Monster Mash

I've been having a very enjoyable afternoon playing with my new Dylusion inks and stamps.  I thought I'd start with 'Uncle Fester', this is probably not his name but he is very reminiscent of The Adam's Family character.  I also thought it was time to start playing in my Dylusion journal as up until today I had only done one double page at a class at Pages 2 Scrap.

The style of the page was also the sketch outline in this week's Stampotique Designers Challenge.  I started by spritzing colour on the right side page, closing it up to create a mirror of colour, before adding the brick wall and the stars.  The stars are a combination of Calypso Teal and After Midnight, moving the stencil just a smidgen and spritzing with White Linen which gives a lovely opaque look.  White Linen was spritzed through an alphabet stencil across the wall as well.

The dragonflies are painted with Bubblegum Pink and Fester's coat is the luscious Cherry Pie.  His boots are also Calypso Teal and a combination of Cut Grass and Dirty Martini fill up the beaker.  I'm really intrigued by how the White Linen comes through the Cherry Pie even though the white was spritzed first.

The little black stars are from SU and the "one of a kind" is from the new Tim Holtz collection "Simple Sayings".

Happy crafting!

Birthday goodies for ......

As a follow-up to my last post, now that my BFF has received her birthday present, I can show you her card and craft goodies.

I decided to give her a selection of japanese papers each with a sheet of co-ordinating cardstock, a variety of five sticker sheets in both gold and silver, two packs of bling and a brown paper journal, which comes as a blank canvas waiting to be decorated and used.   After wrapping the present, I tied two lengths of ribbon around it, just a little something extra to add to the gift!

While I was going through my craft drawers the other day, I came across a sheet of "Flippin' Women" and thought it would be just right for my BFF's birthday.  It depicts a messy craft room as the background, with front and back images of the lady in the foreground.  So with a bit of fussy cutting and layering, soon the crafty lady was ready to be layered onto a piece of acetate.

The card size is cut to fit the picture, with an aperture cut from the front, another piece of card is cut to create a border, and the acetate is sandwiched between the two layers.  Then the crafty lady image is attached to both the front and back of the acetate, lining up the images neatly.

I stamped a greeting on the bottom front using SU "Heard from the Heart", and added Happy Birthday to the top inside with room to write a message on the bottom.

This was a nice easy card to put together with a touch of humour, and I know she won't get two cards the same.  I must say though, that the messy craft room image is more akin to what my room would look like (if I had one), than what my friend's room looks like!

Happy crafting!

Masculine Cards

At last, the delivery we've been waiting for, finally arrived at Alice in Paperland on Monday.  Lots of goodies were in the boxes, including the new Dylusion Inks, Tim Holtz' Blueprint stamp sets, Graphic 45 Secret Garden and French Country collections, as well as restocking our shelves with other bits and pieces.

I was going to have a play with my new inks yesterday, but housework beckoned and my 'playtime' didn't happen.  However, I did go through some craft drawers and after clearing them out, now have two empty drawers just waiting to be filled (that won't take long, believe me)!

Today I was having a play with a new card design, which seemed to take ages, but with a bit of tweaking, should work reasonably well.  I also needed a card for my BFF whose birthday is tomorrow, and since I'll be seeing her later in the day, I needed a present for her too.  I'll post a photo of her card and present tomorrow, just in case she happens to read today's post.

In the meantime, I made these cards a couple of weeks ago as samples for the shop and the 'Alicemobile'.  Last year Alice started a mobile service taking craft goodies and cardstock etc to retirement villages and craft groups that aren't very mobile and can't get to the shop.   Sometimes she takes one of the teachers to demonstrate cards, and takes a number of samples along as well for inspiration.  This mobile service is really starting to take off and is very welcome among the mostly elderly groups she visits.

Masculine cards are sometimes hard to make, but this paper makes it easy.  One side has different sporting images and the other has co-ordinating stripes.  Add a sentiment sticker and it's ready to pop in the mail.  (I've gone blank on the company that makes these papers, so when the brain cells recover, I'll let you know.)

The next couple of days are going to be busy, so I probably won't get too much crafting done :-( , however, I'm hoping to have more time on the weekend.

Happy crafting!

Raindrops keep fallin' ........

I thought I'd play along with the Stampotique Designers Challenge this week, the theme being "song title" or something similar.

The tag started out, and finished, as a mop-up, firstly with green and blue Dylusion inks followed by wild honey Distress Stain.

