.

So bop on over to our web and take a look at our cutting dies..................

Little Claire x     

         
 

Weekly Blog Project - Digi Seascape Card

Good morning everyone - this week it's my turn (Helen N) to share the weekly blog project and I thought I'd make a card with some of the digital products from Little Claire.

You may not have seen the digital section on the website but there are digi image downloads, digi sentiments, digi decoupage and digi papers - have a look for the 'digi downloads' section on the index bar at the side of the website.

I've chosen to use one of the papers and two of the images from the section.  You don't need to have any special software to use digi products - I created the strip across the front of the base of my card using Word.  It's also easy to resize the images in Word - this is one of the great advantages of using digital products.

A few quick tips for using digital products -

1. I printed my digital paper by copying and pasting it into a Word document - if you set the page margins at zero the paper will cover almost the whole of an A4 sheet.

2. Make sure you print digital paper on good quality paper - I find normal copy paper too thin.  I use a pearl paper to give a good finish and make it look more like a  shop bought paper but you could also use decoupage paper.

3. If you find the outline is too feint on digi images, print in 'gray scale' (through your printer menu) to give a darker, more defined print.

4. If you can, leave your digi image for a little while before colouring it or use a heat gun on it - I find this avoids any 'bleeding' from the colouring.  I also find it better to 'dot' colour with Promarkers to stop any colour bleeding over the lines.

Here's what I used to make my card:

Digi Download Seascape Background Paper 

Digi Download - Boat 

Digi Download - Anchor

6" square card blank

red card

White Card Candi 

foam pads

circle and scalloped circle dies

Promarkers - Poppy, Sandstone, Caramel, Pastel Blue, Denim Blue, Cool Grey 1 and 3

And here's what you need to do:

1. Print out the boat image twice - adjust the size to fit inside a circular die.  Then print out the anchor, resize to about 2cm high and then copy and paste to make a row of anchors.

2. Die cut one of the boat images using a circle die and cut out the boat from the second image.  Colour with Promarkers.

3. To make the base card, use the largest circle die on the folded card blank.  Use low tack tape to secure the die so that the die is just over the spine of the card and then put through your die cutting machine.

4. Open the die cut card out and then fold one of the panels in half remembering that the panel is not a complete circle

5. To decorate the top part of the card die cut a circle from red card using the same die you used to make the card blank.  Then die cut a piece of the backing paper using a smaller circle die and a scalloped circle from red card

6. Layer the shapes together with the main ship image and then attach the panel to the front of the easel card.  To make sure the panel is straight, line up the spine of the card blank with one of the lines on your cutting mat before sticking the panel to the card

7. To make the band across the front of the base, colour in the row of anchors and then cut it in to a strip.  Attach this to a strip of red card and then die cut it using the circle die you used to make the base card.  Attach the strip to the die positioning it where you want the strip to sit on the base.  Cut it and then colour using Promarkers

8. To decorate the base of the card die cut a red circle using the die you used to make the base card.  Die cut a circle of the backing paper the same size as you used to decorate the top panel.  

9. Layer these circles together and then attach the anchor strip using foam pads - this will act as the stopper for the easel.  Attach the second boat image using foam pads and then put Card Candi coloured with the Poppy Promarker on the anchor strip as shown in the photo below.  Finish the card with a peel off greeting

Hope you like this card - don't forget to leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Have a lovely weekend (it might even be sunny!!) and don't forget there's still plenty of time to enter our current blog challenge which is 'Summer/Holidays' - you can find all the details here

Helen x

We love this time of the month.....

...as it is when 'Quick Cards Made Easy' magazine is on sale and we can read Steve's new column!

Little Claire's Column in Quick Cards Made Easy

This month the featured Project Card has been designed by our own Lyndsey who has made a gorgeous Wedding Card using our original Changing Tree stamp and you can see the full shopping list and instructions and  for just a 25 minute make it really is a very tasteful and effective card - which is why we love our Changing Tree stamps!  

Stock News!!!!!

