It's in the Bag!

It has been sometime since I played the featured stamper challenge, and wasn't really planning on playing this week either. But I did go see who the featured stamper was this week ... it is Kim aka blondie090277 ...... I enjoyed looking through her gallery she has some wonderful cards in there. Anyway I discovered her Sunburst Dandy's Tote that she created and decided I would make one too.

As per the rules of this challenge I had to change at least 2 things to my project, here are the changes I made:

• changed my colors from blue & brown to pink & brown
• I made my purse so that it could open ... Kim's I believe is sewn together.
• Use a brad for my flap rather than a button
• Used grosgrain ribbon rather than satin
• Added a flourish stamp to the bottom right corner of my bag
• Decorated the inside of my card

Here is what the inside looks like for my card.


Edit: I have had a couple of queries as to the measurements for this card so I thought I would add it here in case any others had questions too.

1. Start with a 5 inch square card.
2. Find the centre at the bottom of the card (the fold) and then measure 1.5 inches on either side of this mark.
3. Take a ruler and line up the top corner and the 1.5 inch mark and cut along this line.

I added my DP to the top portion of my card prior to measuring and cutting that way I didn't have to measure a second time.

I made mine so it would open ... but the one I CASEd (link provided above) was sewn closed so you can use as a little bag to hold something inside.

Recipe:
Stamps: Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Sentiment - Darcie Stamps
Papers: White; Chocolate Chip - SU; DP - Basic Grey
Other: Black Ink; Chocolate Chip SU Ink; Brad; Brown Grosgrain Ribbon; Magnet

Simple Joys of Life!

Monday has arrived so it is time for another challenge with my goofy CCEE friends (that better Tosh? .... probably not but I said it anyway ;) !)

Once a month one of our members sends everyone else some supplies needed to create our challenge card for the last Monday of the month. This month it was Dawn's turn to supply our challenge .... she sent us a large paint chip and some chipboard shapes. Her instructions were to create a card or altered item using the ENTIRE paint chip. We were allowed to cut it apart if we wanted to, but we had to leave it in the correct color order. We also had to use any of the chipboard pieces she supplied to create our item.

Now this paint chip was massive! It had to be at least 21 1/2 cm x 10 cm (approx 8 1/2 inches x 4 inches) it was actually a tiny bit larger as it had curved sides but after checking in with Dawn we were allowed to straighten the sides :) ..... originally I had planned on making this into some sort of card and layering the paint chip but using the paint chip as would have created a very oversized card so I had to go with plan B (Yes Cindy ... I needed a plan B too ;) )

First I ran my paint chip through the cuttlebug as I wanted to add texture to it .... that looked ok but I did see one or 2 tiny pieces of white so I thought hmmm lets sand it ... if I did this again I would not sand my paint chip .... arghhhhhh what had I done! I only had the one paint chip ... so no room for mistakes! I then decided rather than making that oversized card I would cut up my paint chip and turn it into an accordion card. I layered each panel onto burgundy card and then attached it to an accordion card I created to suit my paint chip panels.

The chipboard shapes Dawn sent me included a flower shape so I took that one and a couple of others I had here and painted them using pink acrylic paints, layered them ....used large brads for the centres of 2 of the flowers and stamped on the large one. I used ribbon for the stems and stamped my leaves from my autumn leaves "build a flower" set. The large verse is stamped on acetate using black stazon and then attached to that panel using pink dragonfly brads.

It is not my most favorite of cards I have created by I don't hate it either ... it is fun to sometimes do something a little out of the norm to what you would usually do. Thanks Dawn for a fun challenge!

Recipe:
Stamps: Leaves from Build a Flower - Autumn Leaves; Wishing You verse - Hero Arts; may the simple joys - Papertrey Ink
Papers: Regal Rose - Stampin' Up; White; Burgundy
Other: Black Ink; Paint Chip; Green Grosgrain Ribbon; Pink Dragonfly Brads; Jumbo Brads; Spots & Dots Cuttlebug Embossing Folder

Wedding Transparency Cards

A friend came down today to share some of the transparencies she had purchased recently as the ones I had purchased were slightly thinner so not as sturdy for a card as I would have liked. So this afternoon I set to to make a wedding card that my daughter needs for a wedding she is attending in October ..... yes I like to get things made early!