With the song title in my head, the perfect stamp would have to be "relaxin' " from Stampotique.  She was stamped on vanilla card, coloured with Distress Markers, and fussy cut before being layed on the tag to get the placement of the words correct.

The words are inked up in black Archival Ink, and to add to the theme, I put a strip of music washi tape under her feet to ground her before she was popped up on dimensionals.

To finish the tag I added a 'ribbon' made from washi tape and doubled over before threading through the hole.  Thanks to Tim Holtz for sharing that tip on youtube!

Happy crafting!

Flip Flap Brag Book

Flip Flap Brag Book, whoever came up with that name?  Yep, you guessed it, it was me, obviously when the gray brain cells were in neutral.  However, this was yesterday's class at Alice in Paperland and the ladies quite enjoyed the idea of making a handbag size brag book.  I can't take credit for the design as I found it while browsing for inspiration on Splitcoaststampers. 

It is quite an economical project to make, using four 12" x 12" sheets of cardstock and one 12" x 12" sheet of Kaisercraft "Bundle of Joy" collection "stork".

All the edges are inked with vintage photo Distress Ink just for added definition, including the edges of the flower petals.  The outside of the flaps each have a pocket for an additional photo or journalling.

The inside flaps are for a photo and journalling tag, but you could add extra pockets and have little secret messages in each one - ideal for a child to take out and look at.

The flower is made using the cuttlebug and Tim Holtz' "Tattered Florals" die cut.  Each petal is gently curved up and a pearl brad in the central ensures they all stay together.  The flower is adhered to the belly band by a sticky dot.

This is a fun little project and can be made using other papers and colours for a completely different look.

Happy crafting!

Vintage Masculine cards

Yesterday I once again headed up to the central coast to teach a Vintage Masculine card class.  Leaving myself plenty of time, including stopping for petrol, I left home at 8.40am expecting to arrive around 10am.  Silly me - there was a 4km traffic jam stretching south from Mt White due to an earlier accident, so crawling one car length every few minutes meant that I arrived for my 10.30am class at 11am - grrrrrr!!   Thank goodness for mobile phones.  The ladies were patiently waiting for my arrival and had already cut the card sizes and were enjoying cups of coffee.  AND it was another rather wet day!

We were using Tim Holtz' "Warehouse District" stamps and different colours of Distress Inks.  Once the backgrounds were inked up, a quick spritz with water followed by paper towel mop-up, and the aging process is looking good.  I'm quite intriqued by how Distress Inks react with water, if you haven't tried it out, give it a go and see for yourself.

The 'ticket' was inked, spritzed and scrunched before opening out for a battered look.  The plane is popped up on dimensionals over the top.

The blue strip across the panel is a piece of tissue tape which has been scrunched and pleated and inked up.  The compass has been placed over the top using a brad to secure it in place.  A little bit of tearing on the panel completes the aged look.

In this card, the distressed tag is cut by hand from scrap.  The ribbon tie is another piece of tissue tape, coloured and poked through a punched hole.  I was watching Tim Holtz on youtube a couple of weeks back and he had been using tissue tape like this and I thought "what a great idea".  It's a little bit stiff as it's doubled over, but it looks great, it doesn't fray and it stays in place.  Thanks Tim!

The trip home was uneventful and I got back in just over an hour.  Glad I don't have to do this drive every day.  Many do, including my older brother who quite often shares the driving with others who live nearby.

Happy crafting!
 

I am .....

"I am .... perfect just the way I am"   Don't you just love the quote stamps from Dylusions?  They are such fun although at the moment I only own one set of quotes, so I think I might need to remedy that soon as I know there is a new set out and they will be so useful on both cards and journalling.

The Stampotique challenge last week was "text"  so I got creating using "Gibi" as my focal point having first stamped her onto some text paper from Kaisercraft.  At first I decided to go with a natural look and highlight just her shirt, but somehow it didn't look right, so I ended up colouring her completely using Dylusion inks.   I then popped her up on dimensionals. 

The tag was first spritzed with water before puddles of colour were added.  The second tag was used to mop up the excess ink and will be used for another project.

Unfortunately I ended up being too late to enter this challenge ...... oh well, I had lots of fun playing and am happy with how the finished tag looks.  The next challenge is "triangles" so perhaps I'll play along with this instead.

It's a very wet day in Sydney today, perfect crafting weather.

Happy crafting!