two cards ♥

My friend Nat asked me to make two cards for one of her friends 30th birthdays. 

Here is the first one – I think I totally went overboard on these cards.  I do hope their recipient will love them.  Click on the pics to see them full size.

I made the butterfly by stamping it on Whisper White card with Chocolate Chip Craft ink and them embossed it with clear EP.  I then stamped the butterfly with Sahara Sand ink onto vellum.  I hit that gently with my heat gun so that I wouldn’t have to wait forever for the ink to dry on the vellum.  Then I carefully cut out both butterflies and layers the chocolate one on top of the vellum one.  I added little Kaisercraft pearls as the body of the butterfly.

The sentiment is stamped in Chocolate Chip craft ink and embossed with clear. 

I’ve done lots of sponging on the edges.

The lovely Beate inspired me to decorate the inside of the card.

 

INGREDIENTS:
Stamps: Simple Friendship, Oval All, Linen background, Rough Texture jumbo wheel
Inks: Sahara Sand, Only Orange, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip craft, Versamark
Card: Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Sahara Sand, Vellum, Haiku dp
Accessories: Tangerine Tango ribbon, Large Oval punch, Scallop Oval punch, Wide Oval punch, Scallop Edge punch, Top Note die,
Non SU: Cuttlebug Hippie Chick alphabet dies, Kaisercraft pearls

 

Here’s card 2.  It’s a gatefold card.  There’s a great tutorial for this on Splitcoast Stampers by Beate.  Once again, she inspired me to make the inside of the card just as special as the outside.  I really love this card and it was hard to give it away!

The flower is done in layers, popped up with dimensionals.

I love how the little hinge keeps it nicely shut.  Lots of sponging going on in this card too.

 

INGREDIENTS:
Stamps: One of a Kind, Embrace Life
Inks: Sahara Sand, Cameo Coral, Ruby Red, Summer Sun, Versamark
Card: Sahara Sand, Cameo Coral, Ruby Red, Ginger Blossom dp
Accessories: Copper EP, Antique Brass Hodgepodge, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain, Corner rounder punch 
Non SU: Cuttlebug Hippie Chick alphabet dies, Marco’s Quartz cardstock, Circle Nestabilities dies, Scallop Circle Nestabilities dies

I would really like to thank my beautiful friends Kathy and Dee for keeping me company on webcam while I made these two cards.

welcome to the world, Matilda

My dear cousin, Donna, had her beautiful baby girl on Wednesday, 7th October.  Her name is Matilda Serenity Rose.  6pounds, 2 ounces.  She is such a tiny, perfect, beautiful little girl.

Congratulations to Donna, Ray and her family.

I have been busy crocheting a little soft toy for Matilda.  I’m not quite finished yet, still have to make the little arms and legs to go on it.  But here it is without arms and legs…

Say hello to sleepy sheepy

~Here is the pattern~ for anyone interested in making their own sleepy sheepy.

Without arms and legs, my sheepy is 15cm tall (that’s 6 inches for those of you that are metrically challenged).

I think I will also make a little pink flower to attach to just about sheepy’s ear.

for my sister’s birthday

These are the things I made for my sister’s birthday for this month.

Her baby is due in early January so I crocheted a ‘gumnut baby’ hat for him.  If you don’t know what a gumnut baby is, you can go ~here~ and ~here~ and have a look for yourself

I crocheted the little hat using a bamboo/cotton yarn that I bought from Lincraft, called ‘Bamboozle’.  I believe it’s a Lincraft brand yarn.  It’s lovely and soft, and most importantly, it’s organic.  I thought she might appreciate that over an acrylic yarn.  I got the pattern from ~here~.  I made it bigger than a newborn hat because my nephew to be wont be needing it until winter (which starts in June down under).  I hope I didn’t make it too big!  It’s so hard to tell what size it should be since my ‘baby’ is now 12 years old.

I made special packaging for the little hat.  Brett, my other half, told me it wasn’t finished and needed a very expensive price ticket on it! 

Gumnut Baby Hat Packaging Ingredients:
Card: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Afternoon Tea dp
Other: Top Note die,
Non SU: Hippie Chick Cuttlebug alphabet dies

I also made her a notebook cleverly disguised as a birthday card because my sister specifically said ‘no gifts’!  The ‘bookmark is made with the yarn I used to make the little gumnut hat.

