Christmas on my mind....

This week I suddenly realised that although I had my overseas cards done... I still needed to do some more for friends and family living here... so Thursday night I got into "the office" as my craft room is known, and put the head down and the bum up and created.....

I started with some quick and easy cards which mainly used Patterned papers as the focus of the card with just a little stamping and embellishment...

thanks goes  to the lovely Linda who send me the sentiment stamp amongst a whole pile of other things including a fantastic ink pad... one of the famous Garden Green inks she uses in her video's  (Highly recommend you visit her blog and watch her videos) 

Next I did a black and white version of a white and black card I did a few weeks ago.  Really pleased how it turned out... ( Notice that sentiment yet again...)

 

 Finally I did a reasonably quick one - the Joy stamp is by Stamp-it and I embossed with Copper EP onto a very dark brown piece of card, layered it onto a gold patterned paper and then onto the chocolate brown square card.. 

I can tell you by the end of the night, I was pooped!!!!  But felt so much better that I had a few less cards to do now....   and got a few more done today at Stamp Group...  mainly duplicates of ones I had already done - so I knew what was needed.  Did do another digital one  - which is currently waiting for the Kindyglitz to dry so will photograph tomorrow and blog about the day I had...

Take care and thanks for stopping by....

Inky fingers.

Yesterday was Stamp'n'create's monthly stamp group.  I thought I had missed this month's group as last week they had a full day workshop with a demonstrator but due to no one booking some classes that were scheduled for yesterday... an email arrived on Tues to say Stamp Group was on again!!!!  So the core 7 of us turned up for a wonderful day of chatting, stamping and card making.  Sarah (from the store) had a new toy to show us.... A Slice machine..... awesome but a bit outside my price range.  It is a portable die cutting machine and very impressive.  Judi ( owner of the store) showed us a number of the wonderful cards Yo had demonstrated the previous week using Peelcraft stickers....all very clever and creative.
I managed to get 4 cards done.... ranging from finishing off one I had already started to doing a simple one that took no time to do.

The lovely vellum I used for two of the cards was in the lot of goodies that arrived with my card from Deirdre in Ireland.  There was a pack of 10 vellum sheets that are Christmas orientated.  This snowflake on is just lovely.  I used  part of the page as the background for my Joseph's coat technique tree and the other part on it's own as  a quick and simple card with some Peelcraft.  I have to say I wasn't happy with the tree card.... I couldn't get the black dark enough over the multi colours, but all in all, not too bad.   I had heaps of ideas floating around in my head, but not all of them turned out as I had hoped....

I had a great day and enjoyed the company of the other ladies and definitely came home with inky fingers...

Thanks for stopping by. 

Saturday stamping group 10.10.09

First pic today is the bookmark I made earlier in the week.  See my Flickr photostream for details.

Yesterday was my monthly Stamp Group at Stamp'n'create.   I had a few projects to do - some more cards for my hubby's birthday - for the kids to give him.  I didn't have that great a day... nothing seemed to be going right.  Messed up a couple of cards.... try to make a male-ish background and it turned out too girly ( did make a nice card for a female  friend turning 50 soon) - but a fun day none the less.

So here's what I ended up with:  - this first one is a card I saw on Jenn B's photostream - here.  I have copied this - using the Hero Arts Digikit - Vintage Travel.  I used word to resize and cut out the car and used aqua crayons to colour.  The map background I printed out onto white card and used Old Paper distress ink to colour and edge.  Added the twine and then made a button/tag from Hero Arts Travel Journal set.  I used the HA Petite Messages for the sentiment.  Thanks for the idea Jenn.

Next one is also another one I copied the idea for.... ( lack of inspiration yesterday) so thanks this time to Vanessa who's card here was my inspiration.  I used my CB to make the background and used Walnut stain distress ink to colour.  The light blue card was stamped with HA Old French writing and distressed with Blue Jeans distress ink.  The darker blue was stamped with a Penny Black sentiment. 

 

This is the one that started as an attempt to make a "male" background.  I used two blues and a red alcohol inks to make the background.  I then stamped the Grid pattern stamp in Stazon - It seemed a bit plain so added the flowers - definitely more girly...( since I took the photo have added a Happy Birthday in black and it will do for a birthday card for a female friend turning 50 on the 25th)

and finally;

Make and Take this week was a card using Flower Soft.  Judi gave us a demo on using it and then off we all went and made our card.  Great stuff for dimension.  Earlier in the day, Judi had also done a demo on using Pearl Ex in different ways.  I bought two new stamps that I am going to try some of the techniques with.

Well it's been a long post so thanks for visiting - wishing you all a great week 

Saturday stamping.

Yesterday was stamping group at Stamp'n'create.  I did quite a few cards.  I re-did the tie card and the gramophone card I made last week as I like them so much.  I also did a beautiful bird card inspired by one I saw in Australian Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft magazine.  I pretty much followed the instructions but used slightly more muted colours then the original.  I also had to adapt my branch as I did not have the right stamp.  I changed the flowers as well, cutting out small stamped flowers.  I was really pleased with the results of this one.  I also managed to do a couple of baby cards - very simple ones using patterned papers and some old stamps ( ultra cheep and nasty but did the trick)  We did a make and take as well, which was the Christmas card with the vellum overlay. I cut out the middle of the overlay and stamped my image in the middle.  I also made a box from a set I bought after Jill's demo.  So you can see it was a very productive day.

