Just a note

Happy Thursday! I don't know about anyone else, but I really can't wait 'til Friday this week! Is it just me or did this week crawl by? Hmm, maybe it was just me :)

I'm here to share a card that's been sitting in my head ever since I saw this Moxie Fab World Trigger image:

I love that cute fabric envelope! It's so dainty and sweet! I just had to recreate it for the challenge, so here goes:






For the background I used a plaid pattern out of the 'Isn't it Romantic' 6x6 paper pad by Inque Boutique. I really wish I had a plaid stamp so that I could have made the card more monochromatic (like the inspiration image) but then I couldn't have also entered this card into the Wee Memories challenge for this week - to use patterned paper. Just for extra fun I'll enter this into the Simon Says Stamp challenge for this week which is Anything Goes!

 The rolled rose was made out of a circle cut from the same paper as the background (using a technique demonstrated by the awesome Jennifer McGuire in her Inspiration Showcase!). I glued it down with glossy accents and popped a little half pearl in the centre of the rose.




I distressed the edges of the white stitched layer to make it look a little worn and uneven - like fabric! I stamped the sentiment with Versafine Black Onyx ink using a sentiment from Kaisercraft's mini stamp set called 'Thinking of you'.
Thanks for taking a peek! I'm sure I'll be back on the weekend (yay, can't wait!)

Thanks

Happy Friday to you! I haven't been near my craft desk all week, so it was great to just sit down and play the time away, a luxury I don't normally get on a weeknight because usually it's a case of having dinner, then a shower, then going to bed!

So anyway, on with the card as that's why you're really here, right? :)

This week's Wee Memories challenge is to NOT use patterned paper. I'm kind of patterned-papered-out after the last card I made, so this was great timing!




I've been taking Jennifer McGuire's Technique Showcase, an online card class - which is full of so many techniques that I'm going to try out in the weeks to come. The flower on this card wasn't made using of the techniques from the class, but I felt inspired by the class to experiment and see what happened!



For the flower ("Flowers" cling set by Hero Arts) I used watercolour cardstock with Turquoise Versacolor (pigment ink). After cleaning the ink off the stamp with a baby wipe I used the ink as a colour wash by swiping the baby wipe across the stamped image.

The background was created by painting the teeny tiny flower stamp from the 'Just wanted to say" set by Hero Arts with some "Heavenly" Twinkling H20s and stamping it randomly around a piece of watercolour cardstock.




I painted the flowers with "Heavenly" Twinkling H2Os and glued the flower together using glue dots. The sentiment is from the "Just wanted to say" set by Hero Arts.

Here's one more picture to show the shimmer:



Well that's it from me, I'm beat! I hope everyone has a lovely and relaxing weekend - I know I will be!

Your Kindness is Truly Appreciated

I'm happy to report that the garden is looking better since I gave it a bit of attention this weekend, but I'm aching all over right now because of it :( And boy was it hot! If this is a preview of Summer I don't want it!

I did have a chance to make another card this weekend. I have to admit I spent alot of time on this (I think I got up and walked away about five times). I decided to play along with the sketch challenge at Lily Pad Cards and combine it with with the Easy Craft Projects challenge - to use 6 patterned papers on a project.

Here's the sketch from Lily Pad Cards:

Inspired by the sketch, I used four strips of patterned paper from the Secret Bird Society collection 6x6 paper pad by Kaisercraft (my favourite set, but I've rarely used it!) cut a circle with a Spellbinder's die (5), and the bird and leaves are cut out of one of the papers, so that makes 6 patterned papers on one card! Phew :) Choosing the papers and arranging the strips was the hardest part of creating this card. I went with the most complimentary patterns that aren't overly busy.


I stamped the sentiment from the biggest sentiments set I own - Truly Appreciated by Hero Arts.





I popped the little birdy up with foam dots to make him jump off the page a little, and the leaves wanted to curl up a bit by themselves which is always a nice look.

