Scallops for Christmas ...

 Do not open 'till Dec 25 ...

 "Winter post" and "Season of Joy" stampsets with old olive and pear pizazz on Almost artichoke cardstock and the petals-a-plenty Embossing folder.

 Real Red this time and the Ornament punch is sponged with Frost white shimmmer paint.

 What about these colours: Old olive and Marina mist with the Delightful Decorations set.

Another favourite colour combination: Rich Razzleberry, Concord Crush and Marina Mist.

 Whats your favourite?

The Baby Wipe technique For the Season of Joy

I made all the above cards using the "Baby wipe technique".
Baby wipes (or wet ones for those who don't have children running around the house) are usually somewhere in every bodies home or car...
                   So why use them in your crafting?

Why not?

You will need :a few wet ones or baby wipes (any brand).

A reinker or two or three.

A saucer, plastic plate or lid.

Whisper white cardstock (to stamp on).

And a solid image stamp.

The Season of Joy tree was perfect as it is fairly solid rubber surface.

All you need to do is:

1. Put 1-2 folded baby wipes on the plastic plate or lid.

2. Add 5 or 6 drops of reinker on to the baby wipe, in each colour.

Hint: choose colours that blend well together, if they don't you might get a brown muddy colour, so blues and greens, blue, reds and purple are good together.

3. Stamp your solid rubber stamp onto your baby wipe "ink-pad" a couple of times and stamp the image onto your white cardstock.

 I think I like this one above best as it shows the Rose Red and Perfect Plum really nicely, and the baja breeze is just a hint in the spaces.

I was also experimenting with my Dasher stamp. I have used just dashers antlers to create a swirled background behind the tree and also on the oval scallop punch behind the sentiments.
The Square lattice embossing folder has been sponged in both Baja Breeze and Marina Mist.

Card Recipe:

Stampsets - Season of Joy, Dasher, Teeny Tiny sentiments.

Inks and reinkers - Rose Red, Perfect Plum, Baja breeze.

Cardstock - Rose red, baja breeze, whisper white, Marina Mist.

Punches: Word window, Scallop oval.

Tools: Big shot, Square lattice embossing folder.

Baby wipes, plastic plate/lid.

Season of Joy Medallion

I've combined three stampsets on this card: the medallion, Season of Joy and Heard from the Heart.

The technique used is "rock and roll".

I like it because you can use two colours to get depth and variation in both images.

 I like also how the tree shape and the medallion have the same shapes and dots repeated.
I have only used two ink colours: Pear pizazz and Old olive Classic ink.

 And then for some bling and sparkle I have added a few stick on Rhinestone jewels on the tree.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Season of Joy, Medallion, Heard from the Heart.

Cardstock: Whisper white, Early Espresso

Ink: Pear Pizazz, Old Olive.

Accessories: Sharp scissors, Clear Rhinestone Jewels, dimensionals.

Dasher in the Christmas tree forest

Old stampset meets new ... Here is my Season of Joy Christmas trees on a new card fold.
And behind the trees stands "Dasher" a single a la carte stamp (from the last page of the caty).
I like how his antlers refect the swirls on the Christmas trees.

I folded this piece of rich razzleberry cardstock into four zig zag panels (two mountain folds)
then decorated it with cut out trees, a sentiment: Merry Christmas and placed Dasher on the back panel.

Here it is from above showing the piece of tafetta ribbon glued across the card and tied in a bow.
Enjoy!

Old Olive Season of Joy with snow swirls

Christmas is fast approaching ... which means we only have another week to share our Christmas card creations. This one combines Season of Joy with the gorgous snow swirled set.

Here you can see I have first stamped the old olive card with the snow flakes from the snow swirled set then placed a sheet of acetate (aka clear transparency) on top holding it in place with four silver brads.

The bow is Old olive wide grosgrain tied and placed on the transparency with a few mini glue dots. And the oval scallop is also stuck down with the glue dots. They wont come off the transparency I've tried.

Clear "window sheets" as they are also known are a bit tricky to photograph ... too much reflection. So I have taken this one outside into the shade, propped up on one of my very dry and tired out cacti plants. I think it's flowering as a last attempt at survival in this cruel hot weather.

