White Christmas

It's been busy, busy, busy around here, but I managed to squeeze in a card. I had this idea in my head for a few days and it wasn't working out too well, but I just wouldn't let it go! I really annoy myself when this happens, because I know I'd be more productive if I just forgot about it and moved on! So I kept at it and this is the result.

Hero Arts have got a Holiday Card Challenge and one of the themes is 'White Out'. Every year I like to give this a try, because I love White on White.  I've noticed from Pinterest and Google that the best examples have layers and different texture to achieve a good result. The only Christmas HA stamps I  have are this leaf wreath stamp and a Sentiment stamp set.
I white embossed the wreath on vellum and die cut the panels with Lil' Inkers stitched circle dies.  The sentiment is from HA Miracle of the Holiday. I coloured the wooden stag head with silver paint and added some white pearls and silver sequins. 

ETA: I'm entering this card in the Simon Wednesday Challenge, which is Anything Goes this week.

From the Craft Room Inspiration

I have another quick card for you, which was inspired by the photo in the Altenew October Challenge - From the Craft Room.

To begin, I used an embossing folder and vellum to make the background. 
I've used all three of my Altenew sets to make this card - Magnolias for Her, Label Love and Painted Flowers.
I need more practice with the Painted Flowers - I hope I got it right, but there are bits I haven't used.
As you can see I was inspired by the gold pattern, the colours and the pearls. I would have liked to include something to represent the chocolate but it was getting a bit busy.  I actually have all these items in my stash (except the chocolate), but decided to stamp instead of using embellishments.
I would have used my SSS mint ink pad for one of the flowers, but didn't have a complementary shade - there are a never ending variety of ink pads which are on my wishlist!

White on White Christmas with a touch of colour!

It's a wonderful day for crafting today - we've had lots of electrical storms with lots of rain since early hours of the morning, so I'm happy to stay home and make cards! Of course I could say it's a perfect cleaning day, but why spoil a Monday!

This card is for the Hero Arts Holiday Challenge - White Out category an d also for the Festive Friday  Card Challenge

I coloured one of my favourite Hero Arts bird stamps with Copic Markers , embossed the background with a WeR Memory Keepers embossing folder, die cut a tag and cut some holly, to add a Christmas touch. The sentiment is from HA Miracle of the Holiday - I masked off part of the sentiment.

Happy Birthday Dear Shirley!

It's a Surprise birthday Linky Party for Shirley Bampton of Shirley -Bees Stamping Stuff today, organised by the lovely Maria Fischer of Reisling Mama. If you know Shirley and want to link up a card, go to maria's blog.

First up, the card.

I know Shirley loves this gorgeous Dina Wakely bird stamp and she also loves a splatter or two. I'm a bit challenged by texture paste, but I hope it adds to the artsy feel i was trying to achieve.

Shirley and I were lucky enough to meet a couple of years ago, when she was visiting her
Sons who live in melbourne. Since that time, I have watched Shirley's creations get better and better and develop her own style and a huge following. She is on quite a few design teams, including the Mixed Media Card challenge with me and she has even designed her own stamps branded the 'Bees Knees' which you can buy through Stamplorations.

Shirley is very supportive and always leaves encouraging comments - thank you for bee-ing a wonderful bloggy pal! I hope you have a wonderful birthday and a fabulous year ahead!

Multi- Colour Stamping

Hi there! Have you seen the challenge over at Crafter Stamper Take it , Make it challenge. 
" The multicoloured stamping technique!
This old school, much loved technique is simple but oh so effective! Just colour your stamp with more than one shade before stamping with it, and  the resulting image will be a multicoloured delight! Use ink pads, markers or even paint to colour the stamp, and then simply stamp away!"
Well it just so happens that this is one of my favourite techniques and they're right, it's so easy and the results can be magical! I am planning to make quite a lot of Christmas cards with this technique.

The Christmas Tree Stamp is from Merory Box and I am totally smitten with it! I used Distress Marker (Pine Needles, Faded Jeans, Dusty Concord and, Tea Dye and Vintage Photo) and stamped on Fabriano watercolour paper. The sentiment  was made with a die from WPLUS9. I matted it with dark blue card and mounted on Kraft. My new find is the Heidi Swapp white color shine spray - I can't stop myself spraying everything!!! I mixed the white spray and some dusty concord ink and splattered it on the card.

The challenge at the Simon Wednesday Challenge is to use Kraft cardstock, so this card should fit the bill. Simon Monday Challenge is Anything Goes
 so I shall also enter their challenge.

ETA: I'm entering this card in the Moxie Fab World Tree-mendous Trees challenge.

