Monday, 12 January 2009

One last Christmas card


I'm not sure how this one slipped the blognet, because it was one of my favourites that I made last year. However, when I was tidying my bombsite of a craft room I unearthed it.
It uses the single tree from "Lovely as a Tree" (108866 $48.95), stamped in Always Artichoke on Very Vanilla card. The base is Always Artichoke, stamped with "Linen" background, using Artichoke ink.
A strip of Holiday Harmony paper from the Spring Mini is layered with Mellow Moss and Vanilla strips.
I stamped the 'noel' greeting from "Many Merry Messages" using versamark, and added a coat of glitter using Heat n Stick powder. I think next time I'll try Whisper White Craft pigment ink instead, for greater holding power for the adhesive granules of the Heat n stick, but I was quite pleased with how it turned out anyway.
I used dots of the fabulous Tombow liquid adhesive in the Summer Mini ($7.95, not $12.95 as printed in the catalogue) on the tree branches, and sprinkled with several colours of microfine glitter. To finish I added 3 brads in matching tones to the glitter.

Hope you like it! I must get the tree silhouette stamp from the Lovely as a Tree set and have a play with brayering techniques. Hmm, maybe when school goes back!!

Sunday, 11 January 2009

Sale-a-bration Inspiration







As promised, here are some cards I have made with the Sale-a-bration sets for 2009. I had a play with the sets I didn't own at a recent team stamping day, which was a lot of fun! I wish I took a photo of the group of cards we all made together, but alas my camera was left at home that day. Might have to see if someone else will share with me so I can show you the variety we created, it was quite interesting to see how many takes there were for each set.




The first photo shows the Botanical Blooms set, which is a 2 step stampin set. I have stamped the solid leaf in Rose Red ink on Rose Red cardstock. Next I took a strip of River Rock, and overlaid it with a strip of Mellow Moss, stamped in Mellow Moss ink using the leaf outline stamp. The flower and flower outline stamps were used on scraps of Very Vanilla, using the 'stampin off' technique to create a lighter and darker version of the same colour. These were punched with 1 1/4" circle punch and pop mounted with Stampin Dimensionals onto 1 3/8" circles and then scallop circles. I stamped the greeting from the Congrats set in Rose Red - next time I think Purely Pomegranate or Always Artichoke would make it stand out more. Live and learn!

The second photo is a card that popped into my head inspired in a way by a Christmas card made by Carol Dunstan, using whisper white ink on Kraft cardstock. I liked the subtle 'negative' look, but chose Kraft as the card base and Blue Bayou as the ground for the white. This is the Polka Dot Punches SAB set. As you can see, the doodle style dot flower fits beautifully inside the Scallop Circle punch. The star flower fits inside the 5 petal flower punch. The smaller flower suits the 1 1/4" circle punch. We don't yet have a heart punch, but I suspect there is one on the way!! I stamped the large flower again in Blue Bayou ink onto So Saffron cardstock and pop mounted it into the centre, before stamping the Congratulations greeting onto the Saffron strip with distressed edges.

The third photo shows the Yummy set and the card I made with it. "Yummy" is my favourite set from this year's collection, versatile, and useful for making quick tags for baked gifts and the like - the keenest eyes here might notice where else I previewed this set - a RAK will be sent for the first commenter to tell me!
The flourish and a little something for you sentiment are on the same large stamp, and I have been umming and ahhing about whether to cut them apart and mount separately. For now I have decided to leave it as it was made, and to use the option of marker-to-stamp omitting when I want to use one or the other but not both. I used markers here anyway, to colour the tiny flowers and greeting in burgundy, and the flourishes in artichoke. I used the Scallop edge punch (mmmmm, to die for!!) to create the vanilla scalloped borders, and mounted these on a different level with Stampin' Dimensionals. Underneath these are some Vanilla and Artichoke grosgrain ribbon. Oh, and the background is stamped with Polka Dot in Bravo Burgundy in on Bravo Burgundy cardstock.


Hope you like them, back with more before too long I hope!!

Nothing to do with stamping, but isn't she cute!??


This is a photo I'm quite pleased with! We have had a nocturnal orb spider weaving a web each night near our front door. But, with my previous camera I wasn't able to get the right picture of this gorgeously fluffy spider, and by morning she had always broken down her web and was hiding somewhere in the bushes. She's quite big, about 20c piece size across edited to add she's grown!! She's now about the same size as the scallop circle punch, and the lovely orange colour is quite accurate. I've seen lots of orb spiders, but never one quite as pretty as this. I am not a big fan of spiders generally, having been bitten more than once, but to watch this little creature weave a perfect web in mere minutes was truly awe-inspiring! Some of the detail is lost in the blog image, I was stunned to see two little pores in the centre of her back - I sure wasn't getting my nose that close to look IRL!!