Products used to make this card:

Stampsets: Snow swirled, Season of Joy.

Cardstock: Old Olive, clear window sheets (acetate), whisper white.

Ink: Cotton white stazon, Old olive Classic ink.

Accessories: silver brads, oval scallop punch, Old olive wide grosgrain ribbon,

Mini glue dots.
Enjoy...

Season of Joy and a square scallop!

Just a quick Christmas card today ... I will be at Stampin' Up's Regional training Session today down at Darling Harbour! Learning some new techniques and sharing a whole lot of new ideas with other demonstrators. If you want to come with me to the next one, let me know ... it is a fun and exciting day. (Well it was last year when I was a just signing up as a demo).
I'll be gathering up a bunch of new cardmaking and scrapbooking ideas to share with you over the coming weeks. You will see what we make at the mini caty launch next month.

What you need to make this card:
Stampset: Season of Joy ($51.95) Punches three (free hostess gift)

Cardstock: Old Olive, Riding hood red whisper white.

Designer series paper: Ski slope

Tools: gold embossing powder, heat tool, square scallop punch.

The Season of Joy with old olive and Riding hood red

Gold embossing and Christmas trees.... I love this little tree and I have gone for the traditional olive green and riding hood red with the ski slope designer series paper. Sometimes a patterned paper is nice but perhaps doesn't look that exciting, so I like to dress it up a bit and why not with a bit of gold? This stampset also comes with a text block - I have used just the merry and bright words for my sentiment.

Inked just the words I wanted with the edge of the VersaMark ink pad. Stamped it, embossed it with gold powder and applied the heat.

Comes out all raised and shiny - love that.What you need to make this card:

Stampset: Season of Joy ($51.95)
Cardstock: Old Olive, Riding hood red.
Designer series paper: Ski slope
Tools: gold embossing powder, heat tool.

Season of Joy with a kiwi kiss

What do you think of silver, chocolate chip and kiwi kiss on Christmas baubles? I have been playing with the idea of masking to make christmas baubles out of my square Season of Joy stamps - this is my first attempt.I cut out a large circle from scrap paper and then stamp Versamark ink through the centre of the circle. Take the scrap paper away to reveal a circle of stamped words ... fa la la la la, la la la la.

Dust liberally with silver embossing powder and heat it with my heat gun - instant silver baubles!

What do you think? I want to play with red cards and gold embossing ... I think that might look more impressive. Dont you love how I show you the cards that almost work ?

What you need to make a masked christmas bauble:

Stampsets: Season of Joy, Punches Three.

Cardstock: Kiwi kiss, chocolate chip, silver metalic.

Ink: Versamark, chocolate chip marker.

2 large/medium circle punches.

Silver embossing powder

Heat tool

Kiwi kiss tafetta ribbon

square scallop punch

Dimensional adhesive dots

A piece of scrap paper

Season of Joy in September...

A very merry Christmas to you ... yes, it IS time to start thinking about Christmas cards. Will you have enough hand made cards to post by November? I'm planning to start now.
Wish you started yesterday? - this is the one I started with.. Easy and quick, just white embossing on a single layer card.
Want to make a stack of these ????
Book a stamp a stack party - ask me how it works... we can make 6 cards in two designs for $12. What you need to make this card:
Cardstock: Pacific Point (buy a pack of 24 mixed colours for $10.50)
Ink: VersaMark ink pad ($13.95)
White embossing powder ($8.95)
Heat tool ($49.95)
Stampsets:
"Season of Joy" ($51.95 set of 8 stamps)
"Best yet" hostess gift stampset

Thank you flower.

I have tried something different experimenting with punches on this card to make a folded flower.

It is a folding technique that is featured in the demonstrator's Impression magezine this month.

If you have the Tag punch you have to have a go at this, or if you are interested how it is done just ask me to show you how.

The Thank you card is made using:

Stampset: Circle of friendship (Used for the centre of the flower).

Ink: Old Olive. Cardstock: Taken with Teal, Pomegranate, whisper white.

Designer Series double sided paper: Bali Breeze.

Ribbon: Old Olive wide grosgrain.
Accessories: Tag Punch, 1 1/4 " Circle Punch, scallop-edge punch.