A Runway Christmas

Hello again! Today I have made a card for the Runway Inspired Challenge. The photo inspiration is quite unique and  of course it just cries out for a Christmas card!

I used a wooden embellishment as a mask and spritzed the black card with white colour shine (it looks silver I know). I thought the triangle embossed background looked a bit like Christmas trees.
I had trouble getting a photo - too sunny outside and not enough light inside - I think I will make a light box next year.

I'm also entering this in the Simon Monday Challenge - Anything Goes.

Mixed Media Card Challenge

Hi there! I always get a little bit edgy at this time of year,  because once the final school term begins, it feels like time is accelerating! Does anyone else feel like that? One minute I'm thinking christmas is 21/2 months away and the next thing the school year has ended and the christmas countdown is on! This year it will be even more rushed because we leave for a 6 weeks overseas trip on 14 December.
So I think I may have to cut back on my crafting and start making lists and getting organised!

I do have a card to share today though for the Mixed Media Card challenge. There is still time to join in with this month's challenge - the theme is Vintage with the optional element being a *key*.
I went retro vintage this time.

I tried something a little bit different with this tag. I made a stencil with lots of keys on the Silhouette.
These are the steps I took :-
1. Use paint through the stencil (let it dry)
2. Stamp the Hero Arts Friends background text through stencil (dried with heat gun)
3. Swiped Versamark ink through stencil and heat embossed.
4. Sprayed tag with Heidi Swapp gold glimmer mist (wiped the embossed area with a wipe)
5. Stamped sentiment from Winnie & Walter
6. Embossed the base card and added bow and flower brad and key and put it all together.

There is more inspiration to be seen from the Design Team  at the Mixed Media Card Challenge and you have until 25 October to enter. 

A Piece of Sky

Hey there! We just had our first piece of Summer today and the whole family is whinging! Well except for my DH, because he never complains! It's 7pm and its still 30 degrees Celcius (86F) and we have the Air Con on!  We are now all looking forward to our holiday in the Northern Hemisphere!

I was working on a card today, using Tim Holtz Specialty Stamping paper and it was all good until I stamped the sentiment and it smudged - so my card became a bookmark!

I stamped Penny Black Botanical Notes and Flourishes Bees and Blooms and coloured the images with Distress markers and Inks.
I'm entering this in The City Crafter Challenge - the theme is A Piece of Sky and Simon Monday Challenge - Anything Goes.

Rainbow Christmas

I have been struggling with a card I really want to make and needed a bit of easy peasy play. So I pulled out my distress Ink Pads and this is the result ...

I used a stamp which I found at a local market.  I just inked, spritzed and stamped - how easy is that! Oh and then I spritzed the paper with Heidi Swapp white colour shine and a few tiny specks of black. The sentiment is a newbie from WPLUS9.
I made this with the Merry Monday Christmas challenge in mind, because their theme is non-traditional colours.
I'll also enter this in the Simon Monday Anything Goes Challenge.

ETA: I'm entering this card in Moxie Fab Worlds Tree-mendous Trees challenge.

Spring Butterflies

Yes today I have another butterfly card, because they make me happy! I wanted to make another card for the Craft Stamper Take it, Make it challenge, because the challenge is to use multi colour stamping and this is probably my favourite technique.

I have done many variations of this card using the most gorgeous Penny Black stamp and I never get tired of it. I would usually use darker and contrasting colours, but I have been making so many cards with Fall colours, I wanted to use colours that reflect the season in Australia. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Wet Paint.

Watercolour Clean and Simple

Today has been a tidy up day. Or should I say, moving my supplies from one place to another and still no cleaner!
After I had done that I felt the need to make a card. I saw that the challenge at Virginia's View was about to finish and the other challenge that inspired me was the Craft Stamper challenge - to stamp with multiple colours.

I applied the ink with distress markers to the stamps and spritzed liberally and stamped on plain card. I tried this on watercolour paper, but preferred the look on the plain card.  In order to keep the card CAS, I decided to stitch a border rather than matting on coloured card.  I guess if I'd used white thread it would be even more Cas,  but I like the colour.

A Bokeh Christmas

Yay - the sun is shining again and so I felt like celebrating by making a bright card.

I followed the method shown in Dawn's video here,  to create the Bokeh effect. I did change it a bit, by using the back of various rubber stamps and the rubber on the tip of a pencil, because I was too lazy to make a stencil. I would probably trie using a stencil next time, so I can control the amount of ink applied.

I began by creating the watercolour background with Distress Inks and  then I stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts, Miracle of the Holiday and white embossed . When it was completely dry I used the circle stamps and HA white ink and stamped lots of dots. I brushed some perfect pearls lightly of the dots. Then I finished off the card by mounting the watercolour panel on a white card base and adding the die cut deer and sequins.
Im entering this card in the Hero Arts Holiday card challenge - Anything Goes category.

