Category: Crop & Create Delivered

Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Sept 2023 – Brutus Monroe

Anne S

I definitely took some liberties with the colour schemes of this class, but managed to get all the colours that I used just by using the three primary liquid watercolours that we received in the class of red, yellow and blue. We don’t really celebrate Fall/Autumn in Australia, so I tried to shy away from those colours as much as I could, and went for my favourite cool tones – such a surprise haha.

The vase is meant to be a pumpkin, but I decided I’d interpret it as a beautiful cobalt blue hand-blown glass vase. I started following Christopher’s colourscheme with the flowers, but then decided to just do my own thing.

I think this is my favourite card of the three I made in this class. The technique with watercolours and a stencil were fun, but that Rainbow Sparkle embossing powder totally stole the show – crikey that’s got some sparkle in it! I actually already own a wee tub of that one, but I hadn’t used it yet … well it’s going to get a lot more use now! I really do like the monochrome die cuts against the background images – I’ll have to remember to do that more often too!

This is the hardest thing to photograph on my iPhone, because it keeps trying to adjust the light – it’s phenomenal in real life!

I’ve always loved the look of embossed resist, and this was no exception – totally fun how we cut the panel up and changed the orientation of the centre panel for visual interest. Note to self: remember this for the future! I tried to go with a wee bit brighter colourscheme for this one.

Things I enjoyed:

  • Rainbow Sparkle embossing powder … wowzers!
  • Using monochrome stamped die cuts on a colourful background – really unusual and fun.
  • I loved playing with the liquid watercolours and making up the various colour combinations using just the three colours. It makes me more confident to try doing more of this with my other painting products.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Sept 2023 – Ranger Ink

Anne S

Such a fun class with Simon Hurley and Ranger! We got to play with Solar Paste for the first time, along with some Lunar Paste, and different techniques using them both. Oh boy that Solar Paste is exquisite on the black cardstock, although the purple is sooooo hard to photograph well on my iPhone.

I was a bit heavy-handed with the gold lunar paste mixed in with the solar paste, but I love the results with the smooshed half using the residual product on the stencil!

This photo shows the purple colour a bit truer to life … although it changes depending on the angle you view it on in the light – it’s truly beautiful!

Using a blending tool with the lunar paste through the stencil for just a light covering of the paste is a great technique and is fun to give different texture to the snowfall thicker texture.

Things I enjoyed:

  • Using dye inks to paint the critters was really fun and easy to do without too much effort – just my sort of colouring!
  • I loved the idea of smooshing the residual paste on the stencil to create a beautiful sky effect on the dark cardstock – just stunning in real life!
  • I really loved the effect of the monochrome card just using one ink pad colour in differing intensities to get the three different layers.
  • A great paced class by Simon, and easy to keep up – and I really enjoyed the tips for working with these pastes. I’ll definitely be buying more of these, that’s for sure!
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Sept 2023 – Scrapbook.com

Anne S

I’ll be honest this class with Scrapbook.com was one of the classes I was looking forward to the least because I found the paper pad etc unappealing, and as usual my expectations were far exceeded – it turned out to be a really fun class. The projects in real life are actually fun and lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

I went a bit rogue with the first class using Cloud Whip – the class used lemon and pink colours, but I stuck to my own preferred colour palette of cool tones, and I adore the finished card.

The shaker card is one of the projects I was a bit ‘ho-hum’ about because of the paper pad, but I really like the card in the end – it goes to show that you never can tell, and shouldn’t judge a book by its cover!

Another one I was ho-hum about because of that paper pad again, and infinity cards have always made me nervous … well it was much easier than expected, and was really fun to put together. I decided it was so much fun that I’d try using another Scrapbook.com paper pad I’d recently received in the mail for a Christmas version. I’ll eventually add some other embellishments to the front of the Christmas one, but it was fun to create them both at the same time for practice.

Things I enjoyed:

  • Being proven wrong about projects – both projects using the paper pad I was unsure about and they turned out to be great fun. I’m not 100% sure I’ll use every page in the paper pad, but then again isn’t that the case with most paper pads you buy?
  • I’m happy I decided to continue using the kit contents, rather than just using my own supplies – I loved being pushed outside my comfort zone yet again. Doing this helps us grow as crafters, I think.
  • I loved how easy the infinity card was to make – not sure I’ll make many more unless I can give the card in person to someone to explain how they work … but I’m so happy to have tried it and realised they’re not as intimidating as they seem!
  • Laura and Cody bantering gave me a good laugh during the class – I love their sense of humour during classes.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Sept 2023 – Taylored Expressions

Anne S

I was really looking forward to this class with Taylored Expressions, and it didn’t disappoint. I just love this set of layering stencils and it’s so fast to make the elements for three cardfronts in any colourway you choose. The first set of cards are close to the colours chosen by Taylor in the class, then I decided to do a few more variations of my own choosing in different colourways. I must’ve had fun, because I ended up with three more versions!

Things I enjoyed:

  • How quick it is to create some cute elements for birthday cards or other celebrations where cakes could be present.
  • I love the fact the elements fit well on the front of a US A2 cardfront.
  • I always enjoy Taylor’s classes, they’re at a good pace for me and I find I can mostly keep up.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Sept 2023 – LDRS Creative

Anne S

What a sweet stamp, stencil and die set from LDRS Creative. Such lovely mages and sentiments for uplifting cards. I couldn’t fit the life of me get my stamped trailing vine to line up with the die even with following the tips – but I still really like these.

