MY HEART IS YOURS

This is a card I made for the other half ... for no other reason than ... just because!

you can't tell from the photo but the whole of the background is highlighted using a Sakura Stardust pen.Her lips and nails were also coloured with red Sakura.
The picture is decoupaged with the box having the most layers so that it stood out proud which was then embellished with gems.

The red card reflected the red of the box.

Vince X

ANGEL CARDS

These are 5 cards I made for "Hobby Habbit" using Sandra Kuck Angel Stamps available here

I really enjoyed using them as they seemed to me to be much sturdier than most of our other acrylic stamps they gave a good clean image too.

The cards were all coloured with water colours and watered down Sakura pens.

Vince X

ORIENTAL EMBOSSED CARD

Oriental card using a freebie stamp from Craft Stamper

I stamped the image and painted it using Cherry and yellow H20 Mica pigments, rubbed Blue chalks around the image and backed it with Gold mirror.

I then stamped Japanese text on blood red card using a Gold ink pad and embossed with clear embossing powder to give the card some texture. ( I dabbed slightly on the edge of the inked stamp to take off some ink so that the image faded into the red background) I then over stamped the text with a large flower image twice and backed the whole thing on Gold mirror card.

The card was finished by adding a few Black stickers on and around a circle of Gold mirror card.

Vince X

8"X8" COLLAGE

I went through our "scrap Drawer" yesterday and decided I should try to use up some of the smaller bits of paper.
I cut the scraps into 2" pieces backed each with Black card and played around with some of our stamps using mostly "Vintage Ladies" and "Silhouettes & Shadows" stamps by Hot Off The Press.
I laid the stamped images out and arranged them 'till I was pleased with the layout
then attached them to an 8"X8" piece of Black card using foam pads to lift every other image, this give the whole thing a two dimensional feel.

I think this would make great piece of wall art if I frame it, or else I'll have to invest in some 8"X8" cards and envelopes. ;0)
Vince X

ORIENTAL COLLAGE

I thought I'd have a go at a collage as I've never tried before, as the first set of stamps that came to hand was a Oriental set - so be it ;0)
The background paper was white card rubbed over with ink pads then stamped over with various stamps, the main image was embossed with clear powder.
The coin on the ribbon would have gone better on the right but it covered the stamped fan image.
I enjoyed trying something new and think I'll have another go at it soon.

Vince X

I had a small strip of blue paper in our "scrap drawer" which I had left over from another project (I'm an terrible paper hoarder) which I tore and pasted across a beige lightly patterned 6"X4" card with rounded edges.

Using Charcoal Grey from Sakura's Dark Metallic range I drew along the ragged edge and flicked out branches as I went along.

The "Oriental" birds (by Habico) were stamped with a Black ink pad then I filled in the outline with Black Sakura to make the birds seem in silhouette.

I needed to add another colour and found a few Blue faux gem flowers which I applied after fixing a yellow gem to the center of each.
The card still seemed a bit too "bright" so I blacked around the outside with a Black ink Pad and stamped a sentiment on the bottom left.

I quite like the effect of the silhouetted birds, I think I'll have a look through our other stamps to see if I can do the same to them.

JUMP FOR JOY

I had an idea for a card that went south ... so here are the drawings as a thank you to all you lovely people who visit my blog.

I'm no great artist but I enjoy sketching occasionally, I draw in my drawing pad with pencil (usually while watching tv at the same time) scan it into my computer and "clean it up" using a REALLY old software.

If you can make a card from these I take my hat off to you !

You can either click the picture above for JPG or the link below for the PDF.
DOWNLOAD PDF FILE "Jump for joy" HERE

ONE 12" SHEET = FOUR CARDS.

I set myself a challenge !

I HATE wasting beautiful paper so I cut a 12" sheet of DoveCraft "Victorian Christmas" into four 7"X5" pieces and set about using the pieces to make 4 cards.

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Card 1 -

I first scuffed around the edges of the card with a Brown ink pad, mounted the picture on Beige card cut with decorative scissors and edged it with Brown ink.

A strip of paper which I had left over from card 3 was cut with decorative scissors and also edge inked with Brown.

The snowflakes and sentiment were die cut I lightly dabbed the sentiment with blue and beige ink pads as it was too white.

