Tiger, tiger burning bright.........

Tiger, tiger burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tiger - William Blake 1757-1827

That poem came to my mind as soon as I saw this stamp, there's a lot more to the poem.....google it if you'd like to read the whole thing.

The tiger is my favourite animal, so when I saw Art Neko's new release 'Year of the Tiger' sheet, I just had to have it.......even though it isnt Year of the Tiger until 2010!

I'm sending this card to Candice Jordan, the lovely owner of Art Neko and fellow OSA member. Candice is kindly offering $5 credits towards purchases for OSA members who send her an extra card just for entering an OSA swap. I hope you like my card Candice, I just love this image.

I haven't used any special techniques on this card, just stamped the tiger onto a neutral coloured paper using black Brilliance ink, layered it onto black card, then a gold corrugated piece. I attached it to another black layer with black square brads onto the folded creamy card. I didn't want to add any other embellishments so that the image would be the main focus.......and don't those eyes just look right at you!

Edited: I thought the eyes needed a bit of highlighting, so I've coloured them with a glitter gel pen. I think it looks better this way.

CPS#53 and Sandie's blog challenge card.

I decided to do one card for 2 blog challenges. CPS#53 was for a sketch challenge and the challenge on Sandie's Place was for a birthday card.

I used the new Heidi Grace printed paper that I bought yesterday, and all of the stamps, except the 'birthday' word, are the Heidi Grace clear stamps. The 'birthday' word is by Stampa Rosa. I added a pearl and some purple Kaiser gems to the stamped flower centre. I don't normally use a lot of printed paper on my cards, but I like the colours and how this came out.

New Goodies!

I had a bit of a spend-up yesterday and bought some goodies at the local Spotlight store, which I guess is Australia's answer to a Michaels store with all kinds of craft goodies. I bought 3 sets of Heidi Grace clear stamps, some matching papers and a rub-on alphabet sheet. I've had a bit of a play with them, so I'll upload a card I made soon.

Memories

Today has been a day of reflecting for me, it has been one year today since my mother passed away after a long and painful battle with cancer. I just wanted to share this photo of four generations of my family - that's my Mum on the left, my Grandmother in the middle, and my Great Grandmother on the right.......the little girl is me. The photo was taken at Mum's cousin's wedding c1961. Does anyone remember when ladies wore hats and gloves to a wedding? I can remember this photo being taken....we were all laughing because my Grandmother hated having her photo taken, but she was caught smiling for this one....even if she wasn't looking at the camera.

I miss you heaps Mum...... love you.

Oriental Opalite Infusions Cards

This is another technique from the Technique Junkie Feb newsletter. I only have 2 colours of Opalite ink pads, so had to make do with what I had.

The geisha and the flower stamp are by Stonehouse Stamps, the kanji is by Pink Cat Studio. I've kept the backgrounds on both cards fairly plain, so the main image would be the focus of the cards.

This geisha is another Stonehouse Stamp. I've just added some punched Sakura flowers and a white brad at the bottom of the card. These cards are very shimmery, you probably cant see that from the photos though.

Baby Boy Cards

Here's a few quickie baby boy cards that I made this week.

This one uses an Inkadinkado baby in a pram stamp, the little heart stamp is Stampin' Up and the greeting is a Wendy Irving clear stamp. I also used a Nestabilities oval and scalloped oval.

This one uses part of a Cuttlebug embossed hearts piece, inked with a darker blue, The letters are from a Hampton Arts alphabet set and the border stamp used at the top is by Kelly Panacci.

This one uses a Cuttlebug embossed piece, swiped with white ink. The round tag is also a Cuttlebug one. The boy word is stamped using Hero Arts alpha stamps.

Colour Challenge Card

This is a card for the colour challenge on my friend Sandie's blog. I had to use the colours white, beige, khaki and orange. They aren't colours that I would normally use on a card, but I quite like the combination. The distressed background, the leaves and the greeting stamps are Hero Arts ones. The little flower is a Collections one and the tiny swirl on the tag is Autumn Leaves.

