Christmas Time.. no wait, New Years!

Where does time fly? It seems I only just finished the last post [in November] and it's already almost New Years Eve!

I thought I'd post a few of the Christmas cards I made this year.. granted, there were not many of them given I made 40 invitations to dad's surprise 70th birthday (say tuned) which was also in December.Therefore this year, those who got gift vouchers for Christmas, got a card to put them in (sort of to make up for the non-gift). Does anyone else feel guilty about giving vouchers? Even though I know some prefer them, I always have that pang of guilt that it wasn't thought out enough.

Anyhow, I managed to snaffle one of those gorgeous 'dasher' stamps from SU. I love it, I'm not sure how they managed to pull off a design that's both ornate but still CAS at the same time, but I'm not complaining!

I made two versions of this card, the simple stitched one and the distressed one. I would have taken photos of the inside, however yours truly managed to write in them before taking the pics!

The base cardstock is from SU - 'Cherry Cobbler' (CC) it's my new favourite rich red colour, and teams well with all my neutrals.

I simply stamped it once on Whisper White in Cherry Cobbler ink and mounted it with the CC cardstock on Kraft.. oops Crumb Cake. The faux stitching is still pierced holes with the matt pack with the white unigel signo pen run over them. For a little bling I added some rhinestones on the curls of the antlers which i thought gave he otherwise very simple design a bit of oomph. I also tied kitchen twine around the central image before mounting it with dimensionals which i think helped ground the reindeer a little.

For the next card, I took the same idea but tuned it sideways and distressed the edges for my nephew to make it a little more masculine...

The background was a distressed snowflake rubber stamp I received as a Christmas pressie from a colleague which was very sweet. It's from the Tim Holtz collection of a company called Stampers Anonymous. I'd never heard of them before but its really good quality deep etched rubber and Simon Say Stamp sells them. Other than the Stampin Up goodies, I pretty much buy everything else from there. Even though it's an American site, given how well the Australian Dollar is doing, and how efficient their shipping of orders are, I usually have my orders within less than a fortnight and for a flat rate of $15 for shipping only. Hard to look that particular gift horse in the mouth!!!

I stamped it using Kraft ink, which I am still raving about. Previously, I would have used Versamark, but this leaves a much crisper image I think without compromising the subtlety of tone-on tone. The sentiment makes me smile because I was all bummed out that I didn't have any cute Christmas sentiments, and I'm very partial to those half printed, have script/handwritten ones. I scoured my collection for something, and low-and-behold, I found this little gem amongst the SU 'Best Yet' set. (From recollection, it may have been a hostess set) but I never really noticed it... until now that is! Isn't it sweet?

The little itty bitty snowflakes are from one of the little single stamped in the 'short and sweet' sentiment set. Again, one of those looked-over stamps in a set I use often. So seriously, go back through your stamp sets, and try to look at those ones you usually pass over .. it's super-rewarding to find some gems. It's almost as good as buying a new set, but free!

I hope you like these and that Christmas found you and your families in good health and spirits and with less indigestion than I! (what is it about Christmas lunch and totally over-eating every time, no matter how many times you tell yourself, not this year!?!) hehe

Take care these holidays, and hope Santa was good to you all! x

More Pink!

Can I apologise in advance for the poor quality photos of late .. its hard to get any half decent ones without skill or natural sunlight!

This card I made as an attempt to change from the standard size cards. When I went to the Craft Expo recently (the one at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne) I bought myself some textured paper and matching envelopes for square cards. I must say I was stumped at first to get any of my previous layouts to work for square cards. So as if I needed any encouragement, I surfed the net and you-tubed to my hearts content.

What I came up with was a take on all those wonderful CAS websites and the inspiration from this amazing card that I saw at Sue Madex's latest SU catalogue launch where someone (I think in her team... feel free to let me know Sue so I can give her credit) made an amazing card in two different ways using this stamp set. Her card looked both girly and chic at the same time and seemed to have beautiful detail. It stuck in my mind, so when I made my card, I looked down and it was clear that there was a distinct influence from that earlier card. I just hope I did it justice!

