First Christmas

 

I’ve just made my first Christmas card for the year.  Yay!!!

I am entering it into this weeks challenge at the Paper Players.  It’s a Clean and Simple challenge called Bring On the Bling and I’ve certainly done that.

I don’t generally use that much bling but Christmas is a good excuse to get sparkly isn’t it?

I used silver glimmer paper and rhinestones for my bling and I embossed the sentiment with silver too.

I used one of the leaves from French Foliage to create the Poinsettia.  I just stamped it 3 times with real red, moving the leaf around slightly each time before re-inking. Then I cut it out.  I had seen this done before all in green to make a wreath but I decided to make it a poinsettia instead.  I also stamped a few leaves in gumball green and added them to the back.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : French Foliage, Contempo Christmas

Card : real red, white, gumball green, silver glimmer paper, brights dsp stack

Ink : real red, gumball green, versamark

Other : big shot, petals a plenty ef, silver ep, rhinestones

 

Hopefully I’ll be good this year and not leave all my Christmas stamping till November!

 

Kathy

Retiring Tree

 

I thought I would show you another of my Dirty Dozen cards.  The theme was Neighbourhood.

This uses one of my favourite Stampin Up sets, Forever Young and it’s about to retire :( Actually so is Tiny Tags and the embossing folder too!  :( :( :(

If you live in Tasmania and would like to come to a little Retirement Party I’m having next Saturday please email me for more details.  We will be making some cards with both new and retiring products and I will have some exciting giveaways and retired products for sale too. RSVP by Wednesday please.

 

 

This is not one of the cards we’ll be making :)  This one took me quite a long while to do as I embroidered little french knots onto the tree to create blossoms. I chose a very pale pink embroidery cotton and it looked very soft and pretty.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Forever Young, tiny tags, very vintage wheel, friendly words wheel

Card : vanilla, black, blushing bride, naturals ivory

Ink : stazon, crumb cake, pip

Other : vanilla seam binding, tag punch, big shot, vintage wallpaper ef, embroidery floss

Kathy

Beach Holidays

 

My Roar No More card made me a Princess at Freshly Made Sketches this week :)  And in true Princess style, I have done nothing since!  So I thought I’d post another of my Dirty Dozen cards.

The theme for this month was the song Summertime. 

Summertime in Australia of course means long school holidays, the beach and Christmas.

 

Most Christmas stamps are very "snowy" so I decided to try to make a Christmas beach card instead.

I brayered my circle with pool party and turquoise at the top and river rock at the bottom. I also added some dots of white pen at the waters edge for the foam. I used copics to colour the thongs and also added a little shadow on the sand.

I didn’t exactly use traditional xmas colours either, but I was trying for a tropical Christmas look.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Sunny Fun, Four the holidays

Card : espresso, white, pool party, calypso coral, everyday enchantment dsp

Ink : pool party, turquoise, river rock, memento black

Other : white pen, brayer, square scallop, big shot, , square punch, copics

 

Kathy

Roar No More

 

I have wanted to make this card ever since I got my Two by Two and Dinoroar sets with the new catalogue last year.

I have been thinking about it again recently because both of these sets are on the retiring list :(  I have used them a lot but I still hadn’t attempted this card idea of mine.

The Paper Players have a clean and simple masculine challenge this week and when I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I thought it was the perfect time to give it a try.

 

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Dinoroar, Two by two, Distressed dots

Card : pool party, white, lucky limeade

Ink : memento black, white, pool party

Other : copics, big shot, chevron ef, mds (sentiment)

 

It is not my own original idea, but my “take” on a funny Hallmark card I had seen a long time ago. I wanted to see if I could take inspiration from it but create my own Stampin Up version.

The original -

Kathy

Purple Love

 

I wanted to use my new Swallowtail stamp again and I found a great sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to inspire me.  I did change it a little and made mine a square card instead so that I could fit the whole butterfly on.

