Day of the DAD

💀💀 this is a bonus post💀💀

 I have a funny punny 6year old!  She's a little eccentric in her tastes.  She loved the Disney film Coco, and ever since then has been intrigued by Dia de Muertos (did I spell that right?).   Anywhooooo, we were talking about Father's day and making Father's day cards and I bought a new unbranded, generic, no designer vine wreath die from Temu.  So we did a test run of the die.  We used some background paper that we got from Temu as well as the remaining woodslice that we had cut up and coloured from the Tim Holtz/Sizzix set that we used in the last card.  Once we started layering everything together -  For reasons only known to my eccentric little girl - this die reminded her of sugar skulls and calacas and from there was born the best giggles only a six year old could produce - "Mom" she said - "We should call this card - 'Day of the Dad'!" - I gotta say I could not have come up with something as awesome as that- so here it is a "Day of the Dad" card for her dad.

Temu has been great for getting everything from sparkle paint, to dies, to stencils, even resin which I made the tiny dew drops with.  If you are thinking of checking the marketplace out and have never bought from them before - I have a code that will help you get coupon bundles of up to R2000 (zar) or the U$D equivalent of $55 - you will also qualify for 30% off your first order.   TEMU is like the affordable version of Amazon or Wish.  Shipping is free in South Africa right and you pay import tax calculated on the nature of your goods.  I find that this works out for my wallet a whole lot better than going through Amazon.  So what I an going to do is drop my link here below - and you can use it to qualify for the coupon bundle or the discount.

⭐️Click the link https://temu.to/m/ulqdrhgg4l0 to get 💰R2,000 coupon bundle 

or 

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You may use this code as a voucher code on checkout as well~

'Hope' is the thing with feathers!

I like entering those Simon Says Stamp challenge - So every now and again with enough time and the when I have the crafty stash that aligns with either the Monday or Wednesday challenge, I give it a go - and this one was really fun to do.  The theme of the Wednesday challenge is Feathers or Fur.  Anyhow, this was great because it made me think of that Emily Dickinson poem - 'Hope' is the thing with feathers.  AND  I always hope that the random number generator will pick my number - because who wouldn't like $25 from Simon Says Stamp.  And so here we are - and this is going to be my entry....I figure this is going to be my best shot.

A little walk through on the making of the card so that you can.  I wanted to keep the colours muted and somewhat masculine - because I think I am going to give this one to my dad for Father's day. 

I made the background patterned paper by distress inking (Vintage Photo, Brushed Courdroy and Walnut Stain) through an A4 sized page of various feather patterns in stencil film that I may have either got from Crazy Plastics or Westpack - I cant really remember for sure because it was a while back - however you all know that I recently have been making patterned paper from cake stencils that I got from Temu - so I had a little squiz over there - and I think I will be ordering this from them next.

I have an affiliate link that you can use to get 30% and some free gifts and a R2000 coupon bundle if you are a new user. You can do that by clicking on this link - 

⭐️Click the link https://temu.to/m/ulqdrhgg4l0 to get 💰R2,000 coupon bundle

 or ⭐️ Search  

acp636712 on the Temu App to get 💰30% off discount !!

I drew and doodled on the stencilled feathers to give it a bit of personalisation and interest with Pentel Metallic gels and the grey jelly roll set from Sakura.  

Over that I ran a strip of natural burlap  ribbon that you can pick up from Temu for next to nothing - you can paint the edges to match your colour pallette with one coat acrylic by masking off the centre of the ribbon with masking tape. 

I thought it would be super cute to have a heartshaped woodslice over that -
the woodslice comes from the amazing Sizzix/Tim Holtz Woodslice collection.

A while ago we used to have a stationery and magazine store chain that I think that has since gone out of business - they used to import these monthly magazines called  Die-cutting Essentials or something like that - they were awesome - every month you would get a die as a freebie. The feather die came from one of them. And I had guinea fowl feather that I picked up somewhere that I added on top of the paper feathers to give it a little textural interest.

I am kinda sad that my phone camera and lighting really washes out the colour on this card.  While the tone is muted browns, blues and greys - the actual card is a little more saturated and those contrasting colours and patterns really work so elegantly together.  I didnt want to stick on a "hope" sentiment on the card so I used the 'hugs' instead because like I said earlier my dad is going to be the recipient of this card for Father's day.

I watercoloured a bit inbetween in the white spaces between the feathers just to tie in the colours a little bit for a more cohesive feel. And that was that!

Anyway I hope you like this entry.  I hope the Simon Says Stamp random generator likes my entry too!

Finally, I leave you with this gorgeous little poem by Emily Dickinson - enjoy...

“Hope” is the thing with feathers 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Cake Stencil and Patterned Paper hacks - a second part to the story

 Yes I am back with the next installment of guerilla crafting.

My next project that I will enter into the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge is this one.

Yoh, this one was a whole lot of fun to make.  I always forget how lovely a simple Primary colour palette on Kraft card is.  

I made the patterned paper by using distress ink in Spiced marmalade,Candied apples, Black Soot and Peacock Feathers on kraft and similar toned paper.  

