Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Black and White plus a dash of orange!

Found this [old] challenge over at the Play Date Cafe this morning, to use black and white with a splash of orange - and combined with the divide and conquer challenge over at 365 Cards this is the result!

As I don't have any black and white patterned paper, I decided to make my own using a cute wee set from SU! called Good Neighbours.


Baby wipe background technique - what fun!

I've been meaning to try the 'baby wipe' technique that can create such lovely backgrounds.  I had found a piece of card that looked semi-glossy to me so thought I'd give it a try - I used a couple of Stampin' Up! reinkers in Riding Hood Red and Chocolate Chip and my white card turned into a sunset...

Added Dasher looking over his shoulder at the silver comet, he looks rather peaceful just standing there which was the cue for my sentiment!

I also wanted to play along with the latest sketch at 365 Cards and I found it sooo hard!  So when the inspiration of a upwards tail added to the star finally struck I was on my way LOL!

Monday, November 28, 2011

Keeping it simple

I think I may have used a little too much on my card now that I've checked back with 365 Cards - if you consider the 'sentiment' to be the whole thing not just the words then I'm okay!


Sunday, November 27, 2011

A little tag - Spin me a Yarn challenge

I think I'm going to start working on gift tags now as I have enough Christmas cards [I think}... so here are some I made today for 365 Cards which asked for "Spin me a Yarn".

Very simple to make, this technique called Spirelli was the tutorial at Splitcoast Stampers this week so thought I'd give it a go - I found the the gold cord was rather bulky to work with, the other two are made with crochet yarn which was much easier.  Also, you don't have to limit yourself to circles, just as long as you have the little grooves made by the scallops to wrap your yarn around it should work okay.











Autumn Tag

I've often seen tags on blogs and had thought of making one and now I finally have.  I was a bit unsure as to what you'd use them for, but I guess they can be used to adorn scrapbook pages, or even as greeting cards with the message written on the back - for this one I once again used my leaf stamp [I love leaves!] as the theme over at 365 Cards was to make a "Fall/Harvest Tag".

Oh yes - the little bee is for all the lovely honey we get to harvest to see us through the winter!!

The tag measures 3" x 5" and I cut off the top corners to create the tag shape.  Lots of fun embossing, sponging, cutting out and putting it all back together again!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Out of my comfort zone with Grunge..

I was a bit worried when I saw the Grunge challenge yesterday at 365 Cards as it's not something I've ever attempted before though I'm a big fan of Tim Holtz and his work.

I purchased one of his sets ages ago and the first time I used it I just couldn't get the ink to 'stick' properly to the stamps and was really disappointed but yesterday I used some Stampin' Up! inks and they worked just fine!  Maybe the stamps were too new the first time, I can't really remember what ink I used back then.

Anyway here is the card I made yesterday, I quite enjoyed making it so think I'll be putting that stamp set to good use from now on, it is great for male cards.  I'd love to do something similar but with a wee bit more red in it for a bit of omph.

I tried googling 'grunge cards' to get ideas but didn't have much luck, I think grunge refers to a lot of distressing, paper tearing, staining, knocking your cup of tea over it, you get the picture!



.....................and the next day..........................

I had another play around with the card above as I really wanted to add a hint more red and here is the result, including a gift tag that I made just because!  [well, I was making some Christmas gift tags and thought:  why not make a grunge one too?!]

The string on the gift tag came off a bag of flour I opened a couple of weeks ago [my mother {and probably my grandmother, my great-grandmother, etc}] always used to save string and I think it rubbed off on me LOL!  It was rather white so I rolled it over a SU Crumb Cake inkpad and it took on a nicely distressed/dirty look - just perfect!




Thursday, November 17, 2011

Floral Pro-Fusion all the way!

I love a Sizzlets die I have called "Floral Fusion", and today I went all out in a pro-Fusion of blooms!



It is for a colour challenge over at 365 Cards - pink, green, burgandy, brown and blue, hope I didn't miss any out!

Another Christmas card!

I keep thinking I must do a tally of all the Christmas cards I've made so far... last year I sent out around 50 so I'd better get crafting!

This is for the 365 Cards Technique Challenge - to Spotlight one part of your card.  I chose to colour in the scarf and hat of one of the wee snowmen, my son thought it looked rather cute.

For the first time in years I feel it is OKAY to have snowmen on my cards after the 3 days of snow we had in August - yeah!!

With a bit of masking, and bit of glitter and a spot of sponging this card came together last night.



14th August 2011 - SNOW!!!!!!!!!!


Saturday, November 12, 2011

The 3 Bs ... a bit of a boo-boo!

Well, as usual I was over at 365 Cards and saw a challenge for 3 Bs and I looked at the featured card and thought "oh yes, bird must be one of them... that should be easy with the bird punch"

Of course I've just checked back to upload my card and saw that the 3 Bs referred to "Brass + Blue + B of choice" and nowhere was the word 'bird' mentioned!  Lucky for me then that I just happened to choose to use the leftover Baja Breeze from a previous challenge as my background, phew - I just managed to comply with requirements thanks to that!

Anyway, making this card I yet again realised why we do this for love, not money.  It took me about 3 hours on and off to get it finalized, but in ENJOYED every minute of the crafting hehehe...

My B of choice was the bees and butterflies stamped on the background, plus a couple of brass brads just in case.


