Monday, 27 June 2011

Thank You

This card has been inspired by a couple of cards by the wonderfully talented Kristina Werner. She did both a Finally Friday card and a Make A Card Monday (MACM) card recently, using the one-layer technique. I saw these cards and I just had to have a go at one myself…

Both Kristina and I have a borderline obsession with Kraft cardstock ;) And the Chestnut Roan ColorBox Chalk Ink really does go so well with it. Also, it didn’t seem to smudge at all when using copic markers over it, which quite surprised me in a very good way!

Enjoy the video below, which shows you how I put the card together, including a few tips I hope you find useful.

Please don’t forget to rate and subscribe to my YT Channel. Also, if you ‘follow’ my Facebook and Twitter pages, then you’ll always know when my next video/blog post is up.

Watch video below | Watch at YouTube

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Wedding cards…

I made a few wedding cards recently. I wanted them to be a little different to the usual slushy cards that are sometimes a bit ‘twee’ for my liking.

And these are bold, bright, and very cheerful! Perfect for weddings.

There’s a lot of detail going on here. But I love the rich colours, especially on the red card, which is my favourite. These cards are accented with perfect pearls and just doodled with a white gel pen. The gold glitter blings it up to really get into the extravagance of the day!

I also very much love the sentiments. Hero Arts are great at coming up with just the right sentiment.

The other card I did was similar to the red one, but with a different colour scheme, and without the background stamp.

No video today. It was my 30th birthday yesterday, so I’ve not been at my craft desk for a good few days - I’ve been celebrating with family & friends! Back soon with a video tutorial for a thank you card though – gotta thank folks for all their lovely thoughtful gifts ;)

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Stencil “DAD” card with Silhouette Studio tutorial

I {heart} my Silhouette machine. Look at those gorgeous crisp cuts on this card. Awe-some-ness!

Silhouette Studio logo (for blog posts)

I’ve made this card using the above software. Please feel free to click on the image to take you straight to the download page of their website. If you have a Silhouette or a CraftRobo machine, you should be able to download and use this software as they are both the same machines, that (for some strange reason) are sold under different names in different countries.

I know I shouldn’t blow my own trumpet, but I really love this card. Its a CAS design that has used some rather feminine papers actually, but it worked out as a great Father’s Day card nonetheless.

Just in case you were wondering, I really don’t like using “male hobbies” as focal points for masculine card designs. Well, at least whenever I try to make a card with a cricketer or fisherman, for example, they end up getting filed under “bin”. It just doesn’t work for me and my particular style. Do you have any tips for designing masculine cards?

Enjoy the video below, which shows you the Silhouette Studio design aspect, as well as putting the card together. Please don’t forget to rate and subscribe to my YT Channel. Also, if you ‘follow’ my Facebook and Twitter pages, then you’ll always know when my next video/blog post is up.

Watch video below | Watch at YouTube

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

How I store my Distress Inks

Super quick post today. And you get to see a bit of my craft room – this is the tidy bit, lol!

I get asked a lot how I store my distress inks. I have them in a stack, stored face up (Distress Inks are so juicy, they don’t need to be stored face down like other pads). I simply identify the colour on each side of the pad using a tiny sticker coloured with the ink itself. Very easy, very quick, and saves a whole lotta hassle in the long run, constantly searching for a colour, especially if you have lots of ink pads! Hope it helps you all too =)

Watch video below | Watch at YouTube

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Another Father’s Day card

Father’s Day is really truly only just around the corner now {which means so is my 30th birthday, but hopefully that won’t be too traumatic!!} so here’s another design that you can use to create a nice card for your Dad.

I created this design for a craft day with my friend Katherine, who is more used to working with glass, and has never made a card before and really wanted to give it a go. So I kept it fairly simple, but still, there are quite a few techniques going on in the card. I wanted her to have a good play around with paper techniques!

We also messed around with combining some glass techniques with my paper craft and came up with some really beautiful pieces (sparkly silver swirls on blue fused glass – gorgeous!!). I will have to show you those when I get a picture from her.

Techniques used in this card were die-cutting (lots of), eyelet setting using a crop-a-dile, faux stitching and corner chomping. So the video ended up being 10 minutes long!

Enjoy the video below,and please don’t forget to rate and subscribe to my YT Channel.

Watch video below | Watch at YouTube