I stamped and embossed the Swallowtail with Elegant Eggplant onto crumb cake card and painted over it with white ink.  Then I used wisteria, eggplant and calypso coral markers and a blender pen to colour it.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Swallowtail, Curly Cute

Card : wisteria, white, crumb cake, grey

Ink : stazon, white, versamark, eggplant, markers (eggplant, wisteria, coral)

Other : big shot, elegant bouquet ef, white pen, blender pen

 

When my 11 year old daughter saw this card she begged me to give it to her for her birthday this year.  She is a “purple girl”! :)  Her birthday isn’t till August but she just fell in love with this pretty purple butterfly. I’ll save it and give it to her, hopefully she’ll forget about it and be surprised and in love with it all over again!

 

Kathy

Happy Diamonds

 

This is the last of my cards for the Diamond and Pearl theme at the Dirty Dozen.

 

 

I punched squares from two different papers from the neutrals dsp stack  and arranged them in a diamond pattern for the background. I coloured the "diamonds" with a permanent marker to make them black and made a flower from red satin ribbon.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Curly Cute

Card : black, red, white, neutral dsp stack

Ink : stazon

Other : red satin ribbon, rhinestones, antique brad, square punch

 

Kathy

Butterfly Blues

At SU Only Challenges this week the focus is on butterflies. If you love butterflies you should check out all their wonderful creations.

I have only just bought this Swallowtail image and couldn’t wait to try colouring it.





I stamped the image on crumbcake using Island Indigo and clear embossed it.  Then I painted the “lighter” areas with white ink using my aqua painter and let it dry.  I then used a blender pen and island indigo, baja and razzleberry markers to colour the butterfly, blending it into the white.  I added some white highlights too with the white pen and then cut it out.  I actually stamped it twice so that I could cut the body part out and have it slightly above the wings.  This was the first time I’ve tried this colouring technique and I was really happy with the result.

I also tried the Chalkboard Technique for the first time on this card too.  Simple, but effective!


Ingredients :
Stamps : Swallowtail, Vintage Verses
Card : baja, white, crumbcake, black
Ink : versamark, white, island indigo, markers (razzleberry, baja, indigo)
Other : blender pen, white ep, button (SAB), bakers twine, white pencil


I REALLY didn’t need another butterfly in my collection to be honest but it is so beautiful I couldn’t resist any longer!  Now that I’ve coloured it, I am so glad I bought it, it was so much fun!


Kathy

White Chocolate

 

I needed to make a wedding card for my niece and I decided to use Karen’s great sketch at the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge.

I flipped the sketch and changed a couple of things but it was great!  It gave me lots of inspiration, when I had no idea what to do and I was really happy with how it turned out.

 

 

I’ve actually used lots of retired or soon to be retired stuff on this card.  I still love these hearts from Always and I noticed that one of the Tiny Tags stamps has little dots around the edge which match the dots on the hearts, Yeah!  (But I’m sad the Tiny Tags are retiring).  And the beautiful flowers, I haven’t used them much but they look so pretty, I might save them for any wedding cards I need to make in the future :)

I embossed the Always hearts with white onto vanilla and cut them out minus the dot part.  Then I stamped again and embossed with crumb cake onto shimmery white card, cut them out and put them together.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Always, Tiny Tags

Card : crumb cake, shimmery white, vanilla

Ink : espresso, versamark, crumb cake

Other : clear ep., white ep,, big shot, finial press ef, vanilla seam binding, flower trim, adorning accents edgelit, essentials paper piercing pack, tag punch, linen thread

 

 

 

My youngest daughter thought it was a very “yummy-looking card”!  She thought the flowers looked like white chocolate :)

 

Kathy

Wedding Invitations

 

All the invitations have now been delivered!  Yay!  So I thought I would post a picture of one here on my blog to show you what I’ve been working on.

 

My son and his fiance chose river rock, white and black for their colour combo and they did look very stylish.

The white part is embossed with the stripe embossing folder, it’s a bit hard to see that in the photo but it looked very effective.  And that whole piece is a band to keep the card closed and you slip it off the card to open it. 

