Happy Bird-Day

 I recently got a stamp set by Mangocrafts called Funny Birds... and got the matching dies. It's got a few humorous stamps and sentiments.  This is my first card-

I started by stamping the birds and used Altenew Artist Markers and some Spectrum Noir Tri-blends to colour them.  Once I had die cut them I worked on a background.   I blended some Altenew inks in green and  blue for grass and sky adding some marker on the grass.  Added the sentiment from the stamp set... isn't it fun!   This one is a for friend turning 60 soon!

Had a busy weekend - so not too much crafting went on... Was up early on Saturday as I had to go and get a prize voucher I had won in a Mother's Day competition - $300 at Cosmo Nail and Beauty Salon.  I had to have my photo taken getting the prize.  

Green plants and vases.... and an oops!

 Well this is an OOPS card.... I was busy working on my Die Cut Diva sample cards for this month... our sponsor is Altenew  (which you will know is my favourite craft company) with our theme for the challenge - FLOWERS - right up my alley!

So I had this idea in mind to use the Mini Delight set - Plants and vases and using a design idea from a recent set of videos I watched for Penny Black... so off I went and made this card.

Doesn't it look great.  Lots of ink blending, white embossing, stamping and die cutting the vases from Holly Mirri card.... yeah - feeling pleased as punch - even with messing up the white embossing of the sentiment and having to layer over the sentiment stamped in black!   So about to take the photo when it struck me..... NO FLOWERS!!!!  OMG how did I miss that!!!    I did think to add some small die cut flowers - but when I hovered them over the card, it completely spoilt the look.   Oh well back to the craft room and another card has been made (look out for it on the 25th!)   Luckily I had time yesterday as I was not feeling great - 2 weeks of a cold and cough and had the day off so I could go to the doctors... viral infection but she gave me some antibiotics just to ensure it doesn't turn bacterial,   So a quiet afternoon of crafting was the order of the day. 

   Feeling better today so went into the office.  Now for a quiet weekend resting up and hopefully improve health wise. 

Your friendship is Perfect

I've been having a bit of a spend-up since Christmas and one of my buys was Altenew's Perfect Gift set of stamps, dies/stencils/embossing folder combo.  It's a fabulous combo and I used all of it for my card. 

 I started by embossing the folder onto a square card base.  I used a gold pen to colour the frame.  Unfortunately my pen packed a sad... so it's a bit splotchy. Stamped the sentiment in Onyx Black ink.   Part of the embossing folder is the floral swag - however I chose to stamp and stencil it and then die cut it.  I trimmed my panel down and matted it with a thin black layer and onto a wider dark pink layer before adding to a 5 7/8" card base.  Added the swag with some 3D tape.  Added some gold gems to finish.  

As this is the first time using this combo set, I'm adding to Darnell's NBUS challenge.  

Happy Anniversary to us

 Today is our 47th wedding anniversary.   Hard to believe all those years have passed!

I made hubby this card.

I started by white heat embossing an older Hero Arts stamp- Tiny Star Background (circa 2013) The ink blending was done with Altenew's Burnt Red ink, heavier at the top and lighter at the bottom.  I used Pinkfresh Studio - Frame Builder- Botanical Circles to cut two white dies to make the circle on the card.   The sentiment is from Rubber Stamps by Montarga - and inside I stamped a sentiment from Altenew Carved Rose set - YOU WILL ALWAYS BE - my love.

We usually don't exchange presents... so it was a delightful surprise when he gave me a beautiful necklace.  It's gorgeous. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Ink blending die cuts - Craft a Flower - Flowering Dogwood Layering dies

 Today I'm sharing some cards that I started last Monday and finally finished on Thursday evening. 

I die cut two sets of all the flower parts and while looking after Grace on Monday I did some ink blending onto them, while she was colouring her Altenew Colorparlooza sheet.  Putting these together is a piece of cake thanks to the keyhole layering system.   I used some glitter card from my stash to added the centre of the flowers. The sentiment from Altenew Versatile Greetings die set.  There is a very subtle stencil inking behind the flowers.  I used some soft pink ink and Classic Stripes stencil.  Finished with some little gold gems.