Notebook Ingredients:
Stamps: Build-a-Roo, Oval All
Card: Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Parisian Breeze specialty dp
Ink: Black Stazon, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Baja Breeze
Other: River Rock double stitched ribbon, yarn, Wide Oval punch, Scallop Oval punch, Large Oval punch
Non SU: Quartz shimmer card stock (Marco’s), Labels 1 Nestabilities dies

And finally I needed wrapping paper to wrap it all up in, but of course, there’s no wrapping paper in our house so I got a bit creative and decorated a brown paper bag.

Paper Bag Ingredients:
Card: Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Close to Cocoa dp
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Other: Heart to Heart punch, brown paper bag
Non SU: Hippie Chick Cuttlebug alphabet dies, Petite Scallop Circle Nestabilities dies, Circle Nestabilities dies, Prima flowers, random brad, random blue blings

Sydney’s dust storm

These are the photos I took of the dust storm that engulfed eastern Australia on the 23rd of September 09.  These were taken by me at around 7.30am.  My poor son thought we must be in the middle of a bushfire.  I haven’t edited any of these photos, this is exactly what came off my camera! 

It was so eerie and very impressive.  Everything was glowing orange, from the sky to the grass.  But apart from it being a bit dusty there really weren’t any other effects for me.

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sharing

Sometimes sharing is wonderful…  just not when my delightful family shares their flu with me…  grrr!    Although this is nowhere near as bad as when my son kindly shared his chickenpox with me!

So, instead, I shall share a couple of things I’ve made over the past couple of weeks. 

First up is the baby shower card I made for my beautiful cousin, Donna.  Her little one is due in October.  As you can see, I am still smitten with Stampin’ Up!’s Raspberry Tart patterned paper.  It’s divine.

INGREDIENTS
Stamp: ‘She’s Expecting’ by studioG
Ink: Black StazOn, So Saffron, Summer Sun, Blush Blossom, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red, Baja Breeze
Card: Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Rose Red, Close to Cocoa DP, Raspberry Tart DP
Other: Ticket Corner punch, Black Brads, Certainly Celery grosgrain, wide and narrow

Moving on to a father’s day card

I simply adore these bees!  And they seemed to be appropriate for this card since I forgot to make it early enough to get to where it was going in the post before Father’s Day…  So it was bee-lated!

INGREDIENTS
Stamp: Bee Trio by Stampendous, ****
Ink: Black StazOn, Chocolate Chip, Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie
Card: Chocolate Chip, Quartz shimmery card (Marcos), a retired SU! pattern paper that I forget the name of!
Other: Scallop Oval Punch, Large Oval Punch, Labels 1 Nestibilities, large corner rounder punch (retired)

Yesterday my neighbours daughter made me a sweet letter with a lovely drawing in it.  It made my day.  So I made her a little bitty notebook as a thankyou.

INGREDIENTS
Card: Purely Pomegranite, Close to Cocoa dp, Patterns Pack II dp, Quartz shimmery (Marcos)
Other: Taupe grosgrain, Light Pink gingham ribbon, Hippie Chic Cuttlebug alphabet dies

owlie birthday card

First up, Happy Birthday Bruce!

This is the card I’ve made for Bruce’s birthday.  I adore these little owlies.

I stamped them on shimmery card so it’s shiny!  Yes, I shiny things! 

Thanks to my lovely friend, Kathy, for giving me the idea to pop the brads in the corners like that. 

 

Ingredients:

Stamps: Owl Together Now
Inks: Black Stazon, Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Pumpkin Pie, Ruby Red, Old Olive
Card: Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip, Shimmery Quartz (Marco’s), Parisian Breeze specialty DSP
Other: Wide Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon, Vintage brads, Ticket corner punch, Petite scallop circle and plain circle Nestibilities, aquapainter, a ton of dimensionals

more foil embossing

I’m just playing with more of this embossed foil stuff.  This time I die cut my foil glued on card with my Nesties Label 1 dies and then ran it through my Cuttlebug again using the Swiss Dots embossing folder.  Pretty!  I also punched the scallop oval out of my foil glued on card. 

 

Thank you Kathy for helping me out on this one :)  We make a great team.

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Oval All, Embrace Life, Lots of Dots jumbo wheel
Ink: Versamark, Cameo Coral, Pink Pirouette, Sahara Sand
Card: Basic Black, Sahara Sand, Ginger Blossom dp
Other: Black EP, Ice rhinestone brads, Large Oval punch, Scallop oval punch, Petite scallop circle nesties, Labels 1 nesties, Swiss Dots cb embossing folder

Embossing with foil

Kathy has a wonderful card on her blog that she made with embossing on foil.  A couple of Christmas’s ago I tried embossing with foil in my Cuttlebug embossing folders and the results were really so-so and when I stuck my shiny embossed foil on my card, the texture got squashed.  When I saw Kathy’s card I decided to give it another go but this time I’m doing it differently!

