You are so special + giveaway!

I hope everyone is enjoying a lovely and relaxing Sunday wherever they are! Here in Brisbane it's been raining for the past week but I think it's finally stopped!

I haven't been very productive in the craft room lately... so I thought I would share a card that I created for a magazine call that wasn't picked up...

I embossed the quilt pattern from the V&A Museum stamp set called 'Cornfield' with Ultra Fine embossing powder from Hero Arts on some white cardstock. I stamped one of the greetings from the Essential Messages set by Hero Arts on a strip of white cardstock in Onyx Black Versafine ink. The background panel and the sentiment strip were matted with Mi Tientes cardstock in 'Dawn Pink'.
I assembled the flower using white and pink paper flowers I found in my stash along with some sewing thread and a cardstock button cut with one of the buttons from the Buttons Quartet die set from Die-Namics using the Dawn Pink cardstock.
I think it's pretty obvious who I was influenced by when I made this card, but I thought it would make a fun giveaway question... so the first person to guess right in my comments will win a brand new jar of this fantastic stuff which I used on the above card:

I'll draw a random winner on Thursday 2nd Feb at 7pm (AEST) if nobody answers correctly before then.

Edited to add: This giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere, no matter where you are in the world ;)
Further edited to add: Embossing powder has been won - Marion was the first to comment and guessed it right in one!! - Jennifer McGuire was the correct answer ;)

Good luck and hope you have a great day!

Winter Wishes

Let me preface today's entry by saying that I know it's a little bit weird creating a card with 'Winter Wishes' for the sentiment in spring (down under), and I also acknowledge that creating a card with images of snowflakes on it when I live in a subtropical climate where we never get frost, much less snow, is odd. But I can't help myself -  I love winter and I wish we got snow here :)

I couldn't resist the Textured to Perfection challenge from Moxie Fab World so I created a card using embossed resist! And I had to add a little bling so I'm entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Presents a Bling Challenge from Lily Pad cards.



By accident I used matte photo paper that was lurking in my scrap pile for the blue panel with the snowflakes - I have found in the past that embossing powders don't stick to it as the ink seeps in and dries too quickly - a great quality in a photo paper, not so much for embossing! However, this turned out to be a good thing in this instance as the patchy embossing adds to the overall distressed/dreamy effect.

The below image shows the card base itself is embossed as well - with the 'Cornfield' stamp by Docrafts for the V&A Museum quilts exhibition.



I clear embossed the snowflakes (Winter's Butterfly - Hero Arts) with Versamark ink and Ultra Fine embossing powder from Hero Arts. Swiped Tumbled Glass distress ink using the direct to paper method and wiped off the excess.




Scattered some Kaisercraft rhinestones amongst the snowflakes and affixed the sentiment (from 'Tis the Season by Fiskars) panel using foam dots.

That's it from me, I hope you get a chance to play along with the challenge too - it's so much fun adding texture!

Have a good one!

Hello Friend

I've spent lots of time at my craft desk this weekend. I made a couple of cards, but I was mainly sorting out new stamp sets into the A5 binders I use to store them. I have so many Hero Arts stamps now that I've had to buy another binder so that I can divide them between 'Clear' and 'Cling'.

Speaking of Hero Arts, I used some on the card in today's entry which is based on the inspiration photo from Scrapbook Boutique's latest challenge:

I took in the flower and the tiny silver balls and created the following card:




The daisy-like flowers are Tattered Florals by Tim Holtz. Stamped Chateau Grey Versacolor ink with Hero Arts Dotted Pattern on one daisy.



Stamped metal brad with Chateau Grey ink and dipped in Ultra Fine embossing powder (Hero Arts). Heat set it and covered with glossy accents for a bit of shine.




Assembled the flower on Canson Mi-Tientes textured cardstock (I believe this colour is 'Stone' but I can't be sure!) which I paper pierced the top and bottom of. Stamped the sentiment (All Occasion Messages by Hero Arts) with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

Thanks for taking a look! I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday which looks to be a beautiful one!

Catch you later,

Thank you

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post with ideas on how to be more creative during the week. It makes sense to create on the weekend and then stagger the posts throughout the week. I might try that and see how it goes.

For the past couple of days I've tried to make several cards based on Clean and Simple's FTL 161 but nothing worked until I caught this post by Aimes and I instantly knew what to do...





This size of card is my favourite at the moment - the Canson Vivaldi card is cut 4" x 6" and scored at 3". The fern from the Leaf Print set by Hero Arts fits perfectly in the ATC sized panel (2.5" x 3.5"). Used Bamboo and Brown versacolor ink.



The wooden button is from Heart Supplies. It's the same kind used on this card but coloured with a copic marker (Chamois). Stamped the sentiment from the Leaf Prints set with Versafine Onyx Black ink.