So are multiple patterned papers your thing? If you are like me and you think two patterned papers on a card is plenty, perhaps you should take up the challenge by Easy Craft Projects as well, you never know where it will take you!

Thanks for taking a look, and have a great day!

Hello + Work in Progress!

A simple one-layer mini card to make it just under the wire for this week's Wee Memories challenge to make a one layer card. Susan from Simplicity wants us to colour our one-layer cards, and I'm also playing along with CAS-ual Friday's challenge this week to create a mini card.



I'm all about the mini cards these days and I love one-layer cards, so these two challenges were made to be combined in my opinion! Here is what I came up with:





I printed the flower from Mujka Chic's Contemporary Design Elements from myGrafico on thick lightly textured cardstock (I can't remember the brand) that measured 4" x 6". I eyeballed it to come up with the correct placement of the flower on the cardstock and ran it through my printer.



 I stamped the sentiment from Simple Messages by Hero Arts in Versafine Black Onyx ink before doing any colouring just in case I had a mishap (it happens rather often unfortunately...)

I then coloured the flower using a combination of Prismacolor pencils (Lilac, Lavender, Salmon Pink, Parma Violet, Canary Yellow, Spanish Orange and Burnt Ochre) as well as Light Orange to accent the polleny bits in the center of the flower. For blending I used a stump sponged with Zest-it blending medium. I took pictures as I went (fun!) and put them together in a collage:

Click on the picture above to see it a bit closer!

Thanks for looking, and I hope you've found some inspiration in this week's challenges! I might go and brave the heat outside and tidy up the garden a little bit.

Enjoy your day!

love u

My husband doesn't like using emoticons, or text-speak such as 'c u l8r'. He writes his SMSs [texts] with perfect spelling, grammar and punctuation, whereas he's lucky to get one from me with a capital letter in sight. He's a punctuation- and grammar-phile, so the cards I make with the stamps in the Notched Tag Die and Stamp set by My Favorite things will drive him absolutely crazy [I mean crazy in a good way of course :)] Not a capital in sight and lots of text-speak. he he he.




I created a pattern down on one side of my ATC-sized card using the dotted background stamp in the set (these stamps are so cute and little, perfect for little mini cards as well as tags!) in Versacolor Raspberry ink and laid a white ribbon around the card and tied it into a bow.

I stamped the sentiment and then die-cut two little hearts from the coordinating set of dies. I sponged them with Versacolor Raspberry and fixed them to the card. I adhered the panel to a card (front panel measures 4 x 3") and that was it!

Thanks for looking, and I hope you have a great day!

One of a Kind

Happy Wednesday to you! I'm so glad that the week is half over - I can't wait for the weekend!

I was quite productive and crafty over my holiday - most of the cards I will be sharing within the next little while will be those I created during that time. Here's one I created just for fun - no challenges or occasion in mind.




I started out with a piece of cardstock from a watercolour pad cut at 2.5 x 3.5 inches that I was going to use to make an ATC (Artist Trading Card). I stamped a background using the leaves from Inkadinkado's 'Leaves' set in Vanilla Versacolor ink.
I think it sat on my craft desk like that for about 2 weeks. Last week while at my craft desk working on something else inspiration hit and I finally knew what to do with it (as you can tell from the photo above I abandoned the ATC idea). I stamped the leaves again a piece of watercolour card (same kind as the ATC) using Pinecone, Umber and Sand Beige Versacolor ink and I cut out them out using my new Cutterbee scissors (great tool I should add). I arranged them how I wanted them to appear on the card and taped them together on the back. I wrapped a piece of twine a few times around the stems of the leaves and taped the ends to the back of the ATC layer. I popped the arrangement of leaves up with foam dots to give the card some dimension and then stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts' 'All Occasion Messages' set in Pinecone Versacolor ink.




The last thing I did was adhere the ATC to the card which measures 4 x 6 inches (scored on the longest side at 3 inches). It's my new favourite size card - it's easy for me to remember when cutting up cardstock, it fits the ATC with a nice mat and I have envelopes that it fits into perfectly - win, win, win!

