Spring!!

Posted in Cards, Flowers by

Hmmm, well no, it’s not spring here in Australia, although the weather has been lovely and warm and sunny, so I guess it has been spring-like, and there are still plenty of flowers in the garden!
“Spring” is the theme for the new challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges – “We should like to see your projects inspired by ‘Spring’, by the celebration of the passing of winter and the coming of new life and all of those wonderful plans you are making for springtime.”
I have made two cards for this week’s inspiration:

This card uses the cute digital image from Bugaboo, along with some pretty papers from my stash.

And my second card uses some of the beautiful papers from the Painted Blooms Designer Series Papers, combined with the sentiment from Butterfly Basics and some small butterflies stamped and punched, makes for a really quick but pretty card.  The papers are just so gorgeous, I really didn’t want to cut them up.

Make sure you check out the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team, and please share with us your Spring projects.
Happy stamping!
Chris

Birthday Dragon

Posted in Cards, Masculine by

A quick post today to share with you a card I made for my lovely husband’s birthday.

The gorgeous digital image is called Emerald Dragon and comes from Sweet Pea Stamps.  I have coloured the dragon with Copic markers and kept the card quite simple so that the dragon is the main focus.  Definitely my preference to keep the card clean and simple when it comes to the more complex images.
Happy stamping!
Chris

Paper Roses

Posted in 3D by

When the Spiral Flower Die came out in the latest Annual Stampin’ Up! catalogue, it was one of the things right near the top of my list of “must haves”!  I have to admit, however, that it hasn’t had as much of a work out as it should have, until now.  I thought I would make up for it!
Continuing on with the current Crafty Boots Challenge theme of “Anything But A Card”, I have created a centrepiece using rather a lot of Spiral Flower Die roses! This could be used as a table centrepiece or a decorative piece in the home, or alternatively would be lovely for a wedding or special occasion.

I have used a lovely candle holder that was in the cupboard and definitely not getting enough use either, and stuck a foam ball into the top of it with some sticky strip.  Then I have cut heaps of flowers, sponged the edges and rolled them to create different sized roses, and glued them on to the foam ball using a hot glue gun.  And really, that’s all there is to it.  I needed something a little monotonous to do while I was watching a great game of World Cup cricket, and it fit the bill nicely – something I could easily do while watching TV. 🙂
Make sure you head on over to the Crafty Boots Challenge website to see all the rest of the inspiration for this challenge from the rest of the Design Team.
Happy stamping!
Chris

Australian Outback

Posted in Cards, Masculine by

If you live in Australia, you will be used to seeing these around the country side, even now, many of them rusted and no longer working, but some still going strong.  They are a bit of an Australian icon. So when I found the Australian Outback Collection of Digital images from Make It Crafty, I just had to get them, they are just wonderful for making Masculine cards and all sorts of other projects as well.

WindmillCard
My card today is made for the Clean and Simple Design Team call with Make It Crafty.
I have sized the windmill image to around 6 x 13cm and coloured it using the following Copic markers: W6, W4, W2 and E18.  Here is a close up of the colouring:

WindmillDetail

I have then layered the coloured image onto a piece of Stampin’ Up! Basic Grey cardstock, and also made the card base from the same colour.  The layer of patterned paper comes from the Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper Stack (also Stampin’ Up!) and the sentiment comes from one of my all time favourite Stampin’ Up! stamp sets, Wetlands.  Cut a flag into one end of the sentiment strip and a couple of Candy dots at the other end, then adhere with dimensional tape, and it’s done! Simple! And Clean 🙂

cas-dt-call-side-banner

Happy Stamping!
Chris

Another Masculine Card

Posted in Cards, Masculine by

I really enjoyed making the card in my previous post, using this great sketch from the current challenge at The Male Room.

I liked the sketch so much that I thought I would make a second card, this time using a completely different colour combination.

All of the patterned papers are now retired, unfortunately, I love these colours together!  And I had some fun putting together some different shapes and geometrical patterns.  There are so many different things I can think of to do with this sketch…..  but not enough hours in the day to make all of them!

Hope you are having a crafty weekend.
Happy stamping!
Chris

A Sketch Challenge

Posted in Cards, Masculine by

Another masculine card today, this time based on a sketch for the challenge at The Male Room.

