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

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

Suitcase wedding

 

I got asked to make yet another wedding card :o  I have made more of them in the last 2 weeks than I have in my whole life!

Anyway I went looking for some inspiration again and found another great sketch at Mojo Monday to try.

 

I found out that a “theme” at the wedding is suitcases so I decided to create a card incorporating them.

 

 

I used triangles of saffron dsp to create a sun, as though they are heading off into the sunset together - with their suitcases :)

This card has lots of texture (it looks better IRL) I have embossed crumb cake dsp for the background and embossed along one edge of the banner.  I have faux stitched the sun’s rays and created a little scrunched flower using the boho punch.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : tiny tags, whimsical words, digi suitcases Tiddly Inks

Card : crumb cake, white, neutral dsp stack, subtle dsp stack, windsor knot dsp (ret)

Ink : crumb cake, espresso, memento black

Other : boho blossoms punch, big shot, framed tulips ef, vintage wallpaper ef, linen thread, rhinestone brad, tag punch, nesties, linen thread, mat pack, piercer, white pen, copics, organza ribbon, pearls

 

Wishing them a beautiful wedding today!

 

Kathy

Retiring Butterflies

At Just Add Ink this week we have a gorgeous photo to take some inspiration from.



I had been asked to make a retirement card for a teacher at the girls’ school and I decided to use this photo challenge to inspire me.




I chose similar colours to the bags in the photo for the butterflies and I really liked the way it turned out.  I would never have chosen them myself, so hurray for the challenge!  I also angled the butterflies in the same way as they have with the bags and I have used more and bigger butterflies at the bottom and got smaller and smaller and less and less butterflies as they go up into the sky. I then just used one rhinestone on the biggest butterfly of each colour, to mimic the silver beads on the bags.
I attached them with mini glue dots and lifted the tops of the wings upwards.

Ingredients :
Stamps : none!
Card : white, black, poppy parade, pool party, regal rose, limeade
Ink : none!
Other : big shot, beautiful butterflies, beautiful wings, elegant bouquet ef, rhinestones, vintage wallpaper ef

As this was a card for the whole staff to sign I made it a very big one but I’m sure it could be recreated to make a smaller card with fewer butterflies. I always feel a little stressed making cards on behalf of the school and I wasn’t sure what they had in mind exactly for a teacher’s retirement card, but I found the Irish blessing which I thought was beautiful and all those beautiful butterflies just fit with the blessing perfectly.  I think it was appreciated by everyone.
Please take a look at what the rest of the JAI team have created this week and let the photo inspire you to create something beautiful.

Kathy

Poinsettia Peace

 

At Just Add Ink this week we have a different kind of challenge.

It is to CASE a member of the JAI team.  For this month it’s Tania Gould we’re casing, but I think we’ll all get a go at being cased eventually.

I had a lot of fun looking through Tania’s blog.  I saw this pretty card and really liked the layout of it so I decided to CASE it.

I’d say you could try to copy a persons “stamping style” or perhaps their favourite colours or embellishments when casing someone.

But I decided to use the same layout as this card. I also used the pearls and ribbon in the same way and used a flower in the same way too, yet I have created something with a very different look.

I have changed Tania’s pretty pink flower card into a “vintagey” Christmas card.

 

 

I still have a lot more Christmas cards to make (even though we are into December now) and I had seen a beautiful card with a poinsettia made like this one here and so this was a great opportunity to try it out.  I have changed mine a little because I stamped it using frost white shimmer paint instead of ink. 

The flower is made by stamping and cutting a leaf from French Foliage and then using mini glue dots and dimensionals to construct it.

The embossed piece is river rock with soft suede brayered on to the folder before running it through the big shot.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : French foliage, occasional greetings

Card : suede, river rock, vanilla, cherry cobbler

Ink : suede, crumb cake, frost white shimmer paint, versamark

Other : vintage wallpaper ef, big shot, pearls, lace, vanilla taffeta, clear ep.

 

I hope you’ll give this challenge a try too.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy looking through Tania’s blog to find something you’d like to case!

 

Kathy

Reindeer Tag

This week at Just Add Ink we have a wonderful photo to inspire us.


I took inspiration from the gorgeous colours and the trees to create this Christmas card.



