forever & always

Back again to share my card inspired by this week's Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab World: Sweets for the Sweet. Here's the trigger:

And here's what I created:






I used the colours as my main source of inspiration, and it's very faint, but I made a stamped background with a paisley/damask-style stamp using Versamark ink to imitate the pattern on the wrapping of the box.

I've fallen head-over-heels with the sewing on cards craze that everyone seems to be doing right now, but I can't sew using the machine to save my life! The secret to my success is that the edge of the top layer as well as the middle of the hearts were hand-sewn using a piercing tool, ruler and then needle and thread. Was time-consuming but therapeutic at the same time :)

The sentiment is a from the new Wedding mini clear stamp set by Kaisercraft. I love it!

Size of card: 5 1/2" x 6 7/8" (to fit in 11b envelope)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Stampin' Up Very Vanilla cardstock, Bazzill cardstock
Stamp - Wedding mini stamp set by Kaisercraft, Prima floral stamp
Ink - Versamark, Raspberry Versacolor cube
Extra - white sewing thread
Tools - Carl rotary trimmer, Helmar glue runner, foam dots, needle, piercing tool, Sullivan's heart punch

You turn cloudy days sunny

I'm here to share another Sentimental Sundays challenge - this week we have a colour combination for you:

If you don't have those exact colours just do what I did, and improvise! Here's my card:




It isn't my usual style at all is it? I think the bright cardbase is the most 'non-me' thing about it, but I wanted to illustrate the 'sunny' part of the sentiment so there it is.

I used a sheet out of Kaisercraft's Peachy Keen collection paper pad to imitate Poppy Parade, and also some of their grosgrain ribbon which looks like Handsome Hunter. I created the dotted background in Paint Shop Pro and used the colour swatch to match it to the Old Olive colour. I popped it up on some foam dots to give it some interest. The cardbase is a sheet from the Cre8tive textured cardstock pad which looks alot more like Summer Sun in real life.

I also (sort of) used the Clean and Simple Stamping FTL124 for the layout of this card.

You can see what the rest of the Sentimental Sundays team have created this week at the Sentimental Sundays challenge blog. You have until next Sunday to submit your entry if you decide to play along, and the random winner will receive four individual sets of digital sentiments from Raindrop Echo Designs Whimsy Stamps Digital Collection, and a custom watermark from the Custom Designs at Whimsy Stamps!

Size of card: C6 (A5 folded)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Cre8tive textured cardstock, Matte photo paper, Kaisercraft Peachy Keen paper pad
Stamp - Love Sentiments by Raindrop Echo Designs at Whimsy Stamps
Ink - Printer
Extra - Kaisercraft grosgrain ribbon 
Tools - Carl rotary trimmer, Helmar glue runner, foam dots, Bigshot, Labels Four, scissors  

Happy Birthday

Just a quick post tonight - I'm nursing a bit of a cold and probably should go to bed!
I've been wanting to play along with the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger for a while but haven't had the time, till now. Since I've been forced to stay home from work since Tuesday (see this article for the reason) I've had some spare time up my sleeve.

Here is the trigger image for this week:

And here's what I came up with:


The trigger image looks like someone's having a party, maybe for a birthday? So I made it a birthday card. I took inspiration from the garlands hanging from the ceiling and punched circles out of similarly coloured cardstock. I then took out my old mini sewing machine and messy stitched across the length of the card to connect them. This was my first go at stitching on a card - I envy the straight edges that others are able to achieve! I need heaps of practice... but please believe me that the stitches on this card are wiggly on purpose, I'm not really that bad at it I promise! Though I have to confess, it took me about half an hour just to thread the silly thing properly (note to self: keep the manual to the sewing machine somewhere handy and actually refer to it when threading the machine!)

Size of card: C6 (A5 folded)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Bazzill textured cardstock, Quill white cardstock
Stamp - 'Birthday' mini stamp set by Kaisercraft
Ink - Versafine 'Black Onyx'
Tools - Carl rotary trimmer, Helmar glue runner, Carl 1 1/4" round punch, sewing machine


Challenge: Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger: Bright Spot

Thanks for looking!

