The Calendar

Here it is! The calendar for the Craft Barn 12 Week Calendar Challenge.

I painted the 20"x 24" canvas with black paint to which I added some iridescent paint. This has given it a lovely shine that makes the tags stand out. I decided not to do anything further to the canvas as the tags themselves provide the decoration!


Now I shall have to find a place to hang it next year!!

Final Calendar Challenge

Well, Week 12 of the Craft Barn Calendar Challenge is here and almost done. The theme this week was Red and Green with some sparkle and a pine tree!

To make this tag, I used a Tim Holtz Sizzix embossing folder to emboss the pine trees onto the tag. I then coloured them using copic markers. colouring over the embossed areas gives the tag more dimension. I used Faded Jeans and Stormy Sky distress inks to colour the sky. I stamped a background of hills using weathered wood distress ink then covered it with white flocking to make it look like snow. I added some silver glitter to the "snow" to make it sparkle. I also added kindiglitz to the pine trees so they looked frosty.

I added some red baubles and an embellishing fragment that I glued onto a piece of Christmas paper with holy leaves and berries. The stamp is one of Tim Holtz Ticket stamps and I used Tombow markers to colour it before stamping it onto a ticket. I used Fired brick distress ink to colour my ribbon that is attached to the top of the tag.

The calendar is layered onto black card then attached to the tag. I now need to attach the tags to my canvas that I have prepared. I might have time to get that done tomorrow!

Advent Calendars

I have been busy making some advent calendars for the family to enjoy during December.

Both are made using the Advent Calendar Kit from Kaisercraft. I stained the wood using vintage photo distress stain then fitted the pieces together.

For this one, I used a 12x12 sheet that I cut down to fit the back of the box and lined the edges of the box with the same paper. I made a tree using a Nellie Snellen die, fitting 4 trees together and added little gold ornaments and a star. Made little presents to put under the tree. Along the top of the box, I placed three poinsettia flowers that I cut from SVG Cuts file - 3D Wintergreens.

I got a little more adventurous with this one! I cut some little house frontages using the Christmas in the Village set from SCG Cuts. To make them stand up, I made little boxes from acetate and attached the houses to these, then glued them into the box.
The tree is made with the smaller of the tree dies from Nellie Snellen. I cut 8 trees and folded them in half and glued them all together to make the 3D tree. I also cut a couple of sets of houses using the Tim Holtz on the edge die and glued them behind the three houses.

The Santa and his reindeer were cut from the Christmas in the Village set and mounted with foam pads over the moon! Added a Merry Christmas banner to finish it off. 

Craft Barn Calendar Challenge Week 11

The challenge this week over at the Craft Barn is to make a calendar using pale yellow and grey wth bare branches.

I used a pale yellow cardstock tag for this challenge. The bare tree is cut from dark grey card that I embossed the tree on. The embossing folder is one of the Tim Holtz folders. The background for the tag was stamped with Weathered Wood Distress Ink. I used stamps designed by Sue Law for the hills in the background, the tiny flying birds and the grass tufts around the base of the trees. The clouds stamp is from Rubbadubbadoo in NZ.

I finished off the tag with a ribbon made from seam binding that I coloured with Weather Wood Distress stain.

One week to go!

Craft Barn Calendar Challenge Week 10

The theme for this week's calendar challenge at the Craft Barn  is Autumn colours and leaves with the added option to use Tim Holtz tools and products.

The tag is embossed with the woodgrain folder from Tim Holtz Texture Fades range and coloured with frayed burlap and brished corduroy distress inks. The leaves were cut using Marianne Creatables dies as the tattered leaves dies were a little big for this particular project. For the leaves, I first coloured glossy cardstock with Ranger Alcohol Inks in autumnal colours then cut them with the dies. These dies have a great texture built in and the close up photo below shows the detail on the leaves.






I also cut some little acorns from brown card using the same set of dies then covered them with Glossy Accents. I attached these with foam pads to make them stand out from the tag.

