Pink flower card

To cut or not to cut??

I'm unsure about cutting off the flower petals on the left side of this card to make it a perfectly square card........or do I leave them to hang out like this? What do YOU think.......opinions welcome!

I've used a flower petal and centre stamp from an Inque Boutique set, Basic Grey PP (brown), All My Memories PP (pink), Stampin' Up cardstock and ink, 2 different Fiskars border punches, Kaiser rhinestones (pink, clear and brown)

Other embellies - metal butterfly, pink button and metal flower centre. I ran the metal flower centre through my Cuttlebug machine to flatten it - it was very thin metal so it flattened easily!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Edit: I forgot to add that I won't be mailing this card, it will be hand delivered.

Heavenly Butterfly.

This is my card for this weeks CPS sketch, CPS121.


I used a new technique from the latest issue of the Technique Junkies Newsletter called "Heavenly Holes". My background stamp is a Stampington Christine Adolph one called "Elegant Ledger" - I stamped it twice, the 2nd time it's upside down so there are scrolls on the top and on the bottom of the SU Baja Blue cardstock.

The layered butterfly is made using die-cuts, inked with blue ink and embossed with 3 different Cuttlebug embossing folders and topped with a metal butterfly embellishment.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Bleached Leaves Card.

As promised, this is the 2nd card that I made using a bleaching technique. For my background piece I used 3 different Fred Mullett leaf stamps. If you haven't seen any of Fred's stamps before, he has the greatest fish and botanical stamps! I "inked" my stamps with bleach and randomly stamped the background - I liked the way the images came out, so left it that way.

For the main image, I used just one of the leaf stamps and overstamped the bleached image, firstly, with Brilliance Pearlescent Beige ink. I wasn't happy with how this looked as it was too pale, so I overstamped it again with Onyx Black Versafine ink (Yay for my Stampa-ma-jig!). This actually gave the image a really cool shimmery effect, so I was quite happy with something that started as a bit of a boo-boo!

I used my new Labels 3 Nestability dies, that I won as a blog candy prize from Spike, to cut my image out and I cut 2 larger ones to layer it on. The largest layer is inked up with a few different Tim Holtz Distress inks, misted with water and smooshed around.

OK, that's it from me! Hope you have a great day/night wherever you are in the world!

Inkurable Stampers June Challenge.

This month's theme challenge at Inkurable Stampers is Bleach Stamping. Sarah has written an excellent tutorial using bleach for stamping, you can see her blog post HERE.

Warning: When using bleach please make sure you are in a well ventilated room, those fumes can be quite strong. Make sure you clean your stamps well after using bleach on them.

I think that you need to use relatively "fresh" bleach to get a good effect. Mine had been sitting in the cupboard for years (I really don't like using toxic chemicals for cleaning.....but I'll use them for artwork, go figure!!). I couldn't get the bleach to work very well on several test pieces of cardstock, but eventually found some handmade cardstock which yielded a better result.

For my background layer I used a Sugarloaf Anita's Stamps starfish, dipped onto a bleach pad and randomly stamped on the dark turquoise cardstock. Once the cardstock had dried I overstamped with the same stamp using Brilliance Pearlescent Orange ink.

For my main image I used a Ferngully Shell Cluster stamp, I inked it with Versamark ink, then heat embossed with copper embossing powder. I then painted bleach within the embossed area to lighten the cardstock colour.

My starfish background is layered on top of a light turquoise piece of handmade paper, then another dark turquoise layer then onto a folded card. For embellishments I've added 2 mini Cuttlebug die-cut tags, 'for you' is a SU stamp and 'Dad' is made using 2 different Justrite alphabet fonts. These are tied on with linen thread and a small metal starfish is also tied on.

I've made a second bleach stamped card, I will post that one tomorrow as it's past my bedtime now!

Thanks for continuing to drop by and leave comments!

OSA 'Other Asian Cultures' Swap

I received my swap cards back yesterday from Bonnie B., the hostess for the OSA group 'Other Asian Cultures' Swap, so I can share them here now. The directions were to make a card featuring an Asian culture, different from Chinese or Japanese.

I chose an Indian theme. I used a Stamp-It Indian lady stamp, stamped onto watercolor paper and watercolored with Twinkling H2O's. For my background piece I used a piece of Tyvek painted with Violet Lumiere paint. Tyvek is wonderful stuff, it doesn't tear, it's very thin so it doesn't add bulk to your card, you can paint it and it doesn't warp, stamp on it, sew it and use a heat gun on it to get lots of texture.

