One for the boys!

Try it on Tuesday Challenge blog has a lovely one this week - One for the Boys.
I used distress inks - peeled paint, wild honey, rusty hinge and aged mahogany to colour the tag then stamped some "male" images on it - one from Tanda - an advert for fasteners and a saw and hammer stamp that was a really old school stamp from a friend. I cut a cog with the Tim Holtz Alterations Gadget Gears and embossed it with the clockworks folder. I then cut a tag from acetate and embossed it with the clockworks folder. Attached it to the tag with brads. The picture does not show it as well as it actually looks!

Card Sketch Challenge Card

This week, the Card Patterns Sketch challenge is a stunner. I loved the idea of the circular card with the pennants!

So I checked out my stamp collection and found something that might be very good with this sketch. The stamp I used is from Montarga - our very own Christchurch-based stamp manufacturing company which has relocated twice since the earthquake on September 4th 2010!

I cut the base card with the largest Spellbinders Nestabilities scalloped circle die - about 10cm across. The fold of the card is at the top and has been covered by a single piece cut from the same die. I also embossed the edges but not easy to see in the picture.
I then cut a 9.5cm circle which I stamped with Scattered Straw DI with a lovely dotty background stamp designed by Sue Law. Makes a perfect beach scene! I then masked it and brayered the sky with a multicoloured blue Versacolour ink.
The image was stamped then coloured with my copic markers and cut out. I layered it on the card with pop dots to give it some depth. The sentiment was cut with a nestabilities tag die and stamped. The pennants were attached to a ribbon then placed on the card.
A nice piece of fun for a cool autumn day!

Motivated to create!

After attending a great workshop hosted by Sanzi in Auckland, I felt motivated to create again and after popping into a few of the forums and blogs I haven't been looking at lately, found some more inspiration.

This card was motivated by the Card Patterns Sketch 114. The die cuts were from the new Spellbinders dies I bought while in Auckland and the flower is from the stash that was in the goodie bag from the workshop.

I ran the red trim through the swiss dots folder on the Cuttlebug, stamped the flower with a word stamp and added a large crystal that I coloured with alcohol ink and covered with kindiglitz.  The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set.

Goodie Bag stash

This is the stash I got in the goodie bag. It included 2 Cricut Lite cartridges as well as a large pack of paper and card. I also won a Cricut Tool set and a magazine.

This is the stash I bought

At the workshop, Sanzi had a large number of accessories for sale and I bought several Spellbinders Die sets as well as some Tim Holtz Alterations dies. Altogether a very nice amount of stuff to bring home and play with!

These are some of the things we did at the workshop. It includes cards made with:

• acetate, 
• printed papers done on the Cricut Imagine
• pop- up cut with a die
• die cut card (grand spellbinders die)
• cut-outs using the Cricut Gypsy
• Cuttlebug embossing folders and inks.

We also used the Yudo Card Shop for screen printing an image (on the box).
It was a very well organised workshop and the presenters were amazing! Thanks Sanzi!

It is May already... where is the year going?

I had to make a couple of cards for the Card Making World Monthly Challenge again. The theme this month is Make a Shape - other than square or rectangular! I chose to do this pyramid card - I think the original idea came from a Craft Stamper magazine. It was a bit complicated to put together, but once I got it worked out - it seemed to work OK. I used a Happy Birthday background stamp on the card before I put it together to make it easier to stamp. Once it was assembled, I used three or four colours of distress inks to give the shading on the card. I love the Bundled Sage with the Rusty Hinge and Wild Honey distress inks.
The rosette was made with a Tim Holtz die and coloured before putting together.

The second card for the monthly challange was made by cutting a folded card with a nestabilities label die, then cutting several more layers. The image is from a Victorian CD and coloured with Copics. I used Pumice Stone to provide the shading around the image and the layer underneath.

I embossed a dark green layer then attached the other two layers to it, applying the whole to the base card. I tied the ribbon with the bow maker that my clever OH made for me! Makes tying bows really easy too...

 I made this card for a friend. The image was stamped on card then a wax resist applied using embossed waxed paper ironed onto the card. A layer of distress ink was then applied to produce the patter on the background of the image. I covered the show with flowers and leaves and coloured the ribbon in a darker purple.
 I scalloped a piece of black card for the background layer to the image then laid them onto a background embossed with the same folder I had used for the wax resist layer. Attached a scalloped ribbon to the bottom of the layer then attached to a square card.

