Snip, Snap, Crop

The last of the glossy magazine scraps with toppers and extra bits. These went to Combat Cards SA just before the close off of Christmas cards.   Stamps are from a Clear Impressions set with Creative Stamping magazine. Die-cut is from Stampin' Up.     These are based on some sketches but it has been a while and I can't remember which ones they were so I  won't be able to share that this time around. Thanks for dropping by ......

 Recent months have seen a few birthdays between my friends and kids friends so I have had to put a few last minute cards together.     Last weekend was a 70th birthday for a lovely lady who shocked me by the invite to her "70th". She still works full-time and dances several nights a week so I'm guessing that dance and keeping your mind active shows that it helps you to stay young looking. I could only hope I look that good when I get to 70. The Silhouette online store had this great ballroom couple silhouette that worked perfectly for her card.    Kerry at Crafty Cards and Cuts had a night time video class on Periscope one night to make cards with scraps so thought I would play along. I didn't get very far with my efforts but at least got a couple made. Another birthday for a male dance friend so hoped that this would look more masculine with the design. He was very pleased with the result and surprised that someone would go to the effort of p...

Well the end of June saw the start of a new working routine for me after being out of work for a year I finally secured a casual job which has been keeping me busy for the last couple of months. It is great being back in the working scene but seriously impacting on my creative time.   I keep pulling out the scraps of old papers sets to play with which have either been freebies with magazines from years gone by that I have been holding onto the last of or old Topline Creations Papers and stickers that are still floating around in my stash. They still make good cards even if it is the last of the bits and pieces which encourages me to "think" a little bit more to get some use out of them.               All of these cards will go to Combat Cards.   Thanks for dropping by and happy craftin'...........

I often enjoying reading the Operation Write Home blog to get ideas for my cards for Combat cards. Quite frankly I find it a challenge to keep my cards fairly flat without bling and deeper embellishments so it is nice to see how others work. I particularly like to visit the blog of Kristie Marcotte who makes cards for OWH and has the distinct ability to get the most out of a 6 x 6 paper pad and uses it all before moving onto another paper range. So, after looking through her designs and seeing how she goes about it I decided to give it a go with the Kaisercraft Sears and Son paper pad that I have had in my drawer.  I started out just like Kristie with a batch of sketches and the idea in my mind to make several of each sketch but as I moved along I found it harder and harder to make duplicates as I just don't work that way. And, when I really got to the scraps too I made up patchy backgrounds also to make use of those little bits of off-cuts. In total I got 47 cards from the pa...

Most of these will go to Combat cards also. Still using up a lot of free papers and toppers that I can't believe are lasting so long. Found a great die - Couture Creations Royal Oval and it matched the oval topper pieces so well. A few Fiskars punches - Scalloped edge, Apron lace also helped to put these together. Stampin' Up greeting from Teeny tiny sentiments and a recently purchased banner sentiment a block mount from Riot art & Craft store. The mini striped panel with die-cut tree came from a friend's mini Christmas card a couple of years ago which I removed from her card front and reused to turn it into a standard A6 card.  Made from scraps this is based on a design I did from Shari Carrol's class a couple of years ago. I love Shari's use of strips of paper and negative die-cuts to make use of all the "bits" on the table.  Last but not least are these freebie tags from a very old copy of a Scrapbooking Memories magaz...

Lots of old card toppers have been haunting me for a few years now so I challenged myself to do something with them. I think most came from Big W about 6-7 yrs ago after moving back from Canberra and when I looked at them I just couldn't think of what to do with them when I had all this lovely more recent papers, dies and ideas running through my head. So, I bit the bullet and made myself use them and it is amazing when you challenge yourself to use limited resources how you do come up with some inspiration. Stamps on these are Kaisercraft Mistletoe embossed with white embossing powder. I'm a fan of the Stampin' Up white powder as I like the fineness of it. These two were inspired by a card I saw on the front of a magazine - UK Cardmaking and Papercraft issue 122. More using up of those freebie papers from a couple of years ago. I just took the cut scraps and matted them with black then played around with layering them. Silver die-cut tree was a free die...

