Happy Birthday Waffle Flower!!

 Hi everyone!! Its been a lovely warm day and got a lot of gardening done. We still haven't had any decent rain yet for months, so everything is looking rather parched....

 

Waffle Flower are celebrating their 7th birthday. I still remember when they started and I'm so happy they have become so popular. For their birthday they have a blog hop (which I totally recommend) and giveaways. They also have a Linky Party where you can add your own favourite Waffle Flower projects from over the years. I've just spent a couple of hours looking at all my WF cards on my blog and Instagram, reminiscing about how I made them and being grateful my colouring skills have gotten a lot better!!

I scrolled back to the beginning of my Instagram account and found that the second card I shared back on the 6th August 2015 was this:

Sorry the photo isn't perfect, I had to take a screen shot and download on to my computer as I couldn't find the original...

I still actually remember making this card! I had won the stamp set and matching dies from participating in a Waffle Flower Challenge and spent ages with my cheap pencils, trying to colour with shading etc. I still think its a cute card and I'm not too embarrassed by it (some others I looked at are awful...) and it would seem Waffle Flower has been a part of my life for a few years.

I have a few other WF cards to share with you that I still love to this day. That was when I seemed to have more time on my hands and spent hours working out die-cutting creations. 

Here's to many more years of Waffle Flower!!

Take care

Shona

 

Stencilled Christmas Card

 Hi everybody!! I'm typing this out at 8am Monday morning while listening to painters hammer in nails and sand down window frames (Phoebe is in bed, she is going to LOVE all the noise......). I have three days of gardening to go before I finish for a two week break over Christmas. And its now raining!!! I have no spare days or time to fit anyone in before Thursday if I can't work in the rain, so I'm stressing out. Please cross all your fingers and toes for me that the rain isn't very hard and I can get everyone finished!!!

 

As I've mentioned a few times I'm not very experienced when it comes to stencils but there are so many amazing ones that have been released this year, I can't help but grab them and try them out. I spotted one from Waffle Flower that created rings and thought they would make great Christmas wreaths:

I'm so terrible at not reading instructions properly and then getting in a mess but there was no way I was going to waste all my ink blending work.

Using the 'Rings Builder Stencil' on a panel of white CS, I blended Distress Inks 'Mowed Lawn' and 'Twisted Citron' to create the wreaths (I used the stencils the wrong way around and it took a lot longer than it should have...silly me....). I then trimmed the panel down so there were 5x3 rings. I needed a bow to create the 'wreath' idea and found one from a very old Waffle Flower set 'Willy and Friends'. I stamped it with Catherine Pooler 'Rockin Red' ink at the top of each wreath and coloured in with a red Altenew Marker.

The wreath panel was popped up on a piece of white foam, above a panel of red CS that showed slightly underneath, and then adhered to the card front. I didn't have a Waffle Flower word die to fit, so I used the 'Joy' from The Stamp Market. I die-cut it 3x from red CS, glued together and then to the card front. I then stamped the sentiment (from Waffle Flower 'Oversized Merry') with the same red ink and put on foam tape. To finish off I added lots of Wink of Stella to the 'Joy' die-cut.

The rain has slowed down a bit now so I might just be able to go and garden. Fingers crossed it was a flash in the pan and it won't come back again. Trying to weed in the mud is not one of my favourite jobs!!

Take care

Shona