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

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

Ribbon stash

 

This week at Just Add Ink the challenge is to make a card with something you’ve had in your stash for ages and haven’t used.

In my stash was a beautiful roll of marina mist satin ribbon that hadn’t been touched and so I decided to make another one of those ribbon flowers with it.

 

I thought I would take the opportunity to use some retiring things too. Sadly this ribbon is retiring as are the two stamp sets I’ve used on the card.  I used white craft ink to stamp the flourish from friends 24-7 and the words are from a hostess set called Apple Blossoms.  Sad to see them go :(  But I will have lots of lovely new sets to play with very soon :)

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : friends 24-7, apple blossoms, very vintage wheel

Card : espresso, marina mist, white, crumb cake

Ink : white, crumb cake, espresso, marina

Other : marina mist satin ribbon, sticky strip, circle punch, espresso thin taffeta ribbon, crochet trim, big shot, square scallop, neutral brad, vintage brad, white pen

 

I love how the ribbon flower turned out in marina mist, I will have to make some more of them.

I’m sure we’re all guilty of buying “stuff” for our craft and then not using it.  Please have a look at what the rest of the design team at JAI have been hoarding. Then, as shocking as this sounds, I challenge you to actually take something from your stash and MAKE something with it.

 

Kathy

Just for you

This week at Just Add Ink we have a colour challenge for you.


At first these colours said “male card”  to me, but instead I decided to go very soft and feminine.


I also decided to try some techniques that I hadn’t attempted before.
One was the spotlighting technique.  I used the tag to highlight an area of the stamped image.
The other was the faux mother of pearl technique. I’ve included this second photo because you can see the shine a little more .  It is done on glossy white with frost white shimmer paint and also sponged with soft suede to make it darker.  here is the great tutorial by France that inspired me, if you’re interested in trying it out.


Ingredients :
Stamps : Elements of style, very vintage wheel, teeny tiny sentiments

Card : naturals ivory, very vanilla, glossy white, cherry cobbler, soft suede

Ink : stazon, white craft, suede, crumb cake marker,

Other : crochet trim, jumbo eyelet, oval punch, linen thread, pearls, frost white shimmer paint, scallop trim border punch, beautiful wings, hodgepodge hardware, blender pen


I was tempted to send this card to my good friend Rita in the US, who is also a stampin up demo.  She has repeatedly said how much she hates this stamp, yet it’s one of my favourites.  I’d love to be able to convince her that it’s gorgeous.  I decided against trying though, I know everyone has different tastes (but how can you not like this one?)  :)
Instead I gave it to my daughter’s violin teacher with a gift card as a thankyou for all her help with the Hobart Eisteddfod this year.  No prize this time unfortunately (there were so many brilliant young soloists!!!) but it was a wonderful experience for her and her teacher is so generous and giving of her time and knowledge I hoped this might show our appreciation of her.
Kathy

Family Nature

 

Just thought I’d show you another challenge from the Splitcoast Stampers Creative Crew.

With this one you have to choose a layout and make a male and female card with it, while keeping the “antique” theme for this month.

CCREW0511HF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM - Holiday/Seasonal Focus -- Family Time! Mom's and Dad's days are here, but let's not forget about the Grandmas and Grandpas either. This month we're doing a his & hers challenge. Choose one layout and make a masculine card and a feminine card!

I decided to use Nature Walk and my grid technique to make a male card.  This one was for my Brother in law’s birthday.  I distressed this one quite a lot to try to make it more “manly”. I used the music notes wheel on the crumb cake and really scrunched it and then sponged crumb cake on it.

 

Ingredients : 

Stamps :  Nature walk, music notes, teeny tiny sentiments, sanded

Card : vanilla, naturals ivory, crumb cake, espresso

Ink :  crumb cake, espresso, river rock

Other :  linen thread, mini library clip, sponges, post its, big shot, lots of tags

 

Then this one is using the same layout but was for my Mum for Mother’s Day, so a “girly” version. For the challenge you didn’t need to use the same stamp set, but I love my new Nature Walk set so much I just had to!  

  

Ingredients :

Stamps : Nature walk, very vintage, teeny tiny sentiments

Card : Espresso, vanilla, pink pirouette

Ink : pip, crumb cake, espresso

Other : linen thread, espresso thin taffeta, word window punch, modern label punch, pearls, pip button, big shot, square scallop die, sponges, post its

 

Kathy

Think Pink

I was a bit concerned that I’d lost my stamping “mojo” this week but then I saw the challenge at ColourQ and I knew they were my kind of colours and I should give it a try.

I also wanted to incorporate these colours into the challenge at SUO challenges which was to use a wheel on your card.  I’ll admit the wheel is very subtle but it really does add to the depth and “prettiness” of the card.

I used Pretty in Pink satin ribbon to make another one of those gorgeous ribbon flowers.  This one turned out quite different from my razzleberry one, I guess every flower is unique! Look here if you'd like to see my other ribbon flower card.
I used my brayer to put crumb cake ink on my vintage wallpaper embossing folder and ran it through the big shot.  I used my square scallop die for the first time too, and of course made a rectangle instead out of blushing bride.(ha!)  I distressed this piece a lot, I sprayed it with shimmer mist and “scrunched” it, flattened it out and then sponged crumb cake on the edges and creases.
I used the very vintage wheel in PIP and then over stamped in crumb cake the thoughts and prayers tree.  I did deviate slightly from the colours by using espresso to stamp the sentiment.
Everything on the card is very sponged and distressed.



