Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Thursday Cards

I think I'm on a card roll this week.  Here are 3 cards I made today...

The first card was for a challenge at StampTV - using a button & bow.  I used an old button from a dress I had when I was a kid.  My mum must have saved this button, cos I found it in her box of buttons. ;-)  I'm not very good making vintage-like cards but I thought I'd try cos I think soft shades would go well with the lace & button.  Stamp set : GKD Friends are Forever, Inks : Distress Ink Antique Linen, Versafine Vintage Sepia, Stazon Jet Black and watercolour pencils.



The second card was also for a challenge at StampTV - a Christmas card my style.  Well, I'm not sure how to define my style but I just went along with the flow to see what I would end up with.  Usually, I make really simple cards simply because I'm not very good at layering, etc and I don't have a fixed method of making cards. I decide on colours and papers as I go, and without a proper plan.  Very ad-hoc I suppose.  Some days I can assemble everything really fast, and other times, it requires a lot more effort.  So, here's the card...
Stamps : GKD Vintage Borders, Inks : Distress Ink Tattered Rose & Antique Linen, Versafine Onyx Black, watercolour pencils. 



The final card was for a Unity challenge that I just discovered, titled Let's Get Sentimental.  The challenge is to create a card with just a Unity sentiment.  I selected the sentiment from March 2010 KOM.  It's pretty sweet quote.  Used some digital papers from Crystal Wilkerson (see http://www.jessicasprague.com/) and my spellbinders' dies (blossom and fancy tags).  Inks : Distress Ink Tattered Rose, Versafine Onyx Black.



Have a great day!!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Wednesday Inspiration

I must be getting good at blogging, this is 3rd day of the week which I've managed to post an entry :-).  Today I tried to work out a card from card pattern sketch, but I had a bit of problems trying to keep to it.  So, here's my version:


Stamps : Unity KOM June 2010 - I love the little birds and the sentiment plus the background stamp.  They are super cute! 
Inks : Distress Ink - Broken China, Antique Linen, Versafine Onyx Black and Spanish Moss, Watercolour pencils (looks like I cannot live without my colour pencils!).

Back tomorrow with another card...

Fly Free

Happy Tuesday!  I'm trying hard to post a card a day this week... simply because I have so many new stamps to play with ;-) I'm a happy girl!

Here is a card made with my new Unity stamps... for a challenge at Stampin' Sisters.


I love the bird image and also the sentiment "fly free" from the June KOM.  Sometimes life may not be easy and the road ahead may seem difficult and uncertain, yet I believe in being positive and creating my own happiness.  I LOVE cardmaking, and I am happiest and free when I get to stamp and make cards.  Because the ability to be creative, is freedom for me, and giving away my cards is my opportunity to bless others.  I hope you enjoy the card as much as I did creating it. (Patterned paper : October Afternoon - Ducks in a Row).

Monday, June 28, 2010

Monday card

The weekend went by so quickly... On Sunday after church, I was baking away - made chocolate cake and the yummy chocolate chip cookies (Nigella Lawson's recipe - I'm a BIG fan of hers) and had some friends over for tea.  Everyone is talking football on this side of the world... but I'm spending my free moments making cards instead of following the World Cup. 

Here's another card from a sketch challenge at GKD...


Stamps used - from GKD's Friends are Forever set.  I love the flowers and once again, I used my watercolour pencils.  The faux stitching was done with Sakura white gel pen.  A simple card.   Enjoy Monday!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Weekend card

Finally, yesterday I managed to steal some time to create a card for a GKD challenge.  The challenge was to create a card with pastel colours.


I was backing up all my digital images and decided to use digital papers for this challenge.  The papers were from Crystal Wilkerson's Sweet Summertime & Scrapper's Guide.  I love this GKD sentiment - it's from the set Friends are Forever, while the rest of the images are from Fine Furnishings.
Have a wonderful weekend!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A Dry Spell...

Yesterday was a dry day without much inspiration ;-( .  Yeah, it was one of those days where nothing comes to mind when I tried to make a card or something ...

To help overcome that, I decided to participate in GKD's challenge on Christmas tags.  The idea was not to think, but take out a stamp set and just stamp!  So... I took out the Vintage Borders set, select stamps randomly and started stamping on a tag I had cut out. This was what I ended with. Added the Christmas baubles (with colourpencils and Glossy Accents).