I was going to emboss the initials with black embossing powder but I had a lot of trouble with “stray” flecks of black.  It would have taken an eternity to get them all perfect.  So instead I stamped with stazon and clear embossed that. You can see it shining a little in the photo.  It was probably not quite as eye-catching as black embossing, but still looked nice. It was a compromise that saved my sanity :)

They were both very happy with the invites and have said that they’ve received lots of lovely “WOW” comments about them.  :)

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Lovely Letters

Card : river rock, black, white

Ink : stazon, river rock

Other : big shot, vintage wallpaper ef, stripe ef, labels collection framelits, rhinestones, clear embossing powder

 

Kathy

Pumpkin Romance

 

There is a gorgeous colour combo at ColourQ this week and I thought I would use it to make a Mother’s Day card.

This is one of those occasions where the card looks much nicer in person (you’ll have to trust me)!  I used shimmery white, which looks very pretty in real life and the pumpkin flowers look prettier too but I couldn’t quite capture the colours well enough.

 

 

All the stamps on this card are retiring, which is very sad.  I didn’t buy the Bordering on Romance set straight away, but I love it now.  It is lots of fun to colour and it always looks pretty.  I have only just bought Distressed Dots and if you follow my blog you may have noticed that I’ve used it on the last 3 cards I’ve made.  I wish I’d bought it sooner!  I especially love it on the crumbcake. And the sentiment is from a set that has been retired for a few years now I think.  But it’s kind of current again because you can get it in MDS.  That’s one of the great things about that program, because there are some great older sets (as well as new ones) that you can buy now and just print them out and use them on a card.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Bordering on romance, distressed dots, occasional greetings

Card : shimmery white, crumb cake, watercolour paper

Ink : stazon, crumb cake, markers (pumpkin, melon mambo, lucky limeade)

Other : blender pen, vintage faceted button, linen thread, pearls

 

I coloured the pumpkin flowers by using markers and a blender pen on watercolour paper.  I then cut them out and used dimensionals to give them some height.  The rest are stamped and coloured on shimmery white.

 

Kathy

Serenely Distressed

 

I finally got back to doing some stamping this week.  While I have been making cards, they have been my son’s wedding invitations.  I finally finished them and then needed a bit of a rest. I am not real good at mass producing cards, I like the creative side of things much more. (I will post a photo of the invites soon).

So when I saw this great sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I was excited to create something new and play along with them.

 

I brayered the card with pool party and island indigo at the top and lucky limeade at the bottom.

 

 

 

I decided not to add a sentiment to the card, so that I can use it for any occasion.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : serene silhouettes, distressed dots

Card : white, espresso, pool party, island indigo

Ink : espresso, pool party, white, lucky limeade, island indigo

Other : limeade ribbon (ret), brayer

 

Kathy

Topsy-Turvy Celebration

 

This is another card I made for the diamonds and pearls challenge during my time on the Dirty Dozen.

I just used some pearls and dazzling diamonds on this one. 

I tried to make the cake (and card) bright and colourful, fun and quirky just as a topsy-turvy cake should be.

I used the stripe embossing folder on the melon mambo and razzleberry card and wiped a lot of white ink over the stripes.  I really like the effect it created.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Topsy-turvy celebration

Card : black, white, melon mambo, razzleberry

Ink : stazon, melon mambo, razzleberry, white

Other : pearls, dazzling diamonds, mat pack, white pen, scallop trim border punch, decorative label punch, stripe ef

 

Kathy

Celebrate

 

This is another of my Dirty Dozen cards.

I made the sky by brayering saffron, mustard and cherry and I used a little pool party at the bottom. I also generation stamped a tree and cut out diamond- patterned hot air balloons to create the scene.

 

Stamps : up up and away, perfectly penned, lovely as a tree

Card : Black, white

Ink : stazon, pool party, cherry, mustard, saffron

Other : copics

 

 

 

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Kathy

Wisteria Love

 

In my first month on the Dirty Dozen the challenge was Diamonds and Pearls.