Ingredients :
Stamps : Very vintage wheel, thoughts and prayers
Card : pink pirouette, blushing bride, crumb cake, white
Ink : crumb cake, PIP, espresso
Other : PIP satin ribbon, heat gun, sticky strip, circle punch, sponge, brayer, big shot, scallop square, vintage wallpaper, antique brad

I am really happy with how this turned out thanks to two great challenges.

Razzleberry wishes

I had another win with one of my cards!  The Pretty chocolate for you card won at Stampin’ Celebration this week.  Woohoo!
I was looking for more challenges to do (I have to make the most of my last week of school holidays!) and found this one at Colour Q  which was extremely challenging.

Not colours that I would usually put together.  I’m not sure that I’ve even used Cajun Craze or Peach Parfait yet!  The design team’s cards were gorgeous though, so I needed to give these colours a try.
I also incorporated them into the sketch challenge at Paper Players, so doubly tricky!


This is what I came up with.


This card actually looks much nicer in real life (you’ll have to trust me!)  No matter how many photos I took my camera could not pick up the true colour of the Razzleberry and couldn’t capture the “gorgeousness” of the flower unfortunately.
I found a tutorial on how to make this flower here.  It’s by Kelly Acheson and is just beautiful.  Thanks for the inspiration Kelly.  If you click on the link, she has made hers with Razzleberry ribbon also, yet it looks a completely different colour to my photo(?)

Ingredients :
Stamps : Elements of style, very vintage wheel, oval all
Card : Peach parfait, cajun craze, shimmery white
Ink :  Stazon, razzleberry, river rock, old olive, crumb cake
Other :  razzleberry satin ribbon, aquapainter, pearl, sticky strip, oval punch

vintage pink

This is another card  made for my daughters’ violin teacher using the Stampin’ Celebration challenge of chocolate and flowers.


I used the same technique I used for the grid cards again but this time I made a rectangular mask and left the centre blank and then stamped the Because I Care flower into this space.
Ingredients :
Stamps : Because I care, music notes wheel. very vintage wheel
Card : very vanilla, choc chip, naturals ivory
Ink : PIP, choc chip
Other :  PIP taffeta ribbon, sponge, antique brad

I hope she likes it!

Pretty chocolate for you

I’ve had such a good week. Sleeping in, crafting, playing with the kids and I’ve also won 2 awards for my cards!  I was a top pick at Just Add Ink for my blue butterfly card and I was also a Cut Above winner at Paper Players for my Here for You card.  I was so excited to be chosen by these two great sites.
I have been making more cards using the grid technique to give to my daughters’ violin teacher.  I’ve made them all slightly differently, please leave me a comment and let me know which one you like best.
I found another challenge site this week too which looks fun.  It’s called Stampin’ Celebration and the challenge for this week is chocolate and flowers.  I decided to use the grid technique and use pip and choc chip and of course flowers.



This one has a more vintage feel to it than the other cards I think.  I used pip to sponge onto the vanilla and stamped in choc chip. This is similar to what I did with the other cards, but this time I also wheeled over the entire piece with the very vintage wheel using crumb cake.  It is subtle, but made the card more “vintagy” and lovelier I think.

Ingredients :
Stamps : Because I care, elements of style, friendly words wheel, very vintage wheel, all a flutter
Card : pink pirouette, very vanilla, crumb cake, shimmery white
Ink : pip, choc chip, crumb cake, stazon
Other : aquapainter, pip taffeta ribbon, mini glue dots, hodgepodge hardware, scallop trim border punch, sponges

Here for you

Well I’ve been wasting time this week, crafting and checking out my favourite blogs and finding lots of lovely new ones as well!  I found a challenge site called The Paper Players and they have a colour challenge this week. Their design team have created so many stunning cards, it inspired me to try these colours together too. 
 
I thought I would try the grid technique again but this time use 2 colours Baja Breeze and River Rock.  I also stamped the blossoms from Elements of Style onto watercolour paper, coloured them and cut out a couple to attach to the tag.



My daughter’s violin teacher had to go to hospital for knee surgery just before Christmas, she is back home now and we might go and visit her next week if she’s up to visitors.  I thought I might make a couple more cards using the grid technique and give them to her as a little gift from us.  The last time I gave her a few cards it made her so happy, she said they were so beautiful and hopefully she’ll really like these grid ones too.
Kathy

Ingredients :
Stamps : Elements of Style, music notes wheel, friendly words wheel, very vintage wheel, vintage vogue, friends 24-7
Card : very vanilla, baja breeze, naturals ivory, rose red, watercolour paper
Ink : baja breeze, river rock, rose red, stazon
Other :  pearl, embroidery thread, river rock ribbon (retired) mat pack, aquapainter, big shot, lots of tags, wide oval punch, sponges