Elegant Season of Joy!

We only have one week left of the Spring Mini Catalogue, and thirty two days until Christmas, and 20 school days before the holidays , so I am posting a few of my favourite cards that you can make quickly and easily for Christmas.

I love elegant eggplant and silver, this one isn't even embossed, just flat silver ink using the Baroque motif swirl.

The Christmas tree and swirly dots are from Season of Joy stampset .... and it has the "hand stamped" star on the back (that you can't see).

The very merry sentiment is from short and sweet. The ribbon is SU elegant eggplant grosgrain and the edges of the confetti white cardstock are distressed and matted onto always artichoke.

This would look very nice with Old olive cardstock too ;) .

Pomegranate and artichoke Season

These are the colours of my Christmas ... nice traditional deep artichoke green and rich pomegranate Red, silver and white.

I wanted to use the rich silky pomegranate ribbon in a different way and had the idea of knotting it through a jumbo eyelet ... with silver embossing and swirls. Perhaps its a little more industrial than your usual christmas bauble on a string. Now that I look at it that ribbon looks more like a fish tail caught in a port hole!

The flowers and sentiment are from the "Season of Joy" stampset and the silver embossed swirls from Baroque motifs.

'Tis the Season to go green gloriously ...

I said I'd do it but I dont like it ...

When the old olive cardstock ran out I decided to experiment with my most unloved green:

Green galore - eek!!

So with a lot of help from my friends I have made A CARD with THAT colour and I probably wont venture there again... Like all extreme activities - one must conquer one's fears by embracing them. But fortunately once you have done it you dont have to keep going back for more.

Stamp set is the not so Christmassy "Scribble This" and "Season of Joy" for the words.

The Ink used is Silver. And a little bit of green gasping galore on the tip of my aquapainter to give the flower some depth. The red cardstock is - u guessed it : Real red!

If you really do like this colour I challenge you to show us some good ones!

Gold Season of Joy!

Its bold, its shiny, its embossed and I haven't posted this card yet, so here it is!

As the Old olive cardstock is available again, I can safely say give this card a go.

The background snowflake is from the "short and sweet" stampset and is stamped in old olive ink. The Christmas tree is inked with versamark and embossed with gold embossing powder on cream cardstock and the same with the "Season of Joy" swirls on the strip at the bottom.

The edges of the cream have been swiped across the old olive inkpad to give a smudged green edge.

The tree is matted with Pomegranate cardstock and the ribbon is pomegranate stitched ribbon.

At the top I have punched the slit punch to hold a gold brad (and later I also added a piece of gold cord as a bow). But I added that after the photos were taken so you will just have to imagine just how good it looked.

Very Merry masked bauble gift card holder.

A Bit of an odd title but that is the readers digest description for this card.

I haven't made a christmas bauble card yet so this is my attempt.

Cardstock used is: Always artichoke and Very vanilla.

Ink: Almost amethyst, Elegant eggplant, Perfect plum, Rose Red (inside).

Ribbon: Elegant eggplant

When closed the ribbon bow keeps the card shut by overlapping the scalloped edge (which I have made with the corner rounder with the guard removed). The bauble was masked by punching out a 2" (that's 5 cm) circle from a piece of scrap paper. Then sponged with almost amethyst ink, then perfect plum and with the mask still in place the swirls from "Season of Joy" stampset were placed over the sponging. I swiped my amethyst ink pad around the vanilla cardstock to soften the edges.

This piece of cardstock is adhered to the front panel of the artichoke and folded back in, out of sight. When you open the card you can see the stamped greeting Merry Christmas (this is where you could write your own message) and ...

when you open it up further you can see the gift card envelope stamped with the "short and sweet" very merry stamp and Merry christmas on the folded envelope (I have used the love notes envelope).

You could use it to hold a gift card, or cash, or voucher, or tickets.

I have a little thing for flippy flap fold out type cards at the moment. I will show you another one later.

Embossing JOY!!!!

This week I have officially given up my day job (for twelve months) to look after my daughter and fullfill all of the more important roles in my life. Like being a volunteer at my daughter's school for reading and in the community as a breastfeeding counsellor ...

