Baja Breeze DSP

Up until fairly recently, I really didn't have any DSP. I was stamping images onto cardstock and using that. Now I've got a couple of packets, and it really does make life soooo much easier if you want just a simple card, with a little detail, ut very little time to do it in. This card took me about 5 minutes. Even when you include the inside, and the matching envelop I think I had change out of my 10 min. That said, sometimes the least fussy ones can work the best...

I used SU Choc Chip CS as the base, and used a panel of Baja Breeze DSP, together with a creamy textured paper called Fundamentals - Cardmaking for conoisseurs. It's made by Fynmark an usually sold at Spotlight and Lincraft et al. It comes in a pack of 20 in the 148 x 210 cm size and you can buy matching envelopes. It has a really lovely feel to it, I have used it for more formal cards (wedding cards etc) as a base. The texture is quite strong so I haven't had much success stamping directly onto it. Here is a close up so you can see the texture I'm talking about:

The ribbon is from SU. Its a polka dot grosgrain robbon and it double sided, so you can use either the dotted side or the plain side. The quality is fantastic, as its thick enough for the patterned side not to show through if you want to use the plain side. (I bought some cheaper ribbon and you could see the dots faintly through and it frayed really easily).

As you may have noticed, most of my ribbons usually are plain or have knots. It's not that I don't like bows, its just that I'm usually really crap at them! This video on Teneale Williams' blog (for those of who who are not aware - she is the Queen of bow makers) makes it do-able, even for me! That means you all can, no really! Check out the video: http://www.tenealewilliams.com.au/wp02/2010/03/17/close-to-blushing-14-days-to-go/  I used a little kitchen twine to tie the bow together in the middle. I like the contrast to the choc chip. With some matching panels on the flap of the envelope voila!

David thinks its a little TOO plain. Maybe it could do with a little sentiment above the ribbon on the left hand side. I guess I can always add that later when I decide who to give it to. What do you think?

Eastern Blooms

My apologies for being so slack of late, work got a little crazy and I really didn't have much time at all to get crafty! That said, I finished early on Friday (5:30pm I was out the door, woo hoo!) and made up for lost time - making 8 cards!

I did start off by making another wedding card for a family friend Angie who got married yesterday. I made a card for my parents to give to her. Like a muppet however, I gave it to mum without remembering to tak a pic of it, so if I remember what I did, I'll make it again. There seem to be no shortage of weddings lately!

One of the new stamp sets I bought recently seems to be an old favourtite for most, the SU Eastern Blooms set. I really love the cherry blossom in particular... So my first card was using that with some of the fabulous choc chip DSP paper I won in a previous StampAMemory challenge...

I used SU Kraft CS (although I suppose I should start getting used to calling it crumb cake) and then mounted the choc chip DSP onto choc chip cardstock on the top third. I used Kraft tafetta ribbon to cover the join.

I stamped the cherry blossom onto whisper white using my choc chip and ruby red markers, and mounted on ruby red cardstock. I must admit this is one of my favourtite SU colour combinations. I'm going to really miss ruby red when it is discontinued soon. I used dimensionals to mount the image which i think gives it a little oomph as it otherwise quite simple.

As you can see, I used an offcut of the dsp together with a portion of the stamped punched with the smaller square punch, mounted using a larger square-punched piece of Choc Chip CS for the envelope. I think matching envelopes make it that little bit extra special.

I have also found a new spot to take some pics, as my blinds and fridge were perhaps not the greatest of backdrops for my photos come to think of it!

Hope you like this one, and keep an eye out over the next few days as I upload more (regularly) this time!

Take care, and enjoy what's left of the long weekend!

Happy Easter- Vellum suprise

Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it, and for those that don't may you have enjoyed the enforced break! (although with all that cooking and all that eating, I'm now officially exhausted!)

This year I was given strict instructions not to buy big easter eggs or copious amounts of chocolate for my nephews so I bought them a Lindt bunny each for Easter. Problem was it looked a bit folorn sitting there all on its lonesome, so here was my take on this year's Easter eggs.

The tag is made using kraft CS, overlayed by whisper white and basic black. On Nick's package, I just used chipbpard letters and painted them in my ruby red marker. The bunny image is from Stampin Up, however it's stamped on vellum in stays on. I then put my recent marker tutorial to good use! I turned the vellum image backwards, and coloured in the image using my markers in the style of the stained glass technique. On Jack's package I managed to screw up the chipboard by selecting a marker that was to dark a green which meant there was vey little contrast between that and the black backing paper. So I had to cover the letters in paper and file off the sides. Because the letters were small, and little cheap ones from a $2 shop, they kept bending and as such the overall effect was a bit rough, but thankfully he didn't seem to mind!