We are pleased to announce that Little Claire now stock a wide range of Cutting Dies on our web all at very competitive prices (and don't forget that if you are a club member you get another 10% off that too!)
We now sell dies by Cheery Lynn  Cottage Cutz  Spellbinder  &  Die-Namics Dies

card made with Cheery Lynn Snowflake 7 die & Little Claire's 'At Home' stamp & button from 'Georgina's Buttons & Stitching' stamp set (little claire)

So head on over to our web and take a peek at what we've got, everything from dies to make your own bunting, to new Christmas dies, lovely x  

Little Claire x
               

Have we heard the forecast correctly?

It says the weather is going to improve..... yippeeee!  Happy days x

In the meantime, we are doing our best here at Little Claire to give you some cheer by sharing the wonderful creations made by our Design Team who have been currently crafting with our NEW Christmas Changing Tree stamp and as promised, here are some more fabulous cards:

First off the block we have a lovely traditional red & green card which also uses a circular sentiment from our set of 12 Christmas Sentiments: 

created by Helen N

and from reds to blues with a lovely card from Gemma:

created by Gemma

Next we have a lovely red & cream card from our Heidi and we LOVE the sumptious red bow, can you see how it runs down behind the main image and out through the lower part of the card?  Clever idea!

created by Heidi

Within our Changing Tree set there are 10 separate stamps and it's good to see, when you look at our DT's cards how each one has used the stamps differently, Heidi's concentrated on the poinsettia's and puddings (above) whereas Gaynor has used lots of the hanging elements in her card below, the hanging stars, baubles and stockings from the lower branches of the tree - I tell you, it's a great value set this!

created by Gaynor

Our next card is from Lyndsey, with the ribbon going in the opposite direction this time, green gingham is so yummy for Christmas!

created by Lyndsey

created by Georgina

and let's finish off with 'cool blues' from Georgina so evocative of cool, fresh, snowy days.....

OK, without further ado, we had a competition to pick 3 random names to win our Christmas Changing Tree stamp and the winners are:

Crafty Chris:http://ramblingsandcraft.blogspot.co.uk/ who said: 'Fab tree, Love it. I would love a tree growing little bundles of happiness. If anyone is feeling down, they can pick one and feel happy again xx'
And for our next 2 winners we can't find a link to you so here are your names, the time of your post and copies of what your comment was, hopefully you will recognise yourselves:


Sharon: 16.23 who said: 'I LOVE this Christmas tree!!! It's a have-to-have me thinks!!
If I had a tree growing at the bottom of my garden I'd love it to sprout beautiful summery things - beach balls, cocktail glasses, smiley suns, sun glasses, bikinis (in my dreams I can wear one :-)!!) and other 'sunny' items!! Then I could imagine we're having a summer! And I suppose the opposite tree would have wellies, umbrellas etc on it!!
Looking forward to more new Xmas stamps and thanks to the fab DT's for their inspiration!!'

Cassie C: 17.25 who said:  'What adorable little stamps, just love these changeable trees.
I would like a baking tree with wooden spoons, trays of jam tarts, mixing bowls, aprons,kitchen scales etc. It would suit so many people I know, especially with homebaking being popular right now.
Carol C. xx'

Well done, please contact carol@littleclaire.co.uk with your names & addresses, and thank you to everyone who left a comment, what a super bunch of ladies you are!

Little Claire x


  

   

If I was a duck posting this......

... then I would be a very happy Duck indeed, what with all the rain that is falling outside my window non-stop and Steve's not happy out in the rain unloading his boxes from the Summer Crafting show at Doncaster yesterday, so, what can I do to bring a smile to my face and hopefully yours too (if the weather is miserable for you too), here is a NEW release from Little Claire (we do like to keep ourselves v busy) and I hope this lovely new stamp makes you SMILE, I'm sure that the gorgeous cards from our DT's will help:

Little Claire's Christmas Changing Tree

Do you likey?  This is our Christmas Changing Tree stamp and it is the Christmas version of our original Changing Tree if you have Changing Tree Set you will know how great it is to mix & match all of the individual little stamps to create your own trees - and here you can do the same to make your own Christms Tree image.
If you do already own the Changing Tree set then we also sell the little Christmas stamps WITHOUT the tree trunk (so you don't need to buy it twice) here are all the Christmas stamps to completely tie-in with your original Changing Tree as a set for just £3.99 - that's 10 stamps for £3.99:

Christmas Changing Tree stamps

Here are a selection of DT cards to give you some wonderful inspiration of what can be achieved with this set:

designed by Helen R

Can you see in Helen's card how it is up to you to stamp your images just where you wish, for instance the little Robin is at the base of the tree and then also up in the tree a couple of times......

designed by Georgina

and here our Georgina has used the little stamps to create her own background and then the little presents to create a border and she has added lots of presents at the base of the tree, how gorgeous is that?

designed by Donna

and here is a lovely easel card from Donna, designed with cool blues with ribbons, bows & snowflakes........

