Umm.. is there a word for Extra-Belated ?

As most of you who actually read this blog (not counting you mum!) some of you would know that I was recently absent studying crazily for my specialisation exams ... Now for the record, I DID manage to make this card for my dad in time for Father's day in September .. but David liked it enough to ask me to make one for his dad .. except we discovered afterwards that Italian Father's Day is in March ... oops!

So does this make me ultra prepared or embarrassingly late??? hehe

I'm not sure if you can see from this picture, but the whisper white that's double mounted on SU basic black and on Kraft has been run through the bigshot with the Cuttlebug distressed stripes embossing. I like it for masculine cards - its a bit rustic and less girly than many of the others I think!

The stamp is one of my recent favourites from SU - the medallion stamp... although it did take a while to find the right kind of balance for this size card. I kept stamping not enough or too much, so ultimately this became a way to cut out the bit I wanted and then mount it on the card. Of course the green card stock and matching ink is SU Old Olive.

For the sentiment, given it says "Happy Father's Day" in Italian, I didn't have a stamp for it, but there's this cool video tutorial by Jennifer McGuire which shows you how to generate a typed sentiment to your liking on the computer and how to position it on your card stock to be exactly where you want it on the card! (and trust me, if I could work it out, anyone could!)

Given my printer doesn't seem to feed thicker paper, I can only print on SU Whisper White, which is a real bummer, and methinks my next large investment will be a decent colour printer that prints on cardstock.
Call me controversial, but I'm sort of liking the idea of Hybrid card-making .. combining the ease of digital images with the unmistakable texture and feel of hand-stamped and tactile embellishments. Does anyone have ideas or comments on good printers? I've heard the Kodax Pixma does great things, but I would be interested in everyone's experiences.

The inside of the card is the same medallion stamp repeated in Old Olive matted Basic Black.

It's a very simple design but I think it could be versatile!

I like the look  of cards that are finished on the inside, the OCD part of me just couldn't get past the idea of opening up a card to get blank paper... :)

I think I'll made a few extras of these, I just have to work out what sentiments to put on them as you have to print them on the cardstock before running it through the big shot.

That's it from me for now... Happy stamping everyone!

Love Hearts

Hello again (three posts in a week eh? Who woulda thought!)

I made this card for a friend who asked if I could make her a "love" card she could give her partner who has been a fabulous support to her while she was recently unwell. The request was "Just not too girly or cheesy Valentine-esque". GULP!

Well anyhow, this is what I came up with - and lucky she (and importantly he) loved it! YAY!

Ok, in the photo it looks a bit wonky, but I promise in real life it was all prettied up!

I'm really having a love affair with choc chip and Kraft lately... My stash is diminishing at an alarming rate but Kraft (Sorry, try as I might I just can't bring myself to call it Crumb Cake) is just so versatile!

I've used the SU matt pack to pierce the holes and used the faux stitching technique by running my choc chip marker over the holes. I found if you pause at the holes, it makes the stitching more realistic.


Despite the fact that my grandmother was a seamstress for 40 years, my sewing ability is horrendous! Although, after piercing all those holes (and making 5 more of them but this time with butterflies.. stay tuned) I'm starting to think I better learn quick smart!

The ribbon is the new SU Early Espresso striped Grosgrain which I just LOVE. (no pun intended hehe)
The hearts were die cut with the Sizzix heart dies that came free with my bigshot. The largest is in Choc Chip which I stamped with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tea Dye, and then distressed with the blade of my scissors and sponged around the edges to make it pop more.

The middle heart is on SU So Saffron cardstock which I stamped with the SU En Francais Background stamp in the same Tim Holtz tea dye distress ink. The mini heart is from a SU paper pack that the wonderful Sue Madex gave me as a free gift with my monthly Marker Club tutorials. (sorry, I have no idea which pack it is)

A vintage pewter brad attaches the tag which is die cut from the SU Sizzlits Lots of Tags Label 1 series.


I hope you like it!x

Elephant Stamp

I love elephants .. or Eph-a-lants as i used to call them! (we've been so lucky in Oz to see two recent births) I'm trying to con David into taking me to see the one at Melbourne Zoo but to no avail!

This stamp set is from the same Hero Arts set as that of my previous post. I heat embossed them and then coloured them in using my new favourite colouring tool - the Ranger Inkessentials Blending tool It basically is a little handle with a velcro pad that you can constantly replace for each colour. I found that it blends really smoothly (no more patchy attempts to sponge for me). I just keep each colour attached with a glue dot to the bottom of my ink pad which means I never have to look for the matching pad.

I used SU Ruby Red and Ballet Blue inks which I just rubbed over used the tool. As you can see it gave pretty even coverage but still kept the texture of coloured in images instead of those stamped on plain coloured cardstock. The sentiment is from the SU 'Whimsical Words' set (which from memory was one of the free Sale-A-Bration sets). The elephants as always are up on dimensionals on WW which I ran though the bigshot using the polka dot embossing folder. The card base is SU Old Olive (my fave green of all time).

I've tried to make this card in the 'normal' size, but can't seem to ground the animals without them looking overwhelmed by the size of the card. Any tips or ideas will be appreciated!

Two children's cards in a row...anyone would think I'm getting clucky! ;)

welcome back laptop and happy birthday Jack!

Hello again blogland... fancy waiting all that time to get back to blogland and then no having a laptop (nasty fairies first messed with my motherboard, then with the hardrive and then gave it a virus!) But it's finally all patched up and hopefully ok for the next little while...

I have been busy making cards of late, but like a muppet - forgot to take photos of some before giving them away, will make them up again as one or two were hits!

I recently purchased some clar stamps from Hero Arts online from Simon Says Stamps which is an online store as well as ebay store and has great shipping rates to Australia. The fact that the Aussie dollar is almost par with the US dollar also helps! Most of the hero art stamps which we pay $30-$35 for here are $15 which meant that some of my recent stamp purchases have been online...

This card I made for my nephew Jack who I usually call my cheeky lil monkey (genetics at play) ... This stamp set is the Hero Arts Clear Stamps PLAYFUL ANIMALS Cleardesign set and it has a good selection of cute animals. Here I used the two monkeys ...

I heat embossed the images on WW cardstock and then coloured them in with my SU markers - cut them out and popped them on dimensionals. The letters are from a die I bought at Lincraft but I managed to throw away the packaging so I can't remember the brand (oops) but I did coat them in Ranger Glossy Accents. Here's a tip by the way ... Don't get impatient and try to use the heat gun to dry glossy accents.... it bubbles up! (as you can see) I'm not sure if the SU Crystal Effects does, but air dry over night.. I'm a bit bumbed I screwed up the letters. 

The card is SU Chocolate Chip and the bottom panel is Kraft CS which i ran through the crimper and then sponged with choc chip ink. The ribbon is one of my favourite SU taffeta ribbons - choc chip... i love the way its not so dark and has a great texture which works so well with all brown tones.

For the inside, I used some ivory textured cardstock I had left over from a Connoisseurs pack with another cut out monkey, and repeated the monkey again on the matching envelope. 

I hope you like it, and in the next day or so, I'll show you a little gift card I made with the elephant stamp from the same set...

See you all soon! x