Hold onto your easter bonnets though because I found vellum tape that's invisible and that doesn't require you trying to hide the glue with ribbon, embellishments or relying on brads to fasten! Best thing is it doesn't cost the earth either! It's "Scotch" brand vellum tape from Big W. It comes in a smallish roll and is tacky on one side and has a waxed paper on the outside. You simply snip off how much you want and affix it to the back of the image. Using your finger just rub the waxed paper up and down a little to warm it, and then peel off the waxed paper the same way you would for double-sided tape. It leaves a transclusent tacky glue that's a little visible whilst you're holding the vellum, but as soon as you stick it to neutral card stock, Bam! it dissapeared! In this case I stuck it to whisper white CS and then cut around the image with my snips. I attached the cutout with dimensionals for fun.

The boys loved them and didn't take long to devour the bunnies, although in true testimony to how much they liked them, they carefully pulled the labels off and kept them aside! (If only they were always so easily pleased!)

The vellum trick also works a treat when you print out images directly onto the vellum with the laser printer. I printed a few easter images from free clipart sites and used the same stained glass technique to make labels for the easter egg packages for work collegues.

*holds tummy* I never thought I could get enough chocolate, but I think that last Ferrero Rocher did me in!

Dragon Fly

I bought this stamp a while ago online from Addicted to Rubber Stamps. It's from Magenta which I understand is a Canadian brand. (Amazing variety and great prices on this website, but beware Aussies, shipping costs are steep so you're better off ordering in one big bundle!) It's all in one piece mounted on woodblock, but I guess you could use the Direct to Rubber technique with markers if you wanted only one or two of the images.

I haven't had much chance to play around with it, altough I did disover it looks much better when embossed rather than simply stamped. That said, after getting the "Stained Glass" tutorial in the recent marker club, I'd be tempted to stamp this on vellum with stays on, and play around with colouring the images!

That said, here it is,(sorry photo taken during that crazy Melbourne storm a few weeks back). I'v stamped it with versamark and embossed it in black on whisper white cardstock. I've mounted it on SU Basic Black cardstock and then mounted that with dimensionals onto Old Olive.

For a change, I've used 12x12 cardstock that I've cut into three equal pieces  this one has a normal left hand side fold, however I wouldn't mind having this in a top-fold card which I think might work better.

And there's that 'best wishes' sentiment from short and sweet again! (I ended up embossing the sentiment too in the end as it looked a little dull simply stamped next to the embossed image). Thank god for the stamp-a-ma-jig is all I can say!

HINT:  Dont forget to use the emobossing buddy. It really shows up badly when you forget!!!!

Hope you like this one.

Next I'm on the hunt for a simple but 'fiddly' card. All my cards seem to be very 'clean and simple'. It's generally what I prefer, but I'd love to pull off one of those very pretty detailed cards! Any ideas I can case would be greatly appreciated!

Mostly Flowers

The Mostly Flowers set was the first stamp sets I bought online (thank you ebay).

I made a birthday card for David way back then. I actually think it was one of the first few cards I made if fact!. I found a photo of it here:

It's all a bit wonky but I was new then ok? (I wonder what my excuse is now? hehe)

I made it using the same mostly flowers set in the sympathy card, but this time left in it's original square shape. The cardstock is SU Always Artichoke and the images are stamped in SU Old Olive and Versa Magic Midnight Black, mounted with dimensionals.

The organza ribbon was nicked from a present I received the previous year, and the black stiched grosgrain ribbon was from one of the many $2 bargain stores that I love so much.

Well since then, I've taken the a similar theme, but played around with the layout. Since I discovered Kraft CS, I've found it hard to move away from - It's so versatile!

I've used SU choc chip CS for the background, and mounted the three images which were stamped in SU old olive and ruby red on whisper white cardsock.

I mounted them individually onto whisper white, but didn't like how they looked too individual and spaced out. So I double-mounted (mounted them again onto a single piece of whisper white) which seemed to bring them back together and created a crisper look which I must admit I preferred.

The sentiment is from SU Short and Sweet, and I embossed in in white.

I can freely admit this one didn't take much time at all. And now that I have the two sizes of square punches, this will be a breeze! A good one I think to make in quantities as it's quite versatile depending on the sentiment (hence why I used best wishes, I think it's a good all-rounder!)

Happy stamping!