The snowflakes, picture and sentiment were applied with foam pads.

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Card 2 -
Again I first edged the card with a Brown ink pad, then after stamping "Merry Christmas" on a strip of white card I used re-positionable glue to adhere some small die cut snowflakes.

I rubbed over the whole thing with chalks trying to match it to the paper as best as possible.

I peeled off the die cuts and gently rubbed over the whole thing to blur the effect.

I then backed the strip with a slightly larger piece of Gold mirror card and cut with decorative scissors ( I seem to use these scissors a lot) and topped it off with small "Gold" gems.

The 3 Gingerbread men brads were each pushed through a punched Gold square of mirror card and then pushed into position on the card (1" apart)

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Card 3 -
I measured half way down the card then cut it across horizontally, then measured 1" down from the top of the card and cut again.

(the waste center part of this card went to on make the "strip" on card 1)

A piece of 5"X7" clear acetate was glued inside to the 1" top part of the card using double sided tape.

I then adhered the bottom part of the card onto the front of the acetate using double sided tape.

(you could just use a small strip of acetate inside the card I suppose but I thought that using a whole sheet would stabilise the card more.)

With our new "Crocodile Chomper" I rounded off the card edges. this cut through the acetate and card like a knife through butter!

Now I had a 7"X1 1/2" window to fill ...

I decided to use the same "Merry Christmas" stamp as on card 2 as this filled the area perfectly.

I made 2 small marks with soft pencil on the right inside edge of the card and drew faint lines horizontally across the inside of the card this gave me the position of the window and made positioning the "Merry Christmas" stamp much easier I erased the pencil marks afterwards.

I used thin silver peels offs on the top and bottom edges of the window to cover the "raw" edges.

The 5 girls picture was first applied to white card to make them sturdier then cut out and adhered with thick foam pads.

I wanted snowflakes on this card too but didn't like white ones as they stood out too much, so I rubbed over a piece of White Glitter card with a sponge and different coloured ink pads and then die cut the ink stained Glitter card with the Cuttlebug snow flakes die.

These were also applied with foam pads with some overlapping onto the window.

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Card 4 -

The corners were first rounded off then inked with a Blue ink pad.

On this card I used a quote cut from "Christmas card quotes" by Hot Off The Press.

Using chalks I rubbed around the quote trying not to get too much chalk on the letters.

Using a clear "Stardust" Sakura pen I drew round the "Christmas Greetings" message to make it pop a bit more, cut the whole thing into a rectangle and punched the corners with a decorative corner punch.

I matted this using Gold Mirror card and rounded off the edges.

The sentiment was then added to the card with foam pads.

I glued a length of Blue ribbon to the card using double sided tape and made a bow with more of the same ribbon wrapping a Gold brad around it before adhering it to the card with sticky dots.

3 Gold mirror card die cut snowflakes glued to the bottom right of the card finished it off.

(The Blue ribbon is not as bright as it appears in this photo)

Hhhmmm ! I still have a 2"X2" piece of paper left over !

I'll put that in my "scraps drawer" for another project.

Brown Bunny Swirl

5"X5" Cream and brown "Bunny" birthday card.

The "Bunny" is from one of "The Angel Company" stamps, I coloured him with shades of Brown water colours then cut him out.

I rounded the corners of the card then inked it with a Brown ink pad, cut out three 3"X1" rectangles, a 2"X2" and a 1"X1" square and rounded of the corners on these too, after inking them all I embossed the rectangles using Cuttlebug's "Swirl" embossing folder and inked the pattern over with the same Brown ink pad.

The 2"X2" was stamped with a swirl stamp and topped with the "Bunny" using foam pads.

I stamped ""Birthday Wishes" on the small square then spaced the panels out around the card using foam pads, I then made some small circles using an eyelet puncher from some thick Orangey Brown card and glued the punched circles around the swirls (these matched the "Bunnys" trousers perfectly)

There was a gap to the right of the "bunny" which I wanted to fill by using brads, I had Brown brads but I no Orangey Brown ones so I glued 2 small punched Eyelet circles back to back and used "Glossy Accents" to give them a bit of dimension, when glued to the card they looked and felt exactly like brads.