Monday, May 24, 2010

Play date cafe - take 2

Hey there!! Hope you are having a great Monday, I was busy experimenting with my flower cling stamp and I am super excited to share with you a really cool card! I think my mojo is finally back:-) yay!

This card fits perfectly with this weeks Play date cafe challenge, so I thought I should submit two entries this time:-) Don't you just love this colour mix?

There is still time if you want to play, this is the link:
http://theplaydatecafe.blogspot.com/




I used Hero arts Large flower cling stamp and stamped it thrice onto white card stock in black ink. Used Tattered rose and Mustard Distress ink and coloured it in using my sponge.I cut apart the petals and fluffed it up a bit. Layered the flower and added Prima pearls to the center. Used a strip of My Mind Eye green Lush paper to break up the white on the card, and stamped my sentiment! Pretty straight forward:-)




All stamps used are by Hero arts.
Hope you liked this card, and try layering your flower stamps, it gives it a whole new look..
I love hearing your comments, so feel free to leave some:-)

Hugs,Michelle.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Play date cafe challenge

So before I get to the card, just wanted to set something straight, last week when I made the 'fab 4' on Play date cafe, in all my excitement I had posted the wrong badge on my side bar!!
Lucky I noticed it before someone could point it out:-) I hope nobody noticed it, and if you did, so sorry about the misleading badge, it was an honest mistake :-)

That said, lets get down to the challenge this week. Lucky there was pink in it!! I love pink on my cards, so girly and fresh:-)



This week I wanted to break open a new stamp I bought, its the Hero arts cling stamp 'flower plate'. It had a great distressed border .



I added a few roses that I made from regular weight paper, I saw a tutorial how to make these at Clips and Cuts- Vicky's blog:-) I love the card she made with the roses:
http://www.clips-n-cuts.com/2010/05/weekend-video-happy-mothers-day/

I didn't want mine as perfect, so I 'shabbied' it up a bit! used my tweezers and bent the petals to look like roses normally are. I distressed the edges of the layers to match my shabby roses too.

I also made a tiny tag which I hand cut and distressed with Tattered rose distress ink.

I used the same green ink I used to colour my flower plate after clear embossing to make the matching leaves for my roses.




I added a zig-zag running stitch on my ribbon to make the ruffles in it to get some texture, and voila! My card:-)

Supplies used:

Hero arts stamps: Flower plate cling stamp, Valentines sayings clear set, La Lettre stamp
Distress ink: Tattered rose,Mustard seed
SEI chalk ink in Moss
Memento ink in Rich Cocoa
Swiss dots card stock in white
Bo bunny dot paper in yellow. ( I used the reverse side:-))
White gel pen



Monday, May 17, 2010

EBTKS challenge

Hope you have been having a great Monday so far, nothing like a card to shoo away the Monday blues:-) Why dont you play along with the EBTKS challenge.. Love their sketches.

Here is the link- http://ebtkschallenge.blogspot.com/2010/05/ebtks-challenge-15.html



This is what I came up with!

I used one of the mini Hero arts stamp sets. It's called Bugs and Kisses:-) how cute are the stamps in that set? and talk about value for money!

I used Copics for the colouring, gave the Kisses a bit of shading to make it look dimensional.




Supplies used,
Stamps by Hero arts ( Bugs and Kisses)
Memento Tuxedo Black ink
Red and white Card Stock
Copics
If you have any comments about this card and/or questions, please dont hesitate:-)
Hugs!

What's going on:-)

OK, now that every ones been wondering when the giveaway is due, well I am yet to receive the goodies that will be included..
But just to keep it exciting and to give you a bit of the details of how you could enter and maximise your chance of winning I thought I should post this.

What's up for grabs?
Three Hero Arts Clear stamps sets, yes you heard right, 'three'. Ones a sentiment stamp and the other two are 'Fun cute' stamps (just to keep you guessing!)
Loads of ribbon (you will get one meter each of about 18-20 ribbons.) If my package arrives in time, there will be some yummy cabbage rose ribbon too..
A pack of Prima flowers
A set of cards and something specially created for you by me:-)
There are also a few more embellishments too, but why give out all the info right?

