Furry friends

 

The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is to just add a tag or a bookmark. Please take a look at all the wonderful creations the team have come up with.

I created this card for my good friend Rita.  Unfortunately she’ll see it on my blog before she gets it in person but I know that being a fellow stamper/blogger/design team member, she will understand :)

 

 

Rita and I met online when we were on the Splitcoast Creative Crew together. We started emailing each other regularly and one time I told her how disappointed my girls were that we didn’t get this set (Furry Folk) in the Australian catalogue.  They had wanted me to buy it for them for Christmas and then I had to tell them that I couldn’t.  Well she bought it for my girls and I and sent it all the way to us inside a little box filled with other goodies and lots of love. I am so very grateful to have found such a kind and caring friend. I feel truly blessed.

I know Rita likes to read, so I thought I would make a bookmark card for her with the set she bought us.  I used one of her favourite colours, not quite navy, and I know she loves the rickrack from the Tasteful Trim die so I added that too.

The photo below shows the bookmark when it’s taken out of the card.  The sentiment is from an old set called Sweet Serendipity.  I won it at the first Stampin Up Regional that I attended a few years ago.  I have kept it for sentimental reasons and I thought that it was just perfect for this card.

 

 

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Furry folk, sweet serendipity (ret.), woodgrain, tiny tags

Card : NQN, shimmery white, vanilla, bashful blue, celery, pink pirouette, white, subtles dsp stack

Ink : stazon, white, suede, river rock, espresso, regal rose, mustard

Other : big shot, tasteful trim, little leaves, boho punch, tag punch, circle punches, bashful blue taffeta ribbon, cropadile, white brad. linen thread, aquapainter, corner rounder punch

 

It took me a long time to get the animals and the holes in the tree all lined up and the words in the right place so they couldn’t be seen from the front.  It shouldn’t have been that hard!  I had the idea of how I wanted it to be in my head, but I’m not very good at working out that kind of stuff.  Luckily I know that Rita will overlook mine and the cards imperfections because she’s such a nice person!

I hope you like your card Rita and thanks for being such a great friend :)

Kathy

Father’s eggs

 

For our stamp club last week the hostess asked if I could show them a technique with the big shot embossing folders and if we could make it a Father’s Day Card.

So I decided to teach them Inset Embossing and this is the card some of the ladies made.

Of course I used the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set so that they could change the sentiment and make it for whatever occasion they liked.

The ladies were pretty “wowed” by this technique.  It is so easy but very effective.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps :  Teeny tiny sentiments, nature’s nest

Card :  espresso, artichoke, crumb cake, confetti white, white

Ink :  stazon, crumb cake, artichoke

Other : big shot, square lattice ef, little leaves, window punch, modern label punch, aqua painters, crayons, neutral brads

 

Generally, for my stamp club, I do 2 different cards that use the same technique.  I will show you the other one later on this week.

 

Kathy

Look Whoo

 

This is my last card for the Splitcoast Stampers Creative Crew.

CCREW0811HF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM – Holiday Focus:

You had to use this sketch, the paper piercing tool and choose 3 colours from this selection : baja breeze, daffodil delight, early espresso, night of navy, pear pizzazz, poppy parade, rich razzleberry, so saffron, soft suede, whisper white.

It was also meant to be for Friendship Day, Sister’s Day or Family Day which are celebrated on the first Sunday in Aug.

Well I did something a little different and made a card for my daughter’s 10th birthday instead, which just so happened to be on the first Sunday in August too!

 

I decided to make a little owl brooch for her and attach it to the birthday card insert.

All you do is punch a few owl bodies out (6 I think?) and glue them on top of each other (of course decorating the top one).  Then I put crystal effects over it and left it overnight to dry.  The next day I put a brooch back on the other side, again using crystal effects to adhere it and put crystal effects all over the back too.

I just used my crop a dile to punch 2 little holes on the insert so that I could attach the brooch .

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : none

Card : white, espresso, baja, pear, saffron, razzleberry, brights dsp stack

Ink  : old olive

Other : big shot, polka dot ef, button, little leaves, owl punch, crystal effects, timeless type alpha, paper piercer, white gel pen, linen thread, brooch back

 

Kathy

Island Prayers

Well it’s a new month and that means new challenges at the Splitcoast Stampers Creative Crew.
Here is the challenge:
CCREW0611CF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM - Catalog Focus:* FLOWERS*
Stampin' Up! has flowers! Ribbon Flowers, Rub-on Flowers, Button Flowers, Brad Flowers, Crocheted Flowers, Paper Flowers, Die Cut Flowers, Stenciled Flowers! The challenge is to use any flower except stamped flowers!



