Merry Christmas

Hi! It's the week before Christmas and I'm super excited, because this weekend I'm heading back to visit my parents.  I can hardly wait to have a good break and see the family.

It's the last Inspired Stamps project for the year.  And, I thought it appropriate to share a Christmas card.  Here's wishing you a Blessed Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!!  May the Lord's blessings and love surround you and your family.  Safe travels and hope you'll have a lovely time with family and friends.

This is the cutest Shepherd boy, and the Scripture is from Luke 2:11.

Here's a closer look at the Shepherd boy:

Thank you for visiting me.
Best wishes for 2014!
Kary

Riding into the Sunset

I was inspired to colour this gorgeous image today.  Woke up this morning and had these colours on my mind :)  Yeah, I know, I have not played any Unity Colour challenge before, I think, so here's my first.

The image says it all, I suppose, and there's no need for any embellishments to finish off the card.  Easy!

Maybe, I'll try the sketch challenge next.. LOL!

Have a great day!

Kary

Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Love this time of the year!!  It's what I look forward to most when I was a kid and still do today.  I love everything about Christmas - the meaning and reason why we celebrate it, and the precious time I get to spend with my family.

It's been a week of Christmas cardmaking, and for today's Unity FWF, I am sharing a card made with this wonderful Christmas sentiment set, Everything Christmas

 :

Love the set, and wish I have more time to make really good use of the set.  This year, I've not been organised with my Christmas cards :)

I used the leftovers of patterned paper and some blossom trim on the card.  Really quick and easy.

Thank you for visiting me.  Hope you'll have a great weekend!
Kary
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Snowman Notecard

My Inspired Stamps project today is based on the theme "Anything Winter".  If it's winter where you are, I hope you are keeping yourself warm and cosy.  It's hard to think about winter where I am - we just hit 32 C today, and it's so warm :)

I think of snow when I see the word winter, so here's my little notecard, with the cute snowman from the set Snowmen.  I stamped the snowman with copic markers and cut him out with an ornament die.  Then, I added a little twine bow and sponged some blue ink around the ornament shape.

It's an easy design and could be mass produced as a little notecard to go along with Christmas presents. 

I hope you'll click over to the Inspired Stamps blog to see more Winter ideas from the Design team.

Thank you for visiting me.
Have a great day!
Kary

Let Beauty Surround You

Friday is here again, and I'm so glad to share another Unity card.  This card is for a friend's birthday.  I used the old favourite set Quiet Essence, and a sentiment from an Itty Bitty.

The flower image was stamped on a natural sticky back canvas and coloured with copic markers.  Then I assembled the card and added a little butterfly clothes peg at the top of the card.

Linking this with Unity FWF, and I can't wait to see the rest of the projects shared by my crafty friends.

Have a great weekend!
Kary

Scripture card with Inspired Stamps

Hello, hope you're having a good week!  Today's Inspired Stamps project is pairing an HLO image with a 2x2 Scripture.  I used the super cute HLO : Sincerely Girl and the Scripture 1 John 3:1.

Here's the card:

The little girl is so adorable, and I love the little flowers in the set too.  She is coloured with Copic markers and the Scripture sentiment is inked with red and black ink for some interest.  The card was rather plain and so I added a paper bow to finish it off.

I hope you'll check out the Inspired Stamps blog for more inspiration from the rest of the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by today.
Kary

Merry Christmas

Hello Friends!  So glad it's Friday again - woohoo!  It's time to share another Unity card and play along with Unity Friends with Flair.

Thank you so much for visiting me and leaving me such encouraging and lovely comments last Sunday.  I really appreciate it.  It was so fun to participate in the blog hop which Angela organised.

Today I have a Christmas card to share.  Some colouring with Copics and paper piecing and that's it.

I'm trying to make as many Christmas cards as I can, cos I have to mail them all out next week.  I can't believe the year has flown by so quickly.

Hope you'll all have a great weekend!  Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the US!  Have a great time!

Hugs
Kary

Unity Friends BLOG HOP

Hello Friends!  Do you know Unity is having a super sitewide special 55% off - yes, you read it correctly!!  Such an Awesome opportunity to grab all the items on your wishlist.

I was SO Excited when Angela asked if I would like to participate in a special blog hop for this Brown Thursday event - come on... showcase some Unity - I'm ready any time!!  So here I am, so honoured to join my fellow Unity Friends in this special Unity Friends Blog Hop!

You would have arrived here from the talented Karen's blog, and if you haven't, here is the blog list so you don't get lost.

The Unity Blog Hop list:

Camille - http://cammierobinson.blogspot.com.au/

Kassi -  http://kassicreations.blogspot.com

Karen -  http://karey2005.blogspot.com

Kary - http://karyg.blogspot.com - >>> You're here :)
Rachel - http://www.rwkrafts.com/

Julie - www.paperandsuch.blogspot.com

Kris - www.klcardcollection.blogspot.com

To add to the fun, there's going to be a little something for one lucky person who leaves me a comment.  More info at the end of this post...

I think ALL the new releases are Amazing, and I can't wait to share some of them with you.  Here's my first card using the fabulous set Lasting Thoughts.  I really LOVE this set!!

The next card is made using the wonderful sentiment set by this dear lady, Lisa Arana - Everything More.  Love the beautiful font and frame of this set.

