Hey Baby Baby!

Hi there everyone, I hope you're all having a brilliant day!  Today I'm here to share with you a baby card I made last night!  I haven't generally made that many baby cards so this is me attempting to branch out a bit.

Now I've been a very lucky vegemite (aussie slang) and Mr Taxman has been showering me with crafty goodness :o)  <---- that right there is a big giant grin lol...  So on the weekend, I took a very out-of-the-ordinary-trip (for me) up the Toowoomba Range and visited Spotlight and Kaisercraft.  

Spotlight has a lot less in the way of cardmaking stock than I was expecting.  Although, I did buy a few dies, papers and embossing folders.  

Next on my crafty junket was Kaisercraft.  I discovered the Kaisercraft brand dies are cheaper at Kaisercraft than at Spotlight, however one stencil cost $1 more at Kaisercraft for the same small 6x6 stencil, than at Spotlight.  Kaisercraft kept me occupied for ages, I took the time and checked out EVERYTHING, and bought some more dies, embossing folders and papers. 

Additionally, yesterday Mr Taxman brought me some StampinUp lovliness!  Inks! Stamps and cardstock <3.

This card, made last night, uses one of the stamp sets I bought at Kaisercraft and some of my StampinUp goodies.  Kaisercraft: Pitter Patter and Decorative Die - Die Cut Shapes.  StampinUp: Brushstrokes, Pool Party, Soft Sky and Coastal Cabana^ Inks, as well as Pool Party, Whisper White and Vellum Cardstocks.

I love how it turned out, I hope you do too!

Stay tuned for some more crafty creations coming soon.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting when you get the chance, I do appreciate it!

Cheers

Karen

^retired product

YAY - I WON THIS! : Awesome card from Marika (aka Craftybit) on Youtube

Hi all, just wanted to do a quick post to share with you this awesome card that I won from the lovely Marika (Craftybit on youtube).  I was selected as a winner in a recent drawer and got to choose any card that she'd made to have for my very own.  

The card I chose is of a warrior mermaid.  I just loved the fierceness of this warrior chick and also the colouring of the image and the background.

If you'd like to view her video on making this card, please see it below:

Thanks for stopping by, I totally recommend that you check out Craftybit's channel if you have any interest in copic colouring, she's awesome!

Thanks again Marika!

Cheers

Karen

INSPIRED BY: CHERYL WRIGHT (Cased Card)

Gidday everyone, glad you stopped by.  Today I'm sharing a card with you that I cased from Cheryl Wright.  I loved her design so much and her use of the dies (getting great ideas from her on how to use the dies) that I just had to have a go at copying her card.  *updated*: Cheryl has just posted her card on her blog, you can check it out right here!  

Ok, so I didn't have any pretty paper like she used, with these gorgeous flowers on there, but I found in my stash this beautiful creamy and silver flower design paper and then also some pearlescent cream cardstock that went beautifully with it.  I pinched her grey cardstock idea because it really helped to set off the die cuts perfectly.

At first I was thinking it would make a lovely wedding card, but I had no sentiments that were small enough to fit.  Then I got to thinking "maybe a happy anniversary card..." but again, sentiments were too long, and I didn't want to turn the card around so it was landscape instead of portrait.  Then I found a beautiful sentiment in my Inspired By Stamps set All Year Wishes 2 and turned it into a birthday card - they're my most popular type of card anyway :o)

I hope you like it!

This one shows the shiny embossing and design paper to better effect:

and the inside too:

Thanks for stopping by and commenting when you can, it's always appreciated!

Cheers

Karen

Just Us Girls #JUGS301 - Incorporate Gold

Hi everyone!  I've been inspired this evening by my friend Cheryl and her card for the Jugs challenge number 301 which is incorporating gold.  Now I had to get a move on and quickly make a card and get it in by 9pm (it's 8.45pm now, I had to stop to eat dinner!) lol.  Please click the Trend Week picture to be taken to the challenge page.

