I made a very quick and easy card today, featuring the Botanical Butterflies Designer Series Paper.
The papers are only available until the end of March as part of SaleaBration.
The butterfly on my card has been cut out from the papers, but of course you could stamp a butterfly and then colour it. I wanted to keep it quick and easy.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
I found a fabulous tutorial on making these gorgeous little Milk Carton Boxes yesterday. The tutorial is by Sam Hammond Donald, and you can find the link to the video tutorial here.
Definitely check that one out, Sam does some amazing tutorials. Thanks Sam.
So, here is my version…..
I have used the gorgeous Balmy Blue cardstock and then stamped butterflies from Butterfy Gala stamp set and some flowers from the Happy Birthday stamp set, also in Balmy Blue. And finished it off with a tiny peg that I had in my stash.
So cute.
They are just the right size to fill up with some chocolates, or some little Easter Eggs…. Hmmmmm…… Easter Eggs.
I may have to make another one of these for Easter inspiration 🙂
Happy Stamping!
Chris
I have used one of Stampin’ Up!s Decorative Masks to create the background for my card today. These are such a simple but effective tool which would also be fantastic for using on scrapbook pages, art journal pages, and a heap of other things.
Something else I will be experimenting with, they are so easy to use, and it makes it super easy to create a quick background.
So I have gone with some yummy Grapefruit Grove cardstock for my main colour, and sponged….. Flirty Flamingo ink through the Decorative Mask.
Yes you read that right. You could, of course, use Grapefruit Grove ink and that would work too, but right now I don’t have Grapefruit Grove ink 🙂 and I liked the depth that the Flirty Flamingo ink added over the base colour.
Add some strips of off cuts and left over pieces of patterned paper and cardstock, and some white Baker’s Twine, and that’s a really quick and easy card.
The ends of both white off cuts have been punched using the Classic Label Punch, (another super versatile piece of equipment!) and the words are from Butterfly Gala stamp set.
Inspiration for my card came from the current Sketch Challenge at Just Add Ink.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you will know that I LOVE a sketch challenge 🙂
Happy Stamping!
Chris
My box of new Stampin Up! goodies arrived yesterday so I have had a heap of fun playing with some of them today.
Being a butterfly lover, I absolutely loved the Butterfly Gala stamp set from the Occasions catalogue as soon as I saw it. And it’s fantastic that it has a matching punch, although mine is on back order (guess it has been pretty popular!) so I had to cut the butterflies out by hand today.
I have used the gorgeous Gingham Gala Designer Series Papers, and some retired doilies that I still have from a few years ago. The butterflies have been coloured using a Blender Pen and some gorgeous new ink colours, Balmy Blue, Highland Heather and Flirty Flamingo (they are new to me).
I think my favourite is Highland Heather, how about you?
It’s been so good to get back into some stamping and creating, and the ideas are starting to flow too quickly to keep up with.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
I just can’t believe that this wonderful, versatile stamp set is still in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalogue. It was one of the first stamp sets I got when I first joined back in 2008, and it’s still there now.
Well, I had this stamped image, from Lovely As A Tree, and some really, really old papers and cardstock, so I have put something together, just because I am frustrated that I don’t have my new goodies yet.
Such a gorgeous stamp set.
I may have to reinvest in that one.
Yes, I got rid of pretty much all of my stamps and heaps of my tools, so I am starting almost from scratch again.
So I have no idea which set this DSP paper came from.
And in the true spirit of getting back into stamping and cardmaking, I am going to add my card to some challenges.
Firstly, Cardz 4 Guyz has a Clean and Simple Challenge happening.
And also The Male Room is going Green. My card only has a little bit of green but never mind.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
It’s been almost 12 months since I last posted and certainly at least that long since I did any serious crafting.
I am excited though, I missed you all so much, I have missed crafting and blogging and sharing my work with you. Most of all I have missed creating with friends.
And so, I am back and I am once again a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator.
Yay!!!!!
So stay tuned because I promise to bring you some newly crafted cards made with my brand new goodies – once my big brown box arrives!
In the meantime, happy stamping!
Chris
I am going to be taking a complete break from blogging and from most of my crafting over the next few months, probably even six months, and possibly permanently.
Life is once again going in a different direction and I am not enjoying crafting the way I used to.
I was considering closing my blog down completely but I will keep it here for now and may occasionally share some of my colouring, but otherwise I will be taking a break.
Happy stamping,
Chris
Just a quick post today to share a card I made yesterday.
I am using up bits and pieces that I have, and the butterfly embossed background is one that was lying around waiting to be used.
I hope you are having a crafty day.
Happy stamping!
Chris
This fortnight at The Male Room, your challenge is to make something Symmetrical.
I have used a cool Kaszazz stamp for this one…..
it comes from the set called Hand Drawn Borders, and I have used the awesome Precision Press to line my stamps up, and so it ended up being a really quick and easy card to make.
Come on over to The Male Room, we would love to see your symmetrical projects.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
xx
It has been a long two weeks since my previous post, and one that has certainly been challenging and a little overwhelming.
Firstly, however, I will mention this week’s challenge at The Male Room.
This one would normally excite me a lot, and I would have had so much fun with it, but with everything else going on, I have had very little time to craft. I love playing with watercolour techniques!!
So here is my very quick card…….
I started off with some watercolour paper which I spritzed with water. Then I collected a couple of leaves from the garden – it is Autumn here in Australia and the leaves are starting to fall from the trees.
Then I used some Distress Oxide inks, in Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick, and splodged (technical term) some ink straight from the ink pad onto a craft mat, and then spritzed it with water. I then took my leaf and used it as a stamp, collected some random colour onto the leaf and pressed it onto the paper. I did this three times, allowing it to dry in between. Then I outlined the shape of the leaves using a Black Dylusions Paint Pen.
Once I had completed my leaf “stamping”, I couldn’t decide whether it looked more like leaves, or like fire. Which brings me to the reason for my challenging and overwhelming couple of weeks.
We live in a beautiful part of Australia, but as with most of Australia, bushfires are always a threat. Ten days ago, a bushfire started not far from where we live. Fortunately for us, the incredibly strong winds pushed the fire in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, that direction was straight towards our favourite beachside town, one we spend a lot of time in, which is only 15 minutes drive away. 70 homes in Tathra were destroyed, along with so much more.
We are feeling incredibly grateful that we still have our home and that no lives were lost in the fires. Still, we are small and close-knit community and the devastation is heartbreaking. The pictures don’t really show how much devastation there is.
Our favourite beach is still just as good though, we spent the day there yesterday. It was amazing to see all along the shore line, burnt, black leaves off the eucalyptus trees. They must have been blown out during the fire storm and now the ocean is washing them back up onto the beach.
It’s going to be a long and difficult clean up and recovery.
I have made my card this week a “Thank you” card, in honour of the brave firefighters who saved so many houses and lives and fought the bushfires for days on end in extreme heat and wind.
That’s all from me for today. I will try to get more creative this week and share some more projects with you. In the meantime,
Happy stamping,
Chris
xx
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