I blended wild honey and rusty hinge distress inks on the edges of the calendar to give it a more auntumnal look as well. 

The ribbon is seam binding coloured with Spiced Marmalade distress ink.

Can't wait for the last two weeks challenges because I am eager to see the whole calendar put together on the canvas I plan to buy tomorrow!!

I have just seen on the stats for my blog that this is my 150th post!

Craft Barn Celebration!

The Craft Barn at Lingfield, in Surrey are celebrating 600 followers on their blog with a little giveaway! Actually it is a big giveaway and looks just stunning.

Please check out the Craft Barn - they have such a great selection of goodies for crafting and I just loved my visit there last year. I hope to get back again next year when I am in the UK. They also do a great postal service.

Enjoy! and Congratulations to the Craft Barn!

Craft Barn Challenge Week 9

The Calendar challenge for Week 9 over at the Craft Barn is to 

use old paper and red lines. The paper is a creamy colour with graph gridlines all over it. It is from a DCWV Mod Retro Stack collection which is a set of cardstock with a '50s look to it. I used the cardstock to cover the tag, then cut some more of the flowers from the bottom of the cardstock to create a 3-D layer that I attached to the card, just below the flowers on the tag layer. I edged the tag with Barn Door distress ink then added some cream paper flowers with red bling in the centres. Finished the tag off with a cream ribbon around the bottom and a seam binding ribbon coloured with antique linen distress stain.

Christmas Things

I recently bought the svg files to make these Gingerbread Chalets from SVG Cuts! I just love the things that Mary and Leo come up with and they are so helpful if you have a problem. I cut the files with my Black Cat Cougar and everything cut really well - like a hot knife through butter!

The roof of each chalet comes off and you can put little electric tea lights inside so the light glows through the holes in the walls and the vellum on the doors and windows.
Posted this to Joyful Stamper: Inspire Me Fridays too!

Other stuff

This week it is my daughter-in-law's birthday. They came for dinner last night and we gave her this card to celebrate.

The card is made from brown card. The top layer was stamped with a couple of darkroom Door stamps using sepia ink. Used distress inks in pinks to colour the card then edged with vintage Photo. The underneath layer is pink stamped with a word stamp from the same set in sepia, as is the sentiment, but this was stamped with a Gina K Best Wishes sentiment.

The roses are made from cream paper and spritzed with glimmer mist.

Finished off with the cream ribbon and a bow.

This frame was made for Mum. I had a wooden frame from IKEA that I painted black then did a crackled effect using PVA glue and a creamy coloured paint.

The flowers were made from pale pink paper then spritzed with a pale pink glimmer mist. The leaves were cut with a Cheery Lynn die from pale green paper, then spritzed with green, which also made the curl a little.

The frame was just the right size for the photo of the great grandchildren in Australia!

I saw this idea for a tealight candle holder in a magazine recently and thought I would try it out. I had some memory glass that I stamped with embossing ink using a crackle stamp from Tanda Stamps, then embossed with gold and heat set.

I used copper tape to edge the top of the glass sides then used the tape to fix the sides together in a square. I glued the sides to the bottom, then covered with the copper tape.

It looks very effective with a tealight candle in it! I have entered this in Crafty Hazelnut's C hristcmas Challenge. - Whatever lights your candle!

Calendar Tag Week 8

The Craft Barn Calendar Challenge theme this week is a dark colour and circles.

I chose to use a black spotted backing paper for this one then used red to introduce some colour. I added a frill of red pleated fibre ribbon ( the sort that is used to decorate hats and fascinators) over which I placed a white ribbon with black bling dots.

The flowers and flourishes were cut from red card. The flower die is a Marianne Creations die and it has little circles in the petals! The flourishes are cut with the Tim Holtz Elegant flourishes die.

The ribbon is seam binding coloured with Black Soot Distress Ink.

Calendar Challenge Week 7

This week, the challenge for the Craft Barn Calendar Challenge was to use purple/lilac and dry embossing.

