Dec 29

Exercising a rusty mojo

I’ve been spending some much needed quality time with the family (now enlarged by a super adorable kitty! yay!) and I’m loving every minute. Frankly, between everything that being a SAHM to two littles and an active crafter entails, there’s been precious little time for me to truly relax. I forgot how sweet it is to just hang out with the fam for most of the day, not looking at the clock constantly, worrying about stuff that needs to be done. I’ll need to start thinking about that ‘stuff’ again pretty soon now, but I’m taking another day off before it happens
I’d pop in my craft room every now and then, for a bit of an inky time but I’m finding it quite hard to get back on track. I half-forced myself to make some super last-minute Christmas cards (which I tried to keep in a general Winter Holidays spirit, rather than Christmas), because I received a very late order from SSS, right before the Holidays, of some long-awaited WPlus9 stamps and dies that I just couldn’t justify having put down for a year.
I’m talking about Woodland Wreaths (sadly the dies were out of stock everywhere I looked), Heartfelt Holiday, Silver Bells (with coordinating dies) and Under The Mistletoe dies. I wanted to show you guys, the cards I whipped up, but I don’t want to spend any more precious time fiddling on the computer, so I hope you don’t mind me skipping up the supply lists.

Some Copic colouring on this first one.

Patterned papers from the Penny Black Madison pad, Glossy Accents on the stamped and die cut bells.

A dash of patterned paper, from Basic Grey Fact pad.

Collage style, almost like a little scrapbook. I combined some leftover DP, washi tape, some stickers, twine, flair, sequins…

Lastly, almost a one-layer if it wasn’t for a patterned paper mat (Pink Paislee Portfolio, Stupendous 12×12 paper). Stamping directly on DP, plus a bit of stitching.

Thanks for stopping by, I’ll have a post up on the 1st for sure but I’ll try to pop in once more before. Be sweet! xx

Dec 22

Sketchbook Saturday Challenge #112

Why yes, I’m late posting again… I procrastinated because of lack of mojo (and the time has been scarce as well), but it never came so I just had to go with what I’ve got. There are other things that I wish I was doing right now, like wrapping presents and spending time with my hubs and the girls, so I’m making it short and sweet. I’ll come back to the normal routine, along with inviting Guesties, in the New Year. Hopefully

I’m still in need of Chrissy cards (last minute posting!) and I received my long awaited WPlus9 order way later than I anticipated, so here goes… I wish I gave these gorgeous stamps an opportunity to shine, but there’s no mojo whatsoever :/ You can see both a layered and a one-layer approach to the sketch.

The stripes here were stamped with the back of a long, thin stamp. The result is very shabby but it doesn’t bother me, it emphasizes the folk style of the card.

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If you would like to play along:

- You’re kindly asked to save the sketch image onto your computer first, and if you make a card based on it, please link back to this post.
- Share the link to your creation via the Inlinkz widget below, so that I can come and check it out!

Perks:

- A new sketch is posted every other Saturday night (9pm Australian EST, 6am American EST, and the link widget is open for two weeks. However, you’re welcome to play any time! Just leave a link in the comments section and I’ll pop in to see it.

- I’ll be inviting one person who uses my sketch, to join me for the next one! I’ll be also highlighting the entries that caught my eye, on my Facebook page.

- Every now and then, I will also invite an inky friend to join me as well, for an extra dose of inspiration.

Peace Joy Love card

InLinkz.com

Good Tidings card

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An InLinkz Link-up

Dec 17

Merry & bright - Runway Inspired

Just a quick post, friends… trying not to neglect you either but if you do know of any helpful elves to hire, please let me know Playing with the current Runway Inspired challenge (graphics below the card), and coming up with yet another card for the Holidays. Yes, I’ve still some to send…

I white embossed the Hero Arts Wreath Of Leaves, on a lovely textured card, and sponged some Crushed Olive Distress Ink over it. Then I flicked some water over the ink to create further texture, and stamped the sentiment and stars from the Merry Trees set from Simon Says Stamp. The colours are a bit off on the photos, in reality Crushed Olive is a bit greener and darker.