I'm also entering this card in the Simon Monday Challenge - 'O' is for - in my case 'O' is for orange or possibly ombre.

Brush Strokes Christmas

I'm back with a card for the Hero Arts Holiday Challenge. i have a lot of Hero Arts Stamps, but not many christmas stamps, so I've been trying to think outside the square (or maybe I should say, inside the triangle!). This is what I came up with ...

To create the Christmas tree. I cut a triangle out of a piece of paper and repeatedly stamped one of the Hero Arts  brushstokes stamps inside the negative space, using distress ink.
The sentiment is a very old freebie.
I'm entering this in the Anything Goes category.

Where did Spring go?

Hi there! I'm sitting at my computer, wrapped in a cosy blanket, but still feeling a bit chilled. A week ago we were basking in sunshine and the winter clothes were put away - that's Melbourne in Spring time! Never boring! To remind myself that it is indeed Spring, I made a card for the Fusion Card challenge.

This card is similar to a card I made a year or so ago, but I this time I wanted to practise using my Copic Markers.
I bought some refills yesterday and it's amazing how much easier it is to do the background when the markers are very wet!
The daisy stamp is from Penny Black Flower Gallery, stamped 3 times, because I was loosely following the sketch. The sentiment is from Altenew.

This is a photo of the first rose of the season in our garden.

Christmas is in the Air!

Well not really, but because we are going away mid December, I really want to get my cards completed as soon as possible.

This card was inspired by the challenge at Tag, You're it!

All the product is from Kaisercraft - I loved the colours of their North Pole collection.
ETA: I'm also entering this in the Merry Monday challenge #130 Silent Night theme.

A Peachy Christmas!

I was playing around with the digital brushes from the Winnie & Walter's Holiday Mint digital freebie file and made a cut file from the gorgeous christmas tree  and a sentiment. This is the card I ended up with.

I preferred the negative  of the cut file, so I made a window card. I was looking around for some gold paper, when I found this textured cream paper, which I sponged with gold ink. The negative panel was sponged with Worn Lipstick and spun sugar Distress inks.
This card is for Gayatri's colour challenge in the Winnie & Walter WCMD Challenge.

They have 6 challenges and the deadline is Sat 11oct their time.

This is another one for the Jingle Belles Card challenge - which is to include PINK. Well this is a peachy pink!

Festive Friday Challenge

I have another card to share from WCMD and as it happens, it suits the new challenge at Festive Friday challenge.

This stamp set is a new release  from WPLUS9 and I fell in love with it. We got to play with Chupa's stamps on the weekend and I've already placed my order!

ETA: I'm entering this card in Virginia's View #8 Clean and simple cards.

In the Christmas Spirit!

This post is short and sweet!
I have another card for the Winnie & Walter WCMD challenge - this time it's for the sketch.

I've used W&W freebies again from the Holiday Mint digital kit and cut them with the silhouette.
I used up some very, very old DP, which makes me happy! The sequins are from Lawn Fawn.

ETA: I'm entering this card in the Jingle Belles challenge - which is to use PINK! 

More WCMD Catch Up

Hi, just a very quick post, because I'm trying to get a few more cards made for the WCMD challenges. Better put on your sunglasses for this one!

This one is for Kelly's challenge at W&W - to use stamps in an unexpected way. I used the background of the tree stamp in A Tree for All Seasons set with distress ink to create a background, which is supposed to be like a bunch of balloons. The sentiment is from The Big, the bold and the Happy set.

Gelliplate Play & WCMD Catch Up

I had a bit of a play with my Gelliplate yesterday. As it turned out, I wasn't really in the mood for getting to messy, but I did make a few bits and pieces. This is one of them.

This is very simple, but I do like the colours. I used a Heidi Swapp stencil and Kaisercraft paints - this piece was made with a couple of pulls with  both colours,  but they were ghost prints, which means the were the 2nd prints. It's hard to explain, but if you are interested, check out the Gelli-Arts blog.I am entering this card in the Addicted to CAS challenge - codeword : stencil.

This next card was also made using the Gelliplate. I was originally going to add another layer to this, but I quite liked the depth created with the paint.

Some people will look at this and think it looks blotchy and well it is, but it appeals to my arty side and I love the feel of the paint. The stag die-cut is from a a free Winnie  & Walter cut file (holiday mint) and the sentiment is from W&W The Big, The Bold and the Happy.

I'm entering this card in the W&W WCMD challenge - Pattern Play.