Sunday, April 28, 2013

My First Design Team Invitation!!



I am delighted to share with you, that I have been asked to join the Design Team for Sugar Creek Hollow!

Sugar Creek HollowSugar Creek Hollow is a wonderful Vintage and Shabby Chic Challenge Blog with awesome challenges that will be posted every two weeks starting next week. 
Myself, together with Sherry Hickey and Cathi O'Neill will present our first challenge with the team on Saturday May 4th.  I wish to thank Cec most sincerely for asking me to join the team and I will do my utmost to live up to your expectations. 

I sincerely hope you will come over for a visit to see what we have managed to conjure up.

Wishing you a fabulous week and may all your dreams come true!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Mother's and Father's Day Cards Not Published

These were the cards that were not published. I would have chosen these over the one's that were selected, but I guess I don't have a 'publisher's eye'!



The fly on this card was made by Brother-in-law. I thought it would be great for a Dad who likes fishing!



I have featured this card before on my blog.

One of my favorite's.



I loved this simple card and thought the flower just made it. Perhaps it was mutilated during it's travels.....








My heartfelt thanks to all who left comments or emailed me. This may seem insignificant to some, but we all have to start somewhere, and for me this has really been a highlight.
I have had other projects published before in this magazine, but never so many at once!

Have an awesome weekend and my thanks again!
Hugz

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Mother's & Father's Day Cards Published!

I was delighted to open my May/June edition of our local South African craft magazine CRAFTWISE, to find 6 of my cards published and a whole page to myself! WoW! Very chuffed!

A special thank you to Hayley from our RSA Group for coordinating this project in record time!

These are the cards that were published.





I was inspired by a Pinterest card, so unashamedly 'lifted' the design. Thanks to the creator of the card.


















The card on the right was inspired by a pad of time related paper I purchased from Country Crafts and my Tim Holtz Mini Gears set.



 I used the bleach technique on this card and a local stamp for the tools from Great Impressions.
The 'Dad' stamp was one I bought from Country Crafts and it is a Papermania stamp.






Kraft card stock is on my favorites list lately.
Perfect for the masculine card.
Just embossing with the Argyle embossing folder and a very elegant sentiment font with a bit of string and a button. Can't get simpler than that. 





Only two of my Mother's Day cards were chosen for publication and this is one. I used a Hero Arts stamp and a sentiment stamp I bought last year from Country Crafts. I colored the flowers with my Inktense pencils.













This vintage style card was one I had in my stash and fitted the bill perfectly. I love the image and so kept it as the focal point

C.A.S Happy Birthday

 I was playing around with a new embossing folder and trying to get a smooth edged embossed image. It took some practice, but I got it right.

These are the 'three of the best' cards from this session.
Unfortunately, you can't see the score lines too clearly on the bottom half of the two top cards.

 


The card on the right, I cut out the embossed oval and mounted it on foam squares and embossed the bottom half with Swiss Dots folder.

I have my man working on my photography woes now.
He is going to rig up a better arrangement with good lighting and maybe it will help me in this department. I used to take my photo's outdoors, but find I end up having to do night post's and photo's and that is a problem. So, here's hoping we can get a grip on this ongoing problem of mine.

Thanks for the visit!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Hero Arts & Mother's Day

Another card we made in our Mother's Day class this month used the Hero Arts wooden block stamp, K5486 Flower Swirl Vine.

As I wanted to show the class how to use a stamp positioner, I cut a circle, slightly off the front page edge using a die and then trimmed off  2 cm's from that edge. 
We were able to place the image within the circle cut perfectly  by using the stamp positioner and then colored it in with Aqua Pencils.

The front was embosses with the Swiss Dots folder, a ribbon wrapped around the front and a very simple sentiment mounted with foam pads attached over the ribbon join. A pretty rose attached to the sentiment finished it off perfectly.

A lovely, feminine card for a very deserving Mom and a new technique that will definitely be very useful in the future!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Meet GJ!

G.J. has been commissioned for a new grand child in the U.S.A.
Please click on the Moz Bearz Tab above, to read all about this delightful little chap!

Getting ready to travel!