Sympathy cards

Sympathy cards are something I have not really turned my mind to, but unfortunately yesterday I got some very sad news that a friend lost her father after a long battle with illness and another friend lost her husband suddenly from a brain annurism. Sad and shocking news. They are two people who are trying to have a little space and and such, I wanted to send a card to say we were thinking of them, but looking through my stash, I didn't have anything I thought was appropriate.

So yesterday evening, I pulled out all my things and tried to come up with something I thought they would like, but that was not too bright or garish in the circumstances. Both of the recipients are into simple striking things, so this is what I managed to come up with:

I've used SU chocolate chip for the card, and the matting is SU very vanilla. The floral paper is called Making Memories diecut LgFloral Mocha Paperie. It came in a 12 x 12 sheet with die cut flowers through it at random intervals. I initially thoght I would put it directly onto the chocolate chip, but you couldn't really see the difference from the die cut detail to the printed flowers. Very vanilla did the trick I think.


Some satin ribbon in a mocha colour from my scrap ribbon collection finished it off.


The aim was to make something 'muted' befitting a sombre occasion, but also something beautiful to lift the spirits. I just hope it has that effect!


The second card was an idea that I had cased from Jenni Oliver long ago, but never had a crimper to be able to make my own version. Since my lovely mum was kind enough to get me a SU gift voucher from Sue Madex for my birthday, I finally got one of my own, along with lots of other lovely things on my wish list! Again I tried for muted colours, this time, SU Chocolate Chip, Kraft and Whisper White.

I have just crimped the front flap of the Kraft cardstock somewhere near the middle.


I then stamped the square mostly flowers stamp with choc chip on whisper white, punched it out with the 3.2cm circle punch. I mounted each design on 3.5cm circle punched whisper white paper which in turn was mounted on choc chip paper punched with the scallop square. (Phew! sounds complicated but actually nice and quick because of the punches).


Each of the three little stamped bundles were then mounted straight over the crimped bit using dimensionals.


The chocolate stiched grosgrain ribbon helped finish things off becuase I didn't have an appropriate sentiment stamp. (The idea was to have used something similar in size to the short and sweet sentiment but there was nothing appropriate in my stash).


Excuse the wierd white box on the bottom right had side of the inside picture. I only thought to take photos after writing in the card and didn't want to post such a personal message for the recipient online. I've blocked out that bit using my basic editing program (I sooo need photoshop).

The inserts are choc chip. I discovered my laser printer (which was purchased with work and study in mind prior to me getting into this card making gig) doesn't pick up cardstock which sucks, so the quote is printed on normal white printer paper in black. It would look better printed on whisper white in brown ink, but I guess we cant have everything!


There are more of the stamped images, but this time on Kraft scallops. I wrote in the panel with my choc chip marker.


Well that's it for now. I was deciding whether to post them, but I figured there's not a lot of examples of sympathy cards around, so I might as well. That said, I hope you never need them!


Take care and here's to crafting in happier times!

StampAMemory Challenge 5

Well I finally plucked up the courage to enter a scrapbook challenge - I must admit, when I saw what other beautiful entries were submitted, it was pretty daunting to consider throwing my proverbial hat in the ring!

This scrapbook challenge is through StampAMemory (http://tanjawestwood.typepad.com/stampamemory/2010/02/quote-to-remember.html ) . The challenge was to create a layout using a quote that is special to you.

As some of you might know, David and I finally got married in December last year and ashamedly I am yet to scrapbook any of the beautiful photos our wonderful photographer Adrian Tuazon-McCheyne
( http://www.mccheynetuazon.com/ ) took for us.

So I thought, what better way to enter a challenge with a photo and quote that mean this much to me!

So here's my first attempt:

For this layout I used the following:

STAMPS: Vintage Labels (from the current SAB set)

CARDSTOCK:  Basic Grey as the base with outline matting in Going Grey. I also used Night of Navy for the trimming and printed from my laser printer directly onto the vellum for the quote, and laid it over whisper white cardstock

INK:  Versamark and Silver embossing powder 

TOOLS: Embossing Buddy, heat gun, matt pack 

ACCESSORIES:  Bashful Blue and Night of Navy grosgrain ribbon, with small silver brads.

Here I embossed Night of Navy cardstock in silver and cut around it (see what happens when you don't have a cool scallop circle punch!?) and used my matt pack to pierce the hole before putting the brad in the middle. Of course some dimensionals never go astray eh?

I also embossed the same stamped image directly onto the basic grey cardstock for some extra bling and some light and shade to the two-toned grey theme.

