Die Cut Diva Guest Designer ~ Anne Gaal

This month's amazing guest designer over at Die Cut Diva challenge blog is none other than Anne Gaal... and today she paid me a lovely compliment by highlighting me on her blog...( see here)  So I'm here to pay the compliment back.

Anne is a true artist.  She makes cards, ATC's, paints and just lately she has been making some amazing pieces of jewellery.  You can see the Die Cut Divas post about Anne and her jewellery here

Today I want to share with you some of Anne's beautiful work ( all shown with her permission)

First up a pair of tags Anne did in 2010.  Just incredible.

Next a mixed media piece from September 2013

and a beautiful card

 

This card  was done very recently and if you click on it, it will take you to a video Anne did on how it was made. 

and finally a piece of jewellery

Anne is very generous in sharing her art with great tutorials, discussions and videos.

Anne and I bonded several years ago when we both were going through some similar health issues and I am happy to call her a friend.  One day, maybe, we might even get to meet in real life!  Who knows!

So please go and visit and have a look around her amazing blog ~ Gaal Creative  and have look around her Etsy shoppe

And don't forget to visit Die Cut Divas for a look at more of Anne's jewellery today.

Postcard Collage

I'm sharing another card I made for Scottie Crafts.    I used the Farm House Fair Skies paper once again.  This time it was the reverse of Drifter PP and the Whirlwind PP.

I used the reverse of the Drifter PP to cover the card base and the Whirlwind PP was stamped with a variety of Hero Arts stamps.  The main one being Big Postcard  as well as stamps from Carte Postale set and the Garden Bouquet for the flowers.  I used Wild Honey distress ink for the flower  and for the stamp on the postcard.  I edged the postcard with Walnut Stain.  I added some sheer green dotty ribbon to the postcard and added it with pop dots to the card base.

Once again a big thank you to Scottie Crafts for providing the papers that I used.

"Baby Mama" @Red Carpet Studio

 

This week's inspiration at Red Carpet Studio is the movie "Baby Mama" and your challenge is to make a Baby Card.  Our sponsor this week is Eureka Stamps

Our DT got to chose a digital stamp to use and I chose this one

and here is my card

I printed out the digi and coloured it with Copics.  I made a bit of a mess with my sentiment not going on straight, so saved by stamping it on a scrap of the PP and punching it out with a Stampin' Up oval.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up as well.  I borrowed the stamp from my friend, Sandie, when I spend the day stamping at her place.  Finished with some gems and a ribbon bow.

And as it Mother's Day here in NZ, I wish you all a very Happy Mother's Day.  My son came over for dinner which was lovely.  The weather was beautiful and sunny so it was a good day

His and Her Sympathy

I took the His and Hers on line class last week, but didn't actually make many cards... but learnt lots of things.  I did mange some cards over the weekend thankfully as this week not a single card made!  I've been suffering sore limbs.  My right shoulder has been feeling stiff for some time and I finally have been having some physiotherapy and then Tuesday I woke to a stiff right knee... by Thursday I couldn't hardly walk .... luckily I had a physio session so my therapist concentrated on the knee rather than the shoulder.  Still it means I don't feel like sitting and creating.

So on to the His and Her cards I made in the weekend.  First up the Hers card

I used the design and some of the techniques I learnt in the class.  I stamped the Etched Flower from Hero Arts in Olympia Green Versafine ink and used my Inktense pencils to colour and watercolour the flowers.  I went over the edge of the flower with an HB pencil.  Before mounting the panel to my card base, I added a strip of PP from Crate Paper down the edge.   The sentiment is from Hero Arts as well.

My His card 

For this one, I used the same PP down the side and a similar design.  I stamped the Silhouette Grass in Memento Grey Flannel ink and used Inktense pencils to colour the sheaves.  Again used a Hero Arts sentiment.

I did not know that I would want to use one of these cards this week, but a friend at work, lost her mother on Monday.  Several of my work mates wanted sympathy cards as well, so they came in handy. 

Hoping that I get some time to play, and the inclination to do so, this weekend.  My son is coming round to have dinner with us on Sunday which will be nice.  He is working not too far from where we live and will call in, shower and stay for dinner.  

To all the Mothers out there..... Happy Mother's Day for Sunday.  

Playing with Patterned Paper.

Today I want to share a couple more cards I made with the Farm House Fair Skies papers from Scottie Crafts.

First up

 I used both sides of Weightless PP.  The flags were cut from the front and glued to the panel made from the reverse side of the PP.  I took some bakers twine and glued it along the top of the flags.  I made some little knots and glued them down.  I edged the panel with distress ink and added some eyelets in the corners.  I used a Hero Arts sentiment set (It's Your Day) to stamp my sentiments.  The panel was then added to a royal blue card base.