This one used purple and yellow inks with a touch of green, to add the colour on this one   The stenciling behind the flowers is the Foliage Stencil with some green inks.  The sentiment is from Classic Greetings.  

Fun Day at The Auckland Papercraft Show...

 Yesterday I took the day off and together with my friend, Suna, we head off to The Auckland Papercraft Show.  The big craft fair this year was cancelled, so a few of the contributors got together to put on a smaller show.  It was over the Harbour Bridge so off we went.  Luckily for us, the weather held and it was a good drive over (plus the traffic was quite light!)  We spent up well ... have to support the local stores!  And we had super fun taking part in a class.  It was from Scrapbook Central and our tutor was the lovely Chick Mitchell.  We did 3 cards in 2 hours- lots of ink blending and embossing - and lots of painting with watercolour shimmer powders.  Our kits used products from Memory Box.  I didn't quite finish my cards during class so did that last night.  

Are they just gorgeous!   And luckily for me, I already own the bird die.  And the sentiment foil and die set.   I loved the colours we used  - did have to buy one Distress Oxide colour - Tattered Rose. 

Of course, I did a good amount of shopping.  - Got some practical storage - extra large stamp pockets and another Tim Holtz tin for my Distress Oxides.  And some glue and Stick-It double sided adhesive.  Got a cool snowflake embossing folder from Altenew, a Birthday stamp and die from Gina K, a cute Birthday Wishes die from Creative Expressions and some different rub-ons.   All in all, a great haul.  

Altenew 31 Days of Crafting... Day 1

 I'm a bit late to the party, but today got some time to craft.   Every day there is a prompt to create a project. 

I remember I had some music stamps as part of Altenew's Happy Birthday to You set.   I stamped it with some Silver Lake ink onto a square panel.   The sentiment is stamped with Charcoal Suit ink - inside I'll add an appropriate sentiment when it's time to use this card.   The floral image is from the Dreamy Daylilies set.  I die cut with some white card, embossed it and then added ink blending with the matching stencil set.  The centre panel is 5" square and the final card 5.5" square - so I could make the most of the beautiful floral die. 

I did try out some ideas for Day 2 prompt but nothing worked out as I wanted, so back to the drawing board.  

The weekend weather has been lovely and we had two days of being able to lunch outside on the deck - including a Roast Lamb meal today 

Playing along at Woodblock Wednesday challenge.

 Once a month over on Amy Tsurata's blog (Tsurata Designs) Amy runs a challenge - Using Woodblock stamps.    Very timely for me as yesterday my latest purchase - Penny Black's woodblock stamp - Snowy- arrived.   This stamp was originally designed and produced in 2008 and is still available.   After many years of wanting this one... I finally went and bought it!  

So today was a working from home day and I used my breaks to start this card and then after I did my required hours, I finished it off.

I started by adding the sentiment on my card.   It's from the Penny Black stick and shine series.  I added the stick and shine and then used silver foil.  Hard to photograph.  It looks black here.  I then used Broken China Distress Oxide to blend on the background.   I took a Montaga snowflake stencil and added random snowflakes with Nuvo Glimmer Paste.  I used a Lawn Fawn curved die to cut some snow banks.  I stamped snowy and using the stamp as a guide, used some smooshed Distress inks to paint him.  I used Candied Apple for his hat and scarf and Wilted Violet for the white shadows.  

As this was Snowy's first outing as well as using the Stick and Shine sheets... I'm entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge

I am happy that I bit the bullet and finally got this stamp (and all the other goodies I got when I was ordering it!)   Well worth the 21 day wait for it to make it's way here.

Hope you get to do some weekend crafting.  

Pink butterfly

 A couple of weeks ago I received a little parcel from the UK.  It left there in October and finally made it her nearly 6 months later!  It was an embossing folder I had won on the Let's Squash It challenge before it closed. 