The quote is: " The closer I look, the more I find to love. " and at the risk of sounding like a typical mushy newlywed, it is really true! When David was all the way away in Italy, I really didn't think I could love him more (I was pretty pathetically smitten from the beginning) - but somehow over these last 4 years we have shared, the little sneak weaseled his way further into my heart! hehe

It's a pretty simple layout, but I hope its one that you all like :)

Well, *bites fingernails* that's it for my first challenge!

Happy crafting ladies, and thanks again for all your lovely comments thus far.

Wedding Cards

The thing about making your own cards, is that you end up always looking at shop-bought cards and wondering how something so expensive can be so banal at times. In this case, one of my best friends went wedding card shopping only to come back empty-handed. She asked if I could make something, and it was an interesting challenge because I wasn't sure I could pull off a card that wasn't too 'home -made' but not 'cold'! (does that make sense to anyone but me?)

In any event, this is what I came up with:

The embellishments were only $3 on sale at Spotlight. They came with some other bits and bobs and the veil was a lot longer (I just gave it a trim) but I mounted the outfits onto textured silver-grey paper which was in turn mounted on SU whisper white and back onto the grey before being mounted back onto the whisper white card stock.

It is a top folding card which was a bit different and the ribbon was American Craft in the discount sale box. (I promise the ribbon is straight in real life but it just won't play ball in the photos!)

The inside was an attempt to flow on from the outside, but when I stamped the greeting, my hand moved, and I botched the stamping! In a mad panic I was trying to work out how to patch it up, and after a few not so clever ideas, I did manage to use the scraps from the grey textured paper to matt the greeting I re-stamped properly onto another piece of the WW cardstock. In the end, I think it turned out better than the original look I had in mind!

The grey matting around the greeing helped break up the expanse of white, whilst still leaving room to write in the card. Dont you love it when mistakes can be positive!?

(I'm not sure why it stubbornly posts side-landscape when the photo is portrait) sorry about having to rotate your heads. Any hints would be welcomed! Hopefully you can still get the general gist of what I was getting at!

Of course, a wedding card is never complete without a matching envelope, so I kept the theme going with more scraps and the same greeting...

I hope you like it, and mostly I hope the couple likes it. (Its always so hard when you've never met the recipient of the card).

Happy scrapping people, and in keeping with the wedding theme, look out for my next post which will be my very first attempt at a scrapbooking challenge! http://tanjawestwood.typepad.com/stampamemory/2010/02/quote-to-remember.html . *Fingers Crossed!*

Craft Cupboard & Storage

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a trip to Ikea. My storage space for all things crafty was an underbed box, which then turned into two underbed boxes, three plastic bags, four shoe boxes and almost a partridge in a pear tree!

What would end up happening is that every time I felt like crafting, it would turn into this great saga as essentially I had to unpack everything just to get at a handful of items. It got a little crazy and in the end I wasn't achieving much at all as I had to allow a long enough block of time to unpack - craft - and pack back up, and let's face it, who has that much time?

My solution was a bookshelf in the study. It's the expedit bookshelf from ikea and you can buy insert cupboards and/or drawers. I bought both together with some funky black storage boxes and so far so good! What I like best is the paper sorting drawers from Big W. I have all my favourite and commonly used colours in it and it makes life so much easier when I have an idea about what I want!

You can also buy a desk that fits in snugly off the side: It would be a great space saving option for those who have limited space, but to be honest I'm not so keen on being tucked away in a bedroom while I scrap. I usually spread out on the dining table so David and I can chat away and sill spend time together despite doing 'our own thing'.

So now all that is left is to make little tags for the storage boxes to indicate what's inside. What do you think? I'd love to see your solutions!

Till then, happy crafting!

Simple Masculine Birthday Card

One of my best friend's boyfriend celebrated his birthday yesterday.. I wanted to make a masculine card but not a traditionally 'blokey' card with hammers, cars etc... well, (just for something new) I used the presents stamp from the SAB set to make his card.. simple but I thought effective. Just for a little pizzaz (and largely because I'm addicted to embossing lately) I actually embossed all the presents on the front - just used my stamp-a-ma-jig and did them all at once which was suprisingly easy - even for me!!!

I ended up just using black cardstock, with SU Kraft overlay that I pierced along the top and bottom (HINT: SU's Matt pack made this almost idiot proof!)  I then matted the whisper white embossed image onto black cardstock and popped it up on some dimensionals. (I also discovered they're much more forgiving if your edges are slightly off!)

What I also discovered was that it was also a template which became easily modifyable if you were after a brighter version! 

(This could also look lovely with simple patterned paper, just to break the expansiveness of the colour).

Just pick your favourite cardstock colour and away you go! This one is on SU Kraft cardstock matted with SU Ruby Red and black . "Easy Peasy" as my nephews would say!