For the tag this week, I used a craft concepts emboissing folder on the tag then coloured it with milled lavender and dusty concord distress inks.

The butterfly is a die cut from Marianne Creations and was cut from a heavy silver paper. I bent the wings up a little and added purple rhinestones to the centre for the body.

I cut the flourishes from silver card using the elegant flourishes die from Tim Holtz. The ribbon was coloured using the dusty concord distress ink.

Only 5 more to go!

When I have finished the 12 tags, I plan to mount them on a canvas as a calendar for 2012!

More play!

Yes, I have been playing with my new toy again! I had to make some cards with a New Zealand theme and I had downloaded a piece of clip art that I made into an svg file using Inkscape. This kowhaiwhai pattern is a good one to cut as it is not too intricate for a first trial. For these cards, I cut the top layer of the image in black cardstock using SCAL and the Black Cat. Then made a shadow layer and cut it from red cardstock.

Below is a closeup of the diecut.









For the next set of cards, I cut the actual cards out using the BC. The kowhaiwhai pattern was cut out from the front of the card, then I used the die cuts from each card to inlay onto a contrasting card. The effect was quite nice. I added strips to the sides of the cards to add a little more interest.

Red, black and white are modern colours used in Maori art. Red and Black are also the colours of Canterbury, used by all the sports teams that represent our province.

Turquoise and Lace

The challenge over at the Craft Barn for this week's Calendar Challenge is Turquoise and Lace.

The biggest challenge was actually finding the turquoise colour. There are so many blues and greens and shades thereof that it was hard to find the right colour. Eventually, with the help of a turquoise ring I was able to find a paper to match!

The stamped images are from one of Claudine Helmuth's sets - stamped with a turquoise ink then overstamped with Versafine Onyx Black. The edge of the tag is coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The lace bow has been attached to a Nellie Snellen Lacey Circle die and layered onto a scalloped circle in black. The butterfly is a wooden button I picked up in Kuala Lumpur and threaded with a piece of baker's twine. The ribbon is seam binding coloured with Tumbled Glass Distress ink.

My New Toy

It has finally arrived - my new toy! A Black Cat Cougar machine with a 13" cutting bed. I am so excited!!!

I spent most of the day today uploading software updates, installing other software and playing with the machine. It is a bit different from my Cricut Expression - bigger and gruntier and does not require cartridges for the designs. Can do those on the computer and cut straight away.

I had some new svg files that I bought from SVGCuts recently and wanted to try them out. I chose this card to try out first.

It has two layers and I needed to cut both layers. It only took 3 goes to get it right! Amazing really!!! I also used Make The Cut software to do the design.

After I had cut both layers, I decorated the front with a background stamp (brushed corduroy) and edged the card with spiced marmalade DI.

For the centre of the card, I stamped the sentiment onto the piece that I had cut out (on the front section of the card) with Timber brown Stazon then edged with scattered straw and spiced marmalade.

I edged the inside of the card with the same colours and stamped a Happy Birthday on the bottom corner.

I glued the two layers together, then added the sentiment piece. I had some little brown flowers that I attached to the front with some green swirls and added orange dots to the top of the flowers.

I really enjoyed my playtime today!

A New Calendar Tag

Back from a few days away and have to catch up with the latest calendar challenge from the Craft Barn Challenge. The theme this week is Pink and Birds.

I cut my tag in pink cardstock then stamped the floral corner stamp in Vintage Sepia ink. I then edged the tag in Spun Sugar and Worn Lipstick distress inks.

The birdcage was cut from the Songbird cartridge with the Cricut and stained with Vintage Photo Distress stain. I then coated it with Distress Crackle paint in Rock Candy. The bird is a wooden embellishment from Kaiser that I painted with gold paint.

The flowers were sprayed with Tattered Angels Cherry Blossom and fixed with a brad. I put kindiglitz on the brad to make it sparkle. The leaves were punched from green cardstock and layered underneath the flowers. Finished it off with seam binding ribbon coloured with Spun Sugar distress ink.

