Demonstration cards and more

We had a very good meeting of interested card makers (and one scrapbooker!) on Tuesday night. It was great to meet a couple of the NZ Cardmakers from the Card Making World Forum too. We talked about designing cards. The first two cards here are ones that I made to show some of the elements of design and the use of a sketch as a plan.

This card was a very simple one using a wide green strip layered with a lemon based patterned paper. The scalloped circles were cut with Nestabilities from green and lemon card.

The stamp on the circle was a Tanda stamp which I coloured using Tombow markers. I edged the circle with yellow ink to provide a little more contrast.

The sentiment is from my favourite Hero Arts set.

The second card was based on the same sketch but has more decoration. The green strip layer was embossed with the swiss dots folder (CB) and the lemon layer edged with a Fiskars edge punch.
I overlaid that with a purple ribbon.

The edge of the card was topped with the lemon background paper which has touches of the green and purple. The sentiment was stamped on the leftover bits of the edge punched card and layered on a piece of the embossed green. To finish the card off, I added three purple brads.

Next time we are going to look at step cards.

ATCs and other things...

Since I posted my cards and ATCs, I thought I would blog some more stuff, including my ATCs.

These ATCs were all made using Tim Holtz Distress Inks - blended around the edges then stamped with swirl stamps on the edges. The centres were stamped with arty stamps that I have had for some time! The theme for this series was A for Art.









I also made a couple of wedding cards recently. They were both personalised by the addition of the initials of the bride and groom. I used the Cricut to cut the letters and embellishments for both.



I have also just joined a new forum - Lots to Do (see the sidebar for the logo and the link to the website).




Lots of lovely people there as well and some of them are already followers - thanks peeps!

Busy couple of days!

A few cards for the blog today. Have been busy playing with some new techniques involving distress inks - again!


To get the design on this card, I tore a square from a sheet of paper and used the hole as the mask... Coloured using distress inks, then stamped a script stampe on top. The sentiment is from my current favourite Hero Arts set.

The next card used an oval instead of a square. Also tried a scalloped circle and different coloured inks.









The red card was one I tried out using a pop-up in the inside. The front was decorated with a scalloped circle and punched sakura flowers with black, little daisy punched centres.

I made the stalks of the flowers from green card. To get them to stick easily, I put DS Tape on the card before I cut the stalks. It worked a treat.

This is the centre of the bouquet card. I punched little red hearts and attached then between the card and the inner with cotton so they hang down into the opening.

Birthday Time

This week it is the birthday of both my daughter and my son, today in fact. The two cards are the ones I made for their birthdays.

This card was for my daughter. First, I made the background layer for the card, using Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Antique Linen, Dried Marigold and Fired Brick to colour the card. I used a Tanda flowers and swirls stamp for the background and stamped with Aged Mahogany Distress ink. The second layer on the card I stamped with another swirl stamp around the edge using Mustard Seed Distress ink, then blended the Mustard Seed and Dried Marigold inks on the edges of the card. I stamped a long swirl on the middle of the card then cut out 3 larger flowers and layered them down the card. The dark brown base was edged with a Fiskars border punch.

The sentiment was stamped on the scalloped circle and the flower was made from shrink plastic and coloured.

This card for my son was designed to match the presents he got for his birthday! He is starting to plan a building project at his house, so the hammer, measure and saw were very appropriate.

The stamp is a very old one that was given to me by a friend from a collection of school stamps that were used in junior classrooms many years ago.

The Happy Birthday stamp is from Montarga.

Catching Up

Today has been a busy one with the garden needing to be tidied up. However, I did manage to snatch an hour or so in the craft room making a couple of cards - actually, finishing off some I had started some time ago!

This card was inspired by the last CS magazine and the stamp that came with it. I stamped the image 4 times on yellow card then stamped some stitch lines across the centre, between each of the images. I layered this on green card then attached to a square ivory coloured card by stitching around the outer edge of the yellow card.

The sentiment is from my favourite Hero Arts set. I use this one a lot!!

This Mother's Day card was supposed to be for another challenge, but i missed the timeline. However, I did finish it and was quite pleased with the result. Some time ago, I bought a whole lot of Tim Holtz Alcohol inks and was playing around with them. I dabbed the applicator with three different coloured inks (so long ago I can't remember which ones - I need to write these things down!) then applied to acetate.

I stamped a Tanda image onto white card and used a Montarga sentiment. I then layered the white card on a wine base card and attached the acetate with square brads in the corners. Finished off with a wine coloured ribbon.

Pink again!

Had another week of not getting a lot done in the card making line - but the garage is a bit tidier!
A couple of cards this week, another pink one for the 2 Sketches for You challenge and a transport theme for the Tanda Teaser this week.

This card was inspired by the 2S4Y challenge this week. It is not exactly as per the sketch but has similar elements.

I used stamps from one of Tanda's Art Deco sets for the centre and the corners. Stamped onto pink card with Versamark ink then embossed with white. Layered each element on wine card. The strip across the middle was punched with a Fiskars scallop edge punch and layered with pink, brown and white ribbon.

Unfortunately the colours have not come through as bright as they are in real life.

The second card is for the Tanda Teaser this week.
The theme is Transport Delights. The stamp is one that was sent to me by Carol from Hamilton. she sent a really exciting bundle of stamped images and punched shapes the other day. Thank you Carol!

I edged the stamped image with Tim Holtz distress inks - Aged Mahogany, Antique Linen and Black Soot. The key was another image from Carol and I used a gold lame Smooch ink to add a touch of gold colour to that. Attached the key with a gold cord attached to a round paper clip. Again, the colours are not as bright as they look in real life.

I have been playing with a Photo Effects Editor program suggested to me by the lovely Sue Law (from Tanda Teaser Forum). I am quite pleased with the effects you can get on photos.

More play!

Last night a friend came over and I showed her how to make a stair step card. She had never made one of these before so it was fun teaching her how to do it. She immediately saw a good use for the ScorPal she bought recently too!

The instructions for this card can be found at Split Coast Stampers .

I used a nice light green scrapbooking paper for the fronts of the "stairs". I punched borders in white card for the lace effect and layered with the green paper.

I cut the scalloped circles with my Cuttlebug - (nestabilities dies). Because the lower one was 1/4 inch wider than the smaller one, I decided to minimise the effect of too much white by edging it with an aqua coloured ink pad, which turned out quite well. The flower was one I picked up (as a bag of 10 ) from one of the local $2 shops. Sometimes they have some great bargains for crafting!

The ribbon was added to provide a little contrast.

Enjoy! Please leave a comment when you look at my blog. It is nice to know who is visiting...

Cheers