I have to say, Wow!  I adore the card that resulted!  I used a stamp set by Gina K Designs, white and gold cardstock and two die cuts from the Spellbinders Shapeabilities Regal Frame.  So without further ado, here is my creation!

The most time consuming part of this card was trying to get the gold frame away from the rest of the cardstock (I put adhesive on the cardstock before cutting).  I must say, all that fiddling was well worth the effort!

I hope you like it, stay tuned for more cards being posted soon!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope I managed to inspire you.

Karen

Just Us Girls Challenge - "Congratulations" (Word Week)

Well hey there, I've been a busy bee at my craft desk today and I absolutely love the card that I came up with.  Firstly, I should add that some of my crafty friends are having a little inspiration challenge of our own and the lovely Marcelle has posted this sketch for us to be inspired by:

Well, let me tell you that I loved the colours on the sketch so much I tried my best to replicate them, although on the screen here there seems to be pink and when I printed it the circle, sentiment, banner and lighter part beneath all printed white, so that's what I used in my card.

Additionally, I'm entering this in the Just Us Girls Challenge (my first ever).  

I added a line of butterflies rather than keeping the banner blank and added a gem trail for my larger butterfly.  I hope you like it!

I need to get back in to my swimming tomorrow so we'll see if I manage to make any more cards this week.  Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers

Karen

Latest creations - Magnetic Bookmark and a Child's Dinosaur Birthday Card

Hi there again.  Below you will find the latest creations (all made this week) from my office/crafty area, which looks like this when it's been cleaned up, but is rarely ever in that state!

Ok, so this first card was made for my workmate Paula, who requested a dinosaur themed birthday card for Andre who turned 3.  I had a lot of fun making this card.  The stamps are all from Lawn Fawn Critters From The Past and I used masking techniques to put some of the images in front of others.  The background was coloured using tim holtz distress inks and a sponge, whist  the images were all watercoloured using the distress markers.  I love how it turned out.  Inside the card I stamped a t-rex because what dino card is complete without a t-rex?  :o)

Now, this one is a magnetic bookmark (showing front and back) that I made for my Mum who loves to read.  She's been using one that I made ages ago and requested a new one a while ago but until this week I wasn't inspired.  My inspiration came from youtube in the form of this video by Sandy Allnock.  I had some adhesive magnets in my stash and thought this was a perfect idea to use them.

The images are from a couple of stampendous stamp sets: Hummingbirds and Jumbo Hydrangea.  The butterfly and flowers were coloured using copic markers, and the flower was watercoloured.  

Finally, I also made a farewell card to a workmate called Scott who is transferring up to Bundaberg.  I'm very annoyed that I deleted the picture of the front of the card off of my phone and it didn't seem to have uploaded with all the rest of my pictures.  I do however have a shot of the inside of the card, which incorporates a gift card holder, that I was quite pleased turned out.

That brings me up to date!  I have a few other challenges to try to enter so if I do I'll be sure to post them here for you to see!  Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers

Karen

The Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge July 2015

Hi there everyone, just jumping in quickly to make my entry for the Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge for July 2015.  The free digi this month was supplied courtesy of Jen at Blueberry Bear Digistamps, she doesn't have her shop open yet but you can visit her at her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JencraftyGoodies.

The gallery at the Outlawz can be viewed for inspiration at any time by clicking here, and to see these entries, put in the code PF08 in the box at the top.

This was very difficult for me this digi, it's not my style at all but I did the best I could with it and ended up watercolouring it.  The background was done by inking up a woodgrain embossing folder and printing onto my card front.  It was very spotty, so I went over the woodgrain with my stampinup marker and picked up extra ink and recoloured over it.  I really like how that background came out. 

I hope you've all had a lovely week, I have a few more pictures to share so keep reading posts :o)

Cheers, thanks for stopping by!