I am entering this in the Think Pink Challenge at Whimsie Doodles this month as well as it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Postscript: Just found out that this tag won the challenge for this week at the Craft Barn! Rapt!!

Feline Friends

Over at the Craft Room Challenge this week, they are featuring felines. I thought this was a good opportunity to use some of the feline stamps I bought last year from Tanda Stamps.

I made 2 cards but couldn't decide which one to post for the challenge! So I am showing you both cards!

For this card, I stamped the gorgeous feline on white card then heat embossed it with black. I cut the image out using the deckled rectangles from Spellbinders and cut a further 2 rectangles - one black and one white to use as layers.

I made a top fold base card from black card and scored the lines on it using my ScorePal. I stamped a sentiment and heat embossed it with white and added a ribbon.

This card used the same Tanda stamp that Zoe used for her sample card. I used wild honey, rusty hinge and brushed corduroy on the stamp which gives it a bit of a distressed look. I cut it with a circle die from Spellbinders and added brushed corduroy and walnut stain around the edges before I removed it from the die.

The background was stamped with another Tanda stamp - a spiderweb that I used pumice stone and black soot on to get a variegated look to the end result.

I rounded the corners on the layer and added to a top fold black base card. The image was mounted onto the card with foam squares to raise it a little from the card.

I couldn't resist showing you a picture of our own feline - Didi. She was lying on a duvet that I had taken off the bed and was most comfortable there when I took the photo!

13 Cards from 1 Sheet!

Well, maybe 2 sheets plus the base cards and some other bits and pieces!

I found this 12 x 12 Christmas paper from Pavlova Papers in my stash a couple of weeks ago and thought I would see how many Christmas cards I could make using this sheet of paper. I also used a 12 x 12 sheet of green American Crafts card as an option for layers underneath the Christmas paper.

As you can see from the pictures, I also used additional cardstock to provide embellishments and layers other then the red and green. However, I did use the Christmas paper on every card and ended up with just a few little scraps left over.

The stamps I used were from my own collection of many stamps, including Montarga, Stampers Anonymous, Rubbadubbadoo and others.

I used some Nellie Snellen dies (Christmas Trees) and Spellbinders Nestabilities (deckled rectangles, ovals and scalloped ovals) and a Tim Holtz On the Edge die.

This was a fun exercise for me because it made me think about different ways I could use smaller bits of paper. It also helped me to get started with making my Christmas Cards!





In making these cards, I used 1 sheet of 12 x 12 christmas paper, 1 sheet of 12 x 12  green American Crafts cardstock, 13 red base cards (A5) and 4 pieces of A5 cream card, some ribbon, embossing powder, inks and brads. I estimate the cost of making these cards to be about $6 (NZ). Not too bad really, especially if you are on a budget!!

A Yellow Calendar Tag

The Calendar Challenge over at the Craft Barn for this week is for the calendar to use Yellow and to use masks.

For this tag, I chose to use scattered straw distress ink on the base. I distressed it by screwing up the tag, colouring it and wetting it then dried it and ironed it flat again!

I used mustard seed DI to colour up the masked images which are from Tim Holtz. I put these at the top and bottom of the tag. I then used the negative of the same mask to make a design on the calendar with the mustard seed DI.

I edged the tag with wild honey and rusty hinge to give it a bit of depth. I also added some brown paper flowers and some elegant swirls cut from green card. The ribbon is seam binding coloured with mustard seed DI.

I am entering this tag in the Craft Your Days Away challenge (Tags) and the Allsorts Challenge (5 Flowers) as well.

Triangle Star Card Video

I have just finished another video on making a triangle star card.

Katie brought the instructions to us at our workshop day for Crafty Girls recently and it was a fun little card to make.

The written instructions for making a card like this can be found here.

New Video

I spent some time last weekend making a couple of videos that I have finally finished editing.

The first one is making a pyramid card that some of my friends have been asking for.

Check it out below! The written instructions can be found here.

