browns and birthday

I dug out my hole punch (1/12 inch ) for this as my circle dies are all scalloped .I cut a few in different papers and then stacked them and cut with the fancy edge scissors -the cut is easy to see on some of the papers - keep both stacked halves apart ,I put one to the left of my craft mat and one the right - now you can split them up and taking one half circle from each side you can stick them back together. ***

IF YOU DON'T CUT YOUR CIRCLES IN HALF EXACTLY IT WONT MATTER AS LONG AS YOU TAKE A PIECE FROM EACH SIDE THEY WILL ALWAYS FORM A PERFECT CIRCLE.

Cardbase 10.5 x 10.5 cm
Center panel 9.5 x 9.5 cm
Die cut Happy Birthday / you could white emboss a sentiment on black card or black stamp on white card - I die cut this twice and stuck together.

Craftyhazelnut's patterned paper challenge - March

just a flower

I cut a piece of card slightly smaller than my card front and using both the fine and the thick nibs from the grey promarker I drew lines on the card - I made sure I left the pen on the card just a little bit longer than needed so it bleed into the card - I didn't want any harsh lines - Using the red promarker I coloured some paste pink and spread it through the stencil - It's  a big stencil so I kept everything very simple.

Passion for ProMarkers - challenge 533 - make it feminine
Creative Craft Cottage - challenge 127 - for the girls

two more for the charity box

After my last post using up old stuff I made these two cards and then threw away all the other old bits - it feels good to get rid of rubbish and now I've started I going to go through all my stuff .

using stuff up - not my idea of fun

 this is just a small selection of plastic bags containing tags die cut hearts -butterflies and things which are too small to add onto a card as they are -you can see below they are not very big .

 I hate to waste stuff but sometimes you just have to throw stuff out ( I have a bag of die cut hearts that are at least 14 years old ) seriously they have to go - I did empty out a few of the bags to see if I could mix any of the bits together - most of my cards go to charity so they always find a home.

 as you can see my desk was a real mess but I did hang in there and made some cards

This one used a yellow and white square along with two butterflies layered together.

I am amazed this delicate bunting survived there was a tiny bend right at the top of the line holding them together - the cupcake came from a piece of paper.

This one had two pink squares layered to form the base and a pink arrow.

                               
                            This had a tag and a square layered along with a butterfly.

there are still lots of small pieces to use and lots of butterflies and hearts - I may still throw them all away -who knows -

celebrate your day - for mum

I need some help when it comes to taking pics of my cards - the colour is so very pale here but IRL there is a great deal of contrast between the white card and the turquoise blues and mustard colours of the paper -

Southern Girls - anything goes - with easter or  mothers day.

 My husband always asks me why I only make one card and thinks I should make two similar cards when I have all the supplies to hand -here is my second card using the same stuff. Another crappy picture - any suggestions would be appreciated.

thank goodness it's wednesday

Monday was  a wasted day as I had a crappy migraine - I did feel a bit  better yesterday and thought a bit of card making would be good - I managed to destroy this stencil completely and my craft mat was covered in moulding paste - I decided to go shopping - I slammed the house door shut only to find I had the wrong keys - my house keys - car keys and phone were all in the house - I has to sit outside for nearly 3 hours waiting for my husband to come home from work.

My efforts today were much better - I used the palest grey marker pens and scribbled down the card front - you can just about see it in the above image  -I stamped the butterflies and then stamped then again on some spare card - I cut the body and front wings which I added at the end- after masking off the butterflies I stamped the tree bark using another marker pen to colour the stamp - again using the marker pens I stamped out the sentiments - I used the blue marker pen to colour the butterflies.

                                   

Passion for ProMarkers - week 530 -use 3 of something - 3 butterflies and 3 enamel dots .

celebrate in blue

I stamped the flower and then masked it off before stamping the leaves and then fussy cutting out.This stamp set from Altenew does have matching dies but I wanted the whole thing in one piece. The celebrate stamp came from a set bought in a local discount store . The word 'celebrate ' covers so many things - mothers day -birthday ,anything really which is why I left the inside blank and just stamped a couple of leaves.

Addicted to Stamps and More - challenge 376 -anything

The Flower challenge - 41 Add leaves

Stamping Sensations -  Feb challenge Feminine

Z fold my way

                Sorry about the shadow in the bottom corner - I really did the best I could.

The weather here in Tasmania has been very dull for a few days - taking a good pic is hopeless even with the lights on. The gingham paper is two shades of green - not grey .I found these 4 flowers yesterday -stamped but not coloured - not sure what sort of paper it was but it was very porous and I couldn't actually blend anything - I used the yellow directly onto the paper - the orange I mixed with lots of water - it basically dried where it dropped.

Passion for ProMarkers -challenge 528 - fancy folds - I'm not sure if there are any right or wrong ways to make this - I just did what I thought.

A little love

Last August I bought some moulding paste  - I thought I should give a go as I have quite a few stencils - I coloured the paste with Pro Markers and then taped off sections of this leaf stencil.

 As all the colours are very pale I used a light grey to match in with some of the leaves. Not bad for a first attempt - I love the raised texture of the paste. Sorry about the bad quality of the pic -it is so very very dull here today .

Creative Craft Cottage challenge 126 - Add a heart

I Love ProMarkers - challenge 403 - Love or wedding anniversary - I used ProMarkers to colour the moulding paste.

