Back to being busy again!

The last week has been a busy one and I have got something to show for it!
Found a neat gift card holder demonstration over at Gina K's website - stamptv. So I spent a bit of time making some and was very pleased with the results!
I made the holders slightly narrower than the dimensions given in the demonstration because the A4 card is slightly narrower than the card available in the USA. But it doesn't matter because you can still fit a gift card comfortably in the holder.

Have also been busy with Christmas cards as it seems to be the season again! I did manage to get the cards for overseas into the mail by the closing date for economy post for the first time ever, I think! Here is one of the cards I made this year.

I have been using the Joanna Sheen Vintage Birthdays CD again and printed off some lovely images and backing papers. This card uses an image and background paper. I cut the image using a Nellie Snellen die in the cuttlebug. I then threaded narrow ribbon through the holes in the edges and tied a little bow at the bottom. I thought it was quite effective. The image was printed on textured paper which provided a slightly more vintage look.

And I couldn't help doing a card with a coloured image. This image is called Rain but I am not sure where I got it from - I must catalogue my digital stamps properly!! Anyway - coloured it with copics and layered on dotty card with a dotty ribbon.

Back Again!

Well it has been a month since I last blogged anything here - so I need to make up for lost time.

First up, a card I made for my mother to give to some friends for their 50th Wedding Anniversary.

The card used was metallic gold and cream card. Always nice to use this for a special occasion card.

I cut the corner flourishes with the Cricut using the Home Accents cartridge. The centre rectangle was embossed with the Divine Swirls folder on the Cuttlebug. The numbers were cut using the Songbird cartridge on the Cricut.

To finish it off, I placed tiny pearl bling on the centres of the flowers on the corner flourishes.

A few days ago, I was playing with some tags and Lord Tim of Holtz's book, Compendium of Curiosities and produced these tags. A variety of techniques was used and I had a lot of fun!
 You will need to guess what techniques I used from the book, if you have it already. If you don't have it - it is really worth getting! Send me an email if you really want to know...

I really liked the results when I used acrylic paint dabber to stamp an image then distressing! Hint - there are 2 using this technique!

CMW Monthly Challenge

Carol and I decided to try to revive the Card Making World Monthly Challenge group recently, so we chose the theme SPORT for October. Given that the Commonwealth Games are on in India at the moment and the Ryder Cup for golf has just finished, it seemed appropriate.

As part of the DT for this group, I made a couple of sporty cards to get ideas stimulated for the group. The first card is a golf inspired one. I have had this cutting file for some time (from SCAL) and have not had the inspiration to use it, so this was a perfect opportunity.

The golf bag was cut in the various parts using the Cricut Expression.

The oval backgrounds cut from a Nestabilities oval set. The top oval was run through one of my Cuttlebug folders and the edges of both ovals were inked.

The photo corners were punched using a Martha Stewart punch.

The surfer card was inspired by the digital image - hang ten Kody - (from Some Odd Girl) coloured with Copic markers.

The top layer of the card was cut with a Nestabilities Oval die and the "waste" used as the background. The lines around the edge are peel-offs which I coloured using a felt pen. Attached the lines then masked them and the outside edges before stamping the swirly stamp around the edges of the layer.

The digital image was attached to the back of the top layer then all attached to the card. The sentiment was stamped on a separate card and attached with foam squares, after inking the edges to make it stand out a little more.
This card was also a good one for this week's Tanda Teaser!
Really enjoying my Copics!

Thank you

I made this card to send to a forum friend who sent a selection of lovely tags as a Hug gift. It was certainly much appreciated after the trauma of earthquakes and aftershocks over the last few weeks.

To make the card, I first coloured the image with copic markers. The image is a digital one from Whimsie Doodles (Swing Leah).

I then cut the oval out of the card using a Nellie Snellen die and the Cuttlebug. The image fitted really well behind the cut out. I carefully cut the feet and legs away from the main image and tucked them outside the lower part of the oval shape.

These are the lovely tags that Hilda sent me. They are from Shairon, Julia, Joy  and someone who didn't sign the back. If it was you, please let me know!! Thank you, my friends on the Lots to Do Revisited forum.

Clean and Simple

This week, our Crafty Girls theme was Clean and Simple.

To make this card, I first cut a Nellie Snellen circle die from a piece of card then used the piece I had left to make a mask. I then inked the base card with Antique Linen and Scattered Straw Distress inks to provide a coloured base. The sunflower stamp was coloured with Tombow markers then stamped on the inked design. The sentiment is from my favourite Hero Arts set and was stamped in brown ink.

I added a narrow ribbon in a matching colour along the side of the card to finish it off.

Enjoy!

LTD Swaps

Hilda, from Lots to Do revisited, is hosting an ATC and Tag swap at the moment. 

The theme for the tag swap is Letters. For these tags, I embossed them in one of my new TH embossing folders (Collage) because it has lots of words on it. I then used distress inks to colour the tags.

Stamped letters on cards then punched out and layered on the tags.

The theme for the ATCs was Pen and Ink. I found some lovely card with writing on that I used for 2 of the ATCs. I found one of my old rubber stamps of a fountain pen that I used on two of the ATCs, I coloured the images then covered them with glossy accents. The bottom ATC used a stamp that included the pen with the images. Again, coloured these and used GA on the pen image.

The edges of the cards were coloured using distress inks.

Stamps

Carol from Hamilton set Jude (from Temuka) and I a challenge to use postage stamps in three different projects.For ages I thought about what I could do before I actually got round to doing it!

Lots to Do Challenge for this week is a Distressed Tag so I have combined the 2 challenges! I found some really old postage stamps on some letters when we were cleaning out the garage some time ago. They were all 1, 2 and 3 cent stamps! It is about 40 years since these stamps were used!!! Anyway, the stamps all had moths or butterflies on them so I used butterflies and wings on this tag along with the stamp to try to link it all together. I used distress inks to colour the tag and to stamp the images. I also distressed the edges of the tag with my TH distressing tool.

I found a little box with made with shiny card the other day, so used that to make the little box. I used alcohol inks to colour the box (which you can't really see in the photo) and collaged postage stamps on the top of  the lid. Used lace and ribbon to trim the edges of the lid. Finished it off by adding a butterfly, which I stamped with postage stamp images and added distress stickles to the wings. Used gold wire to create the feelers. 

The final part of the challenge was this ATC, to which I added a special issue stamp. The stamp was to commemorate NZ's involvement in the Shanghai Expo this year. I coloured the base card using Tattered Rose and Pumice Stone Distress inks, stamped the lettering with pumice stone, added the stamp and finished it off with the little coin.

An interesting challenge that made me think a  bit!! Thanks Carol.