Well, I haven't been around for a while on my blog as my poor old laptop decided to play with blue screening for several weeks. After many goes at trying to solve the issue I have given up and decided that seeing as it is almost 8 years old and running on Vista then maybe it was trying to tell me something. So here we are a few months down the track and I have finally got a new laptop and now trying to locate all my photos which are spread on various USB's and children's laptops or Facebook. I have been running this year so far with more Christmas cards - bit strange I know now that Christmas is over however I had a pile of papers and old toppers and magazine freebie papers and things lying around on my desk that have been floating in my stash for several years that I needed to challenge myself to get them made into cards. So glad I did as I have a bag of 50 cards ready to go to Combat Cards SA for next Christmas now.  Most of these have been made by either playin...

Julie Ebersole showed us an alternative use for a die-cut in using it as a mask for a single layer design. I must admit this is probably the third die-cut I used as I was not happy with the other designs as they did not seem to "pop" so well. I stuck with the reindeer theme eventually using a die-cut from the Christmas Cheer Cricut cartridge with a little red rhinestone to finish off his nose. Greeting is from a Kaisercraft set - Christmas quotes. The next pair are a couple of very simple designs to assist a lady at a local Church craft group to get a start on her Christmas cards. Nativity stamp is from a purchase years ago back in early 2000's when I first started stamping and has no brand on it so I can't remember where it was from. The verses are from The Stamps of Life - Christmas4him The last one for the day is another card from scraps of the Bo Bunny freebie papers and the stamp from the Bo Bunny free set also. Merry is the Stampin' Up thinlit. ...

This has to be my favourite card from Day 1. I could easily take the time to duplicate this. I stuck with Shari's design which is created to house a gift card beneath the "Be Merry" panel. I didn't have any stencils to use with texture paste like Shari so just dry embossed a piece of white cardstock instead.  Be Merry frame was purchased from the Silhouette store and the Snowflake is a Bird's cards design. Banners are all hand cut as I don't own any dies for those. Stamps are Kaisercraft script and Hot off the Press snowflake. Embossing folders used: Swiss dots and Tim Holtz Regal Flourishes. I love, love, love this card. I would be happy to receive this myself. Thanks for visiting. Happy craftin'............

A while back I picked up a copy of the Australian Simply Cards magazine - Issue 72 which had with it the Bo Bunny Silver and Gold stamp set and paper stack. When it came to starting my own cards then I pulled it out because it was on my desk and started to play. As I often do with these kind of paper and stamp sets, I take the lead of the designer in the magazine and try their versions out first to get a feel for working with the items. So, the first batch of five cards are my versions of the magazine designs, most of which stayed fairly close to the original design. After that I then went on to my own designs and play adding in the use of some Kaisercraft and Technique Tuesday greetings, German scrap and border stickers. Even the Stampin' Up Merry thinlet got a look in as well as a couple of Cricut die-cuts and small Kaisercraft rub-ons. Feel free to ask if you want any specifics. At first I wasn't too sure about the papers but now I have sett...

Just a few layouts done so far for August as my focus has been on cards and procrastination. The first, a layout from Heather's challenge to pull a range of strips of paper out of your stash and make a layout with them and to include a bird somewhere. This was inspired by a Pagemaps sketch from Feb 2014. Next a layout for a colour challenge using a photo of a person on a beach holding a red and white umbrella on an overcast rainy day. You can imagine the tones of grey in that sky and beach scene. Jewels took us out of our comfort zone with an SBS using patterned papers. I'm not a big mixer of patterned papers, I'm a plain cardstock user with a hint of pp thrown in for good balance. I am really happy with how this turned out and used up some old papers that have been in my stash for about 6-7yrs. A card for my Sister's request for a person who likes red, aqua and doing mosiacs. I love how this ended up after lots of cutting up of scraps.  ...