A Perfect Pear

This week, The Stamp Man Challenge is entitled "A Perfect Pear" and when I saw this, I immediately thought of the lovely pear stamp I bought from Montarga a few months ago.

For this card, I stamped the image onto green card and heat embossed it with gold EP. I layered it onto gold paper and created a very fine border then laid that onto green corrougated card that I had wrapped some fine gold braid around the end.

I punched the corners to make little insets and threaded the same gold braid from corner to corner to create a frame. The picture truly does not do the stamped image justice!!

This card also fits the Allsorts Challenge this week - Keep it Simple.

12 Week Calendar Challenge

I was blog hopping the other day, catching up on all the things that are going on in blogland and I came across this neat challenge from the Craft Barn.
The challenge is to create a calendar each week for the next 12 weeks.

I decided that I would make each month of the year on a large tag, cut using the Tim Holtz Tag die. So I started doing them yesterday - catching up on the first two weeks challenge themes and doing this week's theme as well.

The first week's challenge was blue and crackle, so I coloured the tag using Adirondack Snow Cap dabber then Faded Jeans distress stain. The paint underneath provided a lovely base for the stain and gave the tag a dappled look. I then edged the card and the calendar (January) with Stormy Sky distress ink.I stamped a Stampers Anonymous Life stamp on the tag as well.

The flower was made using the tattered florals die (TH again!) and I used glimmer mist in a frosty blue colour to spray the flower to give it a bit of a shimmer.

The crackle part of the tag is on the ticket, which I stamped with a Stampers Anonymous stamp in Versafine Black ink then edged with stormy sky DI. I painted it with distress crackle - Rock Candy and left it to dry before attaching it to the tag.

The second week's challenge was red and embossed. For this one, I covered the tag with Christina Re paper that had a red flourish on the corner, then distressed it eart and Wings TH die, then embossed with a spots embossing folder. On top of that, I inked both up with embossing ink and covered with clear UTEE. I did this twice and it produced a lovely shiny coating on the hearts. I then edged the hearts with a gold pen.

I made the roses from red paper and a 6 petal flower punch. I spritzed them with gold glimmer mist then attached to the tag along with some green leaves that I cut with a leaf die.








I cut the key with a CB cut and emboss folder then inked with walnut stain and vintage photo DIs and covered with crackle paint - Rock Candy. I attached this to the tag using some seam binding that I coloured with the barn door DI.

The challenge theme for this week was green and flowers with some embossing. I stamped a new flower stamp from Montarga on the bottom of the tag then embossed it with clear EP. I added a clouds stamp and embossed that before making a mask to cover it. I then brayered peeled paint DI over the top of the embossed image. I gradually added more colours with the brayer - tumbled glass then stormy sky. The claendar (March) was glued to the centre of the tag and I added butterflies that I stamped (Tanda stamp) and coloured blue and green with copic markers, then embossed with clear EP. The ribbon is seam binding that I coloured using peeled paint DI.

I really enjoyed making these tags and look forward to the next week's theme!

Card Class - Fancy Folds

 We are planning another card class at The Scrappin' Patch again. This month will be Fancy Folds and I have some sneak peek pictures of the sample cards.

This time, we have a slightly different take on the pyramid card - one that will fold flat and fit into a large square envelope.

 Then we have a more complicated folded card that looks just stunning when it is completed. With a sheer ribbon bow and a lovely lacey doiley, the Spellbinders die cut sets it off nicely.

The last card here is a three fold card with a special scalloped border. It also has a nice slanted top on it. Adding some flowers and brads, just finishes it off well.

Check out the Scrappin' Patch website for more details and to book for the class.

Next month we will be doing Christmas Cards - in time for sending overseas. I also hope to be in-store doing some demonstrations using Distress Inks during October. Check out the Scrappin' Patch website for more details.

Father's Day

It is Father's day here in New Zealand next weekend and I thought I would make a few cards.

