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 :)

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!

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 :)

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 :)

Butterfly Wishes + digital sentiment

Here's another digital sentiment I've made, which is yours free for the taking (you don't even have to credit me, but you can if you want to.)


(right click on the image above and choose 'save target as...')

Sentiment info:
File type: PNG (can be dropped into MS Word, background is transparent)
File size: 179kb
Full dimensions: 29cm x 12cm
Fonts used: Tangerine, Gentium Basic

And here's the card I made to go with this sentiment:



As often seems to be the case, I couldn't get a good shot of where I dotted clear spica pen on the butterflies. You'll have to just trust me on that :)

Size of card: 4" x 5 1/2" (it's a weird size as I accidentally cut too much of the white layer after I printed it, oops!)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock, Cre8tive textured cardstock
Stamps - "Flourishes" by Inkadinkado, Digital sentiment created by me (see above!)
Ink - Printer, Versafine "Black Onyx"
Extra - "Dahlia" and "Lilac" prismacolor pencils, Cool shadow Copic Ciao marker
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Canon Pixma printer, Clear Spica pen, Papercraft double-sided tape, Papercraft foam dots, Carl corner rounder, Sullivan's 1" square punch

Thank You

I got stuck into making 'Thank You' cards this weekend because I have none! I seem to be making birthday cards more than anything these days so it's good to do something a little bit different.

This is for the Helping Hudson Challenge No. 3: Technique. I urge you to visit the blog and try your hand at the challenges - it's all for a very good cause.

The technique is 'rock and roll' - inking up the stamp all over in a light colour and then rolling around the edges with a darker colour. I love the combination of Versacolor "Misty Mauve" and "Ash Rose" which I used for this card so I decided to use it again here:



I didn't 'roll' so much as 'dob' (my new favourite word) on the darker ink ("Ash Rose") and I only did it on the wings. Some more than others, as you can probably tell. It did the job though!

I also cracked out my brand new Mask It Film Sheets from Make it Crafty (Aussie online store) to mask off the bottom and the top, instead of using post-its. The beauty of using this material (well actually there are a couple of beauties) is that it can be cleaned after use, which is exactly what I want - I hate waste! Another beauty is that the ink will never saturate through because it's plastic. A while ago I was experimenting with different masking materials and used tissue paper - um never do that - just a little tip from me to you.

The only thing I think that could be a bad thing when using the film to mask in this way is that the plastic combined with wet ink can make for a bit of a slippery surface. Just be mindful of this and exercise caution when stamping mostly on the masked parts. Luckily the one-layer gods were looking down on me when I was making this card and I didn't fudge any of it. Hallelujah!

Size of card: 4" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock
Stamps - Stampendous "Flower Chat" [sentiment], Inkadinkado "Garden Flowers" [dragonfly]
Ink - Versacolor "Misty Mauve and "Ash Rose", Versafine "Black Onyx"
Extra - Kaisercraft ribbon
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Snow sanding block, Stampin' Up mini glue dot, Mask It Film

Challenge: Helping Hudson Challenge No.3

Thanks for looking!

Birthday Wishes

The card in this post was originally intended to be a one-layer number that I spent half of "Sleepy Hollow" and some of "Braveheart" colouring in (yeah yeah, I'm slow).

True to my word in this post I masked the design, then stamped the sentiment, and THEN coloured, but alas I stamped the sentiment kind of crooked. I was all set for chucking it on the scrap pile but I stopped and thought it wasn't often that I got the masking pretty much spot on (trust me, I've wasted enough cardstock within the past week to know to take the good when I can get it!)

So I saved it from the darkness of my scrap drawer and came up with the following:



I tried the reverse 'label' trick I saw on the Hero Arts flickr pool (I really should jot down usernames or something when I do this so that I can give proper credit!) actually I think I left a comment... here it is: butterfly thank you by Lucy Abram.

It took simply ages to find the right sentiment - everything was either too long or too short, too skinny or too tall. In the end I decided to put a small one in the corner and balance it out with ribbon, and when that didn't 'complete' the card I whacked on some rhinestones.

I'm still not completely sure about it - it's not really my usual style... would anyone out there care to give me some feedback?

Size of card: 4" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock, Cre8tive textured cardstock
Stamp - Inkadinkado "Garden Flower" sentiment, Inkadinkado "Flourishes"
Ink - Versafine "Onyx Black"
Extra - Ribbon, Kaisercraft "Antique Rose", Prismacolor pencils "Pink", "Pink Rose", "Grass Green" and "Apple Green"
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Helmar tape runner, Big Shot, Nestabilities Labels 1

Thanks for looking!

Happy Birthday to You!

I've been making lots and lots of birthday cards lately for people - I suppose it makes sense, everyone has one, right? :) The following card is one I have made for a little girl, turning four, who likes trains. I hope she also likes pink and cupcakes!