So here is my first card using the folder

I die cut a white panel.  I embossed the butterfly  and then using some soft Altenew inks and ink blended the butterfly and the background.   Added some splats of white ink spray.  The greeting is one I had stamped ages ago from a Woodware set. A very CAS card but looks so effective.  

I'm adding this to Darnell's NBUS challenge - first time used the folder

I've been working on design work over the weekend with some new products.  Two orders arrived, and two more to come!  Now to find time to play!

Home for the Holidays

 I've got a card to share today that is for the Home for the Holidays challenge at Christmas Kickstart  

I have this die set that came with a magazine several years ago...(and never been opened!)  I cut it from white card and added colour with markers.  Made the snow with some Kindyglitz.  I ink blended the sky with some Distress oxide inks.  The sentiment is from Gina K's Holiday Tapestry set. 

As the die set was used for the first time, I'm entering this one into Darnell's NBUS challenge.

Thanks for stopping by.   We had a lovely long weekend due to Monday being Queen Elizabeth Memorial Day and being a public holiday.   We went up the Mangawhai and I just chilled out... read books, relaxed and had a quiet weekend.  

Inspired by Simon Hurley - another floral circle card

 I was checking my subscriptions on You Tube and came across a neat technique from Simon Hurley - using stamping foam and an embossing folder..  You can check it out Here 

He used his round foam but I only have the original sized rectangle foam.  I loved a card he made using the circle - colouring and stamping then embossing the entire folder and using the circle as a spotlight feature.    It inspired me to try something similar.  Simon used the debossed side - where as I used the embossed side. 

I took my Altenew 3D folder - Decorative Florals, headed the foam and press to get the impression. I had used a Spellbinders circle die to cut the circle and after I added inks with blending brushes. spritzed with water and stamped onto it. Once it was dry I added the circle back into the EF and ran it through to emboss it.  Took some metallic paste and ran my finger over the raised areas.  I used the EF to emboss a white panel and slotted the circle into place.  I layered the panel on some pinky purple paper and onto my white card.   White embossed the sentiment from Sentiment Strips #3 and added it.

I'm entering this into The Flower Challenge - Circle/Circles -

                                                 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Altenew's July Inspiration Challenge.

 

I saw the challenge (Here) and had been playing with Altenew's Hennah Elements - they reminded me of the elements on the inspiration pic.  

I had done some blending and stamping with Grace last weekend - I had fussy cut the floral elements and they were sitting in my to use bowl.   I used the colours on the inspiration pic to do some blending and then used the Dotted Starburst Debossing Cover die to give some texture of the background.  I used some Gina K die to cut the panel and then used my mini perfect layers ruler to cut the black layer.  I added the floral elements and added some green enamel dots for the flower centres. 

Thanks for stopping by... haven't been doing much crafting as we headed north to our friend's in Mangawhai.  It was a lovely weekend - Saturday was warm and sunny so we were able to get outside - lunch on the deck.  #

WWC334 - Helen's Challenge: All About Occasions

 Hi there.  It's time for the latest challenge at Watercooler Wednesday.   Helen is our hostess with an All About Occasions challenge.  

Today I have a birthday cars to share with you.  

This card was inspired by one I saw in the magazine I recently purchased.  The stamps came as a freebie with them.  The background was made by masking off a little bit at the bottom of the front of the card and then ink blended the top portion.  I then spritzed some water drops onto the background.  The daises were stamped and fussy cut with minimal colouring.  I stamped the sentiment at the bottom. 

Come and join in the fun at  Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and check out the project from the other designers.  Then take our challenge and link up your project to the challenge post.    We'd love to have you join us.  You have until Monday14th February at 5 pm Mountain Standard Time (Tuesday  15th February at 12.00 noon NZ time) to link up your project.

WWC333 - Dawn's Challenge: All About Occasions

 Hi there, it's time for another challenge at Watercooler Wednesday.  I'm the hostess this time around with an All About Occasions challenge

Here's my card

This card was made while I was on holiday.  I had limited supplies with me.  This background was made with some ink blending.  I stamped the Altenew image (from Paint a Flower- Chamomile)  and then used some pencils to add colour.  The sentiment is from a Taylored Expressions Simple Strips in Reverse printed sheet.  