Hubby has now done his dash with trips down south... he left at 4.00am Friday morning to go to Levin for the last time and clear up the last of his mother's things.  Her flat has now sold and change of ownership is next weekend.  He has now cleaned everything up, got rid of most of the furniture to St Vincent De Pauls for charity, and bought some stuff home.  He took the trailer down with him.  Got back late last night.... tired but glad it is now all over. 

Thanks for stopping by. Hope everyone has a great week.

Saturday Blues.......

but in a good way!!!

Yesterday was Stamping club day at Stamp'n'create. There were 9 of us, - 7 regulars and a couple of newies... I had a great day - blue seemed to the my theme. I did these three cards. I used a Sketch and Stash sketch that I had used in the past, this time in blue, black and kraft. I CB'd the background with Floral Fantasy folder. The scalloped border is Fiskars Threading water punch. I used nestibilites circle and scalloped circle. The sentiment from Hero Arts was embossed with Winter Illusion powder. It changes colour depending on what angle you have the card. I finished it of with some HA and Kaiser flowers and pearls.

My 2nd card is one of those ones that when you finished making it - you don't like it. I started with just one Label 1 nestie but got some ink on it so decided to make a smaller on and layer them. From there on... nothing seemed right. I do like the bird ( from Kaiser craft Loire Valley set) Sentiment is from HA's. I think I'll recycle some of the elements and have another go later.
The 3rd card I did just seemed to fall into place. I had one of the new CB folders (Victoria). I inked up the folder and embossed. Turned out really great. The sentiment is a stamp that Betty had at group. She let me borrow it to show her how to use Tombow pens to colour the stamp and then huff on it and stamp it off. I matted in onto the same dark blue card I had matted the background.

I also managed to make a mini pizza box in an orange colour with some butterflies on top - cut and embossed with Spellbinders butterflies from a piece of alcohol inked background. I made 3 background pieces.
So all in all a busy and happy day ,... not "blue" at all. Finished it off by going to friends for dinner ( so didn't even have to cook)
TFL have a great week

Stamp club day - Saturday 11th

Had a great day at Stamp club day at Stamp'n'create yesterday. We started at 10am and finished at just after 4pm. There were a total of 7 of us there this month and we were greeted with a bag of goodies - paper, flowers and a strip of pompoms ( Sarah is into pompoms at the moment) We all worked on our own projects but got lots of ideas from each other. Lunch time is a shared lunch with goodies from asparagus rolls and sandwiches to coconut choc slice, oatmeal slice and pineapple lumps. We always eat well. After lunch we had a demo. This month was on using shrink plastic. Very interesting and informative.
I worked on these projects during the day. I made the gift pack of a set of 4 cards.... will do a seperate post about these shortly.... there are 4 cards in the gift pack. See my Flickr photostream to view them all.
The next project was to finish off the card I have working on using the techniques that Jennifer McGuire has been teaching in her Thinking Inking videos at 2Peasinabucket.com I used my new Scattered Leaf border stamp in versamark and embossed in white powder. I then used the resist technique and rubbed on Shabby Shutters and Faded Jeans distress ink. I then used the raindrops background in Spiced Marmalade. I mounted it on a greenish cardstock added the ribbon and then mounted onto the blue card base. I coloured the flower with the Shabby shutters and raindrops stamp, added a punched flower ( also coloured in Shabby Shutters) and an orange gem in the centre. Not sure what sentiment I will put on this, but it will need to be small.
Finally I made a pizza box for the monthly competition at my other stamp shop- Stamp Zone. This months competition is " Outside the box" - basically anything crafty as long as it uses a product purchased at their store. I got the stamp and the embossing powders from them.
I also started another distress card. I sponged a new ink colour I got - Old paper - onto the card, and then used a Tim Holtz mask and then sponged on Shabby Shutters. I again used the raindrops in Spice Marmalade. All I need to do now is decide how I'm going to use the background.
Thanks for looking - see my next post about Pay it Forward.

Another Male Birthday card

I have been asked to make a birthday card for a guy at work. I struggle with male cards - so thought I'd use my new Make a wish stamp from the goodies that Tiffany sent me. I got the idea from the HA website. I stamped onto blue twice and once on white and layer them. I used the CB to emboss the dark blue cardstock and then stamped the candles from an older Archivers set AR125. I used watercolour pencils to colour them in and then cut them out separately and added to the card. I hope he likes it. One of the teams at work has asked me to make all the cards for their team members.

Tomorrow I'm off to the optometrist to have my eyes checked. I'm sure I'll need to have my prescription increased so will have to go with my 2 years ago glasses while I get new lens in my current frames. I like the frames I have now so don't want to get new ones. Then in the evening hubby's sister who is out from England is coming round and we'll be off to my favourite restaurant for dinner.

I'm really looking forward to Saturday as it is club day at Stamp'n'create. I missed the last one so it will be good to catch up with everyone.

Well thanks for stopping by and visiting me.