Sunday, April 25, 2010

Stampin Up - Upsy Daisy #3


Stampin Up - Upsy Daisy #2



Well I've officially had the most stressful week ever on a number of different levels. Thank goodness it was a long weekend. Today was the first chance to bring out the ink so I've had a lovely crafty day after a long walk along the beach with the dogs in tow.

Another work mate asked me to make a birthday card so I pulled out one of my favourite sets (Stampin Up Upsy Daisy) and let the creative juices flow. The main colour is SU Riding Hood Red & SU Going Grey was used for the shadow. The butterfly (from SU Butterfly Prints) is SU Kiwi Kiss - again one of my favourite colours & I can't stop using SU Kiwi Kiss atm. I rolled a little piece of ribbon for the butterfly body just to add a little more detail.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Iris Folding - Strawberries, Fish, Bumble Bee, Teddy, Baby carriage








This technique is called 'Iris Folding' and is what originally got me into card making. It's very easy but looks incredibly difficult, is extremely cost effective and a great way of using all those little bits of paper that normally hit the bin.

Males cards - Stampin Up Voila


Saturday, April 17, 2010

Wedding Tri-Shutter card - "Feathers & Birds"





I was recently commissioned by a workmate to make a wedding card for her daughter. The brief provided was: black and white, birds in cages & feathers. After me wondering if I was going to be able to come up with a remotely half decent wedding card with that rather unusal brief, this side step card was born.

Thankfully I had just received my free 'Sale-a-bration Happy Moments' stamp set with the bird in a cage. Phew! The card with the blue feathers was my 1st prototype to run by my customer to ensure I was on the right track. At that stage I only had blue feathers.

She was wrapped so the only change made was to add her daughters and new son in laws name to the front. Even I was happy with the result.

Faux Technique - Stampin Up Sense of Time






Another card using the faux technique and Stampin Up Sense of Time stamp set.

Memory Game with Decorated Box





I made this memory game for my niece who turned '3' recently. The square pieces are made from chipboard which I painted black around the edges. I stamped and watercoloured 2 of each image onto SU Whisper White card and glued onto the chipboard squares. On the back I glued a striped coloured designer paper. I bought the box from a discount shop and decorated it using various bits-n-pieces. I was going to type up some instructions and glue these into the lid but time got away from me and that didn't eventuate.

Just in case it's not clear ... you turn all the images right side down, and take turns with a friend to flip over 2 squares, trying to match up the images which you then remove from the game. You successfully get a pair and you get another turn. Whoever ends up with the most pairs at the end...WINS! Was lots of fun to make and my over 40 year old partner and I had fun testing it out!!

Punch art Sesame Street

This is one of my favourite cards which I made for my niece, (although it's also very appropriate as a boys card). She was able to name all the characters with no prompting so that was proof enough for me it was a close second to the original Sesame Street characters.

Although you can't see, Big Birds beak sticks out and a little red card, using the SU Oval (Small) punch, creates his tongue.

It was created entirely using punches, SU Scallop Circle, SU Circle (Large), standard hole punch for the black eyes, SU Circle (small) for the white eyes and Elmo's nose and SU Oval (small) punches, and I had a balloon punch which I used for Cookie mosters mouth. I used this instead of the SU circle punch as I wanted it a bit smaller to fit the cookie in. Very cool hey!?! I love it.

Faux Technique



This is another card using the 'Faux Technique'. The only difference to the instructions provided for the 'Grandfather clock' is that prior to scrunching, I coloured the rose in using various marker pens. Make sure you have a scrap piece of paper underneathe as the colours bleed through the very thin tissue paper. This also takes quite a while to dry so I left overnight. I did have a blue bow at the top, but going by the blob of glue remaining - it's safe to say the glue didn't adhere!

Faux Technique - Grandfather clock



Howdy all on this glorious Sunday. Thought I'd share my latest favourite technique - Faux Technique. It's so easy yet gives a totally new look to stamps and cards.



I'm really proud of this Grandfather Clock as it's my own original design. Although the technique was easy, this entire card was fiddly, but it's a great male card which I'm sure we all agree are the most difficult cards to design.



Faux technique: Using black Stazon I stamped the clock from SU Sense of Time stamp set onto the shiney side of white tissue paper. The clock workings from SU Sense of Time were randomly stamped using SU Creamy Caramel. Leave to dry for about 5 mins. Then scrunch the tissue paper into a tight ball, carefully flatten out, and rescrunch again. This creates the crinkly effect. Very gently flatten out the tissue paper into a rough circle. Don't over flatten as the lumps and bumps are critical to creating the overall effect.




Prepare a square of white card by cutting out slightly bigger than the original clock stamp image. Cover the entire card in glue stick. Don't worry too much about the smaller clumps of glue as these add to the effect. Lay the tissue paper image right side down onto a piece of scrap paper to collect excess glue. Then lay the card glue side down over the tissue paper image. Using your fingers, very gently rub the entire card to ensure the tissue paper had adhered. If you rub too hard the tissue paper will be too flat on the card. Leave to dry for at least half an hour. I made 4-5 at a time to ensure I had spares for next time. I hate waiting for things to dry!!




Cut around the outside clock face and put the rest of the grandfather clock card together. I used SU Curly Label and Small Oval punches to create the shape. The top detail was punched using a standard hole punch. I used lots of layers and raised using SU Dimensionals to give a 3D effect. My crafty sister suggested using actual clock hands to give it a 'Wow' factor. I didn't have any but it's a great suggestion nonetheless.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Choc block slider & card

Using the Stampin Up Baroque Motifs stamp set, I made some of these Choc Block sliders for presents. This one pictured was a thank you for another Stampin Up Demonstrator and new friend, Kristee, but I made more as Christmas presents for my work colleagues. I CASEd the idea from the very talented and inspirational Charmaine Black.

I made a matching card to go with it using the Stampin Up Curly Label stamp and punch. All you do is pull up the ribbon and out slides your chocolate.

I used a general light pink inkpad (similar to SU's Pink Pirouette), a general light bluey/grey ink pad, and coordinating papers from Spotlight. The flower and circle was punched using SU's circle & scallop punch and I also used some flower punches I use all the time just to finish it off. In the middle of the flower is used a pearl bling! Cute huh?

Stampin Up Upsy Daisy

At last weekends crafty ladies catch up, we were lucky enough to have our Stampin Up Demonstrator, Charmaine Black join us to teach us some new techniques. I absolutely love Stampin Ups Upsy Daisy stamp set and had just made a similar card for my Mum's 60th. Knowing I was catching up with the lovely ladies, and thinking they would love the colour combo too, I made a special card for each of my crafty friends. I challenged myself to use exactly the same products/colours for all 4 cards, making each slightly different. Thankfully they loved them as much as I did!
Products used: I used the Stampin Up Upsy Daisy stamp set, SU designer papers and marker pens using SU Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze and Pacific Point as my main colours.

Welcome!

Hello fellow bloggers. Being new to blogging, please be patient with me while I work out what I'm doing (or supposed to be doing). I'm not a Stampin Up demonstrator but have recently had the privilege of going to a few Stampin Up workshops ... and am now totally addicted!

I love looking at other peoples work for inspiration as there are soooo many talented crafty people out there. I've been encouraged to share some of my 'CASED' work, so here I am. Please feel free to share any comments. Happy stampin!