Enjoy .....

Your retirement!

 

 

 

My friend Mandy & her husband have decided to retire and I thought the occasion worthy of a card!  They ran Blue Edge Crafts for 23 years and I have been a customer for at least 20+ years.  We became friends over that time.  Apart from our love of papercrafts, we also shared an interest in quilting although, I confess, I haven't touched my sewing machine of late.  

 

I am a member of a Facebook Group, World of Creative Crafty Challenges and this month, I was asked to be a Guest Designer by Kerry, who is also a friend I made through Blue Edge Crafts :)  Knowing I wanted a retirement card, an idea was brewing ....... I knew I wanted something fun and light hearted.

 

Some NBUS .....I have had the Car & Road (unbranded) dies for quite a while now - I got them for some children's cards but never got around to using them.  The same with the stamp set 'Islandia' from Creative PL - I have had it for so long, I can't remember where I or when I got it.  The packaging says it was made for Aldi Stores, so that makes me think I got it on one of my trips to an Op Shop, as I haven't ever been to an Aldi Store.

 

The background sky was blended using Distress Inks in 2 different blues, the sun & palm trees were stamped directly onto cardbase.  Inspiration Station Challenge inspired me to use Orange for the sun.  The Road was cut twice out of grey, then the green layer was cut and strategically placed.  

 

All of the small die cut items were cut from left-over scraps (SNIPPETS) which shows that it is good to never throw away your off-cuts!

Sentiment 'enjoy' from Honey Bee 'Bitty Buzz Words' die cut & layered, then placed on front of card with foam dots.

The car was cut out of Blue cardstock 3 times and layered together.  Blue is Mandy's favourite colour!  Wheels were cut from Black 3 times & layered together, with a gel pen detail in silver for hub caps.  

I love this little car...  My first car was a 1960 VW Beetle 💗 and I love the way this card turned out!

 

Linking With the following challenges: 

 

Time Out #241
Cut it Up Challenge #281
Shopping Our Stash SOS499
Inspiration Station #50
NBUS #51
Snippets Playground #457
 

ITEMS USED

Stamps/Dies:  Creative PL 'Islandia', Honey Bee Bitty Buzzwords, Car & Road Border Dies (Unbranded)

Inks: Distress Inks, Memento Tuxedo Black

Tools:  Cuttlebug, Blending Brushes

And one more photo to finish off :)

Here we are in 2014 at our QLD Craft Mad retreat
Front Row:  Mandy, Jan, Kerry
Back Row:  Me, Therese, Ruth, Kaye, Tracey

Our Craft Mad retreat in QLD was the highlight of my year
and I loved every minute of it!

Thank you for visiting my blog today - I hope you have a good day.

Remember, any day doing something you love makes it a good day ;-)

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

Happy Easter

I felt like doing some foiling and Copic colouring today.

 

 

I love this 'easter tree' digi stamp from LOTV - my Sister-in-law has an 'easter egg tree' ornament that she puts on display each year - so that is who I am going to give this card to.

 

I printed digi stamp and the sentiment 'Happy Easter' using a font called 'Tinker Toy' with the Laser Printer. The sentiment was foiled in Gold and the digi stamp was foiled in Green.

 

I then coloured the image with some lovely pastel shades using my Copic Markers.

 

 

The cardfront was trimmed down to fit on a DL sized cardbase, and a final touch of bling added.

 

I really like the simplicity of this one - nice and easy to put in the mail too!

 

I have been inspired by quite a few challenges for this card.  

 

The As You Like It challenge asks us to nominate what is our fave - People or Animals.  I think it has to be Animals .... hands down!  They are such fun to colour in!

Several other challenges have Easter as the theme and these have influenced my colour choices.

   

 

Linking With the following challenges:

Inspired by #231 - Eggs

Sweet Stampin - Easter

As You Like It - People or Animals

Double D Challenges - Easter

Just Add Ink - #646 - Photo inspiration

ITEMS USED

Stamps/Dies:  LOTV Digi Stamp 'easter tree'

Inks:  Copic Markers

Tools: Laser Printer, Mini Minc, fancy rotary blade/cutting matt

Thank you for visiting my blog today - I hope you have a good day.

Remember, any day doing something you love makes it a good day ;-)

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

Happy Birthday - Pop Art Style

Hi everyone

I have another swap card for you today with another technique which has been inspired by a video from Natasha Foote 

Inkadinkado Cupcake stamp was stamped using Black Staz On onto four different scraps of patterned paper and then fussy cut.  Four squares were die cut, then mounted onto front of card with 3d foam.  Hand drawn crooked black borders added to squares.  Centre square die cut & stamp with 'Happy Birthday' from Stampin' Up Voila set.

Square Cardstock & patterned papers from Blue Edge Crafts. 

Quite a different card for me, but I think I like it  LOL

linking with:

Addicted to Stamps - #428 birthdays

Thank you for visiting my blog today - I hope you have a good day.
Remember, any day doing something you love makes it a good day ;-)

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

A Touch of Red

Here are 2 cards from my recent swaps with my Card Swap Group - A Touch of Red and an Open Swap.

I didn't read the brief correctly for the 'A Touch of Red' and made just a 'Red & White' card   DOH!

But then I realised that it would be OK, as I could use it for the 'Open Theme' swap - winner winner!

So here are my cards.

CARD #1

White cardfront embossed with Provo Craft 'birthday' folder (one of the first embossing folders I got when I bought the Cuttlebug back in 2008!)  'happy' & 'birthday' sponged red to highlight.  Balloon die cut 3 times from red cardstock, layered then attached to cardfront.  Red gems to finish off, then cardfront mounted to Red Leathergrain card base.

CARD #2

White cardfront, run through Cuttlebug with Spellbinders M-bossabilities folder ES-014.  'hello' die cut 3 times from red cardstock & layered and added to cardfront.  Gem brad used to attached red paper flower, then cardfront mounted to white cardbase.

Linking with:

CARD#2 - Perfectly CAS: #25 - Die Cuts

CARD#1 - Make the Cards Challenge: #50 - Embossing Folder

Stay safe everyone!  Tell your family & friends you love them!

Best Wishes

Hi everyone

back again with another card.  I have been bitten by the 'new technique' bug and have been concentrating on using my stamps & dies that I have recently purchased .... and not packing them away so that they become NBUS (never before used schtuff) :)  

I have been watching a few videos on YouTube ...... and I came across one from Natasha Foote on embossing vellum, so I thought I would give it a try.  In Natasha's video, this technique is used for a feature flower, but I have used it for just a one layer background.

First up, I ran vellum through the Cuttlebug using the Stylised flowers embossing folder, and swiped all the raised bits with VersaMark Embossing Ink, then heat embossed with Gold embossing powder.   To attach the vellum without any noticeable 'sticky tape', I used some 'jac paper' (double sided sticky) to mount the vellum to the cardbase.

I stamped 'best wishes' from 'Miss You Big Time' and diecut 3 layers, added a 'bling' flower centre to one flower, then gave the topper a thin black edge.   I didn't like the thin black line, so I made it wider and took it all the way to the edge.

There was a little bit of gold embossing overflow/smudges, but I am reasonably happy with the card, so I think I will have another try at this technique ........... stay tuned for 'take II'

Cheers for now!

Linking this card with:

Happy Little Stampers - Anything goes with dies