Father's Day

It is Father's day here in New Zealand next weekend and I thought I would make a few cards.

For this card I used some patterned card that I made using alcohol inks and wiping the colours onto glossy card using a folded tissue. I wiped the tissue up and down as well as side-to-side to produce a plaid effect.

I stamped the ties onto white card and onto the glossy card that I had coloured, cut out the tie from the coloured card and attached them to the white card.

The stamps used for this card both came from Montarga.

For this card, I used a number of stamps to make the scene. The golfing stamps are from a set I purchased recently. The grass and the trees are Montarga stamps and the hills in the background are a stamp designed by Sue Law which I use for a lot of backgrounds.

To make the card, I stamped the golfball on the tee, then masked it and stamped the golfer. The background was stamped successively starting with the grass, the hills and the trees. Each was masked before stamping the next layer. Finally, I added the sentiment.

I coloured the golfer with Copic markers, then layered the card onto a red base card.
I have entered this card in the Craft Room Challenge this week as the theme is Masking! Thanks Zoe!!

I used the same technique of stamping and masking for this card as well.

The fisherman and the fish stamps are from the same set as the golfer.

The background stamp is the same as used in the above card.

Crochet

I have been making this baby shawl for some time now and I finally got it finished.

It is for the new grandchild due in February! My son (the father-to-be) says it looks like a large doily!!!

The shawl measures almost 1 metre in diameter. and is made from 4 ply yarn crocheted with a 4.00 mm hook.

Snow

I had to post a couple of pictures that I took after the snowfall we had last Monday.

We woke up to white stuff everywhere and it continued to fall throughout the day.

The cat hated it and she refused to go out and walk on the snow. DH made a little track for her from her cat door to the garden so she could at least get outside!!

The temperature that day was almost the lowest in the last 100 years. It never got above 1.9 degrees C all day. Would you believe, the next day was 16 degrees!

It is lucky there was someone in the house to shovel the snow off the path and driveway!

Most of the snow was gone by Wednesday afternoon but there were a few snowmen around the place that lasted a few days longer.

It is a shame that the snow didn't get to the skifields so, although they are open, the base is not that deep yet. Hopefully they will get a decent fall soon!

Clean and Simple

The theme for the Card Making World Monthly Challenge for August is Clean and Simple. As one of the DT I had to make 2 sample cards.

I bought some new stamps from Gina K Designs a couple of weeks ago and they arrived on Thursday last week. Of course I had to use them for this challenge and I was quite pleased with the results.

The first card was so simple but very effective. I made a mask using a scalloped oval nestabilities die and laid it on top of my base card. I then inked it with Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet Distress Inks. The stamp used is from the Garden Silhouettes Set (Gina K Designs) and I used Versafine Onyx Black for this image. The sentiment is from the Bold and Beautiful set.

This card uses stamps from the Garden Silhouettes set as well.

The layer card is from a matte set I bought years ago and had not really used many of the colours. I trimmed it to fit the base card with a little left over to back the sentiment piece.

I stamped the image using a Memento Rhubarb ink pad then cut the shape with an oval nestabilities die. I backed this with the scalloped oval die cut and layered it on the card.

The sentiment was from the same set stamped in Onyx Black (Versafine) and layered on the red and black layers.

I was so pleased with the effect of this card, I made another three in the same style but in different colours.

Is it really that long since my last post?

Where has the time gone??? I can answer that - I have made about 50 cards in the last 2 weeks - that is where!

I spent some time last week with a Crafty Girls friend, Barbara, helping some of the residents of the home where my mother now lives to make cards. It was a fun afternoon and the time just flew by. Below are a couple of photos of people who made cards and were so excited by the finished products.

I had made a whole lot of flowers and other embellishments before the workshop so that people could use them to put cards together. Most of the people had never done anything like this before and there was a real buzz through the room.

Everyone went away with at least one card that they had made - either on their own or with a little help.

Barbara was a real help too - I think she enjoyed herself and we have been asked to go back again in a month or so to do another session for them.

Of course, my mother had to come and supervise! She said she didn't need to make a card as she could get me to make any that she wanted!!!

Using my Tanda Stamps

I was having a play with some of my Tanda stamps a while ago when I bought a lovely white chalk inkpad. I hadn't used this stamp from the Retro Men Set 1 before and I wanted to try it out with the white on black card. Was quite pleased with the result.

The oval was embossed onto the card using the silicon mat and B plates through the Cuttlebug. The tag is one of the Spellbinders Grommet tags.

The sentiment stamp is from Montarga. I added some little corner peeloffs just to finish it off.


When I had finished this one, I decided to try the same stamp using black on white card.

I cut the ovals using the oval nestabilities. The swirly ends are made from one of the fancy tags (Spellbinders) which I cut in half and attached at the ends of the ovals.

The background layer was run through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss dots folder (which is starting to get a little worn across the fold from all the use it is getting!). Added a black spotted ribbon across the centre.

I thought about adding a sentiment but couldn't decide where it should go so left it off. This way the card could be used as a wedding card or an anniversary card.

New Techniques

Was looking at the StampTV video this week and was very interested in the techniques demonstrated by Gina K for the Happy Day Card project.

I didn't have the stamps she used in the video but I did have a lovely stamp from Tanda that I thought would be lovely with this technique. I used Wild Honey and Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks. Stamped the first colour - wild honey over the whole stamp then put Brushed Corduroy around the edges. Had to clean the stamp between re-inking so that the darker ink did not contaminate the lighter ink.

This closeup show the detail of the two colours on the stamp.

The image on the sentiment was stamped as a second go - stamped on waste paper first to remove some of the ink, then stamped on the oval sentiment. Used Brushed Corduroy for the sentiment.


The swirly bits on the end of the oval shape was made from a fancy tag die cut (from Spellbinders) - cut in half then attached to the ends of the oval.

This example is similar to that demonstrated by Gina in her video except that I used a wax resist technique (also from StampTV) for the background.

I love the CAS designs that Gina comes up with! While I don't have any of her stamps, there are a lot in my stash that I can substitute.

Enjoy.