The sentiment is from a Tim Holtz set and reads: Friendship can not be measured, only treasured.

I thought this little house was really cute when I saw the template on Stephanie Novatski's website.

I cut the base out of brown card then cut layers for the front, back and sides from the same card. These I textured with an embossing folder and the Cuttlebug. I added some lace curtains to the windows and rubbed some gold paint into the embossed door.

The fence was coloured with Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint and layered onto the house. The trees were stamped with a freebie from Craft Stamper and the birds and bird house were from a stamp set designed by Sue Law.

The roof of the house was cut from thick crimped card and attached to the house.

Crafty Girls Samples

Last week, we had a crafty girls get together and we did some wax resist and inked toppers for cards.

I saw the technique on Gina K's Stamp TV a couple of weeks ago and loved the idea, so thought we could have a play with it.This card was made with a digital stamp from Background Fairy. A piece of wax paper was embossed using an oriental lantern folder then laid on top of the image and pressed between newsprint with a hot iron. Distress ink applied over the wax resist image then cut with a nestie and layered on another card also cut with a nestie and embossed with the CB. The sentiment (from Tanda) was stamped then cut with a Spellbinders die.

Birthday card made using the wax resist technique. The backing layer was embossed with the same folder as that used to emboss the wax paper.

Close up of image on birthday card showing the resist.

I am loving this technique.
It can produce some very interesting results.

Yes, I am back again!!

At last I have taken some pictures of some of the things I have been doing over the last week or so. Actually, the first is a picture frame I did ages ago after I came back from a few days in Melbourne. I got the wooden frame at IKEA. I covered the frame with TH tissue tape (what an amazing product), distressed it slightly with vintage photo distress ink to give it a little more depth of colour then coated it with mod podge to seal the tissue tape.
The flowers were made from music paper cut with the tattered florals die (again TH) and shaped into paper roses. I sprayed them with shimmer mist - red and gold, then layered them onto little branches punched from green card and sprayed with gold mist. The flourishes are cut with the TH flourishes die and layered onto the bottom of the frame along with sitcky pearls.

I had to make some Easter cards for the Card Making World Monthly Challenge.

The first one was done mainly using the Cricut. I used Make the Cut to do the egg shape, the shadow and the lattice topper. The letters were welded then cut and a shadow made as well.

 The corners were cut with a Martha Stewart Photo corner punch and the centre strip was cut using a Fiskars scalloped edge punch.

The background paper is from my stash!



 The second Easter card has a digital image from Tilly - Just Jenny with Easter egg and coloured using my copics. The background speckle stamp was one designed by Sue Law for a shop in the UK and I am loving it a lot! Thanks Zoe for sending it to me!!
 The background paper is by Kaiser Craft and the edge shape was cut using a TH edge die. I topped it with a green ribbon. The sentiment and the card were edged with rusty hinge distress ink.

Long time, no blog!

Hello again after a very long break. Things have been hectic since early February. First, we had a trip to Auckland with my mum to attend the dinner for the New Zealander of the Year Awards. Mum had been nominated for the Senior NZ'er of the Year and she was very keen to go to the dinner. Then 5 days later, she fell and broke her leg and ankle and was admitted to hospital in Christchurch. After some time there, she was assessed as requiring high level care, so we had to find a rest home for her to live in. Fortunately, a place was found that is very close to our home and she is now settled there. Much of the last three weeks has been spent getting her clothes organised and buying things that she will need there!

You are probably aware that we have had another very severe earthquake in Christchurch on Feb 22 which has devastated the central city and many suburbs on the eastern side of the city. This again has taken a toll - not just in buildings but also, many lives - to date about 165 people have been named as casualties with many thousands injured - some very seriously.

With all that has been happening, it is not surprising that I have not had a lot of time or inclination to be creative (apart from having to sort out my craft room after the earthquake!) so I have not had a lot to blog about. However, yesterday afternoon, a friend came over and we spent some time in the craft room, so hopefully, I will now get back into being creative.

This is a card I made for a friend on Card Making World NZ Crafters Group. The base was cut from the Cricut using an svg file from Make the Cut and the top layer was also included with the same file.
I stamped a Happy Birthday stamp from Rubbadubbadoo onto white card then cut with a nestie scalloped circle. The red and black shapes backing the top were also cut with the scalloped circle and embossed on the edges.
I cut red, black and white ribbon and attached that underneath the scalloped sentiment to add a little more interest.