For this card I used some patterned card that I made using alcohol inks and wiping the colours onto glossy card using a folded tissue. I wiped the tissue up and down as well as side-to-side to produce a plaid effect.

I stamped the ties onto white card and onto the glossy card that I had coloured, cut out the tie from the coloured card and attached them to the white card.

The stamps used for this card both came from Montarga.

For this card, I used a number of stamps to make the scene. The golfing stamps are from a set I purchased recently. The grass and the trees are Montarga stamps and the hills in the background are a stamp designed by Sue Law which I use for a lot of backgrounds.

To make the card, I stamped the golfball on the tee, then masked it and stamped the golfer. The background was stamped successively starting with the grass, the hills and the trees. Each was masked before stamping the next layer. Finally, I added the sentiment.

I coloured the golfer with Copic markers, then layered the card onto a red base card.
I have entered this card in the Craft Room Challenge this week as the theme is Masking! Thanks Zoe!!

I used the same technique of stamping and masking for this card as well.

The fisherman and the fish stamps are from the same set as the golfer.

The background stamp is the same as used in the above card.

Crochet

I have been making this baby shawl for some time now and I finally got it finished.

It is for the new grandchild due in February! My son (the father-to-be) says it looks like a large doily!!!

The shawl measures almost 1 metre in diameter. and is made from 4 ply yarn crocheted with a 4.00 mm hook.

Snow

I had to post a couple of pictures that I took after the snowfall we had last Monday.

We woke up to white stuff everywhere and it continued to fall throughout the day.

The cat hated it and she refused to go out and walk on the snow. DH made a little track for her from her cat door to the garden so she could at least get outside!!

The temperature that day was almost the lowest in the last 100 years. It never got above 1.9 degrees C all day. Would you believe, the next day was 16 degrees!

It is lucky there was someone in the house to shovel the snow off the path and driveway!

Most of the snow was gone by Wednesday afternoon but there were a few snowmen around the place that lasted a few days longer.

It is a shame that the snow didn't get to the skifields so, although they are open, the base is not that deep yet. Hopefully they will get a decent fall soon!

Clean and Simple

The theme for the Card Making World Monthly Challenge for August is Clean and Simple. As one of the DT I had to make 2 sample cards.

I bought some new stamps from Gina K Designs a couple of weeks ago and they arrived on Thursday last week. Of course I had to use them for this challenge and I was quite pleased with the results.

The first card was so simple but very effective. I made a mask using a scalloped oval nestabilities die and laid it on top of my base card. I then inked it with Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet Distress Inks. The stamp used is from the Garden Silhouettes Set (Gina K Designs) and I used Versafine Onyx Black for this image. The sentiment is from the Bold and Beautiful set.

This card uses stamps from the Garden Silhouettes set as well.

The layer card is from a matte set I bought years ago and had not really used many of the colours. I trimmed it to fit the base card with a little left over to back the sentiment piece.

I stamped the image using a Memento Rhubarb ink pad then cut the shape with an oval nestabilities die. I backed this with the scalloped oval die cut and layered it on the card.

The sentiment was from the same set stamped in Onyx Black (Versafine) and layered on the red and black layers.

I was so pleased with the effect of this card, I made another three in the same style but in different colours.

Is it really that long since my last post?

Where has the time gone??? I can answer that - I have made about 50 cards in the last 2 weeks - that is where!

I spent some time last week with a Crafty Girls friend, Barbara, helping some of the residents of the home where my mother now lives to make cards. It was a fun afternoon and the time just flew by. Below are a couple of photos of people who made cards and were so excited by the finished products.

I had made a whole lot of flowers and other embellishments before the workshop so that people could use them to put cards together. Most of the people had never done anything like this before and there was a real buzz through the room.

Everyone went away with at least one card that they had made - either on their own or with a little help.

Barbara was a real help too - I think she enjoyed herself and we have been asked to go back again in a month or so to do another session for them.

Of course, my mother had to come and supervise! She said she didn't need to make a card as she could get me to make any that she wanted!!!