Stamps Ahead

I have made 30 thank you cards that are to be given to volunteers at our local hospitals to say thank you for all that they do.  Here are just a sample of some the cards I made multiples of: Believe it or not these cards are the same size! Techniques - blue card made with embossing paste and watercolour paint. Butterfly card made with Distress Oxide sprays onto a mat then butterfly stamp pressed into the sprays.    Dark pink card made with Distress Oxide Inks sprayed onto watercolour paper, the light pink/mauve card uses Distress Oxide Inks "smooched" onto glossy cardstock and then buffed off. Blue card made with Distress Oxide Inks (can you see I love them!) applied over embossed flower images.  The top right card I made using one of my all time favourite stamp sets (no longer available) Gorgeous Grunge by Stampin' Up! (r).  The bottom card is one of my new favourites after designing this card the stamps (excluding the Thank You) are from Kaszazz Cla...

I was asked by my sister to make a large congratulations card for a friend of hers who is celebrating 20 years of missionary work overseas.    Here it is: To make it I used 2 A4 sheets of cardstock.  The card is for a male and I did not think flowers etc would be appropriate.  I got out my favourite Stampin' Up! stamp set - Gorgeous Grunge and my Ranger Distress Stains and created this card hoping that you can see that I was aiming for fireworks! The die cuts are Kaisercraft for words and a long retired Stampin' Up! die for numbers. The fold on left hand side is to enable to card to be opened and his friends/family/supporters to sign inside. I hope he likes it. I am going to add this to the "You Color my World" challenge at Paper Wishes (Friends and Fans) over on facebook, why not head there, join the group, and see their fabulous challenges. Thank you for looking, Margaret

Yesterday, I participated in a cardmaking fundraiser for Kisii, a school in Kenya.  Here is the card I created for the ladies to make. It uses Tim Holtz Crazy Bird stamp and die, the background is Gorgeous Grunge from Stampin' Up! (SU) and the greeting also is SU.  I pre-stamped and cut the die before including in the bundle of goodies to make the card.  The bird has been watercoloured using SU markers. I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest - however despite searching for over an hour I was unable to find the original creator of card that inspired me - it had been copied and saved to many boards. So if you are out there and happen to read my blog, thank you. I love the Gorgeous Grunge stamps as you do not have to be precise in the placing of stamps, excellent for beginners and experienced cardmakers alike. Close up of that Crazy Bird.  Thank you for looking, Margaret :)

Here is a layout I created for a challenge over at Soul Scrappers  - it is a one word challenge and the word is 'listen'.   Here is my layout: On my recent holiday north I stayed a couple of nights in a cabin at Corindi Beach caravan resort on the way up and loved it so much I stayed for 3 nights on the way home. I left my home early and it was 2 degrees!!!  How do I know that?  Well, as I was driving a strange light came on dashboard of my car....my first thought......I paid so much to have my car serviced before I left, was is wrong? When I could I pulled over, checked the manual and the light comes on when the outside temperature is below 5 degrees....looked at the ambient temperature and sure it was 2 degrees.   It stayed that way until many kilometres up the motorway.   Arriving at Corindi it was 19 degrees!!!  So warm.  I had many beach wanders, I saw dolphins and whales in the distance.  Can you hear the waves?...

Settle back this is going to be a long post.  My sister is currently in France and she emailed me saying she had found a scrapbooking magazine (all in French) and she loved one of the layouts. So she set me a blind challenge to replicate the layout.  She will send me photo of the one in the magazine when I send her these.  Yes I did two layouts - let me show then and then I will set out the instructions she sent. Both photos from our holidays last December.  Can one have too much of Paris? The email instructions and my asides: 1. Imagine a white textured page e.g. raised dots (now I did not have this so I have gone with plain white) and in your mind divide it into 9 equal parts 3 x 3 2. Sew a line of 5 rows (2 to be zig zag) down approx. right 3rd of page.  Note : not all lines have to go to the bottom, at least 2 shorter. (I left some threads dangling) 3. in the middle going across the pages use the gold paint I gave you from Singapore, was it ca...

Getting my mixed media on!!! I had so much fun creating this page today.  I was wanting to use my lonely Gelatos I am sure they were feeling unused and unloved (Okay I know inanimate objects but you have to smile) when I stumbled across a You Tube video by Fiona Paltridge from May 2014.   I did Gesso the background paper before I started as past experiences with water on patterned paper have not been successful. What did I love about Fiona's layout - the washi tape border it is so reminiscent of the borders I do in my patchwork quilts and I wonder why I never thought of it before!!  I loved the layers of gesso, texture paste, gelatos and stamps. The photos where taken last year at Red Rock on the north coast of New South Wales and I had just successfully crossed a very small stream!!! on the way to the Red Rocks.  The photos are actually a mix of me going and coming back from the rocks. Thank you Fiona for your inspiration, I have left a thank ...

A challenge was set by Angela on Elite Stampers to create a Christmas card using a non-Christmas stamp set and if you don't celebrate Christmas then please feel free to contribute something similar, like maybe "celebrate"(?) I used the always fabulous "Gorgeous Grunge" stamp set, Brights Designer Series Paper Stack, inks and card stock in Old Olive and Real Red. I have also used Silver Embossing Ink. The greeting comes from stamp set Teeny Tiny Sentiments and I have used Word Window Punch. The "Ah Hah" moment came to me when I went to emboss - the red ink was still wet on the larger stamp when I went to emboss the stripes - instantly more bling.  And who doesn't like bling!!! Here is close up of the embossing. I made an earlier attempt to make the card this morning - I was not happy it lacked the "punch or WOW" I was looking for.  I am showing it here as it was a part of my creative process.  And you can also see why I had an ...

This layout was inspired by an article by Georgina Heald "Layer upon Layer" in scrap365 magazine Aug/Sept 2013 p50-52.. This layout features Collage layering and it is a great way to use up old paper scraps, however I diverted from this and used co-ordinating papers from a Kaisercraft range. First cut out strips of paper of different widths(I used at least 6 papers) then weave them to form a grid (now unfortunately you cannot see my weaving as I had a 6" x 8" photo), secure them to background patterned paper, and then apply Gesso all over the papers. You can see some of the original paper colours in the triangle shapes.  This is a good way of softening your background.  For me as I was wearing predominately pink so it bought the colours more into line.  Below is a close up of the paper strips after Gesso applied and dried before adding embellishments. I went to my stash to find anything that would complete the layout.  I used glimmer mi...

Paris cards These cards were inspired by Alanna Paterson, I do not have a blog address for her, so thank you Alanna. I have made the card in both Whisper White and Very Vanilla cardstock.  I have used two new in-colours inks from Stampin'Up!(r) - Baked Brown Sugar and Strawberry Slush (what a great name!)  and for the background have used Gorgeous Grunge stamp set and Very Vintage Large Wheel.  The Eiffel Tower is from a no longer available stamp set.  Washi tape was from my stash. Ironically the pink flower ribbon was purchased in Paris many years ago and has obviously been sitting just waiting for the right cards.  I have not mounted the CS with the image I have simply run around the edge with Strawberry Slush. I think the card is very Shabby Chic and Vintage what do you think? Merci, thank you for looking, Margaret.