Stamps : Vintage Borders

Inks : Distress Inks Tattered Rose & Fired Brick (for the scalloped borders), Worn Lipstick (fancy border near the ribbon) & Antique Linen (the wordings).

Others : Glossy Accents, Nestabilities Labels One.
 
Thanks for stopping by.  I appreciate it.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Happy Monday!


Today's card has several techniques in it, but all simple ones.
  1. The yellow background cardstock was embossed with fiskars texture plates with the cuttlebug. Colour was then added to it by lightly running a light brown inkpad on top of the embossed areas (here, I used Versacolor - Umber)
  2. The blue border at the bottom of the card, was cut using a fancy edged scissors, and a paper piercer to add some interest.
  3. The focal image piece was a white cardstock, stamped with the script stamp (using Versafine Vintage Sepia) from GKD's Botanical Stamp set, then stamped again with the botanical solid image using Versamark & heat embossed with clear embossing powder.
  4. Sponged Distress Inks Antique linen and Scattered Straw around the botanical image, and added Distress Ink Old Paper along the edge of the cardstock.
  5. The ribbon was tied around the focal image - using a round 1/8" punch, punch the cardstock underneath where the bow is, string the ribbon in and around it, with 2 ends just above the punched hole and tie a bow.
  6. Three tiny buttons were added to the left hand side of the card - I used linen strings to sew through the buttons before adhereing them onto the cardstock, using glue dots.
  7. The lace was adhered to the card using 1/8" scor-tape.
Have a great week!

Friday, June 18, 2010

A Friend Like You


Today I was so inspired by a challenge on StampTV.  Brenda had a beautiful picture of a Bed & Breakfast place (see above), and I love the colours of the plants in the pic.

I wanted to use a lovely floral stamp from GKD's new set Friends are Forever, stamped on watercolour paper.  I had a sketch in my mind of a card with lots of flowers.  Here's what I came up with:


The focal image was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black, and coloured with an aquabrush and watercolour pencils.  I used 3 shades of pink for the petals, and yellow and orange for the flower centre and 2 shades of green for the stems.  I also stamped a whole lot of the flowers onto another piece of watercolour paper for the cut-outs.  The horizontal strip border was punched with Martha Stewart's border punch (forgot the name).  Then the cut-out flowers were adhered to the strip, some adhered with scor-tape and others on small foam squares for some added interest.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Here For You


Today's card is a simple card - it was made with all the scraps I've saved up.  The stamped images are from Unity's KOM April 2010.  The main image was stamped on GKD White cardstock, and coloured with watercolour pencils.  Most times I would use the pencil direct on paper, but this time I used an aquabrush to pick up the colour from the pencil onto the stamped image. 
Other tools used : Nestabilities Squares & brads.

Thanks for looking.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Memories of Good Times...

Yesterday, on Gina's blog (http://blog.ginakdesigns.com/) she invited readers to share a favourite summer memory.  As I read her posting, a number of wonderful childhood memories came to mind, plus a reason  why "memory" is important to me, and my family.

My father has Alzheimer's and he struggles to remember simple things most times, but I'm glad that his long term memory is still more or less intact.  This year spending time with my father has been precious, I guess I feel as if I'm getting to know a new person.  Even though he has been my dad, I only know a part of who he is.  He tells me many stories (stories I've never heard before), e.g. of himself, as a kid growing up in WWII days and also of my grandfather & great grandfather whom I've never known.  As a result, I have come to treasure simple but wonderful memories in life & to hope that I never will forget.

Since I live in the East, we have warm climate every day of the year, so I guess special summer days for me would be like days when we have school holidays or when  we go on vacation. 

My favourite memory during school breaks would be times when my parents would take us out to the beach.  When I was young, I lived in the north east where the beach has really strong waves and while I loved being on the beach I was a little intimidated by the waves.  I would spend time playing on the sand and collecting seashells.  I would be so fascinated with seashells and their beauty. 