Come and join in the fun at  Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and check out the project from the other designers.  Then take our challenge and link up your project to the challenge post.    We'd love to have you join us.  You have until Monday 31st January at 5 pm Mountain Standard Time (Tuesday 1st February at 12.00 noon NZ time) to link up your project.

Merry Christmas from the Die Cut Diva team....

 Merry Christmas to you all.... Here is NZ the day is almost over.  Hope your will have an awesome day wherever you are.  

Today I'm sharing a Winter card with you - for Die Cut Divas

We are so happy to present Frantic Stamper as our Sponsor for our December Challenge of Winter/Christmas project with an optional twist to make a shaped Winter/Christmas Card.

My card uses two penguins from Gina K Designs - Playful Penguins and a sentiment from the set.  I embossed the edges with an edging folder.  Our sponsor, Frantic Stamper has a large stock of folders, and dies.  Do go check them out. 

Do come and join us - our challenge is open till 9.pm US Pacific Time on the 31st December. 

I'm entering this one into the "It's your call" challenge at Let's Squash it.   I used a border embossing folder for my snowflakes.  

Three more 3D embossing cards.

 I'm catching up with my homework for The Magic of 3D Embossing at Altenew  Academy.  Today I have three cards to share. 

Day 3- Heat Embossing.

Well, this day caused me a real struggle.  I didn't have any suitable folders like Laurel used - so improvised.  Laurel inked up her folder with embossing inks and embossed, then did some ink blending... three attempts later and I gave up!  So improvised - embossed a white card, rubbed Versamark over the raised areas and sprinkled over Rose Gold powder.

 

I then used some purple inks to blend over in a resist technique.( Day 5 - ink blending)  Use one of the All About You word dies - shadow cut from vellum and the you from Rose Gold card stock.  This one I have added a sympathy sentiment inside and will be sending it to a friend who Mother passed away the other day. 

Day 4 - Jazzing it up.  

Laurel gave us lots of ideas for "jazzing it up".  

I chose to emboss onto black card and then took a white pigment ink pad and rubbed it over the embossing.   In real it has a pale blue tinge.  I added a little sentiment from Sentiment Strips 2.  Super quick card.  

Day 5 - Ink Blending

Always a great was to add to your 3D embossing folders.  

This time I went for a very bright card.  Started with a yellow card embossed with the Daisies #D folder.  Then I took a variety of Altenew yellows and browns to add blending.  Use the mini tool for the yellows and then tiny brushes for the flower centres.   Finished it with the Bold Thanks die.  Cut the shadow in black and the letters in white.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Christmas in July.

 It's winter here in New Zealand and today which started nice and then turned to rain, so I managed to get a few hours in my craft room.  I saw a fabulous tutorial on Facebook - one the Simply, Sweet Poppy Stencils page.  It was done by Susan Bradney using Sweet Poppy's Christmas Bauble stencil.  I recently got the Bauble stencil and decided I would try it out following the tutorial.  I CASE'd the card Susan made. 

Making this card involved making a mask, stencilling in a pale ink, using the mask and doing some ink blending.  I used some stamps from my stash (freebies from magazines)  One of my purchases on Friday was a white Posca fineliner pen.  Used it to make my snow flakes and add some to my snow banks. To add colour to the stencilling, I used Prismacolor pencils. I matted the panel onto some gold mirror card and then onto a Pearlised card base.  It's a lovely bit card 6" square.

After spending most of the afternoon making this first card my second one for the day was much quicker.   I bought Gina K's Holiday Tapestry  stamp set a while back and only opened it today.  

This one started with some patterned paper from a Uniti pack.  I die cut it with a Sunny Studio's slimline Scalloped Frame die and then embossed the big floral image at each end of the panel in silver embossing powder.  I then stamped and embossed the sentiment in gold powder.  Add some Pink Fresh gold and silver metallic pearls.  Slowly building up my Christmas card stash.  I'm entering this one into Darnell's NBUS (Never Before Uses Schtuff) as it's the first time inking up this one. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

WWC 286 - Marsha's Challenge - All About Occasions

Welcome to my blog today.  It's time for the weekly challenge at Watercooler Wednesday and this week Marsha is our hostess with an All About Occasions challenge.

