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.