Here is my card, inspired by this memory and the lovely stamp set Gifts From the Sea.  It's a simple trifold card with a belly band.  The card measures 4.25" x 6".   The card base is a piece of cardstock weight, handmade paper (I can't recall the manufacturer - it was purchased on a vacation).  The belly band was stamped with the shells & sand dollars border stamp, then stitched around the edges.  One end of the belly band was punched with a scallop punch and secured with a brad.  A tiny stamped & cut-out shell was adhered on top of the brad.  The front panel of the card was stamped with various stamps from the Stamp set and lightly coloured with Dewent colour pencil ( Yellow Oxide).  On the front edge of the trifold, a strand of lace was adhered as shown, using 1/8" scor-tape.  The sentiment was stamped on a cream coloured cardstock, with some lightly stamped shells & corals on the background then adhered with foam squares to another peach coloured cardstock cut & embossed with Spellbinders Fancy Tags.

Hope you like the card, I certainly had fun making it - and thanks for dropping by.

The Lord is good..

Today is a CAS card I made a week or so ago - really simple with a bible verse printed onto the cardstock from my printer.

When I signed up for Unity's KOM, I received 10 free random stamps and the sheep stamp was one of them.  I kept it as I wasn't sure what goes with it.  Usually, when I'm stuck wondering how to use a stamp, I'd have to stare at it, and let the image settle in my mind, then an idea would come.  For this stamp, the image of love came to mind and I felt it would be great to have a Bible verse to go with it.  My choice of bible verse was from Nahum.

I stamped the image on white cardstock, added watercolour pencils and cut out the image. Added Glossy Accents on top and let it dry for about 1 hour or so.  Adhered the image with foam tapes onto the card.
Thanks for looking.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Any man can be a Father...

Today's card is for Father's Day.  I love the sentiment on this card because the saying is so true - any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a DAD.  To cultivate a close relationship with a child requires time, patience, lots of love and most of all to be a great role model. 

The card is made using Unity's KOMs - background (KOM May 2010), birds & sentiment (KOM Feb 2010).  Some paper piecing was done using October Afternoon's papers from Cherry Hill, Farm Fresh and Ducks in a Row.  Images were lightly coloured with watercolour pencils.  The main card was cut using Nestabilites Square die and the sentiment was cut using the Petite Ovals. Thanks for stopping by.

Some sewing on card

I haven't done any real sewing a long time now.  I have 2 sewing machines and the older one is now used for sewing paper.  Here's a card I made recently - the inspiration was the Spellbinders' nestabilities Labels One and of course my favourite stamps from Gina K Designs - a set called Hope Grows.  I wanted to make a card where the focal point is stamped on Labels One, and I wanted to decorate the edges of the die-cut with stamps.  I also wanted the colours to be soft in blue, green and cream.  I used watercolour pencils to colour the centre and the butterfly.  So, here's the card:


Thanks for dropping by.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Fairy Tales


















I love this sentiment stamp from Unity's May KOM.  I love fairytales and I treasure my fairytale books. I think they are stories of hope, and it's important to have hope in life.  We have to consciously seek for the "good" in everything and that's why I love this sentiment.  My father has alzheimers and he has good and bad days - but sometimes when I least expect it, he can cheer up my day.  The trees are from Unity's Sep 08 KOM - I think it goes so well with the sentiment.  Enjoy!

Friday, June 4, 2010

Paper flower

I love, love to make my own embellishments - it's a great way to use up supplies.  Here is a a paper flower I made from just using a flower shaped wood piece as my template.  Another window card, but decided to dress it up a bit with different patterned papers behind the star-like shape.  Adhered the flower and leaves using Glossy Accents.  Stamped sentiment from Gina K Designs Stamp TV Kit Spring Mix.  I love this sentiment.  All papers are fom October Afternoon & K&Co.

Stamping on Fabric

Funny how life seems to fly - I can hardly keep up with regular blogging.  I have been busy making cards and also going out with some friends from out of town.  So, back to cards - here's one I made recently:
The online challenge was to stamp on fabric.  I stamped the image (Gina K Designs - Spring Mix) onto calico fabric, with Versacraft Black - my stamp pad is a little old so the colour was very light.  Then I sponged some Distress Ink Antique Linen on the edges (used the Oval nestabilites as template).  I adhered the fabric to a black oval frame (cut with nestablitiles).  Added some faux stitch lines with my white gel pen.  Stamped Blessings (Gina K Designs - Lovely Labels) on the bottom right corner of the card.
The strip underneath the stamped image is made from 3 different ribbons.  I had a 1/8" black ribbon with white stitches running through it, a gingham ribbon and some lace ribbon.  Arranged the ribbons as shown, and adhered them onto a strip of cardstock.  What do you think?  More tomorrow....