I used Canson cardstock for the card base, and watercolour card from a pad for the ATC and leaves. I think the different card types add alot of interest and texture and once I got going it was such a fun and easy card to make that I made another one using another abandoned ATC which I will post tomorrow!

Hi There

I was in two minds as to whether or not I should share the following card on my blog. On the one hand, I want to share it because I like it and I think it's cute. On the other hand it shows how silly my husband and I are about our cats which I think some people might find a bit odd. Obviously the first hand won out, otherwise you would be reading about another (less weird) card right now.

Backstory: My husband (Mark) and I don't have kids (and won't be having any in the future either) so we give all of our love and attention and absolutely dote on our cats (okay, maybe me more so than Mark). For years now, as a joke, we have gotten each other Mother's and Father's Day gifts 'from the cats', usually accompanied by a funny email or note that the cats made us write, etc. (Do you see where I'm going with this yet?)

So the Sunday before last was Father's Day and the cats commissioned this card:




I printed the kitty from the 'Be Mine' digi by Softpencil (retired) twice onto Canson cardstock and I coloured them in with a warm grey Copic marker. If you've seen the photos I've posted of Abby before you will note that I left a diamond shape white on the right hand kitty's forehead as well as her paws to represent her markings. Toby (on the left) is completely grey so he didn't get any white spots, though he does have a few white hairs growing here and there these days - a kitty version of going grey I suppose.



I attached a strip of Bazzil cardstock to the front of the card (Canson) and used foam dots to pop the cats on top of the strip to make it look like they're peeking over a wall. I then stamped the sentiment from Sophie's Sentiments by Lawn Fawn in Versafine Black Onyx ink.

Thanks so much for looking, and for reading the little story behind the card. I'll be back tomorrow with another one!

Just Because

First day back at work today, and boy was it hard to go back! And the work never stops so I have some catching up to do. ::sigh::

On a more positive note, I have a card I created for the Scrapbook Boutique's monthly challenge for September. The inspiration photo is below:

The challenge is to use berry, pink, aqua and a touch of pearl to a project. Here's what I came up with:




I used 3 different mediums for the bloom in the center - paper flowers from Kaisercraft, designer paper from Kaisercraft (Be Mine collection) and Bazzil cardstock (both of which were cut using the Tattered Florals die from Tim Holtz. I coloured a white pearl brad with a light pink copic marker and folded the prongs of the brad to hold the flower together.





I created a 6 x 4 top folding card using Canson cardstock in white. I then went through my extensive ribbon collection, hummed and hawed, then finally decided on some aqua grosgrain that I had received as a bonus gift with a purchase. As it wasn't quite working as it was, I took some twill and stamped a stitch stamp from a set by Papercraft (which I never ever use but is the first stamp set I bought, go figure) in Turquoise Versacolor ink. I glued the twill strip to the middle of the aqua grosgrain ribbon and adhered to the front of the card.

I attached the flower to the center of the twill ribbon using glue dots and finished the card by stamping the '... just because' sentiment from the All Year Greetings set by Fiskars in Versafine Black Onyx.

Thanks so much for taking a look!

Just wanted to say...

Hello again! Luckily today is a much nicer (read: less windy) day so I might be able to go out and potter in the garden later! It's the last day of our holidays today which is a pity, but I suppose we have to go back so that we can get paid which means more stamps and supplies, right? :)

I created the following card based on three, yes that's right, three challenges!



Hero Arts' September Challenge - Create a window cardAnnabelle Stamps Birthday Celebration Challenge 2 to use a flower/bloom on a project
 Jay Gee's Nook's Challenge 11 using the below photo inspiration

Without further ado, here is the card I created:





I used lots of Hero Arts for this card. I used the flowery coasters in the middle of Jay Gee's inspiration photo as my inspiration when selecting stamps and chose the second largest flower of the 'Flowers' cling set from Hero Arts. I coloured it using a Marvy marker in Yellow and stamped it inside the window I created using my Spellbinders circle die in the Bigshot. I stamped the 'just wanted to say...' part of the sentiment from the 'Just Wanted' set from Hero Arts, and the 'Thanks very much' part is from 'Simple Messages' (also Hero Arts!) in Versafine Black Onyx ink.
I then tied a knot in yellow Kaisercraft ribbon to go above the sentiment and used a small glue dot to affix a white button to the center of the flower.

