Breaking out new paper stacks

I thought I’d share a quick tip with you guys for opening new paper stacks. They always seem to come with those irritating sticky circles on the sides and/or the bottom of the stack, and if you try to peel them off, you either rip the cover of the stack (grr!) or it leaves behind a horrible sticky mess that sticks to all your other stacks when storing. Double grr!
So I use a craft knife to slice down the front and back of the sticker, and just peel of the remaining sticker down the edge of the stack. Peeling this doesn’t leave behind the sticky residue that’s normally left on the cover and back, so it’s a perfect way to break out your new paper.
Video below (it’s far easier to see than to explain!). I do hope you find this a useful tip!

Best Friends

Hi there! Today’s card uses some super cute digi stamps from MyGrafico called “Best Friends Stickie” stamp set. I love all of these stamps in this set – so much so that I used one on the front of the card, and one on the inside just for good measure!! [EDITED TO NOTE: this set is no longer available from MG. Please contact the designer at http://justsomelinesblog.blogspot.com/ for more information.]


The stamp was printed using normal ink jet ink onto Coordination's Whitewash cardstock. I could then use my copic markers straight onto the ink without it smudging, which is great because this means there was no need to prep the paper with acrylic gel medium prior to printing. And the Whitewash cardstock has a lovely linen type texture, which always gives a professional finish to cards.

The patterned paper was from My Mind’s Eye and is their Laundry Line Collection. I just love MME papers. It seems every collection pack I buy is by them – and I’ve bought it even before I realise it’s MME again but I just can’t get enough of their papers. Scrumptious! ;0)

Anyway, hopefully you’ll notice in the video below, I’ve gone High Definition at long last! I’ve had some trouble rendering this, so I’ve still a few things to iron out, but hopefully, this will be a better viewing experience for you all to see the nitty gritty of what I’m doing!

Please hop over to my YT Channel to rate and subscribe, and as usual, thanks so much for watching and for your lovely comments ;0)

2009 – A Year in Focus

Happy New Year to you all! I’ve been blog hopping, and I’ve seen a few people do their “Year in Cards” so I' thought it would be a nice opportunity for me to do the same and look back over the last year’s creations. If you click on the pictures, they will take you to the blog post and video.

I hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane…

::January::

::February::

::March::

::April::

::May::

::June::

::July::

::August::

::September::

::October::

::November::

::December::

Another video up soon ;0) in full HD goodness! Woohoo! I love Santa!!! x

Merry & Bright!

Merry Christmas to one and all! These cards are my Christmas 2009 design and I’ve now made about 30 of them. Those of you who make big batches of cards know how much work this can entail, but these were relatively quick – I think it took about 5 hours to make all 30. This sounds like a lot of time - and it’s true, it would’ve been a lot faster without cutting out the 3 trees on each card - but it was worth it as they were too cute not to use! All of the patterned papers come from My Mind’s Eye “Wonderful Winter” 12 x 12 glittered paper collection. You get 3 sheets of each pattern. I used about 1.5 sheets of each design to create all my cards. Great value for money!
The ‘Merry & Bright’ stamp was made from my own design using the ImagePac stamp making kit and 3 different fonts. I love this kit, having the versatility to create whatever stamp design I like!

Using this size of card, I was able to create 3 top-folding portrait cards from each piece of 12 x 12 Bazzill Kraft cardstock. Also, for the strip of patterned papers at the bottom of the card, I was able to create 3 cards’ worth from each 12” strip. This is a really quick way of creating a ‘conveyor belt’ of cards to make a big batch of the same design.

Below is the video and as usual, please view it in HQ (click on the button in the bottom right-hand corner) and go over to my YT channel to rate & subscribe! Thanks for watching & Merry Christmas!! ;0)

Angelic Christmas!

Well, it’s that time of year again! Every year I say I will make all of my Christmas cards in October, and even get some batches made up to sell, but every year, time gets ahead of me and I end up running around like a mad woman trying to fit everything in!! Work has gone crazy busy at the moment too, so it’s been really difficult to get to my craft desk at all, let alone get some video tutorials done! But I had great fun doing this card, so I really must try to fit some more in this week ;0)

My little angel was printed onto gesso prepared c.s. which enabled me to hit the ink with clear e.p. before it dried, but unfortunately, the gesso didn’t quite agree with my copic markers. That’s to say, they’re not damaged in any way, but they just didn’t blend as nicely on the gesso as they would’ve on the gel acrylic prepared c.s. So, note to self – only use matte gel medium for preparing c.s. in future, just use gesso for texture!

I just love all the glitter on this card. I’m not usually one for lots of glitter, but Christmas is a great time to really go for it on the glitter…

The video is below. Now, I’ve asked Santa for an HD Camcorder this year (Santa is otherwise known as my Hubby!!) so these videos will potentially be higher quality in the New Year, enabling me to zoom in more on the detail. But for now, I hope this is enough for you to see what I’m doing. Please hop over to my YT Channel to rate and subscribe!

Thanks for watching!