For the tag, I brayered on more mustard and then cherry cobbler at the top and baja at the bottom. 
I then used Not Quite Navy to sponge around the edges.
The deer is stamped in stazon and I white embossed the snowflakes from the Confetti set.
The ribbon for the tag is Cherry cobbler seam binding which has been frayed a bit at the top.  It looks gorgeous, I think that is my favourite of all my ribbons at the moment (Oh and I have a lot to choose from! :)  The bow for the button is linen thread which I have coloured with NQN ink.
Can you believe this is my first card using Lovely as a Tree?  I got it for my birthday and now that I’ve used it I don’t know why I didn’t buy it years ago. It is a really beautiful set!

Ingredients :
Stamps : Lovely as a Tree, Winter Post, Occasional Greetings, Confetti
Card : white, NQN, black
Ink : stazon, versamark, baja, NQN, mustard, cherry
Other : big shot, wallpaper ef, subtles button, linen thread, white embossing powder, cherry seam binding

The design team have created some really gorgeous cards this week.  Please take a look and let this photo inspire you to make a beautiful card too.

Kathy

Very Merry

This week at Just Add Ink we have a colour challenge for you.
The challenge is to use white plus one other colour.
I decided to use white and my favourite stampin up colour Baja Breeze.

I thought I would get Dasher out and make my first Christmas card for the year.  I had seen a great sketch challenge at Paper Players last week that I thought would be perfect for him.
My friend Rita had very kindly sent me a little care package with some samples of ribbon and other bits and pieces and this gorgeous baja seam binding was one of the goodies she sent.  Thanks so much Rita, what a lovely, thoughtful gift.
I actually used baja ink refill mixed with some frost white shimmer paint to stamp Dasher and I stamped the snowflake from winter post on the baja with it too. I also daubered some onto the embossed piece of shimmery white card.   It is very sparkly and pretty in real life.

Ingredients :
Stamps : Dasher, winter post, short and sweet
Card : baja, shimmery white
Ink : baja, versamark
Other : baja seam binding, baja ribbon (ret.), rhinestones, white embossing powder, big shot, wallpaper ef, rhinestone brad, frost white shimmer paint

I also made the same card in chocolate and white.


It’s very pretty too, I think it just needed white seam binding instead of taffeta to make it look that bit more “special”.
I have a huge Stampin Up order coming this week with more seam binding in it. Can’t wait!
I could (and probably should) make a whole collection of these cards in different colours, but I don’t like stamping that way.  I like to create different designs and challenge myself to come up with something new.  It might depend on how many cards I have ready by December though :)
Please have a look at what the rest of the JAI team came up with for the white with one challenge and give it a try yourself.

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

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.

Faux tin ceiling skaters

Last Saturday I met with one of my clubs and we made a little Christmas door hanger treat box.  I decided to get all my Christmas stamps out for them to use, so that they could choose whatever they liked to decorate their boxes. I wish I had thought to take a photo of them because they were all beautiful. Anyway, quite a few chose the skaters stamp from the Winter Post set. I was surprised! I had never inked it up, it just seemed too “un-Australian” to me.  But it looked so beautiful, I decided that I was going to make a card with it this year.  So thank you club members for inspiring me.

Then this morning I got more inspiration from Just Add Ink and their challenge to make a Christmas card.  At the start of their post they mention how we still like to incorporate flourishes, sparkles and snowflakes on our Christmas cards even though it’s so hot here. Although in Tassie it isn’t that hot (which I am very glad about actually!)

So that skater stamp was calling out to me yet again to be used this Christmas.





The third piece of inspiration for this card was from seeing a tutorial on Faux Tin Metal Ceiling technique by Dianna Gibbs. I have wanted to try it for a long time and I thought it might go nicely as a background for the skaters.  Her blog is called Stampin’ with Di and it is one of my favourites, she is so talented and has some wonderful tutorials on there too.  If you’d like to try this technique here is a link to the tutorial that inspired me so much.



Ingredients :
Stamps : Winter Post
Card : black, whisper white, confetti white, bashful blue, sahara sand
Ink : stazon, bashful blue, versamark
Other : frost white shimmer paint, big shot, silver embossing powder, heat gun, rhinestones, blender pen, dauber, vintage wallpaper embossing folder, timeless type alphabet, organza ribbon

I stamped the snow flakes with the shimmer paint and daubered some on the edge of the letters too. I used a blender pen to very lightly add some bashful blue to the skaters’ clothes to tie in with the letters and the rhinestones add that extra bit of bling. (Which I haven’t captured well enough in this photo unfortunately).
Kathy