Thanks for looking. I'm going to go downstairs and make sure there hasn't been any casualties in the garden from the wind yesterday. Wish me luck! :)

Birthday Medley

Good afternoon and Happy Saturday! It's a VERY windy day here in Brisbane so I haven't ventured outside at all except to collect debris from around the yard and pick up overturned pots. It's awful, but at least it's making the washing dry really fast! Being inside though has meant I am 'forced' to craft up in my newly organised craft room (hehe) so here is a card I created for the "Simply Sentiments" challenge from Wee Memories.





The challenge is to make the sentiment the focal point so I used Birthday Medley, one of my digital sentiments available at Squigglefly and printed it onto Bazzil aqua cardstock. I then ran it through my Bigshot with the Jumbo Scallops die from Die-namics. I masked off the sentiment portion as well as the scallops with a couple of post-its and stamped the Hero Arts Dotted Background cling stamp in Versamark ink over the cardstock. I then chose some pale green Bazzil cardstock to complement the aqua (who says blue and green should never be seen??) and cut off  a couple of strips which I used to disguise the depression above the scallops left by the dienamics die (I think because my sandwich was a bit too tight - should have made a test cut first!)

I then created a top folding 6 x 4 inch card in the same pale green as the strips used on the aqua panel and then glued the aqua panel down to the front of the card.

Before I go, I thought I would share this photo I just took of Abby - she has a plethora of soft places around the house and in this room where she can lie in the sun (including the carpeted floor!) but she chooses to sit on the most uncomfortable thing she can find. I guess I should be flattered though because the set of drawers she is lying on is the closest thing to me :)



Well that's it from me today, but I'll be back tomorrow with another card I created whilst waiting for the wind to die down :)

Enjoy your day!

Feel better soon!

I haven't been making many cards lately because my craft room is still getting organised which has been eating into my spare crafty time. I'm on holidays for this whole week so I'm going to make sure that I fit in lots of organising as well as crafting, yay!

So on with the card. I made this one for my niece who recently had an ear infection which led to some unpleasantness with her eardrum. Not fun! She lives in North Queensland so I made this card to send up to her:






First I masked the bottom strip of the card with a post-it and stamped all over it with the bird flourish from the Flourishes set by Inkadinkado in Versafine Black Onyx ink. I took the post-it off and drew two lines using a black fine-tip marker and stamped the sentiment from Fiskars' All Year Greetings set in Versafine Black Onyx again.

I coloured the birds using my new Lyra Polycolor pencils. I recently bought a 24 set of these off ebay to try out after reading Dorcas' Prismas vs Lyras post, and I have to say, I love my Prismacolors but Lyras offer something different - absolutely effortless blending! I laid down a couple of different yellows just on the bottom bits (for want of a better word) of each bird and used a blending stump dipped in my Zest-it sponge to smooth out the colour and you can see the results for yourself - I don't think I reapplied the Zest-it to my stump once, which was nice. On top of the blendability, as these pencils are oil-based they don't put a translucent sheen of wax on the lines of the stamped image like Prismacolors do. The waxy sheen is the thing I like about my Prismas least, but as I have invested so much money in them and they are more readily available to me I'll still be using them for a while yet. To counteract the waxiness usually I go around the lines with a black pencil. I was pleased to be able to miss that step this time around!

I also added some 10% grey as shading around the bases of the birds and some of the tendrils (Prismas this time - the grey in my Lyra set was far too dark) to give the card some dimension since it was a completely flat one-layer card (for posting).

So that's it from me - time to get on with some more organising (It's getting there, phew) and thanks for looking :)