I had just bought my first flower die for the big shot and decided to use it for the challenge.  It’s the Island Floral Die.  It was actually in the Summer Mini catalogue but it was carried over and is still available.
I saw a gorgeous flower done by Nikki Spencer and she had a link to a tutorial by Joanne Leddy showing how she’d made them.  They are so gorgeous. I did mine the same way except that she used the fancy flower punch instead of the die, so mine is bigger.  I also don’t have the boho blossoms punch amazingly (I’ll have to rectify that soon!) I used a retired punch (trio flower, I think it was called) for my flower centre.  The other thing I did differently was that instead of spraying the flower with water, I sprayed it with white shimmer paint/alcohol solution. So it is very sparkly in real life.
Ingredients :
Stamps : Thoughts and Prayers
Card : vanilla, suede, pink pirouette, river rock
Ink : suede, crumb cake
Other :  Big shot, island floral die, square scallop die, beautiful wings, little leaves, vintage wallpaper, trio flower punch, pearls, brayer, square punch, piercing tool

I think the flower turned out beautifully and I’m very happy with my new purchase. Yay!
I hope you’ll try this challenge too.
Kathy

Cheeky monkeys

 

There is a wonderful challenge at Paper Players this week. 

It’s a clean and simple sketch challenge.

This is how they describe what clean and simple means:

Clean and Simple creations:

• use lots of white space
• use few or no embellishments
• use few layers

 

This is the card I came up with

Those monkeys are so cute aren’t they?  You may be wondering why I have the number 3 on there, but only have 2 monkeys?  Well it’s actually a birthday card for twin boys who are turning 3 and the cute little monkeys are very much them!

Ingredients :

Stamps : fox and friends, so happy for you, party hearty

Card : espresso, white, real red, wasabi, bashful blue

Ink : espresso, real red

Other : big shot, little leaves, timeless type junior alpha

 

I’m not quite sure whether its politically incorrect to give twins a card to share?  But I’m assuming they won’t be that interested in the card anyway and will just want to get into those presents!

Kathy

50 wishes

I was asked to make a birthday card for the librarian at my daughters’ school this week.  I saw a wonderful sketch challenge at Paper Players and decided to use that as my inspiration.
 

She was turning 50 and I could have put a big 50 on it, but decided against it.  I wanted to make it look special though so I thought I would do those lovely ribbon flowers again.  This time I used the 1” circle punch for one of the flowers so that I had 2 different sizes, as in the sketch.



The card was for all the staff at school to sign, so I felt a bit stressed about it.  Hopefully she liked it and the rest of the staff did too!

Ingredients :
Stamps : Sincere salutations
Card : regal rose, pip, pink pirouette, very vanilla, espresso, crumb cake
Ink : espresso, crumb cake, river rock
Other : big shot, finial press, polka dot, lots of tags, rhinestone brads, rhinestones, beautiful wings, wide oval punch, little leaves, pip satin ribbon, sticky strip, circle punches, thin espresso taffeta ribbon

My Think Pink card won another challenge at SUO Challenges this week too!  Very exciting!
Kathy

Another reinker card

I’ve made another card using the embossed reinker spread technique and Fifth Ave Floral for a fundraiser I’m involved in.
Rhonda Statham, a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator from NSW, has organised a Big Shot die sample booklet as a fundraiser to help a friend with the cost of buying a continuous glucose monitoring system for her son who has diabetes.
Demonstrators from all over Australia are helping out by providing samples of Big Shot die cuts and cards made using them. Rhonda is then turning these into a pdf file for other demonstrators to purchase.
It will be a great tool to have, so that you can see the actual size of the dies and what can be done with them.
I was very happy to help out.
My job was to provide die cuts of the Bigz Simple Numbers Alphabet and some card samples.
This is one of them and I’ll show you the other later on in the week.
I didn’t use a new stamp set but there are a lot of new goodies from my recent HUGE order on it!
I cut the 70 out of some thick packing cardboard I found using Bigz Simple Numbers and it cut perfectly.  I then painted it with a mixture of pip reinker and my new frost white shimmer paint. I used my new Finial Press embossing folder for the background and dabbed a little of the paint mixture on to the raised areas of the embossed piece.  I used the new shimmery white card for the flowers, the base and the top note piece (very pretty) and used the new organza ribbon too!


Ingredients :
Stamps : Fifth Ave Floral
Card : Shimmery white, pink pirouette, river rock
Ink : shimmer paint white, reinkers, versamark
Other : organza ribbon, big shot, bigz simple numbers, finial press folder, dauber, little leaves, top note, white embossing powder, heat gun

Embossed Reinker Spread

The hostess for club this month asked me to teach everyone how to do the Embossed Reinker Spread technique.
They were able to choose between 2 cards, which both used the Fifth Avenue Floral set.
On this one we also used one of my new sets, Oval All.  I think it will get used a lot!!!
Anyway, everyone made beautiful flowers for their cards. They were all unique because everyone used different reinkers and we all had a great afternoon crafting.

Ingredients:
Stamps : Fifth Avenue Floral, Oval All
Card : Shimmery white, whisper white, blush blossom, mellow moss, confetti white
Ink : Versamark, baja breeze, pip, subtles reinkers.
Other : white emboss powder, heat gun, top note die, polka dot folder, white grosgrain, little leaves sizzlet, big shot, oval punch, oval scallop punch, dimensionals, aquapainters