1.  I cut a random piece of card into the size I wanted to use on my card and I cut a piece of kitchen al-foil so it was a little bigger than the card stock.

2.  I covered one side of the card with glue and smoothed it onto the foil.  I made sure I glued it onto the ‘dull’ side of the foil.

3.  Put a line of glue around the edge of the card.

4.  Fold over all the overhanging foil.  This gives a nice edge.  Don’t forget to do ‘hospital’ corners so there’s no ugly little bits hanging over the edges.

5.  Now you’re ready to tuck it into an embossing folder.  Make sure the nice foil side is directly against the ‘inny’ side of the embossing folder.

6.  Ahh, shiny!  Now I have a beautiful silvery embossed image and because it’s stuck on a piece of card, I can’t squash the texture!

And here’s the card I ended up making with my pretty shiny embossed foil.  Yup, another ‘wow’ technique rose.  Can’t help myself!

and a nice close up of the rose…  Why, oh why wont the colours come out right??

Card ingredient list:~

Stamps: Fifth Avenue Floral, So Many Sayings
Card: Basic Black, Ginger Blossoms dp, Shimmery card
Ink: Versamark, Rose Red, Regal Rose, Summer Sun
Accessories: Wide vanilla grosgrain, black gingham, silver brads, Silver EP, Black EP, dimensionals, aquapainter, word window punch,

I did silver embossing on the silver brads, because they were the wrong colour silver! 

And I have a complete mental blank about the name of the Cuttlebug embossing folder…  was that textile texture?  Can’t remember…

Thank you again Kathy for the inspiration.

I missed a card

I guess that happens when you don’t blog for a while!

This is a swap card that I made.  It had to be ‘unconventional’ so I did an unconventional card opening.  I made it a pocket card with an insert.  I did try to use unconventional colours….  but had so much trouble finding a combo that I liked… 

I did versamark resist on glossy white card and then brayered Baja Breeze over it.  I was very pleased with how it turned out.

For the little flower I clear embossed onto glossy white card and then watercoloured it with Cameo Coral and a touch of Baja Breeze on the edges.  There’s a silver brad in the middle. 

The first pic is my mock up I made trying to get the design and colours right.  I ended up only doing one flower because they took soooooo long to cut out!  It did look a bit fussy with three on it!

Card: Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Cameo Coral, Whisper White, Glossy White
Ink: Baja Breeze, Cameo Coral, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Punches: Tab, Corner Rounder, Scallop Edge, Word Window
Stamps: Embrace Life, Totally Tabs
Other: Silver brad, Choc Chip grosgrain

a post for Kathy

Here is the post I promised you, Kathy. 

These are my most recent cards I have made…

The teddy bear card was for my son’s birthday in June.  It’s a matchbook card.  I used lots of punches and my scallop circle nesties.  The colours are Not Quite Navy, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Sage Shadow and Pumpkin Pie.  The dp is an old SU one, but I forget what it is, and the letters are Cuttlebug Babyface die.  I got the teddy bear face idea from Kathy and I improvised his body.

The tall rose card I sent to Kathy.  Kathy sent me some gorgeous shimmery card (Stardream Quartz from Marco’s Paper) so that I could do the reinker wow technique that everyone has been doing.  I used Rose Red, Regal Rose and Summer Sun reinkers on the rose from Fifth Ave Floral.  The dp is Raspberry Tart and the Kindred Spirits stamp comes from “So Many Sayings”.  The ribbon across it is Kiwi Kiss satin ribbon.  The base card is Red Riding Hood.

The long rose card I made for a lovely Aussie SU demo, Veronica.  Same wow technique, which I just love.  Raspberry Tart dp again, and wide Regal Rose ribbon.  I hope she likes it.

And finally, there is the Build-a-roo card I made last night while chatting to Kathy on messenger.  It’s an example of me just playing around… I wanted to see what watercolouring on the lovely shimmery card would turn out like.  It came out beautifully and this is the card that evolved.  There’s that Raspberry Tart paper again!  And the Kiwi Kiss ribbon.  I also used a stamp from “Oval All’ stamp set and Labels One nesties.  Punches – Scallop Oval, Small and Large Ovals.  And a bit of paper piercing thrown in for good measure.  Couldn’t find my small corner rounder punch (is that any surprise??) but I think the old larger corner punch works well with the Labels One nesties.

 

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