That's it from me. Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you are having a wonderful and creative weekend!

Thinking of you

I'm so jealous of crafters who post more than twice a week! How do you do it?? I find myself so wiped out after work most nights that it's difficult to get the creative juices flowing. What gets you crafting after a long day at work? I'd love to know!

Having said that - I made a card this afternoon/evening after work to enter the Annabelle Stamps Say It In...Yellow, Lime & Chocolate challenge.

My yellow and choc don't quite match the colour sample, but the three papers I chose complement each other quite well which is the most important thing for a CAS card! The 'yellow' paper is from the 'Peachy Keen' collection by Kaisercraft, while the 'choc' and 'lime' papers are from the 'Hey Birdie' collection (also Kaisercraft).



The flower was created using the Tattered Florals die by Tim Holtz. I also cut up one of the flowers from the die to make the leaves (Jennifer McGuire is right - a flower doesn't look finished until you add leaves!)




The wooden button is from Heart Supplies and the sentiment is Hero Arts (All Occasion Messages).

Thanks so much for looking, and have a great day!

You make me smile

I lost my two front baby teeth at the same time when I was 6 or so. I dislodged them by accidentally banging my head against on a pine beam at the playground at school... ouch. I was only a kid, but I still remember feeling self-conscious about my smile.

The card I'm sharing today is my entry for the Operation Julie's Smile challenge from CAS-ual Fridays -

I used the saying above as the inspiration for my card:




I used Canson Vivaldi cardstock for the card bases as well as the blue layer and the cut out bird layer.



The blue layer is Tumbled Glass distress ink with a bit of Cyan Versacolor for contrast.




I coloured the birds ('Best Friends' by Inkadinkado) with Lyra Polycolor pencils and blended using Zest-it. The sentiment is from the 'All Occasion Messages' set by Hero Arts.

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you find something to smile about today. Me? I'm smiling at my cat snuggled up in his bed next to me :)

Mini card set

Happy Saturday to you! This morning we woke up to the sound of rumbling thunder which became a full-on storm by 8am and now it's pouring with rain - such crazy weather - I can't remember the last time it stormed in the morning! I was going to go do some gardening today but I definitely won't be now.

So - I thought I would finally write this entry instead! I originally created this little mini card set well before the CAS-ual Fridays deadline but I didn't take photos and post on time because I'm silly and a little bit time poor at the moment :(

I thought I'd share anyway because I would like to enter this into the Jay Gee's Nook challenge this month using the following inspiration photo:

I'm also taking a shot at Hero Arts' October contest. Can you tell which sketch I used?

These cards fit the mini envelopes I have. The cards themselves measure 4 x 6" unfolded (4 x 3" folded). I used papers from the Christmas Carnival collection (Kaisercraft) and the yellow dotted pattern is from the Lilac Avenue collection (also Kaisercraft) and coloured white ribbon with copics to make the banners.



I did the unthinkable and cut up a couple of my Hero Arts clear stamps - 'Feel Better Soon' from the 'All Occasion Messages' set and 'Enjoy Today to the Fullest' from the 'Wonderful Birthday' stamp set. It was much easier to stamp them that way and they can always be put back together.



I cut out all of the circles with my Spellbinders dies and mixed and matched the coloured ribbon with the patterns to create each individual card.


That's it from me today, I hope everyone has a wonderful, crafty Saturday!

You are so special to me

Happy Cardmaking Day for yesterday! I made this card card yesterday which was more of a happy accident than something I planned.




I printed a photo to hang on the wall yesterday using this canvas photo paper I found at my local Officeworks. It's slightly glossy and has a really lovely texture. This is the photo I printed and framed. I have a thing for roses but I can't keep them alive to save my life. Plastering them all over the walls is my compromise. :)

Later on I used the offcuts from printing the photo to create this card. I started with a Very Vanilla cardbase stamped in Vanilla Versacolor ink with the Envelope Pattern by Hero Arts.

I used the inkpad to paper technique (more Jennifer McGuire) to colour the canvas paper with Bundled Sage distress ink. I stamped the flower from Fiskars' "Petals from Scratch" set (which I think looks kind of like a coneflower) once on the green layer and then again in StazOn ink on an uninked piece of the canvas paper. I used the colours of coneflowers as my inspiration -



Picture found here- and blended Victorian Velvet and Worn Lipstick distress inks to colour the flower. I then swiped a little bit of Soft Peach shadow ink in the centre of the flower which blended by itself beautifully.




I created a banner which I then stamped with the sentiment (All Occasion Messages by Hero Arts) and popped it up on foam dots to complete the card.

Because the graduating colour effect using the blender tool is my favourite technique (at the moment!) I think it fitting that I enter this card into this week's Wee Memories challenge (to use your favourite technique)

I couldn't resist adding this one to the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge.

Have a good one!

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!

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! :)