I have used some paper from the Typeset Speciality Series papers for the background of this card, with images stamped from The Open Sea stamp set.  I’ve added some linen thread and some of my favourite paper piercing, and the circles and squares have all been cut using Framelits dies, which makes it quite a quick and easy card!

Happy Stamping!
Chris

Moon Lake Sympathy Card

Posted in Cards, Masculine, Sympathy by

In my previous post I promised to show you the card that I made which matched the gift cards, and I apologise for the delay, I have been quite unwell over the last little while.  However, here it is:

Moon Lake SympathyCard

These were made in exactly the same way as the gift cards, so a watercolour wash first for the background, then stamping the image from Moon Lake stamp set with black Memento Ink, and I have coloured in the image with Copics markers.  I have also stamped the image without any colouring onto the envelope and also the inside of the card.

Just a quick Stampin’ Up! announcement for all of my lovely customers, regarding Blendabilities:

“We are experiencing a quality issue with our Blendabilities product line. Except for the Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad (item #132708) and the Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad Refill (item #133456), all other item numbers have been turned off; this includes Blendabilities Sale-A-Bration item numbers.”

If you are one of my customers with Blendabilities on backorder, please contact me.  More information will be available next week.

Happy stamping!
Chris

 

Anything But A Card Challenge

Posted in Cards, Masculine by

A scrapbook page or Project Life page? A picture?  A covered notebook? Or in this case, some gift tags…..
This week’s Crafty Boots Challenge is to make a project, any project as long as it is not a card.  I feel that I piked out a bit on this one, since my gift tags are pretty close to a card, so I will have to come up with something very different for next week.

My tags use the lovely stamp set called Moon Lake.  Before stamping the image, I did a very light wash of watercolouring just using ink and an aqua brush, then stamped over it using Memento Black Ink.  The images have then been coloured using Copics Alcohol markers.
I have made a card to match the gift cards, which I will share with you tomorrow.
For more project ideas for this challenge, you can see what the rest of the Design Team have made this week by clicking here.
Happy stamping! And crafting…..
Chris

Creative Ladybirds Creations Challenge 1

Posted in Cards by

Exciting news today! Today is the very first challenge from a new challenge site called Creative Ladybirds Creations, and I am lucky enough to be on the Design Team with a bunch of lovely and talented ladies.

10942736_1392009307769291_3492064761916127287_n
Our challenges are monthly, and will feature different Digital artist each month, and you can win some fabulous prizes from our sponsors, just by entering your own projects into the challenge.
Our first sponsor for this month is Bugaboo Stamps, and I have chosen an image called For You From Me Flower.

Our next sponsor is Lemon Shortbread, and this gorgeous girl is called Winter Gift.

And our third sponsor is Ike’s Art, with this beautiful image called Spanish Dancer.

Lots of purple in this post, I guess I was having a “purple” week or two here 🙂  So often you see the spanish dancers wearing red, so I thought it would be fun to do her wearing a different colour!!  In any case, it is a beautiful image and I loved colouring it.  Perhaps I will try it again, this time in red 🙂
Please come on over and play along with our brand new challenge, which goes until the end of the month – we would love for you to share your projects with us at Creative Ladybirds Creations.

Happy stamping!
Chris

Feature a Sentiment

Posted in Cards, Masculine by

Continuing on with the current Crafty Boots challenge to use a Sentiment on your project, I have made some more cards featuring different sentiments.
My first card uses a cute image and sentiment from a long ago retired Stampin’ Up! stamp set called “Hand Knit” which hasn’t been used (shocking!!) until now, along with some of the papers from the Adventure Bound Paper Stack.

Love that cute little sheep! In case you can’t read the writing, it says, “Knitting keeps us from Unravelling”, which I definitely have to agree with, along with colouring, cardmaking, crafting in general……….  🙂
And I have made two masculine cards, the first features a sentiment from the Adventure Awaits stamp set combined with some papers from Maritime Designer Series Papers, and the ship is from the stamp set called Traveler.

And lastly, I have used some papers from my stash and stamped directly on to it using one of the sentiments from the Big On You stamp set.  I have then coloured in parts of the lettering so that it stood out a little more, using a Basic Black Marker.

The card is finished off with some “Faux stitching” around the edge of the paper, and some black candy dots in the corners.  A pretty simple card really.
I do hope you will join us this week and share your projects with us.   Check out more inspiration from the rest of the Design Team at Crafty Boots Challenges.
Happy stamping!
Chris