Beautiful Day

Hi there,

another crafty offering here with my new favourite stamp set, Beautiful Day by Altenew.

It's a four step stamp set. It gives an amazing effect that looks like you have hand coloured your stamped image, then added shading and highlights. Whilst I love colouring, I am rubbish at shading and highlighting. With this gorgeous stamp set all the guess work is done for me. I just have to choose four coloured inks that work well together. I chose four colours that were all from one colour family just in different hues, too easy.

The images were easy to line up as they are photopolymer stamps. Having said that I did use my brand new straight out of the box MISTI, a stamp positioning tool.....let me just say it's aaaamazing! The yellow flower was fussy cut and popped up with dimensionals. A few sequins popped on to cover up some ink splodges and "ta da" my card was done.

The next few cards were done the same way but are just slightly different. Take a look....

These two are the same design and layout but were stamped on a smaller piece of CS with faux stitching around the edge, courtesy of a  Rectangular Nesting Stitched Die by Kaisercraft.

 Here are a couple of close up photos to show more detail.

A side view to show that the stamped panel was attached with dimensionals to the card base.

One last photo of all three cards together. I am totally in love with this four step stamp set and I can't wait to get my hands on more of this type of stamp.  I did spy more of this type of stamp set at my local stamping store all by Altenew, I must check them out when I pop back. They make the cards look, as I said hand coloured.

Have a marvellous day.
Cheers Donna :)

Thoughtful Branches Take 3

Hi there,

yes back again with some more crafty goodness.

Yes I'm using the Thoughtful Branches stamp set and coordinating dies, Beautiful Branches thinlets from Stampin' Up again. I was inspired by this creation over at Becky Robert's blog Inkin Idaho.

 

I made a couple of these cards, they were pretty quick and easy. I do have to say that stamping onto the die cut proved a little challenging. I found lining up the leaves not that easy. The die cut kept moving as I was hovering the clear block over the top to make sure of perfect alignment, thus making the stamping not quite lining up. In the end I put a bit of snail on scrap paper, ran my finger over it a few times to trake away some of the tackiness. I stuck the die cut on to this and then stamped......yes "winner, winner chicken dinner" the stamped image was more or less aligned correctly. It's still not 100%, but by  my calculations 98% is pretty awesome.

A side view so you can see the dimension achieved through using lots of dimensionals lol

And finally here are the two completed cards. This would be easy to whip up many in the different colour combinations that hydrangeas come in, blue, purple, pink and white and give away as gift sets. I think my mum would like something like this.

Hoping your day is magnificent!

Cheers Donna :)

Thoughtful Branches Hydrangea Flower

Hi there, 

I'm so glad you popped by for another visit to my blog.

I have a sweet card for you today. I was totally smitten when I saw this card over at The Creativity Cave, Dena Rekow's blog. Dena is hilarious, she makes awesome videos of how to make cards and they always make me laugh, her sense of humour is 'just wicked' ( Aussie term meaning hilarious)

My card is a different colour scheme and is slightly different but you can see it's pretty true to Dena's card. I mean why mess up a winning formula, especially when you love it so much?

I cut out two flower heads and mounted one on top of the other with dimensionals and then mounted it onto the stem with more dimensionals..... .must order some more!

I made three of these cards, to send to some of my mum's friends to thanks them for hosting a lovely morning tea for my self and my daughter recently. Sorry about the poor quality lighting, I took these late in the afternoon.

I hope you like today's card, I love it.  I will have to make some more in different colours, pink, blues and whites....these are all the colours I have seen hydrangeas come in.

Have a magnificent day. 

Cheers Donna :)

Creating your own 3D Embellishments with Thinlet Die Cuts

Hi there,

back again with  heat embossing a thinlit die cut and it looks AAAAAAMAZING!

I saw this awesome technique, faux metallic embellishments, over on an absolutely amazing blog, Jennifer McGuire Ink. Jennifer showed how to create your own embellishments using thinlet dies. She even has a video and talks you through the process. Very easy to play along at home with your own dies. So I followed along and came up with this card.

I cut out the thinlet image 3 times and glued each layer together to create a sturdy  3D tree. Next I inked over the tree with Versamark and then dipped it into copper embossing powder, zapped it with the heat gun and repeated this process 4 times to give a nice thick coating of copper to the tree. Hopefully you can see how thick the tree is in this side on photo below.

 Here's a close up of the tree. I mounted the tree onto craft card stock that I had flicked with glue and then sprinkled with silver glitter.

The sentiment was was stamped with black ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder that I had mixed with a little bit of silver glitter as well.

The centre panel was then attached to a piece of thick whisper white CS.

So what do you think? I love this idea and can't wait to do some more. Lots of ideas swirling around in my head, too many to know what to do next. I may have to start writing them down and then make my way through the list. That way I won't forget anything......lol. Well that's the plan!