I bought the cake stencils from TEMU - once again I am happily going to sing about how affordable these are. ZAR R45 is about U$D 2.50

They have a magnificent variety to choose from. And you can co-ordinate your own shape and size bundle if you want.  I am so thrilled with my guerilla crafting supplies from TEMU that I am happily affiliating with the site now to offer anyone on the struggling end of crafting supplies a chance to get stuff on discount there as well.  If you want to use my referral link - to check out the awesome generic, non-branded bake and cake stencil stuff you can find there - You can also qualify for a R2000/ U$D 110 coupon + 30% off  if you would like that with referral code/link as a new user - which is clickable right here https://temu.to/m/ulqdrhgg4l0 

Happy guerilla crafting - may your craft cart supplies be plentiful.

Cake and Patterns and Distress ink - part one

 Hello there 

The Wednesday challenge over at Simon Says Stamp is all about PATTERNED PAPER.  I would love a shot at the USD 25 to shop there, USD prices for crafty things is sooooooo painful to a South African wallet so whenever I have the time and energy to take a stab at it - I try to take it.  Plus I really enjoy finding ways to re-imagine my random stashes of things.

So I did a little guerilla crafting on the side to fit the challenge.....but I have a few tricks and crafty witchery to share.

Well I needed to use patterned paper and I was determined to have a co-ordinating scheme going, and frankly I did not have the cash to splurge on multiple pieces of the patterned paper or whole books of patterned paper so I had to make a plan - and a plan I did make.  

I got these cake stencils a while back from TEMU and I have been loving them.  I know that some people have issues with places like TEMU - I am not one of those people - I want to craft, crafting supplies are expensive and TEMU fills the gap created by the aforementioned.  I am happy.  I hope you are too, if you are not, then well I have to add a disclaimer here that I don't plan on making it my burden to carry the torch for it and I don't plan on dying on that hill too. We can part ways and opinions and I wont be offended.  You do you, I do me.  They are really well priced on TEMU and you dont have to pay the exorbitant shipping and duty charges that AMAZON charged me for the same kind of stencils.  My goal here is to guerilla craft on the cheap and introduce that to the South African market - I believe craft and creativity is something that should be accessible to all - I believe that there is purchasing power disadvantage that non-US/UK/EU citizens face and I believe in restoring the parity as my own contribution - anyhow as you can see - as of today the dollar equivalent of this stencil is U$D 3 - whereas on Amazon it was something like $5 and that was excluding shipping and tax. 

 If you are interested in checking out TEMU - you can link to it here with my referral code - ⭐️Click the link https://temu.to/m/ulqdrhgg4l0 to get 💰R2,000 coupon bundle or ⭐️ Search  acp636712 on the Temu App to get 💰30% off discount !!.  If you are a new user you will get a 30% off discount and they have a bunch of other marketing offers as well that you can cash in on.  

Back to the challenge - I made my own co-ordinating patterned paper with this stencil and and my good old trusty DISTRESS INKS/OXIDES and a bunch of other salvaged items from various stashes of scrap.  It was fun - I loved it so much I am going to do another post with the other card I made with other cake stencils.  

This totally frees you up to make whatever card you want in whatever colour you want and you can mess around with all kinds of elements you want in the same co-ordinating scheme as well.  I am seriously chanting "Let them papercraft cake" at this point.  Cake stencils are awesome - they are longer than average paper craft stencils and they come in so many lovely patterns. I love the ones that you can seamlessly repeat the pattern with. You should check it out!

Here's my affiliate code again - https://temu.to/m/ulqdrhgg4l0 to get the 30% off welcome bonus and the chance to grab the R2000 /U$D 110 coupon bundle  or you can search this code - acp636712 on the app to get a 30% off new user welcome bonus that is linked with this code.

Happy Guerilla Crafting

Irregular holes!!!

A while ago I spied with my little eye these awesome dies from Memory box - they had an ocean theme and you could layer them to make a kind  a diorama of sorts.  I thought they were super cute.  I wanted to have them but my lowest end of middle-class South African wallet didn't.  So I almost forgot about them.  

Almost - because whilst on a shoot around on a random online marketplace that trades in South Africa - I happened upon a set of generic, non-branded set of graduated irregular border-window dies. I think you were supposed to make paper mountains out of them but I immediately thought of the memory box dies and the potential funnery colonised my head and so of course I had to get them.  

So I did.

- and then I had to make something with them - 

So I did.  

I made this little koi pond diorama-dee-da card for my mom for mother's day and she absolutely loved it.    

It turned out so stinking cute - the koi fish were also non-branded dies that I got off of Wish at some point.  I used the biggest one out of that set.  My dear darling is in the process of building us kitchen cupboards for our new place and he is busy processing some raw yellowood - the bark came off of the edges of those planks.  I made the greenery by staining and crinkling up some old wax-paper chip bags then cutting out strips of pond weed looking thingies.  It was a lot of funnery indeedery.

I have so many ideas in my ol' noggin for all kinds of projects with these irregular border layering dies.