So hopefully the giveaway will happen in about two weeks time, and you can enter by leaving a comment on that post or by posting about the giveaway on your blog and pasting the link on the comment. So you have two chances to win, in order to play along you don't have to be a follower, but it would be cool if you were :-)

Anyways, enough teasing for now, hope to see you around my blog soon:-)

Friday, May 14, 2010

Lime green, Leaf green, very pale blue!! PDCC 29


Its time for another Play date cafe challenge, and its a super fab mix of colours:-) If you have never played along then now's the time!

I am super excited to share this card with you 'cos this is the very first time I am using this stamp, it's absolutely gorgeous! Love everything about it really, the fact its so large is even better:-)

This card was meant to be a uni-sex birthday card since the colours were rather gender neutral, but before we get going let me warn you it's not as simple as it looks, takes quite a bit of masking and colouring to get this one done, but what's the point if it's not a challenge huh?


Ok now for the details,
I first masked about a .5cm around the card with my masking tape, yes, I found a new use for it, better than using removable adhesive and masking! then I stamped the flower heavy to the left side of the card, inked it several times and stamped on the the plain white area around the flower to fill gaps.

Then I stamped another flower on a scrap of Card stock and cut out a circle with my circle cutter. Then I used the scrap to mask around the circle where it would be on the card and lightly drew around it so that I knew where the coloured parts would be.

Coloured the flowers with my Copics, I used leaf green for the centre of the flower and lime green for the lines that run through the petals. The circled area I left blank. Then I coloured the other circle piece of the flower which would later be mounted on the colourful flower with grey inks. I used several shades to give it depth. Masked the outer circle again and smudged it with Black Soot distress ink ( I wanted to create a halo effect), then cut out the grey portion of the flower and adhered it with dimensional adhesive.
To get the outer blue border, I masked it again this time creating an unmasked border around the card and filled it in with my blue Copic marker. Lastly I gave a little outline around the card with a black fine nib felt tip pen, Viola!



Supplies list:

Large flower stamp by Hero Arts
Copics
Masking tape
Martha Stewart circle cutting system

And if you have any questions about making this card, please drop a comment:-)

Have a fab weekend guys!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Great day! stay tuned for a fab giveaway!!

Its lovely when you log in to see that your work is appreciated and acknowledged! I found that I made into the top five at EBTKS challenge for envelopes and the Colour challenge at Play date cafe today:-) all the other winners were fabulous!

So thrilled! now my biggest hurdle is figuring out how to post the badges on my blog, so if you could help I would be so happy and appreciate it so much!

Love Michelle.

P.S- There will be a fab giveaway soon, I promise, you wouldn't want to miss this one!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

'Happy Birthday' set of cards

Hi, I am here to share with you a pretty set of birthday cards I have been working on, my motivation behind this set was to use some Hero Arts Birthday stamp sets.
Now these stamp sets have a load of tiny birthday elements that are great for making small gift sets of cards. They are versatile and can be mixed and matched, but I kept it pretty much clean and simple:-)

I used my favourite paper from October Afternoons Fly a kite collection which I got two days ago for this.. Since the cards were only 4x4 I still have loads left over from that sheet!!





Here is a look at the individual cards, all of them have some decorative stitching :-)
I added a fun little party hat to make it more interesting:-)


The gifts on the bottom have been popped up to give the correct dimension of a stack of gifts..


Supplies list:
Hero Arts stamps sets- Birthday messages and Celebrate all
October afternoon paper collection- Fly a Kite Mini paper pad
Distress ink- Mustard and Tea dye
Memento ink- Tuxedo black and Rich Cocoa
Adhesive- Tombow mono adhesive runner, Scotch dimensional tape
Coloured with Copics

Hope you enjoyed this set, I sure enjoyed making them:-)
And if you have any comments or questions about these cards, I'd love to hear them!


Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Play date cafe challenge : take two

Another submission for the Play Date Cafe challenge this week, love the colour combo so I just couldn't help myself!

I made the focal point a huge Inkadinkado sunflower, love that its detailed and the petals gave lots of room for manipulating it:-) Since the challenge colours were pink grey white and black, I thought I should colour the sunflower in pink!! It looked very pretty in pink. My Copic shading came out really well this time, (If I say so myself:-) he he)..