I used a stamp by Inkadinkado for the clouds of smoke coming out of the engine by selectively inking one circle at a time. It was fiddly, and I wasn't sure whether it was going to turn out, so I did it on a piece of the same cardstock as the base layer of the card, just in case I screwed it up! I then layered with it giving it the 'white on white' look that just makes me so happy ;)

I liked the look of the scallops without a sentiment cluttering everything up, so I stamped one on the inside:



Size of card: 4" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock, Polka Dots are from: Inque Boutique "Isn't it Romantic" 6x6 paper pad, Cupcakes are from: Studio B "Party Girl" paper pad
Stamp - My Sentiments Exactly "Birthday Sentiments", Cupcake Cuties "Boy Toy Elements" digital stamp, Inkadinkado "Circles and Dots"
Ink - Printer, Versacolor "Cement"
Extra - Foam tape
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Cre8tive spring scissors, Fiskars scallop border punch, Sanding block, Zig 2-way glue, Helmar tape runner

Thanks for looking!

Happy Birthday

Today's card is my entry into Simplicity's One Layer Wednesday challenge for this week. The challenge is always to use one layer of cardstock folded in half but this week the stipulation was to mask a background. I decided to try sponging for this since I've never done it before and I always like to try things once!

Here's my card:



The butterfly stamp is from an Inkadinkado set I bought recently. There's some cute little birdie stamps in the set too which I need to try and use sometime soon.

I also took a few photos and made up a short tutorial of how I made the masking for this card in the hopes that my trial and error can save others some hassles!

More Masking - Tutorial
Choose a piece of card stock that can be cut to fit the width of your selected cardfront. Begin by punching two squares/shapes next to each other at a respectable distance. I made mine 3/16" apart.

I wanted to make a 4" square card so I cut the width of the masking template to 4" across after using my centering ruler (where would I be without it?!) to work out the exact middle between the two squares.
The farthest this punch can punch into is 1/2" so I cut the length to 3 3/8" which meant I didn't have to worry about lining up the top sides of the squares, just the sides.

I then drew lines going down the left sides of both punched squares to the bottom of the template to indicate where the left edges of the punch should sit when punching my remaining two squares.

All of this measuring allowed me to just slide the punch straight up as far as it would go into the paper and use the pencil line guides to make the squares evenly spaced. Here's the finished mask:


(click on the image to see it closer)

Then it was simply a matter of applying some removable adhesive and choosing a colour to sponge on! Here's the sponging finished:


(click on the image to see it closer)

I lined up the masking template with the sides but eyeballed the top and bottom (I wanted it up slightly higher than the middle to make room for the sentiment).

To mask the stamp I wanted to use within the sponged squares I used the sponging template to trace around each square on a post-it to guide where to punch. I used a little bit of extra removable adhesive to make sure that it didn't move around at all when using it as a mask, and then stamped the design.

I added the sentiment and that was it! I hope this tutorial is helpful to someone out there. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Size of card: 4" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock (+ a scrap piece for the mask template), post-it
Stamp - Inkadinkado "Flourishes", Hero Arts "Classic Messages"
Ink - Versacolor "Petal Pink", Versafine "Onyx Black"
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Sullivans 1" square punch, UHU poster tack, makeup sponge

Challenge: OLW8

Hello

I don't normally post that often during the week, but I think being sick on Tuesday helped - I got to sit in my craft room and create for longer than usual!

I made the card in this post on Tuesday but haven't been able to photograph it until now (my desk/photographing area was a bit of a mess).

It follows this week's Clean and Simple Stamping Fall-to Layout:



And here's my card:


(click on the image to see a closer view)

I tried something I've never done before on this card - stamping on ribbon. I'm not sure how well it turned out but you can still see it quite well over 24 hours later, so I'd say it won't bleed too much more (it was alot more crisp-looking right after I stamped it). I had a few issues with the brads sitting properly as well - hence why it looks a bit bumpy at the bottom (it looks less bumpy in person though - not sure what happened there!)

Size of card: A5 folded in half

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock, Grant Archival plain paper, Cre8tive patterned paper
Stamp - Inkadinkado "Chelsea Sentiments"
Ink - Versacolor "Atlantic"
Extras - gold brads, Kaisercraft ribbon from "Earth Tones" pack
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Renoir tape runner

Challenge: FTL93

Thanks for looking!

Congratulations with prams

I made two cards for the One Layer Wednesday challenge at Simplicity this week. This one and then this one:


(click on the image to see it closer up)

I made my husband pick out his favourite of the two because I couldn't decide. I think I like this one better, but I hate the way the black sentiment looks so stark against the pastels of the prams. If I wasn't going to overlap the sentiment I would have it in a similarly muted shade.