Christmas Card Swap!

Good morning, I hope everyone is having a wonderful day so far. I'm here to share with you an idea I had recently that I hope you will all want to be a part of!

Originally my idea was to ask you all for your addresses and send Christmas cards, but then I thought, why not make it a swap so that we can all share in the handmade card goodness?! :)

If you don't want to swap cards but still want to receive one from me please feel free to send me your snail mail address anyways!

So if you want to join in on the fun here's what to do. Email me at jess@lennonforever.net. Include your name, snail mail address and let me know if you want me to send you a card too, in which case I'll email you back with mine.

That's it, easy peasy!

Let me know if you have any questions :)

Happy Birthday

Happy Sunday everyone! This week's theme at Sentimental Sundays is Anything with Wings (+ a sentiment). Think birds, planes, butterflies... you name it!

I have a thing for dragonflies so I made this one:




Here's another view:



I was inspired by a technique by Jennifer McGuire for this one - on a sheet of acetate I combined a couple of drops of Milled Lavender distress ink with a generous blob of Platinum Liquid Pearls like what she did in this video. She's probably done this as well but I don't remember seeing it - I used a sponge applicator to sponge the resulting 'ink' (well, it's more like a paint really) onto the stamp and stamped it on watercolour paper. It has the most beautiful, subtle shimmer in real life that I just love, but it is quite hard to capture with the camera. You'll just have to trust me :)

I stamped the sentiment using 'Ash Rose' versacolor ink (an almost dead ringer for Milled Lavender!)  on a tag using the same watercolour paper and traced over the letters with my clear Spica Atyou pen for some more sparkle.

You can see what the rest of the Sentimental Sundays team have created this week at the Sentimental Sundays challenge blog. You have until next Sunday to submit your entry if you decide to play along, and the random winner will receive four individual sets of digital sentiments from Raindrop Echo Designs Whimsy Stamps Digital Collection, and a custom watermark from the Custom Designs at Whimsy Stamps!

Size of card: C6 (A5 folded)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Bazzill textured cardstock, watercolour paper
Stamp - 'Birthday Sentiments' by My Sentiments Exactly, Dragonfly from 'Garden Delight' by Inkadinkado
 Ink - 'Milled Lavender' distress ink, 'Ash Rose' Versacolor
 Extra - Platinum Liquid Pearls, Clear Spica Atyou pen, ribbon, crochet cotton
Tools - Carl rotary trimmer, scissors, Helmar glue runner, Carl tag punch, sponge

Thanks for looking! Enjoy your Sunday :)

Happy Birthday + Memento for Android

A mid-week post from me? I know I'm shocked as well! I just wanted to share the card I made for my sister-in-law to give to her daughter who is turning 1 this month.

Here's a side on view to show the wonderful dimension and sparkle:





Oh Glossy Accents - how I love thee. This effect was VERY trial and error but was salvagable in the end. And I took pictures of the process!

See at first I just had the balloons (from this set by Goodness & Fun on MyGrafico) printed on the cardfront. I showed my husband (as I always do) and he hemmed and hawwed and said it needed a little something. I seethed a little inside (as I always do when he doesn't exclaim and declare it the most beautiful! card! in the universe! immediately) but then thought a little bit of sparkle would do the trick. I used my clear atyou spica pen (which I also love) which made the balloons sparkle but looked awful and blotchy whenever looking at it from a non-sparkly angle (see image below) - I think because the 'clear' pen is really a sort of light greyish colour. Back to the drawing board.





I then thought STICKLES. Gosh I'm clever. So I squeezed a blob of Frosted Lace onto some acetate and painted away with a fine little paintbrush I have just for these types of jobs. Hmm. My husband declared it 'better'. However they just looked sharp and pointy to me, not balloon-like at all (see below and click on it to see it up closer!)





