Award from Neat and Tangled

How delighted was I to receive this award from Danielle (Neat and Tangled). Seriously, what that lady does with Lawn Fawn and Hero Arts (okay, basically any stamp she touches) a-m-a-z-e-s me every time ;) Oh and I almost forgot - her videos are fantastic too. Please go visit her blog now, you won't regret it ;)

Liebster is German for 'dearest'. The award is a 'share the love' arrangement, given to inspirational bloggers with less than 200 followers. And here is what a Liebster Award recipient must do:

1. Thank the giver and link back to their blog
2. Reveal you five blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog (see above)
4. Hope that those you award forward it to their favorite bloggers

My picks (in no particular order):
Michelle (so talented)
Emily (love what she does with copics)
Tracy (clean and graphic at its best)
Sue (love her style)
Ann (Beautiful CAS creations)

Thanks again Danielle for the lovely award, and giving me the opportunity to shout out some of my fave crafty bloggers!

I'll be back tomorrow with another AnnaBelle Stamps challenge post ;)

Winner!

I opened up my email to read my comments at 3am this morning (don't ask!) and was surprised to discover that Marion (my fellow DT member of AnnaBelle Stamps) was the first to comment AND she guessed correctly - my influence for this card was the amazingly talented Jennifer McGuire. I was doing the Inspiration Showcase class at the time.

Marion I've emailed you! Thanks to everyone who commented, it means alot :)

Have a great evening,

Christmas cards

Hello there! I hope everyone had an awesome weekend - it was quite hot here in Sunny Queensland as we are unfortunately heading into Summer...

I don't have a card to share today, but I just wanted to drop in and ask if any of my readers would like to receive a Christmas card from me this year. Handmade by me of course!

If so, please send an email with your name and address. If you want to return the favour let me know in the email and I'll send you my address.

It takes a while for things to get from here to America etc, so I'll take names and addresses until the 5th of December just to be on the safe side :)

Hope to hear from you soon, and have a great day!

Cup Tags

These have been brewing in my mind for a while now (brewing, get it?!) and I've finally gone and made them, and they turned out great!

What are they? Well I don't know about anyone else, but I always have a hard time remembering how much sugar Mark's Mum has in her tea, or how many spoonfuls of coffee she likes. The same goes for any of our guests really. So I made little tags like these ages ago (just using a punch and writing with a white gel pen) and they have worked really well. I just thought recently that they needed a bit of jazzing up, so I made them up in Paint Shop Pro X2 and printed them out on recycled brown card for durability. I sprayed them with matte fixative as well to keep the ink from running in case there's a spill.



I've got a customisable set available in my Madeit shop if you would like a set of your own!

Thanks for looking :)

Scrapping Essentials Designer Pack - Diamonds - Card #1

This is another lovely pack I was given to work with by Narelle of Scrapping Essentials.


It features Bazzill Bling (cardstock with a lovely pearly/metallic shine), 1 A4 sheet of Blue Diamond vellum, 1 foot of white grosgrain ribbon, 4 eyelet studs and 1 pack of Kaisercraft Blue square rhinestones.
I also used up more of the Kaisercraft Birthday Cards rubons from this designer pack.

I made four cards with this pack, and tried to make them as masculine (or unisex) as possible. I used everything except for one eyelet and a couple of scraps of cardstock and vellum.

Here's the card I am sharing with you today:



True to my word, I bought some vellum tape (3M Scotch to be precise) and because it's the only vellum adhesive I've ever worked with I can't compare it to other brands, but I have a couple of remarks in case you're interested:

• It works best on light-coloured vellum on top of light-coloured cardstock/paper. I tried it on the dark blue Bazzill I received in the pack and it had a 'wet look' even when I burnished the surface with my bone folder. It's not perfect with white vellums either, as I noticed on the white parts of my vellum that it had a slight yellowish tinge. To counter this I was careful when cutting to try to get the diamonds in the corners as much as possible so that I could hide the adhesive better.


• I found that, much to my frustration, it stuck to my fingers and I was getting the vellum and card all dirty and sticky... yuck! It reminded me alot of removable adhesive actually. I developed a way of getting it stuck down without touching it with my fingers, and that was to leave it on the edge of the scissors after cutting and then positioning it on the vellum still on the edge of scissors, and then press it down with a finger from the other hand. No more sticky fingers!


• The absolute worst thing about using vellum and adhesive (I think this would go for ANY adhesive) is that EVERYTHING shows through. Got a bit of cat hair caught in there? Yep, that shows! What about a teeny tiny miniscule bit of god-knows-what? Yep that shows too! I ended up only adhering in the corners for this reason (as well as the reason in my first remark above) as it's easier to keep little 1cm bits clean than long strips.


• That all being said, I liked how easy the vellum was to reposition right after sticking it onto the cardstock base (allowing me, the crappy layerer that I am to actually have a well-lined-up card). It didn't stay repositionable though, as I came back to it 20 mins later and gave it a test 'tug' and it wouldn't budge!

The rubons worked great with the vellum - just try to rub them on before sticking the vellum onto the cardstock layer! This will speed up the process as the rubbing tool won't get caught down in the little textured crevices, and it will have a smoother finish when you're done.

I hope you've enjoyed my vellum adhesive ramblings, and the card. I'll post the rest of the cards from the pack over the next few days.

Size of card: C6 - A5 folded in half

Supplies:
Card/paper - Bazzill Bling cardstock, Blue Diamond A4 vellum
Extras - Kaisercraft Birthday Cards rubon, Kaisercraft Blue square rhinestones, white grosgrain ribbon
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Helmar glue runner, Papercrafts foam dots, Provocraft bone folder (for rubon), Scotch Vellum Tape

Covered notebook tutorial

Here are some simple directions for covering a plain notebook. It can be as embellished as you want or need, making a heartwarming gift for that special someone for little cost.

Start by measuring your notebook. Mine is the unlined type of which I bought several last time I went to the bargain shop in the Valley. I find that the thermal-bound ones are easier to cover than the ring-bound ones as there is less fiddling around with the hole punch.



Since the black band matches the colours of my design, I'm not going to cover it - just the front and back flaps up to the binding. Once you've got the dimensions for the front and back cut the patterned paper you have chosen using your paper trimmer.



Glue on the patterned paper to both front and back flaps up to the binding. I use a glue runner to adhere mine.



Once both sides are covered with the background patterned paper you can embellish away... for this manly notebook I cut out some circles from the "George" paper in the Shaken not Stirred collection by Kaisercraft.



I hope you enjoyed this quick little tutorial! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments :)

Supplies:
Card/paper - Kaisercraft patterned paper "George" and "Roger"
Ink - none
Tools - Fiskars paper trimmer, Bostik glue tape, Cre8tive spring scissors

"Blushed" covered notebook

I love covering notebooks! It's extremely easy to do, makes a lovely gift and most importantly, it's a great way of using up scrap bits of paper. I'm going to give this to my Mum for Mother's Day along with this card.


Here's a view of the front:




And the back/side:





Supplies: Kaisercraft patterned paper "Blushed", notebook, Kaisercraft bling, We R Memory Keepers "List" stamp, Versacolor ink "Black".


Thanks for looking!