This is one of the cards I made for it and it showcases one of the in colours that is staying Wisteria Wonder.  Yay!

 

For the background I scored a diamond pattern and then used the very vintage wheel over the top. I then sponged crumb cake over the piece to highlight the diamonds.
The butterflies are stamped with stazon onto vellum, coloured from behind and cut out.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Very Vintage wheel, Kindness Matters, Field Flowers

Card : crumb cake, vanilla, vellum card

Ink : stazon, wisteria, crumb cake

Other :  big shot, framed tulips ef, two tags die, crumb cake seam binding, square punch, cropadile, jumbo brad, pearls, crumb cake marker

Kathy

Not Quite Baja

 

Well I’m having a little break from creating at the moment.

After Still AddINKtive folding, I’m not on any design teams any more and I’m just taking some time out for a bit.

Last year I was extremely honoured to be asked to be on the Splitcoast Stampers Dirty Dozen Design Team.  It was a 6 month term and was exciting and challenging at the same time.  It was a wonderful experience.  Anyway, as I’m having a little break I thought I would start putting my Dirty Dozen cards on my blog.

 

 

Ingredients:

Stamps :  forever young, whimsical words

Card : NQN, baja, white, subtles dsp stack

Ink : stazon, pool party, turquoise, pip, wisteria, crumb cake NQN

Other : big shot, finial press ef, scallop trim border, labels framelits, brayer

This one wasn’t actually made in my first month there, but I chose it to show today because of the colours in it. 

If you haven’t already heard, Stampin Up are changing their colour families.  We are getting a few favourites back like blushing bride and pear pizzazz :),  a few in colours are staying longer like pool party and wisteria wonder :), but some are going like Baja and Not Quite Navy :(  :(  :(  :(

I am so sad about that!  I do love Pool Party, but Baja and Not Quite Navy are my favourite Stampin Up colours of all time!

I’m not sure how I’ll create without them but I’ll mourn them for a bit and then I am going to start playing in lots of different challenges again to try to ease the pain :)

 

Kathy

Book Bunny

 

At still addINKtive this week we are showcasing Stampin Up Easter stamps.

You can make a new card but you can also share past Easter creations with us.

I made this card with my wonderful club ladies last week.

The hostess had asked to do an Easter card. She also loves to colour and was interested in learning more about SU wheels,  So this card was born.

I also thought I would show them how to make a magnetic bookmark using the two tags die.  So it’s a cute little gift as well.

Ingredients :

Stamps : Every egg wheel

Card : crumb cake, shimmery white, watercolour paper, pink pirouette, starfruit, primrose, print poetry dsp stack

Ink : stazon, crumb cake, primrose, starfruit, raspberry

Other : big shot, two tags die, vintage faceted button, bakers twine, scallop and circle punches,corner rounder, aqua pen, honeycomb ef, primrose ribbon, magnet strips

 

Please take a look at the Easter cards the rest of the design team have created.  They are all very beautiful!

And please share your Easter cards with us.

 

Kathy

Kind Poppies

 

This week at still addINKtive we have a sketch and colour combo for you.

You may choose to do either colour, sketch or both!

 

Bronwyn designed a very pretty circular sketch which I have been inspired by but I have made mine a square card instead.

 

 

I haven’t used my copics for quite a while now and I was really having withdrawals!  So I thought I would use copics similar to the stampin up colours in the challenge and colour the poppies.  I love this stamp, it is so beautiful and lots of fun to colour. 

I also stamped the Kindness Matters butterfly onto vellum, coloured it from behind with a marker and cut it out.

Ingredients:

Stamps : Pleasant Poppies, Kindness Matters

Card : sahara sand, black, x-press it, vellum card

Ink : white, sahara sand, pip marker, copics

Other : pip satin ribbon (ret.), linen thread, vintage faceted button, white pen, big shot, fancy fan ef

 

Please take a look at what the rest of the design team have created this week and we’d love it if you would play along with our challenge too.

Kathy