Basically this card is exactly the same as the Pink Transparency card I made in July, the only difference is the image and the colors. Apparently the colors for the wedding are a beige/brownish color so I decided to stick with white, gold and beige colors for this card. Hopefully my daughter will approve!

Recipe:
Stamps: Precious Moments Wedding Couple - Stampendous; Flourish - Autumn Leaves
Paper: White; Gold; Lustre Metal Antique Paper
Other: Black Ink; White Stazon Ink; Acetate; White Brads; Gold Ribbon

Dirty Dare - Pink Transparency

Well today there are 4 more great challenges for the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on SCS. Here is my first card, again I combined two of the challenges, this time Cambria's "Pink it Up!" challenge and also Candy William's transparency/acetate challenge. I thought as I have been wanting to make a transparent card for ages this would be a good opportunity to get one done, and of course making it a pink transparency card was an easy thing to do.

While I was looking for some pink card to make this card, I stumbled on some thick acetate which I thought would be perfect to use for the card so cut that down to the size I wanted and then stamp the flourish stamp all over the front of the acetate using white stazon ink. I stamped the little girl on white card and of course colored her in pinks! She is then layered onto the pink passion card and attached to the front of the acetate card. To hide the sticky tape showing from the back of the card I then applied sticky tape to the back of the panel I had just attached to the card but on the inside of the card and then layered my pale pink card over this .... this is most probably the harder part of making the card cause you have to do it kind of back to front so yu can get the border right .... but not impossible. I also cut a piece of pale pink card exactly the same size as the piece I had put over the back of the image and attached this to the other side of the inside of the card (the side you normally have a verse etc) .... to get exact placement, lay it over the top of the layer you did before and close the card .... easy! And then the final pink passion card is attach to the very back of the card.

The happy birthday is stamped using the new Papertrey Ink Borders & Circles (rectangle) set - I used the solid birthday verse first and then stamped over the top with the frame .... I don't have a punch but hey how hard is it to cut out a rectangle! To finish off the card I added the flowers to the top & bottom right hand corners and the ribbon to the folded side.

This was a fun card to create and I must make some more in the near future!

Recipe:
Stamps: Girl - Whipper Snapper; Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Sentiment - Papertrey Ink
Paper: Pink Passion - SU; White; Pink
Other: Black Ink; White Stazon Ink; Pearlescent Coral & Pearlescent Orchid Brilliance Ink; Acetate Sheet; Pink Brads; Pink Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon; Flowers.

Tapestry Technique

This weeks Try a New Technique challenge on SCS is the Tapestry Technique. I didn't have a change to do it today as I was out with a friend but I was able to have a bit of a play with this technique tonight. My first card I created was inspired by a rak card I received by Jimmi Mayo, I couldn't find her card in her gallery so I have included it below. I loved everything about this card including the colors, the way she had the flowers along the bottom of the card etc. When I went to look at the gallery again tonight I also saw this card by Tosh aka Stamps4funinCA, I had seen it earlier so maybe this also influenced my card. Just in case I am crediting them both.

It may be hard to see in the photo, but after I colored my card with pigment ink, I then stamped my flower randomly over my card using white pigment ink. I then stamped the black flowers along the edge of the card. The whole card was then covered with clear embossing powder & heat set. The top panel is done in the same way as the first however I omitted stamping the flower in white for this piece.

The card above is the one created by Jimmi Mayo that I received a while back and as I said above helped inspire my first card.
For this card I used my flourish stamps by Autumn Leaves, after coloring the card I then stamped one of the flourish images over the card using the white ink, and then I picked a second flourish stamp and stamped all over in black, again covering with clear ep and heat setting.

If you look closely at the verse (maybe clicking to get a large photo), you may see that I also stamped a flower using white ink before stamping the verse and covering with the ep again. The larger of the two flowers was originally white, I used my tria pens to color it.

Recipes:
Harmony Flowers
Stamps: Happy Harmony - Stampin' Up
Paper: White; Black; Turquoise XL card
Other: White pigment ink; black pigment ink; various blue & jade pigment inks; clear ep; black brads; black grosgrain ribbon.