Karen

The Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge June 2015

Hi everyone, I had to quickly jump in and share the card I only just now finished making for the Outlawz Freebie Progressive Challenge entry for June 2015.  The free digital image was kindly given by Anne's Digital Art.  That's one of the positives of being in this challenge, it pushes me to make a blog entry at least once a month!  *smile*

Ok, so for this entry I wasn't too happy with my colouring as I can see the texta strokes in the background.  After thinking about how I could fix it I ended up covering the entire panel in clear wink of stella which sort of masked the texta strokes.  Now I still didn't much like how my piece had turned out, but then I put some strips of green scallop punched cardstock around it and a sentiment and now I like it much more :o)  I hope you do too!

For inspiration, please check out their gallery here.

If you would like to join the challenge then email them with your email address.  You can find all the details here.

I have been asked to make a birthday card featuring dinosaurs and a farewell card to a workmate relocating to Bundaberg so stay tuned for some more creations coming this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers

Karen

A Special Birthday

Hi there!  Sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my blog, but the time just keeps flying by so fast!  

I jumped in quickly to share with you a card that I made using some of the supplies I spoiled myself with at the Brisbane Scrapbook and Papercraft Expo 2015.  Seriously, I did some damage to the credit card, but it was my 40th so I figured I would only be 40 once.  Maybe I'll get to splurge again like that on my 50th! lol.  

Anyway, among my spoils were various sets of stamps and dies from Stampendous.  I made my first pop up card using their special pop up die and the forest set.  Here is a link to their website if you want to check some of their products out.  I think they're in America though.  

Several boo boos were made during this card, but I really love how it turned out, I hope you do too!

Well I'll try to pop in now and then, but until next time, stay crafty!

Cheers

Karen

The Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge - May 1st 2015

Well hello there all!  I will need to do a few blog entries (hopefully over this weekend to catch you up on some stuff), but tonight I must do my entry for The Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge for May before it's too late!

This month we got a free digi image from Ppinky Dolls.  I found this image a little challenging to colour as it has a lot of tonal grey that prints on the image but after my second attempt, I'm pretty happy with her.  What do you think?  

Feel free to visit the gallery for more inspiration here.  Remove the PF06 for full inspiration from the site wide entries.

I hope you like my little cutie, take care and happy crafting!

Cheers

Karen

The Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge - April 1st 2015

Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you're enjoying this lovely long weekend, I sure have :o)  Today I'm sharing my entry into the latest challenge at The Outlawz.  The digi we received this month was a lovely frog courtesy of Encino Stamps.

My original thought was "What am I going to do with a FROG?"  lol.  But it has really made me think outside the box and I love what I came up with.  I googled some images of frogs and lilypads and that's what got me my direction.  

I've coloured the frog in with copic markers and the lily pads are circles punched out and then I cut the lily pad shape into them with some cutterbee scissors (my favourite for fussy cutting).  The background is watercolour paper that I went to town on with every blue distress ink I have.  That's the first time I've done that ink the surface, spray with water and dip paper into it technique and I love how that turned out.  Inside the card is the other part of the A4 sheet of watercolour paper, so it's nice blue water inside.

I hope you enjoy my creation.  To check out the other entries please click here :o)

Thank you for stopping by and have a safe and happy Easter everyone!

The Outlawz Freebie/Progressive Challenge - March 1st 2015

Hi there everyone, I hope you're all happy and healthy and having fun!  I have a new creation to share with you that I think is quite cute :o)

A couple days ago I joined the Outlawz Freebie/Progressive challenge and this is my first ever entry.  As soon as I saw one of my friends had coloured this digi image, I was hooked and so wanted it in my arsenal! lol.  Well the rules are that you join the site and then also join whatever competitions they have that interest you (they have a lot!) and then, for this particular challenge, they send you the digi of the month and you link your picture to their gallery using the code and hey presto entry done!  If this has worked I'll add the link here for you :o)

I have a few more cards that I'll share soon, waiting for one to be received first - can't ruin it!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Cased Card from Papercraft Essentials - (Copy And Share with Everyone)

Hello lovely peoples!  It's time for another card to hopefully brighten your day!  This time I did something I have rarely ever done, I would hazard a guess that this may be the second or third time that I've ever copied a card.