Don't forget to pop over to Jennifer McGuire Ink  to check out this technique and the many other's she has, you won't be disappointed!

Have an amazing day - yes I know over use of the word amazing in this blog post!

Cheers Donna :)

Get Well....Dad

Hi there,

back with a really simple card that was oh so quick to create.

My dad has just had quadruple by-pass surgery on his heart. So I just had to make this card.

So a heart shape was a must. I then zig- zag cut it up the middle. Punched holes either side of the

 zig-  zag. I then stitched the 2 halves  together (see what I did there?) with some red and white striped linen thread. I had a band-aid stamp ( retired Stampin'UP stamp) with the sentiment "recover rapidly"  underneath the image. I I separated the image and sentiment so they could be stamped separately. The stamp featured a heart, so I punched out a red heart and popped it up on a dimensional.  I brushed my Wink of Stella over the top of the heart  so it's shiny!!! It's a pretty basic card, but I'm sure my dad will see the funny side of it all, he has a crackin' sense of humour.

A close up so you can see the details. My ever shy Wink of Stella wasn't shy today so you can actually see it in the photo lol

And one last photo for your viewing pleasure.

Hoping your day is fantastic.

Cheers Donna :)

A Long Long Time Ago......

Hi there,

back again with another card.

 This one was for my darling daughter's friends 16th  birthday. What a mouthful, try saying that fast 10 times!

I was given a design brief and there was only one option. I suggested a few ideas, but the answer was a BIG" NOOOOO Mum!"

 Apparently, my daughters dearest friend, they first met at primary school when they were 5 years old, loves space- scapes ( read that as the sky in outer space - sorry for the silly explanation. My mind has already gone to sleep and words are not forming in my brain....lol either is my spelling, just about every word I type has that horrible red squiggly line under it and I have to spell check everything....ahhhh!)

 But I digress, here is the card again , maybe from a slightly different angle  or not ;)

A couple of weeks ago I saw a card on Pinterest with this type of background and it led me to a wonderful tutorial on blending  inks to create this type of background. The lovely Amy over at The Craft Bunny created this type of background on her card, she even has a video tutorial. Amy's card also has an awesome stamped image of the moon . Click HERE to see Amy's amazing card and video.

As you can see there is lots and lots of sponging. I started with a bit of Melon Mambo, then a bit of Daffodil Delight, then some Rich Razzleberry, Night of Navy, then Black inks. I finished it off with some flicks of white ink and then threw some dazzling diamonds onto the wet white ink and hey there presto a space - sky- scape. I did try to put a sentiment onto the card front ,but they just didn't work for me, so I left it plain.

You will be pleased to know that my daughter was delighted with the card as was her friend ......thank goodness for that hey? I did make a tag that was the same as the card that was tied to the gift bag my daughter had put the present in to. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph it, you will have to trust me that it looked good. The photos  of the card don't really do it justice, it looks so much better IRL.  

Thanks for visiting xxxx

Cheers Donna :)

PS GALAXY is the word I was looking for, not space-sky-scape.......oh my what was I thinking? Forget my brain being asleep, clearly my brain had left the building!

Seaside Shore Interactive Card

Hi there,

it's been a while, but have I got a special card to show you.

 This card was inspired by the lovely Jessica Williams over at The Paper Caper. Click HERE to see her gorgeous card that I have been just champing at the bit to CASE. I was actually going to copy her whole card, because I absolutely love it. But then a funny thing happened ( more on that later). As you can see I didn't copy it exactly, BUT I did  copy  quite a few elements of Jessica's awesome card, especially using the Beautiful Branches thinlets for the coral!

 OK, so onto the funny thing that happened. I happened to come across an interactive/moving card tutorial with accompanying video (Awesome! My kind of tutorial) on the wonderful France Martin's blog, Stamp & Scrap with Frenchie. France also includes all written measurements and dimensions on her blog as well as in the video tutorial.Click HERE to see the tutorial and France's card. France calls it a peek-a-boo card. The minute I saw the tutorial I knew I had to make a card with the Seaside Shore stamp set. I have seen lots of cards using this stamp set on pinterest that feature a porthole and I just had to make the coral like Jessica Williams did, so my card was born. 

As you can see something happens when you open the card.

There is a panel that moves across and it reveals the sentiment. How amazing is that? I just love it!

Here's a close up of the sentiment and my attempt at drawing seagulls....the top one is a bit on the dodgy side lol

A couple of extra close up photos  to show some more details.

The fabulous coral!

The sentiment attached to some kitchen string I looped and knotted, no fancy knots here my friends!!!

So that's my card. What do you think?

 Don't forget to  pop over and see Jessica William's card and France Martin's easy to follow video tutorial for the peek-a-boo card and the birthday card she made using the tutorial.

Don't forget to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Cheers Donna :)