Purple Anniversary Card

Here is an anniversary card I made for the Caardvarks card challenge. It uses another take on the TJ Aged Metal technique. I'm not sure if you can see the shimmer of the purple metallic card I used. I used White Staz-On ink, as black would not have stood out on the dark purple card.

I used the dark colours as I didn't want the card to look too girly.......I'm planning on giving this to my DH for our 34th wedding anniversary. I'm getting well ahead of myself here though, as our anniversary isn't until April!

Love Birds

The main image stamp is called 'Love Blooms' by Penny Black. The background paper is another TJ technique - Technicolor Water Colour from the Dec 2007 newsletter.

I'm not altogether happy with this card, I think I should have put the greeting on the ribbon at the bottom......it looks a little top heavy to me.

Mouse Baby Card.

I love this House Mouse stamp, it's just the sweetest thing, and I thought it would be perfect for a new baby card. I made this card for the Baby Love card challenge at Caardvarks.

I've coloured the image with Prisma pencils and Gamsol Magic technique.

Geisha Aged Metallic Card

Here's another card using the same TJ technique as yesterday's card.

I really like this technique, it looks sooo much better IRL!

Oriental Aged Metal Card

The background piece is called the Aged Metal Technique and is from the latest TJ Newsletter

I was meant to use Shimmer Sheetz, but didn't have any, and they are apparently no longer manufacturing them, so I remembered that I had a few very bright metallic sheets of cardstock that I had bought ages ago. I always thought they were too bright, but I think they were OK for this technique. The photo doesn't quite do it justice though.

The stamp I used is a Paper Artsy Ink and The Dog design, I've also added another dragonfly coloured with a green sharpie and Kindy Glitz on the wings.

You can subscribe to my new articles

I just wanted to mention that you can now subscribe to my new articles by using the Feedblitz subscription button on the left of the page..........at least I hope it works, I'm still getting the hang of setting things up here :)

Wedding Card

I had a request to make a wedding card, so here's one I made today. The couple image is by Artee, 'Mr & Mrs' is by SU and the dotted border (top and bottom) is by Kelly Pannaci. I used Nestabilities ovals, a cuttlebug embossing folder and tiny tag and gold mesh ribbon.

I only coloured the hearts with a red marker and the flower centres with a gold gel pen. I quite like how this card came out, I really like the elegant look of red, black and white......with just a touch of gold.

2008 Calendar.

No, it's not a new project, but it's a recent one that I haven't shared anywhere else. Every year the girls and I usually buy a Boxer Dog calendar......... yes, we do love our doggies! I was itching to try out my new Bind-It-All machine, so I offered to make us all calendars for this year featuring photos of our dogs - we have four boxers between us! It was a bigger job than I thought, but I managed to get the girls' ones done before New Year's Day.......mine took a little longer though.

I'll just post one photo here, if you want to see the rest of the calendar it's in my Shutterfly Album here

This is the closest I've come to scrapbooking anything for ages, it was a bit strange working on a bigger size than the usual cards I do.

Oriental Pear Card

I've been neglecting my oriental stamps lately, so here's a card I made using a Tin Can Mail image that I haven't inked before. The background piece uses the Technicolor Dye Ink technique from the Dec 07 issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter and I've just stamped over it with Black Versafine ink.

The dragonfly embellishment was plain silver metal, which I've coloured with a green 'Sharpie' pen, then added some KindyGlitz to the wings. Apologies for the bad photo, I couldn't seem to get the colours right.

Valentine's Day Card.

This is a simple card that I made for the Feb 08 challenge over at AED. I had to make a Valentine's Day card using AED paper somewhere on the card. As you can see, the striped paper is AED. The only stamping on this card is the greeting, I've also used a bit of black lace, some pink Kaiser gems, a heart brad and some mulberry paper flowers.

Welcome to my blog!

I promised myself that I would start a blog this year, so here it is! Hopefully I can figure out how everything works and I'll start posting away.

If you're reading this, feel free to leave me a comment so I'll know if anyone has been here, or if I'm just talking to myself!