This stamp set is one of the level 1 SU hostess sets called Birthday Bakery. I simply stamped it with Versamark and heat-embossed it with black embossing powder. Once set, I coloured in with SU markers and then put glossy accents on highlighted points like the frosting or cherries on top! I know its not that visible in the photos but in real life it gives it a bit of a lift. I heat embossed the matching sentiment from the stamp set and the lines were just drawn in using the basic black SU marker and a trusty metal ruler. HINT: wipe your ruler with a cloth or paper towel after each line if you don't want to leave an ugly dark swipe across the face of the card when sliding the ruler across! (learnt that the hard way .. bugger!) Of course that was after I had done all the embosing and colouring :(

The inside is more of the same, just individually cut out and stuck on using dimensionals.

To be honest I thought cutting them out would be really fiddly, but these shapes are really forgiving and I was able to use the paper snips and cut a bunch out really quickly. It gets a bit mesmerising after a while. If you're looking to tune out and live in la-la land for a while - this is the quickest way I've found :)

So howzat mum? Two pink cards in as many posts .. I'm not a lost cause after all! hehe

The next post is what I have spent this weekend on - invitations to my dad's Surprise 70th birthday! (lucky he's totally computer illiterate otherwise the cat would have been let out of the bag. He called the Internet "Goggle" (like the swimming glasses) the other day, it was kinda cute :)

Till then, enjoy yourselves and here's hoping for some time to hit the Christmas Cards! x

Pretty in Pink

My mum would be killing herself laughing if she were reading this blog right now, as she of all people know that the colour pink and I have not been good friends for a very long time!

My mum says that she was desperate for a little girl, so when I was born, she went mad on pink frilly things. Much to her dismay, I never really went through the 'girly' phase .. so my beautiful princess bedroom (queue whiter than white furniture with gold handles and pink accessories as far as the eye could see... curtains, doona covers, pillows, throws, and bed valance.. you get the picture!) was totally wasted on me. The first chance I got, I turfed all things pink and swapped them for British Racing Green and Maroon! Since then, I've never really been comfortable with pinks ... and indeed the last post was about as pink as I have ever gotten - until today that is!

I was on the hunt for a warm pink colour, and loved SU's Pink Pirouette, but cranky about the lack of matching embellishments/ribbons et al. So I went down the path of one of the new in-colours: Pretty In Pink. It's a little more vivid than I would have liked, but it seems to set off the choc chip accents, so maybe its okay after all :)

I played around with my base card this time as I wanted it to fit into a standard envelope, but was sick of the usual version of A4 CS cut in half horizontally with a side-fold or long top-fold. This time, I cut the A4 sheet in half lengthwise, and used it to make a portrait card but with the fold on top. I just rounded the corners with the punch to take away all those harsh angles.

Its that trusty old Kraft again, stamped using my new SU Kraft (Crumb Cake) Classic Stampin Pad (Yay!) Its so much better than relying on versarmark. I think it gives a much crisper image for that shade on shade look.

I've stamped it with the SU En Francais background stamp which I am totally in love with. Seriously so versatile. The Pretty in Pink CS has been run through the big shot with the Swiss dots embossing folder and matted onto WW.

Those gorgeous butterflies you've all seen around lately - again nifty SU embosslit dies for the big shot called 'Beautiful Wings'. It has 5 different butterflies in the single die which is great for matching accents.

I've used two of the largest butterflies in Choc Chip CS and stuck them on with Ranger Glossy Accents. (Crystal Effect should do the same thing). I shaped the top butterfly with my fingers and just stuck it on using a tiny line of Glossy accents. I had tried using dimensionals but they were always visible, so this did the trick and stuck it on nice and snug without losing its 3D-ness (is that even a word??) hehe. Here's a close up which may help explain ...

The butterfly path was just penciled in free-hand and pierced with the paper piercer and matt pack. I then rubbed out the pencil and traced it with my choc chip marker for that faux stitched look.