I took my chance and used the fab Washi tape again ( if you need to know where it can be purchased feel free to ask me would be more than happy to help) and used the black and white stripes this time. I made a border with it to frame the card to help the sentiment stand out.

I used my Prima stamps and stamped the music notes, then used Black soot Distress ink and shaded the corner where the flower would sit. I adhered the flower and stamped additional butterflies and bees, again by Prima.

I lastly stamped the sentiment in grey, this is a Heidi Swapp stamp set.. Its the best alphabet stamp that I own. love love love the mixed letters.. Its the same set I used for my Venice layout for NSD.


Anyways,
Hope you enjoyed my card, and hope you have a fabulous day!

Congratulations



I wanted to make a card to enter the play date cafe challenge so this is what I came up with, I love my Hero arts dandelion stamp, so I put it to good use here:-)

I stamped three flowers in Versamark and clear embossed, then I used Tattered rose distress ink and went over the images liberally. I love the pink its so soft and pretty!



I then cut out three 1.5 inch squares and mounted it on grey Bo Bunny dots paper
(I used the reverse side which was plain grey card stock), I then stamped a letter stamp in London Fog Memento ink after masking it diagonally. I then stamped the sentiment in Charcoal Colorbox ink and adhered the three squares on to the card.

Happy Tuesday!!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Sending you sunshine and laughter on your birthday

Here's a pretty card that I am super excited to share with you:-) Love love love this butterfly Digital stamps set by Hero Arts. . This is for the everything but the kitchen sink challenge, at http://www.ebtkschallenge.blogspot.com/ . It was to make a card incorporating an envelope into the design.


I made a small white envelope first and stamped the inside with my trusty script stamp. then I printed out my butterflies and coloured them, used Copics to colour in the little envelopes and added a little heart seal at the back of each one.



I also used my new Washi tape to adhere the little envelope to the card ( those stripy little strips), the top flap I used dimensional adhesive so that it sticks out of the card like a natural envelope would, however mine seems to be lost in the photograph!!


Supplies list:

Hero arts stamps: Flutterbies digi kit, La Lettre, Everyday Saying set
Flowers and pearl by Prima
Basic grey Kioshi Paper in orange and Kraft.
Memento Ink in Tuxedo Black and Desert sand
Washi Tape


Happy stamping everyone!!

Three Cheers for Chairs Challenge at Moxie Fab World

Very creative challenge at http://www.moxiefabworld.com/ , This is what I came up with:-) Head over there and give it a go and trust me its fun!

I am such a sucker for challenges, so I 'challenged' myself to make a card for my dad hopefully.. he he I thought it would be better without a sentiment, I guess I can write 'Better with Age' inside the card...

Not one of my best creations but I loved the Jenni Bowlin button I finally got to use on it:-) I did like the final outcome though,..



Supplies:

Paper by Basic Grey Kioshi

Button by Jenni Bowlin
Black Satin Ribbon
Bazzill Blue cardstock
La Lettre stamp by Hero Arts
Gold Colorbox ink


Thanks for dropping by..

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Thinking of you

Been a bit down on inspiration after NSD, I guess creativity was drained due to over use! Anyways made a card last night after trying out various layouts and finally came through:-) Hope you like!

I used an older collection for this card, not sure if its still available. Love the colours, they are so saffrony:-)




Here's a view of the detail,



Supplies are:
My Mind Eye Andria Victoria Collection
Birdcage stamp, 'Everyday Sayings', and 'La Lettre' script stamp by Hero Arts
Tea Dye distress ink
Gold Colorbox ink
Memento Tuxedo black ink.
Happy stamping!!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

One more NSD layout

Before I get into my post I have to say that I have no idea where that yellow tinge came into my paper.. This is from My Minds Eye and it isn't really this yellow.. hmmm

Anyways back to the post, this was done for a challenge at Two Peas, it was about creating a page with memorabilia,.. So I used this museum ticket I had from our trip to Greece. I tend to collect lots of bits and bobs from my travels even coasters from cafes!!! They add a great personal touch to layouts and makes it more interesting than just photos.