InLinkz.com

Dec 15

Even more Christmas cards

Uh-oh, long time no see! I’ve been caught in the misc stuff and now that weekend is upon me & I see the crafty work piled up, I might have a mild case of panic kicking in… I’m running a bit late with the Countdown to Christmas with PB post, I’ll have it ready by early tomorrow and in the meantime I’d like to share some more of the cards that I’m still trying to mail out to everyone before the Holidays I love them, which is unusual for the rushed crafting session, and I wish I could elaborate on them a bit more, but you’ll have to excuse me. Feel free to leave any questions you might have, in the comments, and I’ll get back to you.

For the first card, I combined two of the strong trends for this year, gold and bokeh. I stamped the circles of various sizes, on PTI Fine Linen - in kraft, aqua and white. Then I gold embossed a Hero Arts snowflake over it. Love how the pattern shows through the lacy snowflake. The sentiment is PTI‘s own.

Second card; the WPlus9 snowflakes were die cut from glitter paper, stacked for a dimensional effect, stitched together and embellished. The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse. The background was created by applying embossing paste over a stencil, that I cut with Silhouette.

The first two cards, fit perfectly in the Curtain Call Sweet Snowflakes challenge:

Lastly, I created this card by masking off a star shape, stamping the text inside it and then stamping the sentiment over (both from Waltzingmouse). This design would look fine just by itself, but I couldn’t resist adding a few things for a homey look 😉

See you again in a few hours! xx

Happy Holidays card

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Christmas Joy card

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Joy to the World card

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Dec 12

CASE Study Challenge #170

Just a quick post to day, if you don’t mind - I’m having one of these days 😛 It’s CASE Study time, and the second challenge with Cath from the Moxie Fab World for our Muse. Here’s today’s inspiration, taken from the original post here.

I took it literally in terms of colours and theme, and made a card with glittery snowflakes, created with embossing (modelling) paste. The sentiment comes from Mama Elephant’s Believe In Magic set.

Embossing paste is all the rage these days, for those of you who’re still on the fence and need a little how-to, here’s how I made these.
I prepared my card base and the front panel, which I made slightly narrower than the base. I arranged the snowflake dies over it to have a feel of how I want them to appear. Then I cut a panel of the same size, from a piece of white scrap paper, and die cut the snowflakes in it to create my stencil.

Then I secured the stencil over the aqua panel, preparing it for application of the medium.

I applied an even, fairly smooth coat of modelling paste over the stencil, using an old credit card (I source the paste locally, it comes in 500 ml tubes and the brand is Mont Marte - however Wendy Vecchi or any other paste would work just the same)

I gently removed the stencil, to reveal the pattern. Then I sprinkled fine glitter over it and let it dry for about 20 minutes.

After I was done, I clustered some tone-on-tone, generic simple snowflakes around the big ones, cut my sentiment panel and added a thin glittered stripe to the bottom, by applying some over a length of double sided tape.

Check out the blogs below for the Design Team’s takes on the challenge, or visit CASE Study for the full reveal.

Amy Ryall, Leigh Penner - December Guest Designers
Amy Wanford
Andrea Ewen
Clare Buswell
Debby Hughes
Jeanne Jachna
Maureen Merritt
Silke Ledlow
Tasnim Ahmed

InLinkz.com

Dec 10

More Christmas cards

The recent order for Christmas cards left a big dent in my stash and I still need to send some out to family and friends (eeek! that’s the part I don’t like… my terrible procrastination), so I sat down to some again the other day and I’m undoubtedly still not ready to leave the Chrissy bandwagon. Anyone else always feeling sad when Christmas inevitably comes, and there’s no reason to carry on with Holiday cards any more? LOL, that’s me
I’ve a big day on my hands but I want to just quickly show you these. Enjoy!

I dug out some new Waltzingmouse stamps, this one has a birdie from Folk Art Christmas Additions, and it’s super adorable. I did some extensive layering here, put some Spellbinders dies into action.

I was happy to see the Fusion challenges come back and I’m playing with the current one.
(just to clear things out - it says Design Team Call on the graphics for whatever the reason, it’s not a DT call challenge and neither I’m applying)

One more card, this time made using the gorgeous Alpine Christmas set. I paper pieced most of the elements in the scene I created; the house with a wood veneer paper (although not from SSS) and I especially love the effect of snow patches on the ground, by paper piecing with the woodgrain DP.

Love how subtle the white embossed snowflakes look on a piece of MME DP sky as well. The reindeer is die cut with a PTI die. Thanks for looking and see you tomorrow!

Happy Holidays card