Then I had another lightbulb moment - GLOSSY ACCENTS. I usually make a hash of it so I was very careful - I applied it over the large areas first and then moved or dotted more Glossy Accents into the teeny tiny areas using my little paintbrush. I left each balloon to dry quite a bit before moving onto the next as Glossy Accents has a habit of spreading if you join two circles for instance.

So that's the wonderful journey that this card took me on. I enjoyed sharing the mistakes today, as I read other blogs that do this and always like seeing the 'before' and 'afters'.

Size of card: 11b (5 1/2 x 3 7/8)

Card: Matte photo paper, Bazzil cardstock
Ink: Printer
Stamp: Birthday Girl stamps by Goodness & Fun on MyGrafico
Tools: Pixma printer, Carl rotary trimmer, Helmar glue runner, clear Spica atyou pen, Glossy Accents, Frosted Lace Stickles, paintbrush

Oh and the second thing I wanted to talk about was Memento for Android. I recently got an android phone which uses Google's operating system for mobiles (it's a Samsung Galaxy S i9000 in case you were wondering). I'm not really big into the whole application thing - I have my mail and my internet and that's about all I need, however I discovered a fantastic database app called Memento which people normally use to catalogue their dvd collections.

I thought it would solve the problem I have with remembering which Prismacolor pencils I currently have in my collection, as I have to admit I've come home from the art shop more than once to discover one of the colours I bought is already sitting in my pencil caddy - usually still unused. So now when I go to the art shop I can bring out my phone and check the pencil I'm holding against my collection.

And tonight I made a database for my meagre collection of Copic Ciao markers. I really don't want to buy duplicates of those because they aren't cheap! At least with the Prismacolors while it might be annoying to buy duplicates, it isn't an expensive mistake - they only cost a couple of dollars each.

I buy the majority of my markers at my local craft shop so this database will come in handy there too.

Here are a few images of my device and database in action:

It's a very easy to use application and versatile too - you can catalogue just about anything you want! I've just started one for my custom card sizes to fit certain envelopes because I kept losing the little bits of paper I had lying around with the measurements on them.

Another great thing is that you can sync with Google Docs which means that you can never lose your database if something happens to your phone or memory card.

Find out all about it at the developer's website: Luckydroid

I hope I haven't bored you silly with this extra long post! I promise to do better next time!

 



If friends were flowers I'd pick you

Happy Sunday everyone! It's time for another Sentimental Sundays challenge - and this week we are being sponsored by Deedee's Digis (check them out, you won't be disappointed!)

This week's theme is Celebrate Friendship

I used the image from the following set for my card:

Here's what I came up with:





I used my beloved Prismacolor pencils to colour the flowers and the red parts of the ladybugs. I had only just bought Enamel Accents the day before - they were perfect to make the ladybugs black parts shiny! I love the dimension that the black enamel gives as well.

Here's a close up to show the dimension:



I used a toothpick coated in the enamel to dot on the ladybug spots. To make the 'grass' I used Paint Shop Pro to make a green rectangle and added the text in white using a cute font (LD Cotton Candy to be exact) and printed it. I cut the 'grass' using scissors and wound some cotton around it.

So that's it from me, but you can see what the rest of the Sentimental Sundays team have created this week at the Sentimental Sundays challenge blog. You have until next Sunday to submit your entry if you decide to play along, and the random winner will receive a $10 gift certificate to use at Deedee's Digis as well as two (2) digital stamp sets from Raindrop Echo Designs!

Size of card: 4" square
Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock, matte photo paper
Stamp - Ladybug Hugs from Deedee's Digis
Ink - printer
Extra - Prismacolor pencils (Grass green, Kelly Green, Blue Slate, Lt Cerulean Blue, Cream, Jasmine, Canary Yellow, Raw Umber, Crimson Red)
Tools - Carl rotary trimmer, Pixma printer, scissors, Helmar glue runner, Ranger Enamel Accents, Zest-it blending solvent, blending stump

Thanks for looking, have a wonderful day!