Here is the card that accompanied G.J. I used a lovely set from PTI and for the first time I stamped the sentiment onto vellum. I love that it does not obscure the paper and in fact, is much easier to place because of that. I will definitely be using this idea more often!


Thanks for popping in, on this cool Sunday afternoon. Winter is on it's way in the Southern Hemisphere!

 Enjoy your week ahead, wherever in the world you may be!

NEWSFLASH!!

G.J. has just arrived in the U.S.A. and I received this photograph of him being introduced to the resident fur babies! Me thinks there is going to be a bun fight over G.J. as these two have a glint in their eyes and a do I see a bit of drool coming from their mouths.....??

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.......

 I really enjoyed making these cards. I used the Spellbinders A2 Curved Borders One (S5-180)  and a MFT Die set for the daisies. The tag sentiment was from a Hero Arts set of four stamps - sorry do not have the set details.

The first card was cut using the plain edged die from the set. I loved the fact that I could cut through both the card stock and the beige medium weight paper together. The down side of this die is that using it square on, it will not fit through the Cuttlebug. I had to use the Big Shot, but in class I angled the die as per the card below and it went through fine. Just sharing....


The second card I cut the white card stock with the plain edged die that also left a little hole along the edge. The beige paper was cut with a die that also cut out a lovely pattern. 

There are six dies in the set and I have only used three of them here. There are two with different sized scallop edges and one that does not cut the edge, but a very pretty leaf pattern in the curved shape. Such a worthwhile set to add to your stash. 
This card was finished off with a stamp from Justrite.

I hope you are inspired to try out different edges on your cards.

Thanks for popping in!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Born to Shop!


My son has a lady in his life who according to him, is born to shop! She has just had a birthday and I made this card for her and included it in her birthday gift, which was the Hitchhikers Scarf that I featured in an earlier post. She loves scarfs, so I hope this one will be a hit!




Thanks Cariena for this freebie stamp in my last purchase! You can see I have already become attached to it!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

C.A.S. Vintage

I started making this card with many layers and lots of embellishments in mind and somehow the wheels fell off!

I kind of got stuck and did not feel like adding much more onto it, so left it alone and I'm happy with it!

So, if you do get a CAS Vintage card, then this is my version!



I will get back to the layers and flowers and whatever else, next time....LOL!



Thursday, April 4, 2013

Penny Black 'Glory of Modesty' Stamp


When I saw this stamp on my www travels, I just had to add it to my stash. It is so dainty and pretty and I was delighted when it arrived from Shamela last week!

I masked off the card so that I only had a band of the stamping showing. I used the Hero Arts Bubblegum stamp pad and highlighted the edges of the flowers with a darker shade before stamping it off onto the card. Tiny pearls were added to to flower centers just to finish it off.





This card was made for a friend who parted with her thirteen year old fur baby. Always a dreadful decision to make, but when your baby is suffering, it is the kindest thing to do, in my humble opinion! 
Inside the card I typed the beautiful story about crossing 'Rainbow Bridge'.
If you are interested in reading this amazing piece of work, Google 'Rainbow Bridge' and get out the Kleenex.
I also wanted to add a little something special, so made a little 'collar' and attached a charm to it. It was very well received and a delight to make.

I will be putting this amazing stamp to good use again soon!

Thanks for the visit!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Hero Arts Daisies

This technique came out of a stamping magazine I read awhile ago.
You stamp the image using black ink and then stamp another using Versamark and clear embossing powder. Both onto white card stock. The clear embossed card has a black pad rubbed over it and then the excess ink wiped off the embossing, leaving the ink in the 'daisies'. Because the black ink is so invasive, you have to be really sure that you have covered and embossed well or it will creep into the cracks and show up against the white. This happened to me and you can see it on the white card, but I was not unhappy with it. It adds character to the card, in my opinion. You then cut each card in half and marry them up as I have done below and mount the two pieces onto a black square and onto the card front.

Very different and most effective I think. The sentiment is one made by Country Crafts. I love that it is so neat and unfussy and I hope Joan makes many more of these lovely round images.

Thanks so much for popping in!