Love Generously
Stamps: Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Verse - Penny Black; Flower - Paper Inspirations
Paper: White, Black & Hot Pink XL card
Other: Black Pigment Ink; White Pigment Ink; Peony; Lavendar & Green Pigment ink; Flowers; black brad. Ticket corner punch - SU

Micro Beadz Flowers

Today was the 2nd Thursday of the month, which meant time for me to head down the coast for another day with my stamping friends down there. Each month we all get together and create something that has been featured in one of the 2 Australian stamping magazines. Today's project came from a recent Stamping & Papercraft magazine and was a project using micro beadz by Deanne Stewart-Mills.

This was a fun project and I was lucky enough to find the flower set that was used in the project while I was out and about during the month. I did decide however to change the colors and a few other bits to each of the cards. I wasn't 100% happy with a couple of mine I had done at the club as some of my card hadn't cut square when I was cutting it last night (of course I only discovered this while trying to assemble at club today). So I came home and pulled 2 apart and started again and also put the finishing touches that needed to be done to all three.

Each of the flowers used on these card have been stamped on card and then covered with an adhesive sheet, cut out and then I poured the clear micro beadz over my flowers. The top card is a standard size card, the middle is a narrow card (7.5cm x 15.5cm when folded) and the bottom one is a tiny 9.5cm square card. As you can see I played a little bit more with my crop-a-dile on the bottom card. It needed something else and as I didn't want to use ribbons I ended up going with the eyelets instead. The grosgrain ribbon used on the middle card was actually white and I colored using my alcohol markers.

Recipe:
Stamps: Flower - Reflections Plate by Carolee's Creations; Flourishes v:1 - Autumn Leaves; Label Greetings - Impression Obsession
Paper: Pale Plum & Perfect Plum - Stampin' Up; White Linen
Other: Olive Pastel Fluid Chalk; Concorde Grape VersaMagic Ink; Micro Beadz; Adhesive Sheet; Eyelets; White Grosgrain Ribbon; Sheer Ribbon

Another Piece of the Puzzle!

These two cards were created for a book club I belong to, where we are given a theme and then we need to create a piece to go into the book and the book finally goes home to the owner. For the top card, the theme was using puzzle pieces, I purchased some giant kids puzzle pieces a few years back at a flea market so this was the ideal time to use one of the pieces. First up I applied versamark ink to the puzzle piece and covered it completely with Mountain Berry Opals Embossing Powder. I applied two layers of this color and then I drizzled on a Purple Mineral Magic Melt and some Valentine & Aurora Opals - all these are various brands of Thick Embossing Powder. It has been a while since I have played with thicking embossing powder so this was fun.

After the utee had cooled I decided to wrap some tiny beads around the piece for decoration. It took a while to decide what to do with it after that, my first attempts were pretty lame so eventually I came up with this card. As you can see I am still playing with those flourish stamps - they are soooo versitile and make a good background for this card, it was a white card but I sponged some pink ink over it. I guess this card is also based on Beate's sketch for this weekend.
Working out what verse to use on this card took some thinking, I wanted something related to either puzzle or jigsaw, but many seemed to mushy so came up with this one. I think it is appropriate and it will be the 3rd card in a book of 4 using puzzles.
The theme for this second card was to use a domino piece on your card, the tiny domino piece was included with the book. It is a little hard to see here but if you look at the eiffel tower you may see it. For this one I used the dtp technique to color my card using bisque, amber clay & olive pastel fluid chalk inkpads. I then stamped my image over the top of this using black ink. After sanding my domino I applied these inks to my domino piece - heat setting between layers, chalk inks are permanent on dominoes as long as you heat set. Once I had my color I turned my stamp so the image was facing me and placed my domino onto the area that I wanted to appear on my piece. This is the easiest way to get good placement for some items like dominoes. I used black brilliance to stamp onto the domino and heat set that too, and then attached it over the main image, a little like when you are doing the spotlight technique.

Recipes: Puzzle Card: Stamps: Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Verse - Karen Foster Snap Stamps
Paper: Rose Red - Stampin' Up; White
Other: Black Ink; Maroon & Pink Pastel Fluid Chalks; Puzzle Piece; Tiny Beads; Thread; Mountain Berry, Valentine & Aurora Opals; Purple Mineral Magic Melts; Paper Piercing Tool & Mat.

