What I’ve been doing lately…
Just wanted to show everyone what I’ve been up to lately. Sorry I haven’t posted this week. I have been busy playing with my new toy – a Cricut Expression and doing a couple of card orders. Also, finishing off the box for my Notecards for the giveaway and I’m happy to say, it was won by a lovely lady called Carolynne… she also has a little online jewellery & gift store, so if you are looking to buy beautiful things to wear and gifts to give, visit her store here.
And here’s the Notecard Box:
All paper used is from Stampin’ Up. I cut out the sentiment using George Font and Basic Shapes cricut cartridge and the flowers and the leaves using Plantin Schoolbook Font cricut cartridge.
I covered the sentiment in Glossy Accents. I also inked all the flower petals and the 2 leaves in Brushed Corduroy distress ink. The pompom trim was from my stash and the box I bought from Spotlight for $6.00. Love these boxes because they are reasonably priced and are a quality product.
Cards I’ve made lately:
Thanks for visiting…
3 Thank You’s
Thought I would do a quick little post on 3 Thank You cards I was asked to do by a lovely lady called Jess.
For Jess’s Mum:
Made from beautiful Bella! paper from the 8×8 Heritage paper stack. I bought mine from Spotlight.
After diecutting the roses, there was a tiny scrap of paper left which had this cute little butterfly on it so I thought it would make a nice edition to the card. I couldn’t resist making a handmade envelope to match.
Envelope Back:
Envelope Front:
I always find it hard to come up with male cards so I kept this one more or less plain (but bright/happy).
For Jess’s Dad:
For Jess’s In-Laws:
I bought this beautiful flower trim ages ago (also from Spotlight) so thought I would use it to accent this card. I love how it turned out.
I glued a few large Little Yellow Bicycle pearls to the trim to make it even more pretty.
I’ve finished with a pretty Prima Flower… who doesn’t love Prima :)
I know I haven’t talked about every supply I used, but if you really want to know about something, ask me and I will list the supplies.
Thanks for visiting xx
Card and Matching Envelope
A quick post showing you a 13cm square card and matching 14cm envelope I made last night at midnight. Couldn’t sleep… too much coffee I think!!
I’ve used a sentiment stamp out of the Unity November 2011 Kit of the Month stamp set found at Craft-A-Lot.
All other supplies, I’ve used from my stash. Did a little machine stitching and finished with a few drops of Platinum Pearl Liquid Pearls.
I also made a matching envelope and if you’d like a short tutorial showing how I made it, leave me a comment. All you need is a paper trimmer, bone folder, scissors and some double-sided tape. The decorative punch is optional.
Thanks for visiting xx
A little bling with lunch…
If you have joined the Unity Kit of the Month club at Craft-A-Lot, you would have received your November KOTM stamp set called ‘Take Your Time’. A great range of stamps this month and so I chose the ladies and the matching sentiment.
Haven’t we all had days like these where nothing seems to be going right… I know I have had plenty of those in 2011… hurry up 2012 :)
I made the rolled roses from wool felt (unsure of brand) using a MFT die and added some Kaisercraft pearls to the centre. The paper is from the A Botanical Christmas/Winter Fairy Tales paper pad from Craft-A-Lot. The ribbon was sent to me in my design kit from Colleen.
The rhinestones are from Kaisercraft, ink from Stampin Up and Memento and the diecut was cut from a cheap $10 set of dies… there’s 4 in this set and when they came in the post, I was a little worried because of the cheapness (yes I’m a scrouge :) ) but they cut and emboss beautifully.
Anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas because I know I did. This year I decided to cook a baked lunch because we were having it at home and there were just the 3 of us (well only 2 who eats baked dinners). The last 3 years we have either travelled interstate or had it at my parents-in-laws but this year we decided to have it on our own. Last time I cooked christmas lunch it was over done and really not very edible (heavily pregnant with Kody, decided to have a nap and leave it in my partner’s capable hands (or so I thought lol))and apart from the fact that my 3yr old son woke up with a bad case of spoilt-brat-itis (although he did behave at grandma’s house for tea), we had a wonderful day ;-)
Thanks for visiting!!
2 more cards…
I was asked today by my sweet 15 year old daughter Renee if I could make 2 christmas cards for her dad and his family and of course couldn’t refuse (but was going to because I only had a couple of hours to make them and wasn’t feeling great). Enough time you would think but if anyone has seen me craft, I am up, down, here, there and I would be in the ‘very slow’ crafter category. It doesn’t help when I have a very demanding 3 year old son (a younger version of his Dad). Mum this, mum that, mum I want a cuddle (awww), mum I want a kiss (double awww), mum look at this, mum can you build me this, mum I can’t find ______ etc, etc… (I know you will understand if you are a parent) and by the time I have a card put together, it often has been a long road getting there but I wouldn’t have it any other way my partner always tells me :) Umm, yes sometimes I would lol
Anyway, here’s the first one….