As soon as I saw this card in Papercraft Essentials magazine Issue 41, page 9, I knew 2 things:

1. I had to get that lovely die and,
2. I had to have a go at copying this card which was created by Dawny  Phillips!

The magazine had a free paper pack and birthday stamp from Lili of the Valley and this card was one of 6 featured in the magazine for using the free gift.

Here is the card that I cased:

And here is the card I made:

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, I must say.  I really need practice in using my patterned papers, I have so many but the collection keeps growing so I need to start using them more often.  This was a great way to do that!  Plus, I was stepping outside my box using so many different patterns, but as they all came from the paper pack, they all coordinate really well together!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing this CASE and hope to bring you more in the future!

Take care and happy crafting!

Mum's Love

G'day everyone, I hope you're having a nice day or night!  I just wanted to share my latest creation with you.  This one has been made using another recent StampinUp purchase (I had a big order delivered last week).  The stamp set is called Mum's Love - and I had to buy it because it's spelled as Mum, not Mom...which is so wrong to me being an australian, when I see the word Mom that's how I say it like Mon with an m at the end.

Anyway, I digress!  So easily done, I know.  I played around with this stamp set and also dry embossed the front of the card with my new SU Spring Flowers embossing folder.  The cardstock is from my stash (from my newsagent) but is a perfect match to the SU Tempting Turquoise ink.  I also used SU ink Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, Perfect Plum and Strawberry Slush.

It's a very simple one layer card, but I think it's turned out really quite pretty!  I hope you like it too :o)

Thanks for stopping by, and happy crafting to you all!

Gorjuss Ladybird

Good evening everyone, I hope you're having a fun time reading blogs and being inspired!

I just popped in to share this card I finished tonight with you all.  And hopefully there'll be a few more posts because the weekend has arrived, yay!

This card features a Santoro Gorjuss girl image from the stamp set Gorjuss Ladybird.  And fittingly enough, I've included a Stampin Up punch and stamp combo Four Frames with the Decorative Label punch (which actually has a bird in the image!)

The cardstocks I used are SU's Elegant Eggplant and a pinky purple cardstock from my stash.  The image was coloured using Tim Holtz distress markers and a SU blender pen on Strathmore watercolour paper.  (I think I did a pretty close match to the image on the stampset).

The flowers are also from my stash and have pearls in the centres.  Oh and I also used another SU punch for the scalloped parts on the sides of the main image.  I should also add that the white background behind her has been dry embossed with SU folder called Happy Heart.

I hope you enjoyed viewing my card, thanks for stopping by!

Happy crafting to you!

Cheers

Diorama Pop Up Cards - Pleasant Purples

Hi everyone, gee I'm on a roll here, so many blog entries!  So many cards made in one week, it's unheard of!  I think it has a lot to do with this Diorama Pop Up Card base, it's just so versatile and easy to play with! 

Today I made yet another of these fabulous cards and switched it up again by adding some lovely bits and pieces to it.  

The purple oval shape on the card front was cut from the inside part.  The problem with that though was that the inside bit only had about 2 or 3mm on each side of the opening and I was worried it wouldn't last.  So, I thought about it a bit and came up with the soloution to shrink the opening using a normal oval (the biggest spellbinders oval I have - the bigger ones are on my wish list).  So in the end, I stuck an extra panel over the cut out window and later embellished it with some corner die cuts as it was a bit too plain.

The stamp set used is Cake and Candles by Avery Elle.  It's a really versatile set and this is the first time I've used that sentiment, and I love how it came out!  That onyx black versafine ink is so dark and crisp, I love it!

The bigger flowers were from Blitsy and are by Prima and the smaller flowers started out white and were from Wild Orchid Crafts.  I inked the white ones with SU Wisteria Wonder, sprayed with water to spread the ink, put some liquid glue on there and sprinkled them with Twinklets Diamond Dust and a tiny sprinkle of glitter.  I'm telling you, before that tiny bit of glitter went on there, they didn't sparkle nearly as much.  And yay, I finally used my Diamond Dust, I've had it for about 2years and never used it until now.  It looks like course sugar and looks just like the stuff that is on the prima flowers - which is what made me think of using it for the other flowers.  Finally, I put some opal coloured paper pen in the flower centres but decided I didn't like that once it was dried.  So I put some adhesive pearls on (with a little glossy accents to make sure they stick good and fast) and finally a sparklet (also from Blitsy) at the top and a couple more pearls.