And in my spare time I am going to make a few cards and scrapbook and drink cups of tea and coffee with my friends ... sounds like a good deal?
I thought so.

Enough chat! This is a beautiful card I made with a friend on the weekend.
We cased a card but made it in different colours - it was fairly quick and easy as far as embossing cards go and used the "season of joy" stampset. The other stampset is "Scribble this" (for the embossed swirls).

The cardstock is Purely pomegranate, Very Vanilla and Always Artichoke.
Ink: Versamark. With Gold embossing powder for the scribbled swirls.
Love how this gold just makes the card look so rich and warm.


Going on to the next step: same design, same stamps different cardstock combination.
Is Merry Christmas from Season of Joy stamped in purely pomegranate ink on white cardstock. Matted on chocolate chip and purely pomegranate cardstock and, "Scribble this" swirls were stamped and embossed over the 3 layers.

I wouldn't have thought of using pomegranate and chocolate chip together, especially for a christmas card but sometimes the colours just come together of their own accord ... I think our original inspiration was Bravo burgundy ... I think pomegranate is much better.

Swing card in the Season of Joy

Always wanted to make a swing card ? There are lots of templates for it on the net.

Here is the front of the card - half open.

And below is the card fully open - the panel swings open to show a second image on the back. Accurate cutting and scoring are important so I did a sample template first.

I have used: Purely pomegranate and confetti white cardstock.

Ink: Always artichoke, purely pomegranate, and versamark.

I have used a strip of DS Holiday Harmony paper to strengthen the spine of the card and cover up some not so perfect background stamping :) and then embossed Silver powder for the swirls and Merry Christmas stamped over the "Season of Joy" trees. Here is the card layed out flat showing the artichoke christmas tree forest.

I embossed the snow flakes on whisper white cardstock and then sponged them with pomegranate ink. Punched them out with the 1" and 1 1/4" circle punches and raised them up with dimensional adhesives.

Stamping Bookmarks

On Tuesday night I had an evening in with some girlfriends ... several cups of tea, chocolate biscuits ... I got home a bit late and am still suffering the effects of sleep deprivation.
The other ladies made multiple christmas cards - hmmm I just made one.
Oh, and this very handy bookmark in black and white.
Now I know I picked this idea up from several websites - the bookmark and tab on a string. There are many different varieties out there. So, If it's yours please just leave me a comment and I will give credit where credit's due.

I think the bookmarks make excellent small gifts that you could put in with your christmas cards ... then there is that wonderful perforated card with the detachable bookmark that I will be experimenting with very soon! Not to mention a triangular corner page bookmark.
As you may have guessed I read a lot (on the train to work) and so bookmarks are an essential accessory for me, mostly I have used tickets and receipts and scraps of paper to mark my place, so this will be so much nicer ... to have a decorative and stamped bit of cardstock within the pages of your book.

Stampset: Be Happy. Ink: White craft. Cardstock: Black

This is the christmas card I made. Season of joy christmas tree and Holiday Harmony DS paper. I used my brand new tab punch to cut out the tabs on the right side and the large oval punch for the Very merry greeting with a silver brad and a wrap of organza ribbon on the left (for balance).

It is quite simple,very little stamping although perhaps it needs a swirl on the confetti white cardstock ... oh and the cardstock used is always artichoke - the new green in cardmaking especially since the old olive is on back order this month!!!

Lovely as a tree with joy

I do love stampsets you can use for a number of occasions and lend themselves to different styles. Lovely as a tree is just one set.

I have seen it brayered into sunsets, sunrises, snow covered landscapes ...

in blue and green, grey and black, well here it is in rose red and dazzling diamonds glitter to make it sparkle perhaps it is dew on the pine needles, I am thinking of a hot sauna, with cold winter chills outside, difficult in our spring weather ...I know.

So the cardstock is rose red and wild wasabi and confetti white.

The back ground is stamped using (you guessed it) the "season of joy" snowflakes.

Be merry is from the "warm words" stampset and punched out with the large oval punch.

Ribbon is real red grosgrain and wild wasabi striped grosgrain.

The ribbon glide is from the styled silver hodgepodge and I have put 2 way glue and dazzling diamonds in the groove ... it doesn't quite look like a star ... but it could be.