I wrapped some translucent white ribbon around the whole card front which I bought from the local $2 shop. It's width works well I think because the inside flap just has that lovely pattern pulled taught against the Kraft card stock and looks very elegant. (Me!.. elegant ... unbelievable I know!)

I've tied a knot but it needed something extra, so out came those gorgeous SU antique brads. I've secured them as normal, but then squirted a little glossy accents under them to hold them tight in place. I found it makes them more robust when handled without being visible.

The inside was quick and easy as I just used the off-cuts of the Pretty in Pink CS when I trimmed it down to fit off-centre and 2 of the remaining butterflies from the same die. I love the fact that you can whizz it nice through the die for 5 matching embellishments. Gotta love the laziness of it all :)

The matching envelope again was just alternating colours of the same die. See, so simple!

So that's my girly girl Pretty in Pink butterfly card.  (Mum, stop hyperventilating - you have not gone colour-blind!)

I think I've done my dash at pink for a while, but .. well maybe there's one more in me before I head back to the safety of my earthy/neutral tones!

Until then, take care and Happy crafting x

Getting Clucky ... ?

Sorry for the temporary absence, but one of my best friends arrived from the UK and we spent a wonderful week and a half having a fab time cruising around the Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island and soaking up the Melbourne sun (while it lasted!) ... and rediscovering that I can get drunk just looking at the amount she can drink! hehe

That said, I have been a busy crafting bee and will be posting a number of cards I've made lately...

These are two baby cards I made recently... I just fell in love with the Stampin Up Baby Tees jumbo wheel from the moment I received the catalogue and wanted to make it the focal point of my card. There have been very many versions of this style of card, and this is mine ...

I just rolled the stampin wheel along whisper white CS in choc chip ink and then coloured them in. 

Now because I'd spent far too much browsing you tube these days, I came across this colouring technique using pencils and odourless mineral spirits (I think the main American brand is called Gamsol). The pencils have to be wax based, and everyone has been raving about prismacolour pencils - but my budget didn't stretch that far.  I did however find some called "Koh-i-Noor" which is a Czech brand and got great reviews. 

Basically you colour in the images in the pencils and then use a paper stub (the rolled up paper in the shape of a pencil) dipped in the mineral spirits which spreads the colour around evenly and gives really good coverage and soft colour play. Its a shame the photo doesn't make it clearer but you get the ability to shade and give texture without that scratchy look you get with other pencils. 

After colouring the images as described, I just cut them out with the trusty paper snips and 'hung' them on the kitchen twine line. I secured it by punching holes with my paper piercer and matt pack, and putting in a brad. I just wound the string around each before pressing them in - hey presto- washing line!

The scallop edge on the Kraft CS added that little bit of cutesy detail it needed once mounted on plain whisper white card stock.

Here's the girly version:
Exactly the same but in shades of pink.

Originally I had tried to colour these in with my SU markers, but the colour was too vivid and left 'texta marks'. I needed the pastel look which is totally not me!

I was going to try to watercolour them, but I hadn't yet gotten an aqua painter and my brush just wouldn't stay in the lines (well okay, I couldn't!) so this technique worked well for me. 

I coloured in a whole A4 sheet at a time which sounds like a drag but it was actually really therapeutic! Really good to do when you need distracting or watching a 'take-it-or-leave-it' show on tellie!

So what do you think? I was really happy with the way they turned out, but maybe that's because I keep thinking of babies! x

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

Back in Blogland!

I kind of feel like the caption to this post ought to be backed with an AC/DC soundrack given how monumental it feels for me to be back. Studying for specialisation has been a tough slog and my little pea brain has been smoking from the effort! Thank you to all of you who wished me well... will let you know how goes late October/early November!

One of the fabulous things thats happened of late was the Helping Hudson Website. For any of you you haven't heard about it, seriously, take 10 min to head on over and check it out. Such a worthy cause and flooded with talent! (Let's face it, who of us ever needed much prompting to browse a little more about scrapbooking and cardmaking??) hehe

To celebrate getting back to blogging, I thought I'd take part in a challenge on the Helping Hudson website. (Excuse the dull image, it's about 10 pm and the lighting is leaving a lot to be desired)...