Domino Card: Stamps: Stylish Images (Aust)
Paper: White; Black; Tobacco Prisma Card
Other: Black Ink; Bisque, Amber Clay & Olive Pastel Fluid Chalks; Domino; Gold Eyelets

ATC - Blue Flourish

These atc's are for another atc swap I am in, this one is for a Rainbow Color atc Swap. There are 9 people in the swap and everyone is given a color - White; Red; Orange; Yellow; Green; Blue: Indigo; Violet; Rainbow. I know white isn't really part of the rainbow but it was added to get the 9 participants so that there all fit in one of those 9 pocket plastic sleeves. Of course the color I chose was Blue - it is my favorite color!
It took me a little while to work out what I was going to do for this particular swap, blue isn't a hard color to do but I have done a few blue atc's in the past one being the rubber cement atc for the atc technique swap I am hosting.

Anyway I finally decided to go with my flourish stamps from Autumn Leaves, I do like them and yes I will be ordering that Baroque Motif set when the new catty comes out - which is now only a week away - yah!!!!! I started by sponging my card with weathered wood distress ink and then sponging the edges only with faded jeans distress ink. Next I stamp the flourish stamp around the bottom and left side of the card. I used my cricut with the mini monograms cartridge to create my scallop pieces - the white at 1 1/4 inches real size off & then the blue at 1 1/2 inches real size off. I then stamped my medallion image onto the white scallop circle & sponged it with weathered wood ink. Layered the scallop pieces together & attach the blue brad through the middle and attached to card. "Hope Dream Imagine" was then stamped in the top right hand corner using black ink. And finally layered onto blue card.

I love that using the cricut I can cut my scallop circles any size I want and have as many layers that I want. Play around with real size on & off and also shadow and shadow blackout - doing this can give you slightly different sizes and even the shape of the scallop itself.

Recipe: Stamps: Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Medallion - Studio Astarte; Verse - Stamp It (Aust)
Paper: White; Royal Blue
Other: Weathered Wood & Faded Jeans Distress Ink; Blue Iris Fluid Chalk; Black Ink; Mini Monogram Cricut Cartridge; Blue Brad

Flourish Medallion

Isn't it funny how some of our cards we create come into being! I hadn't intended to make another card just yet using my flourish stamps or the flower I used in yesterdays card or for that matter even the sketch challenge for this week. However I did have an extra daisy flower cut out from the card I created yesterday (see previous post) and also sitting on my desk was the little medallion I had punched out using my new stair step punch I purchased at the papercrafts expo last week. I had been wanting to make a card using a medallion but not necessarily using the one I punched out to try out my punch and this technique. As I said all these were sitting on my desk and I was just sitting here waiting for the SCS gallery to work and I picked them all up and and placed them on top of each other and they landed on a card I had sitting on my desk that had the layering portion of it in squares, different colors to what the flower and medallion were but I could see what it would look like if I did a similar thing using the correct colors for these two items. I then decided well a square card would be good and decided to go with the sketch challenge again and using my flourish stamps on two of the panels. I also ended up using my weave background stamp on the white panels for this card, I am not sure why but all 3 cards I have created so far with this sketch has had this stamp used on them - I guess I like it - huh!
The medallion portion of this card was created using my stairstep corner punch, this isn't my original idea it has been doing the rounds of many blogs and some of you may have seen it but just in case some haven't I thought I would explain it. My punch is by EK success but I believe Stampin' Up also sell one.

1. I started with a 6cm square piece of card and used my corner punch to punch each of the four corners. (2 1/4 inches for those using imperial measurements)

2. Bend each corner forward, you can place a little tape to keep these flat if you wish. I suggest you place the tape on the main part of the card not the corners as it might show on other side - don't ask me how I know LOL)

3. Turn medallion over, you are now ready to attach your image (in my case the flowers) to it and assemble card.

Recipe:
Stamps: Looks like Spring - Stampin' Up; Elegant Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Weave B/G - Cornish Heritage Farms
Paper: White; Black; Maroon
Other: Black Ink; Maroon Fluid Chalk; Stair Step Corner Punch - EK Success; Flower Punch - SU; Pink Gem Brad; Foam Tape

Get Well Flourish

I just love the flourish stamps that are so popular at the moment, so of course when the "Ways to use it" challenge was posted this week and the challenge was for us to use these stamps to make a card I just had to play. I also needed to make a card to send to a friend who has been in hospital this week so I decided to combine the two as I am pretty sure she will enjoy the flourishes.