To get it centered I used my centering ruler to work out the middle of the card, drew a little mark for it, and then drew a line horizontally where I wanted the pram's wheels to rest. I then made sure that my pink pram was stamped according to the vertical centre (as well as the horizontal line I had drawn) and stamped the other two prams on either side.

Size of card: 3.5" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock
Stamps - Cre8tive, Inkadinkado sentiment
Ink - Versacolor "Baby Blue", "Petal Pink" and "Sage"
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer

Whilst on an overlapping tangent I also made this card:


(click on the image to see it closer up)

The above card uses a stamp I made myself using an eraser, my fiskars shape cutter and a utility blade. There are squillions of tutorials for this sort of thing on the web. Here's one I found helpful.

Size of card: 3.5" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock
Stamps - Cre8tive, circle by me, Inkadinkado sentiment
Ink - Versacolor "Atlantic" and "Baby Blue"
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer

Birthday Wishes

The card in today's post took me hours, as I had a specific card in mind (that followed this week's Card Positioning Systems sketch) but as is often the case, it took a different turn. Consequently I have about 10 other cutout flowers that I didn't end up using but should be able to use for something else.

This is how I spend my Saturdays people! Cutting out teeny tiny things that I don't end up using!

Here's the sketch:



And without further ado, here's my card:


(Click on image to see it closer up)

I sponged the pink layer with white versacolor ink, then distressed it slightly using my scissors. I adhered the ribbon to the back, letting just a narrow strip of it show, and then glued on the flowers. I cut off the leaves of the top layer flowers and popped them up using foam tape.

The sentiment is actually two stamps from different companies - I like the mix of fonts, it keeps a sentiment interesting, and since they're separate words it's easier to ink up in different colours!

Size of card: 4" x 6" (top folding)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock, Canson textured paper
Stamps - lil ellaboudy "Hand Drawn Floral Stamps", Kaisercraft "Birthday" and Inkadinkado "wishes" sentiments
Ink - Versacolor "Ash Rose" and "White", Versafine "Onyx Black"
Extras - Bic Mark-it in "Margarita Green", ribbon in "Dusty Pink"
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Cre8tive spring scissors, foam tape, Renoir tape runner

Challenge: CPS#168

Thanks so much for looking!

Sweet Friend

This card will show that I caved and bought some Copic Ciao markers. They were a really decent price from a seller on Oztion (Berrimas Garden) and the original intention was to buy some that I could blend with my existing markers, but now I think I'll buy more Copics because they are just so good! They flow SO much better than the others I have used and the ability to choose a light and a dark colour to blend with is fantastic.

That being said, I didn't blend with the Copics I used in today's card made to follow My Grafico's sketch challenge for this week. To make them look shaded - they aren't perfect, I need alot more practice! - I went over the areas I wanted to be darker twice, as opposed to the areas I wanted to stay lighter which I went over once.

Here's the sketch:



And here's my take:



I've been looking out to use these candy digital stamps from My Grafico since I downloaded them AGES ago. (Download them for free here!). They were designed by the very talented Mujka Chic. After a few false starts the above card was born.

I coloured the sweets using my new Copics and oriented them in roughly the same direction as the sweets in the background. I then trimmed off the excess to finish off the top layer.

The sentiment (sweet friend - get it?) was stamped in Versacolor ink which is a bit pale, but I didn't want anything white or bright, just purple (my favourite colour by the way!)

Size of card: 4" x 6" (top folding)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Cre8tive textured cardstock, Grant Archival plain paper
Stamps - Digital Candy Freebie by Mujka Chic from My Grafico, Inkadinkado "Chelsea Sentiments"
Ink - Printer, Versacolor "Misty Mauve", Copic Ciao markers in Amethyst (V17) and Pale Lilac (V12)
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Cre8tive spring scissors, Renoir glue runner

Challenge: My Grafico #49

Thanks for looking!

More Congratulations

Another congratulations card! I realised the other day that I have absolutely none in my little stockpile and I imagine will need some in the future, so here we are.

This card follows the below sketch from Clean and Simple:





I actually made this card last night sans raffia. I left it on my desk and when I came in tonight to photograph it I thought to myself - how mundane! And it doesn't even follow the sketch! But my original problem was that I didn't have any light purple ribbon (a situation I intend on remedying this weekend!) but a quick rifle through my raffia drawer (yes, I have THAT much raffia) and the result was a happier card. I actually tied this one ON to the card, and didn't just glue it on the back because I have so much of this stuff I don't mind wasting a bit on the inside, and used a bit of glue to adhere it into place. I tied a double knot and cut off the ends.

Size of card: 4" square

Supplies:
Card/paper - Quill white cardstock
Ink - Kaisercraft "Lilac", Versacolor "Boysenberry"
Stamps - Kaisercraft "Peachy Keen", Tiffanys "Flowers" by We R Memory Keepers, Inkadinkado sentiment
Extras - raffia
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Cre8tive glue pen, scissors

Challenge: FTL#90