I have to say, I have a new favourite!  What do you think?

Watermarking Your Pictures

Oh and I have started making instructions for the watermarking process.  I've written up instructions on how to watermark using the paintbrush program that comes with Windows.  I'm not sure if they are clear enough or even maybe confusing, so I've asked a couple friends to test it out and once I find out and perhaps tweak them, we're good to go.

Well, I'd better go and do some chores, thanks heaps for stopping by and I hope you have a great creative week!

Diorama Pop Up Cards

Hi there everyone.  I'm hoping you've been enjoying the rain that we've gotten over the last 24 or so hours over here in Queensland, hopefully you haven't been getting flooded though.  We're safe from flooding at home here thankfully.

Well my cardmaking friends discovered a video on youtube this week and it has inspired many of us to make the card featured in the video.  The video was created by Splitcoaststampers and it is shown below :)  

This is such a versatile style of card and it's a real unexpected surprise when you open it to find it's got a popped up window inside too!  Several of my friends and I are having a ball making these.  So far I've made two.  I have had to adapt my card to metric as I don't have inches on my cutter and score board.

The dimensions of my card have been made as simple as possible.  I start out with a piece of cardstock trimmed to 29.5cm x 14.5cm.  With the long side at the top of your score board, score at 10.5, 19, 20 and 28.5cm.  Fold the card as shown in the video and you'll find the front flap is a little too big.  I take a pencil, draw along the edge and trim this piece off, and hey presto you have a slightly larger metric version of this card!  Yay!

I started off by making a bunch of bases in different colours.  I thought having different coloured bases would inspire my mojo to create totally different cards each time.  Here's a picture of them.

My first completed card was made using Cherry Cobbler (cardstock and ink), Garden Green and Wild Wasabi StampinUp inks, the Fabulous Florets stamp set for the images and the IBS Fancy Sentiments stamp set for the greeting.  I found it would be best to cut the inside circle piece as a complete panel to fit inside.  This one was a little short and I stuck a thin strip of white cardstock down the left side to try to fix it, covered with a flower it's barely noticeable.

I messed up a little on my first card, but that is the beauty of making things from scratch.  You work out the bugs and the second one is always lots better :)

My second diorama card was completed tonight somewhere around 11.30pm.  I've had a ball tonight just playing around with it and trying different things.  I totally love how it turned out, I think it's absolutely gorgeous (even if I do say so myself!).

I tried another monochromatic type of card, using StampinUp's Coastal Cabana cardstock and inks along with white cardstock.  I luckily found that my Martha Stewart Wintermint glitter is a perfect compliment to this cardstock and rubbed it into some scoretape - love it!  I also punched out some MS butterlies and layered them with a diamonte in the middle.  The images are from the StampinUp Flower Shop stamp set (and matching punch) and the sentiments are both from one of my newly purchased sets (from my Kaisercraft Boxing Day shop) called Pop! - Quotes.

I can see so many different ways to use this card type, the diorama card is definitely going into my favourites list!

Happy crafting to you all and thanks for stopping by!

 

What's In My Shopping Bag?

Hey everyone, just a quick post to share what's in my shopping bag this week.  I should probably warn you, I love to shop and collect crafty products and decided I might as well share my purchases with you and maybe try to review some of them as well.

Well this purchase is directly due to my cardmaking friends as they've told me that the best gold ink to use is Delicata Golden Glitz pigment ink.  I already had Brilliance Galaxy Gold pigment ink (both by Tsukineko) but have not been all that happy with it since I bought it (years ago!)

