My Challenge

As I was sitting at my desk yesterday, finishing off some cards for a card swap, it occurred to me that, since I had bought so many new stamps while I was away, I needed to make sure that I used them - at  least once!!
So I issued myself a little challenge - to use every stamp at least once during the next month. Given that some of the stamp sets I bought had at least 8 stamps, and I got quite a few sets... that is a lot of stamps to use.

So, here is the result for the first day of my challenge:

The Tanda Teaser for this week is a Man card.
This is one of Tanda's stamps from the Retro Men Set 1. I stamped it using the black Memento pad, cut it with the largest nestabilities oval, then used the same die to cut the backing, which is a leather-look paper from some scraps that I had. I also embossed the die cut to provide an edge to the piece.

Layered on a cuttlebug embossed card outlined with a gold marker, then again onto a brown card. I cut the corner pieces from the same scrap of leather-look paper with a Martha Stewart photo corner punch. The whole was then attached to the beige card.

The sentiment is from a Dark Room Studio set that I bought in Australia last year.

The second piece is an ATC book that I made for my alphabet ATCs.

For the Card Making World New Zealand Crafters Group, we are currently running an alphabet ATC swap. I was thinking about how to store the ones I have made but not sent and I found the instructions for making a little folder that contains 4 ATCs. Carol from Hamilton sent the instructions to me and I found that you could join several together to make a book.

The cover detail includes a stamp from the Les Petite Whimsies collection by Stampington and Company which I stamped on card that I had already coloured with Tattered Rose, Victorian Velvet and Weathered Wood Distress Inks. I masked the image, then stamped swirls with WWDI and little cogs with VVDI. The little cogs stamps was from my friend Zoe, who designed a set of stamps especially for our meet at Wantage.

I coloured some swirls that I had cut with the Cricut to attached to the front with brads, along with a label.
I made 7 little folders and sewed them together through the spines, then attached to the spine of the cover, along with a ribbon to add some more colour and texture.

I attached pink ribbons to the cover, then added the two cards I had made for the decorations.

Quite pleased with the result, but always room for improvement.

I will do a tutorial on this and share it with the other NZ Crafters for them to store their ATC collections.

I also made some other cards, which I have coloured using my Copics, but will share these next week as they are for the card swap and I don't want to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak!!!
Total new stamps used yesterday: 5
Enjoy!

This one's for Burn!

After spending some time with Burnice when I was in the UK, I realised how much influence Tim Holtz has with crafters there as well as in the USA! I had bought his book - A Compendium of Curiosities from the USA and when it arrived, I was delighted to see that it had been signed by the Man himself.

Burn, naturally, was rather envious, so I thought that I would post a picture of the greeting from Himself - just for you Burn... x x

PS - I got to play with my new distress inks a bit yesterday!

Home again - and with lots of goodies!

Well, we got home safely and so did the luggage (Thank Goodness!!)
Had a wonderful time in the craft shops that I was fortunate to visit - especially the Craft Barn at Lingfield and The Stamp Attic at Wantage. I also bought stamps from the Tanda folks - thanks Andrew and Tanya for the prompt delivery, yet again.

Since I have only been home a couple of days, I haven't had time (or inclination) to go out to the craft room to do anything. It has been so cold and wet since we got back that I have been hugging the fire all day. However, I have cut up all the rubber stamp sheets and backed everything with EZ mount, ready to get on with it when it warms up a bit.

So what did I buy, you ask? I got several sets of stamps from Tanda - the cat sets and some background stamp sets. The large set was a Paperbag Studio set which I fell in love with at The Stamp Attic. Also got some ticket stamps and a few other bits and pieces from the Craft Barn. The sunflower set was one I picked up in a stationery shop in Bromley one day.



Another great purchase was a number of Distress Ink pads that I can't wait to use. I don't think I will need any more ink for a long time!!

Some other bits and pieces that I bought were ribbons, a few other stamps, some glimmer mists, a ticket die for the Cuttlebug, a couple of paper pads, a paper distresser, and a couple of other ink pads.

But, the best thing I bought was two sets of Copic markers, and at half the price that they are here. 

Well, I am looking forward to using everything... just as soon as it warms up!

A Lovely Day at Wantage

Well, today arrived finally - I have been looking forward to it for months. I met up with Zoe, Sue and Lucy at the Stamp Attic in Wantage and we spent a few hours playing with Sue's Copics and distress inks. It was soo good to get ink on my fingers again...

Wendy at the Stamp Attic was very kind and we were able to use her classroom for the afternoon. Sue had organised some card and stamped the card for us to colour with the Copics. I love them! Sue's cards are shown on the table in front of us.

In the photo - (L to R) Zoe, Lucy, Me and Sue.

Great day girls- thank you so much for giving up your day to meet up. I really enjoyed it - the best part was meeting you all and finally putting faces to names.

Friends

The Lots to Do challenge this weeks is Friends so I found that I had this card in my collection that fitted the bill. Lucky!

The stamp I used was one from Montarga, a Christchurch based stamp company. I used coffee archival ink to stamp the image then cut it out in an oval shape. The backing was a dark brown card, same as the base card.

I used a lighter card which I put through the Cuttlebug using the swirls folder. The "stitching" was done with a brown pen.

The brown flowers were from a stash I bought at the Warehouse some time ago and I punched little sun shapes from the light card to add to the centres of the flowers. The sentiment was from a set that I bought a long time ago and can't remember what company it was from!! Used brads to attach it to the front of the card.

Wheels

The Tanda Teaser for this week is wheel thing, and I was lucky that I have the laptop with me so I could find a card that I made some time ago that fits the bill... so to speak!

I stamped the Happy Birthday stamp straight onto the base card using coffee archival ink. The picture is from one of Joanna Sheen's CDs - Vintage Birthdays (I think!).

Layered the image onto dark brown card and then layered onto the card with foam.

The cord is just a brown and white narrow ribbon from a stash I bought for a couple of dollars at the Warehouse.

Play Day

Well, today was a great day - I got to meet Burnice for the first time and we had a lovely day shopping and playing!

Took the train to Lingfield where Burn met me and we went to visit the Craft Barn. My eyes nearly popped right out of my head... have never seen so many stamping and crafty things together in one place, and a not large one at that! An hour and a half later... I left the shop clutching a big bag of goodies! Pics below!


I bought my first set of Copics and I can't wait to get home to start using them. Had a wee play tonight... Also bought some stamps, mounts for stamps, stamp pads (including 2 more distress inks), some glimmer mist and a few other bits and pieces.

We then went back to Burn's house at Woodingdean where we spent the afternoon talking about card making and other stuff and having a bit of a play. The time went so fast - could have spent another day just playing and talking! Really enjoyed meeting Burn - such a lovely lady and such fun!

Neglected to say that I had a bit of a spend in Hong Kong as well. Managed to find some peel offs - mainly corners and strips and some photo corners that were different colours and shapes as well as being embossed.

When I arrived in the UK on Sunday afternoon, I was really excited to find a couple of parcels waiting for me - one from Tanda Stamps and the other - 12 distress ink pads that I had ordered a few weeks ago. The colours are just amazing.

Had to take a picture of Burn and here she is outside the Craft Barn at Lingfield clutching her shopping bag with her goodies in it!!

Thanks Burn for a wonderful day!