Things I enjoyed:

  • Using different colours of ink in some sections of the hummingbird to add dimension.
  • Very simple colouring needed with the stencils to give a nice result.
  • A great pace in the class so it was easy to follow along.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Sept 2023 – Crafters Companion

Anne S

The Crop & Create event kicked off with a beauty of a class taught by Sara Davies with Crafters Companion. We received wee pots of gilding flakes in silver, gold and copper and this was a first for me to use this sort of product. Definitely a learning curve, but I’ll definitely try more of this in the future.

I especially loved the first card with the butterfly on the marbled paper – this combined stamping on acetate and adding gilding flakes to the back of the acetate. The pink marbled paper came in our kit, but I’m not a pink fan so I straighaway had to try again using some aqua/teal marbled paper from my stash … I really love the results!

In the below photo the top two cards (heart and butterfly) used kit supplies – I enjoyed using the stencil and glue to create the hearts, but not quite as keen using glue to stamp with for the butterfly – that technique definitely needs more practice on my part! I decided to just do one ‘extra’ card using my own stash as I didn’t have enough gold left over to do more samples – so I combined the two techniques in the one card for the bee card.

For the bee card I used a honeycomb stencil by Brutus Monroe, and the Beautiful Bees stamp set by Gina K Designs. I added the few gold flakes I had left randomly over the honeycomb stencil then added copper flakes to fill in the spaces. I love how it looks on the darker background! I would’ve loved to do a Christmas scene with gold and red, but I guess I need to go shopping for more gold gilding flakes first 😉

Things I enjoyed:

  • I loved learning new-to-me techniques and the opportunity to try products I’d never seen before.
  • I really love how richly textured the gilding is on the cards, and love how easy it was to apply the flakes to adhesive tape to act as a mock layer.
  • I actually really enjoyed the pace of this class – normally Sara is like the Eveready bunny and there’s no way I can keep up without pausing the video, but in this one she took it as a more leisurely pace and seemed to pack so much more into the two hours than I’d expected, especially when taking it slowly. I loved everything about this class from beginning to end.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Mar 2023 – Pink & Main

Anne S

Michelle Currie did Pink & Main proud with this class – the products are so much fun, and really quick to put together.

Things I enjoyed:

  • I really adore the stand-up envelope card dies – I can imagine so many things that can be placed inside for different celebrations – it’s a real winner in my books!
  • I loved being taken outside of my comfort zone with the colour schemes – the bring pink papers etc in the pink card particularly scared me a bit, but they come together really well. Being a blue girl at heart, the blue and yellow card stoke my heart in these class samples though.
  • I love the background stencil that we received as part of the kit – I think it’s great that it fits just nicely in the centre of the cardfront to give a clean border all around without having to mask anything off – and there’s a great choice of stencil backgrounds.
  • I actually every die in this class set – they’re so versatile for so many uses! And I loved the fact that Michelle taught us to use alcohol markers to create background papers for the flowers and stars – it actually gives a really great texture almost like watercolours, and something I’ll definitely do again!
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Mar 2023 – The Stamps of Life

Anne S

If I’m brutally honest these have been my least favourite classes so far in the event – the teaching style just didn’t suit me and I really struggled to follow along – it actually put me off so much I actually put the event contents aside for a while as I totally lost my mojo after that – not helped at all by the fact I was still recovering from Covid at the time and I was finding it hard to follow … each time I looked up to watch, the camera angle had moved away from the card, so I got frustrated with it bouncing around between three different camera angles. When I did eventually make these cards recently I just followed the written instructions instead, and found my groove again that way. The products themselves are of a high quality, it’s just the style of teaching that didn’t suit how I learn, that’s all.

Things I enjoyed:

  • I’m not a ‘cutesy’ die cut person, so I’m really grateful the paper pad is double-sided and as a varied choice of papers suitable for birthdays. I’m also grateful that there are stamps that match the die cut paper images used for the card samples, so that we can colour them ourselves too.
  • I like the large cupcake die that can be used as an entire shaped cardfront – I can see myself using that one in the future for some card challenges.
  • I do love the sprinkles enamel dots that came in the kit, they were terrific, and I can see myself using those up quickly.
  • I really love the addition of the stencil to add stripes onto the two cat stamped images if we want to. It would’ve been even more awesome to have had the stencils cater for the bodies of the cats too, but that’s just me being greedy haha.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Mar 2023 – Taylored Expressions

Anne S

Taylor VanBruggen gave us another belter of a class – and the stamp and stencil combo set is going to get used a lot for future cards. I’d intended making alternative colourways at the same time but ran out of steam. I really need to remedy that soon! I forgot to add gold heat embossing on the edges of the circle die but it was too late to fix it when I realised my mistake – oops.

Things I enjoyed:

  • I really loved seeing the same colours being used on two different coloured cardstocks and the very different looks that are the result. I can’t wait to try different versions of this, including the one that Jennifer McGuire created in her ‘mash-up’ session!
  • I love the versatility of this stamp set – and it was responsible for me putting in a big order to Taylored Expressions to buy a few more of their different sets.
  • I was happy to be reminded how much I love using strip panels on cards, and how pretty this clean and simple style can be – I really love these projects.
Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Mar 2023 – Scrapbook.com

Anne S

Another one of those ‘meh’ sets where I was proven wrong – I think because all the projects were created with a predominance of pink and it’s my least favourite colour. I managed to come up with my own version in an aqua option, though, to help offset the pink and I was much happier haha. All-in-all it was another fun class with Laura Graff.

Things I enjoyed:

  • I really love the wee strawberry die cuts and I can see me using those on future cards.
  • I like the paper pad that we got as part of the kit – there are some really lovely papers in there such as the lovely gingham prints.
  • I enjoyed using printed papers for some of the leaves in the first card we created – that’s a technique I’d never considered before, so that was good to try.