Well!  I love love love the Delicata Golden Glitz ink, it's wonderful!  It seems to be thicker, so when it is dried it feels almost heat embossed, with a slightly raised feel to the fingers.  It's super pretty, sparkly and a bright, though a full bodied golden colour.  I bought it here if you want to race over and get it right now!  I was lucky enough to get the last one in stock when I purchased.

I have done a quick comparison for you in the second picture below between these two inks and I even re-inked my Brilliance ink pad as it was stamping lightly, it's much better after re-inking, however it just doesn't hold a candle to the Delicata one in my opinion.

I hope you've found this mini review useful and wish you lots of fun crafting on this Australia Day long weekend!

Take care 

2015 - A New Year, A Fresh Blogging Start!

Hi everyone, I wanted to say sorry to you all for being missing for so long.  No posts for a good long while.  I have been making cards here and there but at some point I'd decided I should watermark them and never got around to uploading anything until now.

Well!  Tonight I re-figured out how to watermark using the free software I found via google called GIMP2 and my paintbrush program that comes with windows.  If anyone wants any instructions on using GIMP2 to watermark their pictures, please leave a comment and I'll do a post on it.

I hope you've all had a great Christmas break.  I had a lovely Christmas with my Mum Judi.  We spent the day having a Game Of Thrones marathon and cooking and eating roast pork and veggies for Christmas lunch/dinner.  I also made a humongous trifle which was delicious, but lasted the week almost! 

We also went to the boxing day sales on the day after boxing day (to avoid the madness, and it worked).  We had lots of fun and lunch whilst there.  And hows this for an unexpected bonus? I discovered a Kaisercraft store I didn't know existed.  I'd never been in one and had to be pretty ruthless and quick as Mum is not into crafting and she was waiting on me.  I picked up some lovely papers, stamps and glitters and was lucky enough to find they were having a sale that day too!  Lucky me!  I'll pop some pictures below so you can see my goodies :o)   Sorry about the hand shadows on some of the pictures.

   

 

I've had a rather great christmas in relation to crafty stuff, I won't post all the pics as there are just too many.  I've also been saving some of my christmas pay so that I can have a big buy up from the Stampin Up new Occasions Catalogue and Sale-abration...plan to do my shop on Tuesday :o)

So, being a cardmaker you might like to see some cards!  Here are the birthday cards that I've made so far this year.  I've managed to incorporate a lot of my new purchases into them so I'm not feeling too guilty about my crafty shopping sprees! *giggle*

Below you'll find two masculine cards and a decidedly femine one.   The car one was my first for this year, the 6 year old liked it :o)  The top one was for a man in his 30's, I used all new stuff on this card!  And the third card was for my lovely friend Virginia.  I really love how each of these turned out!

 

For this card I utilised double sided tape and put cosmic shimmer gilding flakes on there - I think this shade is called Autumn.  The tag was put through a cracks embossing folder and I rubbed a brilliance galaxy gold ink pad across the raised cracks.  I also inked the tag and insert with frayed burlap and aged mahogony distress inks.  Finally, I added some cog shaped brads that I've had in my stash ever since I started card making.  Oh and the letters of Aaron were die cut on this sparkly black wrapping paper that I adhered to double sided tape before die cutting, turning them into stickers.

This car birthday card uses the technique called "Colour Blocking" which I learned recently from Youtube by lostinpaper.  I worked out that it's best to stack up a full size sheet of each of the papers and then cut them together, which leaves enough cut bits that fit together to make three cards!  You should have seen my first attempt - a total disaster, lol!

 

And last but certainly not least is this beautiful card I made using a free hostess set from StampinUp called Bloom With Hope.  I stamped the image on the smoother side of watercolour paper using the SU Cherry Cobler ink pad and coloured it in with a waterbrush, no extra ink was needed!  I also made the envelope (from KMart) match by sticking adhesive to the back of the cardstock and die cutting some spellbinders borders into it, making an easy to adhere sticker!

Well, that's all for now, I hope to pop in again soon and put some cards up that I've made since my last post.  Don't forget to comment below if you want me to post instructions on watermarking pictures using the GIMP2 software.  You can also find helpful videos on youtube for that.

Take care and keep on crafting!