CREAlies Create-A-Card No5 an and Nina Crafts

I wanted to show that once you have a CREAlies create-a-card die you do not need too much else to create a great card, so I made these three cards.  It is amazing how many people think that you need to use a lot of dies to create a card I prefer a clean and simple style and hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I enjoyed making them.
 

For this card, I simply used some Nina Craft stamps, Memento’s black ink, and Alcohol markers. I had a small piece of holographic acetate in my stash and decided to stamp the glass with StazOn and glue this over the top of my glass for a bit of glam. (July 2012 project club stamp set 'Classy Cocktails' and a new and free to class members stamp 'Pineapple Cocktail'.)

For this card I used some free papers and a topper from a magazine with the Robin Wishes Stamp from Nina Crafts.  I stamped the Robin on white Shrink Plastic and coloured it with Distress Markers before shrinking it and attaching it with a Glue dot. I added a green bow just to finish of the card.

 

A very simple card again using the Crealies Create-a-card No 5 die and some paper and decoupage toppers from the Me To You range by Docrafts

Crealies

A "series " of guest designer posts will be posted on the CREAlies blog every Tuesday but this beautiful creation by Norma Lee was so good it got posted the Friday before so go have a look at the rest of her creations at From My Craft Room.

 

Anneke kicked of the first official post and you and see her creation here and remember to go look at her blog as well. 

You can also view the design gallery with products used to create each project here or go check out these blogs:
 

Designteam:
Blog Crealies Designteam
Blog Anja
Blog Hennie
Blog Marianne
Blog Miriam
Blog Lean
Blog Shirley
Blog Wilma
Facebook Crealies
Facebook group Crealies
Pinterest 

Webshop: 
www.crealies.nl

Keep checking back for updates on these lovely creations.
Here's my answers to the Crealies-guest designer questions:

• Name: Mariaan Lawson
• Blog: http://bonscraft.blogspot.co.uk/
• What or Who inspires you? I get my inspiration from everything around me and have to admit that I sometime steal ideas from my son (10) and daughters who are only 3 and 4 years old and love to craft with me.  They have not had anything influence their creativity yet so they are tend to be more original and "out of the box" then I am.
• What do you like best: I love creating nice things, sharing and teaching other to be able to be the best they can be or as creative as they can be.
• How would you describe your own style?  I love femine styles and was always a very girly girl but do not let this limit my creations
• Favourite colours: Purple and Apricot but not together
• Favourite technique: stamping and colouring
• Favourite way of colouring: I love pencils but do also play with alcohol markers and marker pens.
• Favourite Crealies Product:  I love the card templates and the clever way these where designed not to be to bulky to store so go watch the Youtube video showing you what they look like and how to use them.  I also love the doily elements and hope to get some CREAlies stamps soon I can  create my own backing papers and add focus to my cards and mini books.

My CREAlies Collection

As promised here is my collection of  CREAlies dies Set of 3 Butterflies no. 3 dies,  Creative Tags die no. 2,  Doily Elements die no. 2, Doily Elements die no. 5  and the newest ones that I ordered from their webshop two days ago Crealies Create A Card die no. 5  and Crealies Create A Card die no. 4.   The Create A Card dies sells for €12.50 each and  €3.53 P&P is cheap when you consider how quickly they got here, Thank you  Annelies.

I already went to the  Downloads section as  there are links to several PDFs with placement options of the Crealies Create A Card dies on cardstock so now I can go play.  If you do not here from me for a few days you know why, I will be too busy crafting, but by next week I am sure I will have some to share with you. 

Happy crafting to you all and do not forget to go look at their blog for some inspiration:)

CREAlies

I really love the CREAlies dies and had a hard time finding these dies in the UK.  I already have 2 of their dies:  Set of 3 Butterflies no. 3 dies and  Creative Tags die no. 2 and have rececntly ordered Doily Elements die no. 2 and Doily Elements die no. 5 from Ebay but wanted to expand my collection.  

I gave up on finding in the UK and did a online search to find their webshop but was sceptical to order from the Netherlands due to the high International Shipping costs all other shops charge. Yesterday I however decided that their Crealies Create A Card will be worth what ever shipping I would have to pay so I ordered Crealies Create A Card die no. 5  and Crealies Create A Card die no. 4 and to my surprise  I only paid €3.53 P&P for the two dies.  I am so excited to get these and can not wait for the postman to knock.  One thing I have to say about CREAlies is that I am impressed with the Downloads section as  there are links to several PDFs with placement options of the Crealies Create A Card dies on cardstock so no guessing.  

I loved the Harmonica Template years ago and even have a Craft Special Book called Harmonica Folding by Annelies Karduks from CREAlies and must say I do hope that one day they will turn these into Cutting dies.  Here is just one of the first cards I made. 

 

Looking back now I can improve this in so many ways and hope that my creations will show you the real potentail of these new dies.  I think it is funny how after all these years of cardmaking it is still the same things that impress me and that I really love doing.

If you are into paperflower making you have to invest in CREAlies flower dies but do not trust me when I say this go look for youself at their Blog, Facebook page and website.  Or search Pinterest to see just a few CREAlies creations.

To be honest with you I think if you are new to cardmaking the CREAlies webshop is the only shop you will need for Dies, Stamps and Masks as you can make your own background papers using the stamps and masks, not to mention the embellishment and toppers you can make using combinations of dies and stamps together.  So whether you are looking for that special Flourish, Alphabet, Leaves, Flower, Tag, Label or Border die and lots more you can find it all at CREAlies.

You can expect a full review with photo's and a video as soon as I receive these as I am sure a lot of you are wondering just like me what the actual Create a Card die looks like.

I will also be making some Card Candy to share with you using these dies, more on this later.