The first thing my 3 year old son Kody said when he saw me doodling the frame was ‘Mum! why can’t I scribble on the card too’ LOL. ‘Oh sweety, yes you can call it a form of scribbling in a neater kind of way but only mummy’s know how to do it’ I replied to him. I don’t think he quite understood going by the bewildered frowning look he gave me :)
I have used paper and a diecut by Bo Bunny from the Blitzen range, seam binding ribbon from Stampin Up, a button from my stash, jute twine from May Arts, rhinestones from Kaisercraft, scallop punch from Fiskars, Brushed Corduroy distress ink, Lipstick Red chalk ink from Colorbox and the sentiment stamp was sent to me from the lovely Colleen at Craft-A-Lot and it’s from a set called Christmas Sparkles by Crafty Sentiments Designs.
…and here’s the second card.
The paper, alpha stickers, tag cutout and the little flower sticker is from the Seasons Greetings collection pack by Echo Park. I love buying paper this way because of the extras you get with it to match the papers you are using. It’s also a more economical way of trying paper ranges.
More seam binding ribbon from Stampin up, jute twine by May Arts, button from my stash and ice blue Rhinestones from Kaisercraft. I aged the edges of both cards with Brushed Corduroy distress ink.
Well I am off to lay down with my son and watch a fairies dvd… shhhh don’t tell his Dad lol
Thanks for visiting xx
Merry Christmas
Just a quick post today showing a christmas card I made the other night while everyone was sleeping. Such a great time to sit down and craft.
The paper used is from Websters Pages called Botanical Christmas/Winter Fairy Tales and you will find the paper pads at Craft-A-Lot.
I tried my hand at making pearls using Liquid Pearls… didn’t exactly turn out perfectly because as I was embellishing the card with other things, my hand smudged a couple of them and then I realised that I should have put them on last (obviously)!! lol
The seam binding ribbon and sentiment stamp are from Stampin Up, paper flowers are from my stash (don’t know who made them sorry) and I punched a few leaf branches using a Martha Stewart punch.
Thanks for visiting xx
Focusing on the Love…
For this card, I decided to do a little heat embossing… something I have tried in the past but hasn’t turned out that great so I had packed everything away until the weekend. You may recognize parts of it because I got a little (well no, a lot) of inspiration from this card video by Kristina Werner. I have been following her blog for years and she is, among a lot of other talented ladies, great inspiration for card makers.
Focusing on the Love.
I could be quite critical about parts of it, but I will do that privately as other parts I’m quite happy about. I will say though, thanks Amanda, the Yellow Pages did wonders :)
I won’t explain the steps I used because I more or less followed every step on Kristina’s video and she does it way better than I, but I will let you know the supplies I used. Music paper from ‘12 Days of Christmas‘ by My Minds Eye, Kraft cardstock for the base card, the flower and sentiment stamp from Unity’s October KOTM stamp set, Barn Door and Antique Linen Distress Stain by Tim Holtz, a Kaisercraft Rhinestone, white embossing powder and beautiful red ribbon from Colleen at Craft-A-Lot.
I have a long way to go and ALOT of practising before I will be completely comfortable with heat embossing so I made a pact with myself to stop being a procrastinator and experiment more. We will see in the coming weeks if I have listened to my own advice :)
So why not try a new (or old) technique today that has intimidated you in the past… you may surprise yourself :)
xxx
Smile and forget Everything
For this card, I wanted it to be shaped anything other than the normal square or rectangle cards I do all the time, so going through my die drawer, I chose the largest of my new Blossom tags and Accents dies which were purchased from Craft-A-Lot.
Starting off with a folded 9 inch x 4.5 inch Bazzill cardstock, I laid the largest blossom die ontop of the cardstock, making sure that it over hung the edge so it wouldn’t cut the fold, and ran it through my Bigshot. The end result was a 10cm x 9.5cm flower shaped card. Using my Martha Stewart’s Circle Cutter, I cut a 3 inch circle in patterned paper from Authentiques’ 6×6 ‘Journey’ paper pad. I then chose the matching cream paper, and cut a 2.5 inch circle. On the cream paper, I penned in some lines using a black Zig Millennium pen.