I used quite an eclectic mix of embellishments, some from Pink Paislee, some from Basic grey etc... I also used my trusty La Lettre stamp AGAIN!! cant seem to put it down! so versatile:-)





I added a bit of distressing under the photgraphs to add some colour and also to add a mystical smoky look, cool huh?




Supplies used:
My Minds Eye Life stories paper.
Pink Paislee rub ons and punch out die cuts- both from Bayberry cottage collections.
Broken China and Black soot distress ink by Ranger.
La Lettre stamp by Hero Arts.
White Chocolate Chip letters by Basic Grey.
Thanks for dropping by!!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Coffee anyone?

As promised I am posting the other projects I made for NSD today, I was so tired after the busy weekend I just had to take a breather before I posted anything else:-)

This card set was done using the Basic Greys Lime Rickey collection and also a random paper from Sugar Rush, the stamp sets are by Hero arts.

This is one of the most fun stamp sets I have come across, I love that you can make several different cards with one stamp set because there are so many images to choose from.

The images were stamped on patterned paper and cut out.The icing on the donuts were coloured with a white gel pen, and the little flowers on the cup was coloured in with Copics.




Hope you enjoyed the cards,

Also let me know what you got up to during NSD with the links to your gallery, would love to go check them out!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Santorini - Greece

This layout is all about using only card stock, its not easy I can tell you that! ha ha
Using a bit of stamping you could make this quite pretty and a fun layout to make. I chose this pretty cafe which I had tonnes to journal about.



The heading was all cut by hand, I used core'dinations card stock so that when I distress it, another colour shows through. In this case its blue..

I made the pretty pinwheel with blue card stock and a handmade card stock button., all journalling spots are stamped on card stock and cut out.









Hope you liked my layout! really tired after crafting this week:-)
Supplies used:
Hero arts Ledger Cling stamp
Basic grey mini 'very grateful' stamp (the little hearts that are stamped at the bottom of the round journalling spot)
Technique Tuesday 'Today' stamp and 'Everyday words'
Maya road ticket stamp
Kelly Panacci Damask stamp
Core'dinations card stock
Kraft Card stock
Martha Stewart Circle cutter
Black Bazzill cardstock

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Venice in one page

I did some serious scrap booking during this weekend, I have more cards also that I entered for challenges which I will post later, but for now here is a layout that I did for 'stamping on a page' challenge. Since I promised before, that I would do a page which does not include my dogs, here it is, Its our honeymoon in Italy..




I used the Hero arts Cling dots and the La Lettre stamp for this page. It gave the most amazing vintage feel to it.. I stamped the dots with Versamark and embossed in gold.
I used Pink Paislee- Queen Bee for this layout, seems to be my 'go to' paper this week!! The title was made by stamping with a Heidi Swapp set I bought from Etsy. I used Olive ink by Colourbox for this.


Flowers are cut out from Queen bee paper, I have also inked the corners with Tea Dye Distress ink.



Can you see the faint lettering that overlaps the dots? Isn't it gorgeous? I wiped off the stamp before I stamped so that some areas would be missing.. gives a lovely aged look.




Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great NSD!


Lush cards

This is a set of cards was made using the Lush range paper by My Minds Eye.. They come up with such great collections don't you think? I used only two sheets of this collection, they are double sided so that means there are four patterns to choose from.

I used there different sized to make it interesting. I also broke out a pack of Prima flowers that I was finding a excuse to use.. I generally don't use flowers on my cards:-) guess I will have to start now!

All the sentiments are from the Hero arts 'Everyday Sayings' stamp set, if you are wondering which sentiment stamp sets to buy, this would be it. I love it!!





I used a little green yellow button on the flower and also added a cute cream scallop punched strip to enhance this simple design,

This one was pretty simple, I love these flowers stamps by Prima. So pretty when they are embossed,..


For this card I used the Martha Stewart Circle cutter, I used a piece of vellum behind it before I stuck on the flowers. A little glue dot holds it in place.
I added pearls to make it look a little bit more refined.


Supplies used,
My Minds Eye Lush Line paper
Everyday sayings sentiment stamp set
Prima Stamp set: Song bird
Prima Flowers (E line)
Pearls
Scallop sentiment border punch by Fiskars
White embossing powder
Versamark ink
Memento ink
Uniball signo white gel pen