And, here's the card...

Stamp set : Everything More; Papers : Authentique Wishes

My last card is made using Alyssa Bennett's set Hello Little One.

 

How cute is this set!!!  Totally adorable.  I don't know anyone with small kids so I used the image for a birthday card.

Stamp set : Hello Little One; Papers & Stickers - Authentique Wishes

Hope you like the cards.  Now, you have to continue to Rachel's blog because I'm absolutely sure you are going to love what she has to share. 

Lastly, a little note :

LEAVE a comment on my BLOG Post and you have a CHANCE to WIN a GRAB BAG of 20 STAMPS from Unity! :)  Winners will be picked and ANNOUNCED on the Unity Blog and FACEBOOK PAGE on Tuesday Morning!

Thank you for visiting me.  Have a great day, and enjoy the hop!
Kary

Let It Snow...

Happy Friday!  So glad it's the end of the week once more, because it's time to pull out my Unity cards and hop around with my Unity Friends with Flair!!

Today, I have a Christmas card to share.  Although it's super hot over here, I just couldn't resist this wintery image.  It brings to mind the fun holidays I've had and the Christmas period spent in the Northern Hemisphere.

I love all the Phyllis Harris Brandy and Emma stamps, and this one is especially sweet.  You can find the stamp set here.

Be sure to check out the Brown Thursday sale at the Unity store too!

Keeping my post really short so we all can start hopping to see what our friends have created.

Have a great weekend!
Kary

12 Weeks of Christmas Tutorial with Inspired Stamps

Welcome to this week's Christmas Tutorial with Inspired Stamps!  Since I love Copics so much, I thought I'd share with you a little about Copic markers and colouring.  I'm certainly no expert but just some tips from my own experience.  I never knew I love colouring so much till I bought my first set of Copic Markers.

When I first decided to try Copics, I had such a tough time deciding what to buy.  I must have read a hundred tips before I took the plunge.  Basically, the following are the Copic markers colours : [B- Blue] [BG- Blue Green] [BV- Blue Violet] [G- Green] [YG- Yellow Green] [Y- Yellow] [YR- Yellow Red] [R- Red] [RV- Red Violet] [V- Violet] [E- Earth] [C- Cool Gray] [N- Neutral Gray] [T- Toner Gray] [W- Warm Gray].  I buy mostly the Sketch markers, and the colours and numbers are labeled on the tip of the caps.  If you would like to know more about the Copics colour chart and family, please click here.

I thought I'd show you my Copics collection :)  I have collected over 200+ markers and store them in jars so I can easily move them around or pick some colours that I want to use - I colour while watching the tv most days.

After buying so many markers, I must say I only use the few that I really like, and it is too excessive to own so many markers :)

Here are some of my favourites, and this would be my recommendation to those who would like to start with Copics.

These greens are my favourite, I love some of the YG combination as well

These are my favourite pinks - the little Ciao in the photo is RV10

These are my favourites for backgrounds and skies

My favourite blue range - great for colouring jeans

I love the R30 series (I use them all the time) and also the R80's

I love so many of the E series but these are my favourites, the 2 Ciao markers are E93 & #95.

I'll share some step by step photos how I coloured the new HLO: Angel - which I absolutely love.  My favourite skin colours are E13, E01 and E50. I like to start with the darkest shade first, and then blending it with the lighter shades.

Here, I just added E13 to the angel, just on the forehead, neck and hands as shown

Then I blended E13 with a E01 the next lighter marker

Using E50, I picked up the pink R20 and coloured the cheeks

Then, I used E50 to blend everything, adding a little of E01 for areas where I need a little more shadowing

For hair, I used E99, E23 and E21. 

Add E99 as shown

Add E23 and extend the strokes a little further

Add E21 and blend the colours

Blend a little more with E50, and colour his mouth with R20.  Then I added some BG10 to his wings

Added BG10, BG000 and the Colourless blender to the wings and his tunic and shoes. I added BG02 to the corners of his eyes.

The little Angel

 Using a sharp pointed scissors, the image is cut out, and ready to be used on the card.

 

And, here is the finished card.  I hope you find the step-by-step instructions helpful, and if you have any questions, please email or leave me a comment and I'll try my best to answer them.  I'm not an expert in Copics, I learnt how to use the markers mainly from watching videos of manga artists in action :)

Thank you for visiting me.  Have a great day!
Kary

No Footprint Too Small...

How was your week?  Hope it was good!  It's Friday again, and I'm so glad for Unity FWF.

Today's card was made for my dear friend from Singapore, who visited me last week.  She had just lost her mum the same week she was due to fly out to Perth.  I felt her pain and loss.  I'm just so glad she was able to come for a time of rest and a holiday.  I hope our short time together eased her grief a little - we laughed, cried, talked, listened and ate so much!  I suppose this is the true essence of a wonderful friendship.

This is yet another of Phyllis Harris' stamp set - Too Beautiful for Earth.  I never thought I'd ever use it, for a card, but I'm so glad I had the set.  It's a beautiful image, and so fitting to remind us that each of our lives has meaning, and purpose and hope.

I wanted lots of white space in the card, and kept it really simple.  It's a small piece of my heart for my dear friend.

Thank you for visiting me.  I hope to visit your blog and can't wait to be so inspired with your creativity!

Have a lovely weekend!
Kary