From the August 2011 KOTM Stamp Set ‘What I Know’, I chose the cute dress stamp and the sentiment stamp. I stamped the sentiment onto the cream patterned paper in Versafines’ Onyx Black Ink. Using the same ink, I stamped the dress onto some scrap paper, then onto the blue patterned paper. I did this because I wanted the dress outline a little subtle. I cut the dress out and layered it onto the cream paper using 3D foam dots. I poked a couple of holes in the paper and tied a piece of Natural Jute twine from May Arts into a bow then added a few Kaisercraft ‘Ice Blue’ rhinestones to balance the card. I layered this onto the 3inch blue patterned paper with foam dots and then adhered the whole lot to the base of the card using double-sided tape. Finishing off the outside, I penned in some dots.
For the inside of the card, I cut a 3 inch circle out of white paper and then cut a 1.5cm off the edge of a patterned paper circle and adhered it to the white. I then penned in some black dash lines.
Lastly, I made a matching envelope to go with it. A tutorial on making this envelope from scratch will be for a future post. And here’s a couple of other similiar cards using the same flower shape and more Authentique paper.
Friend to Friend:
Thinking of You:
Thanks for visiting and happy crafting!!
Fun Fun Fun
Seems that my mojo has up and gone walk-abouts to who knows where around Australia, I relied on Mojo Monday‘s very first sketch to help me make a card. I have even tried praying to whomever is up above, but it seems that it’s too close to December to have prayers un-related to Christmas answered :), so thank you Mojo Monday for the inspiration!
Here’s the sketch:
…and here’s my card:
Both the ferris wheel and the sentiment stamps came from the August Unity Kit of the Month stamp set – What I Know, which you can purchase from Craft-A-Lot. While you’re there, you may even consider joining the Kit of the Month club where you will receive an A4 sized rubber stamp sheet full of wonderful stamps. Talk to the very lovely Colleen who can help you with any questions you may have.
Started out with a 14.8cm x 10.5cm kraft base, I’ve used patterned paper from Echo Park’s ‘Time & Seasons’ Collection Kit layered on chocolate cardstock and zig-zagged around the edges. I originally bought this collection kit thinking it was christmas paper but it’s not. Silly me didn’t bother looking at the individual papers but I still love it… kind of dark and moody (much like me these days lol).
The little flower was made using a length of felt ribbon, sewing it along the edges and pulling it until it gathered into a flower-like shape. I then sewed a matching button to the centre and adhered it to the ferris wheel using Helmar 450 Quick Dry adhesive. I added a decorative strip punched from an E K Success punch called Parisian, a piece of black pom pom ribbon and finished the card with a few Kaisercraft gemstones.
I’m off now to get a few things ready for tomorrow. My partner and I are taking our 3yr old son, Kody, fishing tomorrow. If tonight is anything to go by, we may not catch a lot. Kody was mucking with the top half of his rod and ended up snapping it in 2 – Dad was not impressed LOL!!
Thanks for visiting xx
Birthday Wish
For my second post today, I wanted to show you a card using a little coloured pencil action :) I am still very new at any kind of colouring but as they say, the more you do, the better you get… hopefully that will count with me the more I practice.
I recently purchased the magazine Papercraft Inspirations and on the cover was a free gift of a colour & cut stack of 20 Lily of the Valley ready-stamped designs to colour so I thought since I really only have 1 stamp which is an outline stamp, I would give these ago.
Before I started, I knew that I wanted to make shades of Orange/Peach my dominant colour, so I based the colouring around shades that would match that.
I used Faber-Castell colouring pencils, paper stumps and a little Gamsol. I found colouring a little intimdating at first but the more I coloured, the less nervous I was about stuffing up the picture. The hardest part for me is shadows and shading which will get better with time hopefully.
For this card, I used papers from Echo Park’s Victoria Gardens 6×6 paper pad which I purchased from Craft-A-Lot. To give the little flowers more dimension, I Kindyglitzed them as usual. Love this stuff!! I diecut the sweet picture using my new Blossom Tags and Accents Spellbinders Shapeabilities set which Colleen from Craft-A-Lot ordered in for me. There’s a great video here by Lesley Langdon if you would like to see what you can do with both the Shapeabilities set and the matching stamp set (which I have as well)
I layered the coloured picture on a strip of white ribbon from my stash. I finished off the card with a sentiment stamped from the September Unity Kit of the Month ‘All Seasons’, added some gemstones by Kaisercraft and a bow from dyed seam binding which is accented with a tied button from my stash.
Thanks for taking the time to visit and I’ll see you next time!!
My Name is Rhonda and I'm a SAHM who loves to experiment and make cards, tags, and other paper goodies. I have 2 beautiful kids who inspire me every day and a loving partner who's my best mate. I also love to digitally scrapbook and I hope you find some inspiration in the things I create. Thanks for visiting x.