Southern Girls - anything goes with team Trace

Double D - Hearts challenge -

bring on the cake

I always tell myself cards for kids should be bright and full of colour - it never happens -I just prefer CAS.This little mouse is an old stamp from Stampavie -  I used an unrelated stamp for the bunting but the outlines were just too thick and heavy - I had to cut some paper and cover them up leaving just the thread line across the top . I used a mix of Aqua promarkers and Promarker pens.

Passion for ProMarkers week 527  - for a child /child images

Crafty Animals - challenge 35- anything goes

you made it how many times

 

This was my fourth attempt at the card front - for the first two I used some cheapie ink pads to make the circles - I stamped some of the images and then managed to smudge them with my sleeve ( don't ask ,cos I don't know how I did it ). I tackled the third one with some pearlescent water colour paints and then stamped again using a Versafine black ink pad . I know this ink is slow drying but seriously I went shopping and it was still wet when I came back and I managed to smudge it AGAIN . I think the pearly paint and ink were just a bad combo . I used the same pearly paints on the fourth card and stamped with Tuxedo black - not quite as sharp or detailed but it did dry much faster.

Southern Girls -Anything goes

Incy Wincy - Anything goes Jan 20th

what to do when you cannot sleep

On Wednesday morning I was ironing at 5.10am -

On Thursday at around the same time  I thought I would look through some YouTube videos - this is one of the ones I had a go at

This top fold card uses the double point technique - I hated it so much I didn't bother to lift the flap and add anything underneath .

 This is a three panel card - partial die cutting of a circle on the front panel

                                           a heart and sentiment on the middle section

a big sentiment inside -  and when I closed the whole thing up I had stamped the sentiment in the wrong place and you can see it peeking out the bottom of the circle - 

I always say for every good card I make there are at least 2 bad ones to get there -

 so Friday at 5.30am  I tried again with the double point card -my Aunt celebrates her 90th birthday in May so something like this might work

I was quite pleased with the end result - EXCEPT at 5.30 in the morning the light is not so good -I used some lovely bright white card or so I thought - turns out the middle panel on the front is pearlized - I really didn't notice until later when the light shone on it.

 The flower stamps are a Fiskars set called flora which I coloured using Aquamarkers - not sure where the sentiment came from.

a quick Hi to Darcy who left a lovely comment on my last card

I'm not sure what Saturday morning will bring but one thing is certain I will be up and about way too early.

Happy New Year -tall and skinny

Christmas and the New Year are always a quite affair in our house - for the first time in 20 years we actually went out for Christmas Day lunch ,I think this could be a new tradition .

I ran a strip of washi tape around all 4 sides of the card to get an even margin but then
I managed to get the background stencil wonky (Spellbinders diamond and stars ) the tulip is part of a much larger decorating stencil - I managed to mask off the bit I wanted - this stencil is at least 30 years old . A die cut sentiment and a few sequins -

ice cream time

I miss the Northern hemisphere Christmas -since we came to Australia in 2006 we haven't celebrated the festive season at all - prawns and pavlova just don't do it for me - I want cold crisp mornings -warm jumpers and yummy heartwarming food
 The cardstock is a beautiful milk chocolate colour but for some reason it looks very dark and all the cones have been coloured - again not really showing up .The cone stamp is part of a birthday set which I've had for years and never used - it came from K-mart when they used to stock acylic stamps . Whatever you are eating this festive season make it merry - good cheer to one and all.

trees

I really can not stop myself with this stencil nonsense - that's the trouble when you haven't made anything for ages - you get a silly idea in your head and there it stays - the colour is not very good as it's very sunny here today -

friendship

I used this kaisercraft embossing folder called fern leaf -I inked with a little gold and green ink then used two square dies to make a frame - the frame was a bit floppy and it got worse when  I die cut the flowers with the kaisercraft fine line flowers die. I had to cut everything again and stick it together to make it solid enough to use - 

It's always tempting to make the flowers pink or red but I really like the lemon - the whole thing has fun foam to add some lift. I used the same yellow card and a hole punch  then added some glossy accents .

The Flower challenge 39 - use a die

happy birthday fox

after playing about sponging ink through a homemade stencil in my last post I just had to do it again - I did use 2 square dies this time and I used pearlescent paint -I did stamp the fox twice but I think it would have been better if I had heat embossed it - It doesn't really stand out.

southern girls - anything goes challenge

birthday smiles

 I spend more time  just looking at my craft space than actually making anything - my inspiration has gone - time to try something new to me - I taped my card blank to my craft mat and placed a slightly wider piece of cardstock over it - you can see the washi tape at the top of my card blank and to the side of my spare piece of card. you can do this in stamping platform as well.

 I didn't have any solid stamps - I did think about using a die cut or a stencil  but I didn't want a perfect shape so I roughly cut a shape from a piece of scrap card .I flipped the spare cardstock to one side and inked the card base then flipped the spare cardstock back and inked again.

I carried on with the inking and moving the stencil on each layer until I was happy - so now I have two panels that look the same . On the spare piece of a card I stamped a flower and leaves from Altenews 'be happy' set then cut it out with scissors .I used some fun foam on the back and then lined it up with shapes on the card front.

Craft Stamper - December make it challenge