Have we made you smile?  If you can't wait to get creative with this super set then it is available now on our web £5.50 for the full set (10 stamps & tree) or £3.99 for the 10 stamps...

...and to make you smile even more, we have 3 SETS to GIVEAWAY (10 stamps & tree) please leave a comment telling us what you would like to see growing on your very own tree in your garden (not money!) by Wednesday midday (18.07.12) and 3 lucky people will have this set dropping through their letterboxes.
And, you never know, if we like your tree idea, we may even turn it into a stamp............  

Little Claire x

We'll show more DT Christmas Changing Tree cards tomorrow x



      

Little Claire Monthly Challenge # 23 - 'Summer/Holidays'

 

Good morning, welcome to another great challenge here at Little Claire's. Thanks to everyone that took part last month in our 'Jubilee' themed challenge, we had some wonderful entries and there can only be one winner of the 'Dictionary Sentiment' stamps, drumroll .......... the winner is ....

Lisa-Jane

Well done Lisa-Jane! Please contact the lovely Carol (carol@littleclaire.co.uk) and she will forward your stamps onto you.

This month we have four crafters who deserve to take the 'Top Three' ladies, they are :

Jocelyn (# 3)

Cheremane (# 6)

Sue (#20)

Karen (#21)

Well done ladies, your cards were all fabulous and full of Jubilee-ness! Please grab the linky on the sidebar and place on your blogs.

Now to this month's challenge. Believe it or not, with this awful weather, it is July and Summertime! So, if you can remember what the sun looks like (above if you have forgotten), we want to see your 'Holiday/Summer' creations. You can enter our challenge, showing cards, scrap-pages and any other crafty creations. Summer papers, embellishments, ribbon etc, anything with bright fun colours!

We have a few rules that we would like you to follow, when entering our challenge, they are :

(1) You DO NOT need to use a Little Claire stamp to qualify for the prize draw.

(2) Only those using Little Claire stamps will qualify for a Top 3 badge.

(3) You may enter the challenge UP TO 3 TIMES ONLY PLEASE and you may combine with other challenges.

(4) You MUST follow the challenge theme and NO BACKLINKING please, new cards only.

(5) Please provide a link to our blog in your post.

(6) Please leave a link (via link below) to your actual card, not just to your blog.

(7) Please turn off Word Verification on your blogs,it makes it so much easier & quicker to leave a comment on your blogs.

(8) The challenge finishes on Friday 17th August @ 18.00pm and the new challenge (#24) will be open on Saturday 18th August 2012.

The prize for our 'Summer' challenge is as above, a wonderful selection of crafting goodies :

'Travelling Daisy' stamp

Dovecraft 'Fairytale' Paperpack

Purple Stickles

Loverly Jubblie's Die-Cut Sheet

Here are the Design Team's cards using the 'Summer' theme.

Donna using 'Beach Huts' & LC Sentiment

Gaynor using 'Cutie Patootie' - 'Mary Splashing ' & LC Die-Cut Sentiment

Gemma using RWAV 'Beach  and sentiment



Georgina using 'RWAV Beach Huts ' & Sentiment

Heidi using 'Bright Blue Skies' stamp set

Helen N using 'Daisy' image

Helen R using 'Beach Huts' and LC Sentiment

Lyndsey using 'RWAV' Seasons Summer Sceme Digi Stamp

We are also saying goodbye to one of our original Design Team members, Maxine.  She has been on the DT for some time now and is going to be greatly missed, we wish her well for the future :)

Enjoy making your entries, the DT are all looking forward to seeing your creations, good luck!

The Little Claire Design Team

xxxxx