Pea brain strikes again! (As it turns out, it's an old challenge that since has closed) so it won't be linked to the website, but another donation can't hurt the cause!

This base card is Chocolate Chip, and the backround is WW that has been run through the big shot with the polka dot embossing folder.

The stamp set you would have seen before on my blog and is from the SU mostly flowers set. I havce used baja breeze and choc chip ink on WW which have been individually punched out with the 1 3/8 square punch and then stuck onto choc chip CS and mounted with dimensionals on the background.

The So Saffron grosgrain ribbon lifts this card and it was a wonderful colour challenge as i would never have thought to contrast those two colours with the pale yellow of SU So Saffron. (and because I'm still crap at bows, and I wanted something more special than a knot, I finally tried out this fancy but idiot-proof bow).

I hope you like it!

Will be back very soon with some more cards (especially in September when the new SU catalogue comes out and I've been saving my pennies for a haul of goodies!)

Till then, take care... :)

Birthday Hippo

Can I just say that studying can be really crappy!?! It has been a while, and it sucks all the positive energy out of you if it's not a labour of love!

That said, June is a very busy month for birthdays and so I have taken a couple of hours out to make a few cards. Still have three more to go, and will be spreading them out as much as I can. David's is next, and I'm still trying to think up something special for him.

In the mean time, a good friend of mine Chris, had a gorgeous little boy called Isaac about a year ago. I missed Isaac's first birthday party a couple of weeks ago because I had a severe bout of gastro and it was U.G.L.Y. So even though I had a little card I had previously made, I decided to make something a little extra special to make up for missing it. I hope he likes it.

It also works out perfectly in entering (nervously for the first time) the Just Add Ink challenge to "Just add stitching"!!! (thank you Tina Gillespie for the idea!)

The hippo stamp is from the SU "Pun Fun" set. It's so cute and versatile.

I used the mat pack for the border of holes and the white uni-gel pen for the faux stitching. I would LOVE to learn how to sew, but until then, this will have to make do!

I have printed the hippo on vellum and coloured it in with markers from behind. I have double mounted it onto Whisper White CS and then Night of Navy CS. I have popped up the whole lot with dimensionals, (including the red balloon) and just drew in the string because I liked the idea of the balloon being off the mount.

The card is Ballet Blue (soon to be retired!) In my basic black marker I just free-hand wrote the "Hip-hippo-ray" sentiment which exists with the stamp but included Isaac's name in it to make it a little more tailor-made.

When it came to the envelope, I was going to repeat the process and then found some designer paper that I had bought from one of those $2 shops. The paper had a greeny-paisley design on it which I liked, but can't for the life of me match to any cardstock I have. The back of the paper low and behold had just the right grey! So it became the cardstock for the envelope and the inside of the card. Much quicker than vellum and colouring, and gives a much smoother finish. I am going to make this card again, this time using the grey paper for all of the hippos.

For the inside, I just went over the existing holes from the front with the white gel pen again for a reverse faux stitching as it was too close to the edge to mount paper over it.

The sentiment is from the SU "Best Yet" Hostess set. It's stamped in Ruby Red (also retiring! boo hoo) onto WW and mounted with the Night of Navy CS.

I have used the same mounted WW and Night of Navy CS for where the greeting goes, and made another little hippo (sans balloon) that straddles the two pages for some interest.

I hope you all like it. I can see me making this one again, with a range of the Pun Fun characters. They really are too cute!

Take care, and I hope to pop back in here in the next few days with a post of the birthday card I made for Sandra. I can't tell you much about it as she is one of the few existing friends I have who actually read this blog from time to time, so I don't want to spoil the surprise!

Well that's it from me for now. Hope you have a lovely time for what's left of the weekend. I'm back to hit the books (Alas the Federal Criminal Code is no where near as fun!).