Today I am sharing the card I've made for my Dad for Father's Day.  It's not till the 6th of September.

I used a new to me stencil from Altenew called Feathered Leaves.  I use some Distress Oxides - Mowed Lawn, Evergreen Bough, and Broken China - to blend through the stencil and then I used some of the same inks to blend over the whole piece.   I used a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's All Occasion Sentiments.  The feathers are from Catherine Pooler's Birds of a Feather stamped with Fiesta Blue, Eucalyptus and Grass Skirt CP inks.  I blended some of the DO over the whole lot before fussy cutting them out.

Come and join in the fun at  Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and check out the project from the other designers.  Then take our challenge and link up your project to the challenge post.    We'd love to have you join us.  You have until Monday at 5 pm Mountain Standard Time (Tuesday at 11.00 am NZ time ) to link up your project.

WWC 284 - Dawn's Challenge - All About Occasions

Hi there.  Challenge time at Watercooler Wednesday again... And today I am the hostess with an All About Occasions challenge. 

I have made a Friendship card for today. 

Last month I picked up Simply Cards and Papercrafts magazine - Vol 203.  It had this beautiful layered Peony stamp and die set.  I CASE'd a card from the magazine.  I stamped the flowers in Altenew inks from the Rose Petal set and used the matching die to cut them out.  I trimmed some white card to 13cm x 13cm and using some acetate to make a circle mask/stencil.  I used the lightest ink in the set (Rose Quartz) to blend on the base.  I took some Grey Denim Altenew ink and stamped the leaves around where I added the flowers with dimentional tape. I stamped the sentiment onto some white card and cut it with my trimer and scissors to make a flag end.  I used a sponge dauber to ink around the edge of the sentiment and the panel.  I cut a card base 14cm x 14cm and added my panel. 

Come and join in the fun at  Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and check out the project from the other designers.  Then take our challenge and link up your project to the challenge post.    We'd love to have you join us.  You have until Monday at 5 pm Mountain Standard Time (Tuesday at 11.00 am NZ time ) to link up your project.

Masking Unleashed...Altenew Educator Certification Program

As some of you may know quite a while ago I started the Altenew Educator Certification Program.... well I got a bit waylaid... I finished Level 1 and had all but one Level 2 assignment done and sort of lost the plot.

So today I got home early...work was slow so I allowed to go home a bit earlier than my rostered time... so decided to do a card... and I'd been re-watching the "Masking Unleashed" class.   This was a class with Svitlana Shayevich as tutor.   This was an awesome class, taking us from simply masking to more complex ways of masking... using both positive and negative masking.  I learnt a few good tips and tricks from this class...like if you cut your own masks it's a good idea to trim just inside the stamp lines, so that you don't get a halo around the stamping.

My  little card today used a variety different masking techniques.  It's a smaller then usual card being 3.5" x 4.75"

My first masking was some simple masking using some yellow post-it notes torn roughly to mask a space across the middle.  I then used some Vanilla Cream and blended it over the rest of the card. 

My next few steps involved stamping over the centre masked bit.  The stamp is from Nature Blossom.  Altenew has started making masks and stencils to go with their stamp sets so it makes masking easy.    I used the mask to cover the flower and stamped the leaves..  I then used the stencil/negative mask to add some blended inks over the leaves and then I stamped the layers from the stamps set. 

I then used the flower negative mask and used Coral Berry  and Vanilla Cream ink to blend over the flower before adding the stamped layers.   I stamped the sentiment and then used the masks to cover the flower and leaves.  I lost the leaves from the set, so cut some from post-it notes.  I used some Milk Chocolate ink to add splatters to the rest of the card.

The sentiment is from the Nature Blossom as well.   I was really pleased how all my masking turned out. 

So that's the last level 2 class done and dusted.  - Now to see how I got on.  I will have a final assignment to do. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have an awesome weekend.