It's hard to tell by this photo but the brad that is holding the flowers onto the card actually has a pink gem on the top of it, I picked these up from a cheap shop recently and I thought it would be perfect for the flowers. I might need to go back and see if I can get a couple of more packets of these just in case they stop selling them, I can never have tooooo many brads!
Recipe:
Stamps: Looks Like Spring - Stampin' Up; Elegant Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Verse - Papertrey Ink
Paper: White; Maroon
Other: Maroon Fluid Chalk; Oval Punch - Stampin' Up; Scallop Scissors; Gem Brad


More info on Bookmark cards:
I had a question about the magnets I used on my magnet cards I posted the other day. Most magnets worked when just used on the bookmark itself and would for the purpose of using it as a bookmark. We did have trouble finding a magnet that worked when having to hold through many layers of card - so if you do make this card less is best! I tried 3 different forms of magnets before I found one that worked, the 1st was an A4 magnet sheet I have had here for years - it didn't want to work through the layers, although someone said it didn't work at first and then it did - so who knows - it didn't work on mine. The 2 I tried was the magnet tape - definitely not strong enough for this card. And finally some fridge magnets - the type that just have printing on them and you stick them to the fridge . I cut one of them up and attached it to the base of my bookmark and finally it was completed. I suggest if you are trying to make these you experiment with what magnets you have available, don't buy lots till you know it works. Oh you only need a small amount of magnet at the base of the bookmark not all the way up. I hope that helps answer some questions.

Flourish Thoughts

Here is another quick card for this weeks sketch challenge. I wanted to use my flourish stamps as the background to the main panel and then have a cardboard panel across the card rather than an vellum one.
The plum layer at the back was cuttlebugged using the textile embossing folder, I think that folder goes well with the flourishes. I felt it needed something else so I added the flower at the top. The flower was a gift from my VSN Secret Sis, I think I will need to find some more flowers this size as they look great.

Recipe:
Stamps: Elegant Flourish - Autumn Leaves; Verse - Impression Obsession
Paper: Pale Plum & Bravo Burgundy - SU; White
Other: Bordeaux Ancient Page Ink; Plum Brads; Flowers

Featured Stamper Flourishes

While I was browsing in Tosha aka Stamps4funinCA's gallery on Sunday afternoon I came across this card, "Fancypants Birthday". At the time I couldn't even contemplate making this card as I didn't have any stamps suitable for the flourishes, however I had already put on my wish list for a shopping trip I had planned for yesterday the Autumn Leaves Elegant Flourish set which I was able to get (lucky last!!!!!). Seeing I am new to flourishes I figured this would be a great card to do to wet my "flourish feet" so to speak. Changes I made to the card included:

• Changing the color - from burgundy to not quite navy
• I used a different flourish set
• Different Greeting
• I didn't have ric rac so I used black brads instead
  

I am really happy with how this card turned out.
Recipe: Stamps: Elegant Flourishes - Autumn Leaves; Canvas - SU; Greeting - Papertrey Ink; Flower - Penny Black
Card: Creamy Caramel & Not Quite Navy - SU; Black
Other: Blue Iris Fluid Chalk; Creamy Caramel - SU; White Brilliance Ink; Black Ink; Distressing Tool; Black Brads; White & Blue Flowers; Ornate Brad

*******Hooray it's raining and I mean REAL rain not just a little spit here and there, it has rained pretty solidly all night and this morning and by the looks of the weather forecast it is going to continue to at least tomorrow. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a big fan of rainy days, it can be a little depressing, however down here we are soooooo much in need for some good solid rain to fill our dams up and water our poor gardens, that even I wouldn't dare to complain!!! Where I live in Brisbane we have been on severe water restrictions for at least 12 months, at the moment this means we have to carefully watch what water we use - 4 min showers only; no watering the garden; no washing the cars etc etc. On hot summer days our kids can't play under sprinklers etc anymore. Many of us have started buying water tanks for our backyards so that the rain we do get isn't wasted and then we are able to do those little things we have all taken for granted for years, but we still have to be careful because without more rain that water in our tanks doesn't last forever. On hot summer days our kids can't play under sprinklers etc anymore.