The 3 Rs - Ric-Rac, Rhinestones + R of choice

For once I'm up to date with the challenges :>

Today's 365 Cards challenge was 3 Rs: ric-rac, rhinestones plus R of choice which turned out to be ribbon or Rudolph, this card came together really easily for a change!

Not finding much room for sentiments at the moment, but this one is pretty obvious hehehe!


Friday, November 11, 2011

Pink + Pet Challenge

We had a pet rabbit called Panda who was white with black ears, a black eye patch and various spots of black all over [which explains why my daughter named her Panda!].  She was a lovely pet, started off in a cage but somewhere along the line she became a 'free' rabbit, wandering around our garden [and the neighbours'] as she wished and she was very happy - she chased away all the cats that dared come into our garden, the birds just loved having her around as she wouldn't bother them when we threw out bread crusts - they happily settled on the lawn to peck away knowing that no cat would come near them!

Anyway, Panda died a couple of years ago, I think she was about 8 years old at the time and I still think of her whenever I'm peeling carrots [she loved the peelings] and cut up broccoli [another favourite of hers, the broccoli stalk...] ,not to mention getting my legs headbutted by a crazy bunny every time I went to hang out the washing hehehe!

On the upside, I have finally been able to put in a veggie garden, something I wouldn't have dreamed of when Panda was wandering around!

ANYWAY - on to today's card:  The challenge was 3 Ps:  Pink, Pet and a P of choice, in this case I have three extra Ps - punched flowers, pearls and paper piercing!  (and I just had to try out a new Spellbinders die I picked up this morning - the lace doily!)


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Frosty the Snowman

Made this little card [A7 size if that actually exists] for the 3 Fs challenge over at 365 Cards - Fussy Cutting, Fringe and and F of choice - in my case Frosty!

I added glitter to the snowman image by stamping it all over with a Versamark Watermark pad, then sprinkled a teeny bit of glitter over it followed by some clear embossing powder - it worked quite well but you do need just a pinch of glitter otherwise the excess will end up back in your clear embossing powder jar!


The three Ts - non-traditional colours for a Christmas card

Over at 365 Cards the challenge was to make a card with 3 T's:  Teal, Trinket and a T of your choice.

I don't usually add 3D items to my cards for ease of posting but rummaging through my stash I did manage to find some metal butterflies I purchased sometime ago.  Of course when I decided to go the Christmas way the butterflies were no longer an option, and that's when I decided to use the little bell - not sure if they are a trinket but that's the best I could come up with.

And the third T??  It ended up being TWINE after many other options were considered: trees, twigs, triple [something], trimmings, etc...




What I used:

Baja Breeze and Chocolate Chip card, Chocolate Chip Ink, Martha Stewart edge punch, Kaisercraft Prairie Lane Collection paper, Bakers Twine, Dasher and sentiment stamps from SU, Fiskars corner rounder punch. SU Large Oval punch, SU Scalloped Oval punch.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Owls in a Gloriously Colourful Tree!

It's a little strange to be making 'autumn' inspired cards when we are just coming into summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, but I do love these fall colours so it was a pleasure to make!

When I was a teenager I couldn't get enough of BLUE - it was my favourite colour for a long time and I couldn't stand the sight of green (probably because it was my mother's favourite colour then hehehe - rebelious teenager!) but nowdays give me red, greens and oranges any day [and browns too] and I'm a very happy girl!

Apparently my great-grandmother adored orange, we have her embroidery floss tin and it is brimming full of so many tones of oranges - maybe that's where I get it from....

So for todays' card I went a bit mad on cutting out leaves - still have some spares on my table - and decided to make a little woodland scene, with a pair of cute owls to top it off.  {The card almost blends in with the background!}

It sort of fits in with a couple of challenges over at 365 cards [ I'm falling behind!] which are Peek-a-boo (one owl peeking out from behind the other one and Festive Fall With a Little Fringe where I feel the leaves have created an interesting fringe above the owls!




What I used:

Card:  snippets of SU Crumb Cake, Riding Hood Red,So Saffron, Tangerine Tango, Old Olive for the leaves, Very Vanilla for the owls and Cajun Craze for the branch - background card unknown.

Stamps:  Lots of Tags [retired], Punch Bunch [retired], Vintage Labels [retired]

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Cute kitty with chicks - revisited

I had stamped an extra kitten image yesterday when I made the Smile card, so decided to watercolour it as well and make it up into a card - really interesting how different colours change the focus of the card - yesterdays was mainly yellow, today I've gone with green.



What I used:

Stamps:  Penny Black and Stampin' Up!

Card:  Stampin' Up! Old Olive, Daffodil Delight and Tangerine Tango - polka dot paper from stash.

Fun tools:  Acqua pen, Large Oval punch, Scalloped Oval punch, Scalloped Border Punch, Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, Basic Pearls (all Stampin' Up!)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Smiling for you - Day 245

Feeling really under the weather today with a bad head cold, it's been dragging on since the weekend and I'm about over it!!  I think it is a teeny bit better compared to yesterday so hopefully it's on its way out...

So, we were asked to SMILE over at 365 Cards yesterday [I'm always a day behind hehehe, now I've got to start thinking about peek-a-boo!].  I've had this cute Penny Black stamp for ages and it's a delightful little image sure to make someone smile, I hope.





What I used:

Images:  Penny Black and Hero Arts

Card:  Stampin' Up! and unknown

Fun stuff:  Embossing folder SU, ribbon SU.