My second card

For this one I used Drifter and Celestial papers to cut the banners.   I used Spellbinders Eyelet Dies to cut a circle which I cut in half and layered on top of the banners.  Tied some brown scrappers twine around the top of the card and threaded it through the button.  I made this by glueing some of Drifter PP onto the back of a clear button.  Once it dried, I trimmed around it and filed it to get smooth.   I finished it off with gems around the eyelet circle and on the base card. The sentiment is from Hero Arts and is stamped in Delicata Golden Glitz ink.

I have to say I've had great fun using these Patterned Papers.  A few more cards to share that I've made.  These papers are 12x12 sheets but they also come in a 6x6 pad where the elements are all a bit smaller.

Thanks to Scottie Crafts for providing me these papers to work with

Hope this gives you some inspiration.  And do hop over and see the goodies at Scotties.

Picture Perfect

Today is my first post over at Little Blue Button blog.   I got to use one of the new release digi stamps today

This is Miss Lilly Reporter and here is my card

This is the sweetest little image and so easy to colour.  I used Copic markers and a touch of stickles.

I fussy cut Lilly and then made the base to layer her onto.  I chose to use some PP from My Mind's Eye- Miss Caroline all dolled up,  and trimmed it to include the flowers and doilies into the corner.  I love the wood grain look to this PP.   I used a sentiment from a Lawn Fawn stamp set and finished with a few tiny hearts.  These were the scraps from a die cut I did with a Simon Says Stamp die.


I hope this has given you some inspiration.  Do hop over to the shop and pick up your images and have fun.

Bright Sun Shiny Day

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW  THE RAIN IS GONE
I CAN SEE ALL OBSTACLES IN MY WAY
Gone are are the dark clouds that had me blind
IT'S GONNA BE A BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT SUN SHINY DAY
IT'S GONNA BE A BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT SUN SHINY DAY

Jimmy Cliff

After torrential rain and thunder yesterday afternoon, today dawned bright and sunny ( at least for a little while) and I woke to a 90 minute scramble over on Hero Arts where Marcy's theme was "SUNSHINE"

I started with using the monochromatic yellow theme  and the word Sunshine.

I started by stamping the centre flower and making a mask, then stamped the other two.  I did have to do it twice as the first time I used Versafine which didn't work well with Copics... so second time with Memento and coloured with Copics.  Used a sentiment from  Tuesday.  I trimmed the card and mounted it onto yellow and then a white card base.  The time consuming bit was adding the little black gms to the centres .

After a cuppa tea break, I decided to make a tag.

 I cut out the tag and the PP with a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die.  I trimmed the PP a bit so there was a mat around it made by the base tag.  I added the Hero Arts sentiment and added a flower.   Quick and simple.

Luckily the sun stayed out so I could take the photos.  You can see that the bench is still a bit wet and now the sun is gone and the rain is back.

I think my computer must have a virus as when I'm typing this, the cursor keeps leaping off to all sorts of random places, my screen jumps to another tab and all sorts of strange things are happening.  I'll doing a check next,

Hope your weekend is going well.

Take care

It's Official...........and new challenge at Die Cut Divas

It's official.......I'm a new designer for Little Blue Button Stamps.  

 

Olga, the owner, is on the same Design team as me, over at Red Carpet Studio and she approached me to do some designing for her blog and it was just timely that I had finished a design spot and had the capacity to take on some more DT work.   Thank you Olga.  I am looking forward to working with you and your adorable designs.    My first post over at Little Blue Button Stamps is going to be the 6th May and my sample for the two week challenge will be up on the 10th.

And today is Arlene's new challenge over at Die Cut Divas.   

Anything BUT a Card!

 And a new sponsor....

  
Remember, you have to use a die-cut or something embossed from your machine.  You do NOT have to use a Bugaboo Digital in your creation.  However, if you use a Bugaboo Digital, you will awarded 3 chances to win.  If you do not use a Bugaboo Digital, you will be awarded  one chance to win.  You MUST also let us if you are using a Bugaboo stamp or you won't be awarded your 3 chances.   Do remember that Bugaboo has free digital stamps on Friday.

 So here is my Tag

 

I used this digi stamp (Rose Tag).  Once I had printed it out, I coloured with Inktense Pencils.  Once I had it coloured, I ran it through the Cuttlebug with an embossing folder.  I then sponged the embossed bits with some green ink, added a bit of twine and a ribbon.   Do come and join us at Die Cut Divas this month... there's lots of things you can do... ATCs, tags, banners, and other papercraft projects ( see Paula's amazing banner, Arlene's ATCs  and Hannah's calendar on the blog.)

That's me today.... thanks for popping by.