After I painted my Tyvek I stamped it with some Buzz and Bloom paisley stamps with gold Brilliance ink - bit hard to see the stamping as it's hidden by the other layers. The yellow/orange layer is mulberry paper with gold highlights. It was rather difficult to get a decent photo of this card, the camera didn't like the textured watercolor paper, so this was the best I could do - you might get a better view by clicking on it to enlarge it.

I received some beautiful cards as swaps, if you'd like to see all the cards from this swap here is a link to the OSA swap gallery - Other Asian Cultures swap. There are 2 pages and you can enlarge the thumbnails by clicking on them.
Edit: There are some problems with the OSA gallery right now, if you get an error message please try again later!

This was a wonderful swap to be involved with, Bonnie was a great hostess and apart from receiving some beautiful artwork, Bonnie also provided some fantastic goodies in our parcels.

Thanks for continuing to stop by and leave comments, I really do appreciate each and every one of them.

Blog Candy at Card Art, Etc.: Impression-Obsession BLOG CANDY ALERT AND A RED WHITE AND BLUE CHALLENGE

Just a quick post to let you know that Shirley is giving away blog candy, you have until July 1st to enter. Don't forget to have a look at Shirley's gorgeous artwork while you're there!


Card Art, Etc.: Impression-Obsession BLOG CANDY ALERT AND A RED WHITE AND BLUE CHALLENGE

Beautiful Blog Award.......and I've been Tagged!

I am so bad at remembering to do these things, or just running short on time to do them, my friend Sandie tagged me a while ago, then yesterday she also awarded me this Beautiful Blog Award!

Here are the rules-1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.


2) Pass the award to 6 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award. If you can't pass it on to 6 just pass it on to as many or as few as you like!

Don't forget to check out Sandie's blog, she does the most amazing cards and is just the nicest person to know!

I know I have seen this same award on lots of other blogs that I read, so rather than double up I will just offer the award to anyone who visits my blog. So feel free to take it and pass it on!

OK onto the tagging, here are the questions -

8 Things I Look Forward To
My daughter's wedding next March.

Spending time with my family.

Chocolate!

Sleeping In

Summer!

My football team winning!

One day riding on The Ghan train from Adelaide through to Darwin

My grand-daughter's first birthday next month.

8 Things I did yesterday.
Spent way too much time blurfing and answering emails!
Washing
Put fresh sheets on my bed.
Started making a couple of cards....need to finish both.
Did some knitting for my grand-daughter.
Sorted through junk mail for recycling.
Cooked sausages and veg for dinner.
Watched a very funny DVD with my DH.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do.
Crochet
Play a musical instrument - guitar or piano.
Sing!
Have more time to craft.
See my football team win at least one more premiership in my lifetime - 1980 was the last time!
Get a tattoo if my football team does win another premiership! (It would be a tiger!)
Dance, I mean old time ballroom dancing.
Swim properly!

8 Things or Shows I've Watched Lately
The Hangover (hilarious!)
Spooks
Prison Break (I wish they would put this on at a decent hour and stop taking it off!)
Grey's Anatomy
Two and a half men
The News
3 Acts of Murder
Thank God You're Here.

I know I'm supposed to tag 8 others, but my grand-daughter is just waking up and will be demanding her lunch, so if you're reading this consider yourself tagged!

A card.........finally!

It's been so long since I last posted..........I do apologise for my tardiness! I haven't been completely idle as I've been working on a couple of swaps for my OSA group so can't show you just yet.

Meanwhile, here's a card that has been sitting unfinished on my desk for around 2 weeks. I finally finished it today! It's just a 'Get Well' card for my stash of cards.

The flower stamp is by Inkadinkado and the greeting is by Stamp-It. I've coloured the image with Prismacolor pencils using OMS tech. The cardstock is all by Stampin' Up......the bottom panel looks like it's apricot, but it's really Barely Banana.

Thanks for stopping by.......that's if anyone still is :)

OSA Sketch Layout #22

It's been a whole week since my last post! Sorry for being a bad blogger, but sometimes life gets in the way. My brother and nephew stayed for nearly a week, which was great as I hadn't seen them for over 2 years, and we ended up taking 2 trips up to Bendigo to see Dad. My Dad was really surprised when they turned up for his 80th birthday celebrations, he was really happy they made the long trip.

Anyway, on to my card that I've made for the OSA Sketch Layout #22! I received some lovely blog candy from Inka, which included this beautiful Asian woman unmounted stamp. I stamped her onto some Mulberry paper and layered a laser-cut frame (courtesy of my OSA friend Sandra) over the top so it looks like a window. The ribbon, which matched nicely in colour is layered onto another scrap of the Mulberry paper.

Thanks for looking, I know I am way behind in leaving comments on my favourite blogs....I will try and catch up over the weekend.