Enjoy The Journey!

Good morning everyone.

I have a class card to show you today.   This is one of the cards the ladies made in their class yesterday.  I must admit while making this card, I was a bit dubious about the result BUT have totally changed my mind and now I love it!!

I would like to thank Monica, once again for the inspiration she provided me with to make my card.  It was this card that took my fancy.

I turned Monica's sketch on it's side and went from there.  

The base card is Stampin' Up Black, then a layer of Naturals Ivory.  The papers are a combination of a few current and retired sets from Stampin' Up.....Howlstooth & Scaringbone, Newsprint and Modern Medley.

The plaid, check or whatever you want to call it, lol, reminded me of an old travel rug which went very well with my vintage ute.  I used a very old EK Sucess punch for the Tangerine Tango arrows with silver brads through them. The star is SU Silver Foil and once again the punch is retired.  I used the last skerrick of flax and cotton trim to add some texture.  Reminder to oneself to order more. lol

The gear and washer have been anchored together with a silver brad and with a glue dot then attached to the star.  I doubled dimensionals to keep the height of the star level with the image.

The ute has been stamped on to Basic Grey card stock with Black Versafine ink and fussy cut to layer onto Naturals Ivory card stock which has 'Enjoy The Journey' stamped on the bottom, once again in Black Versafine ink.  The ute and wording are from the same Tim Holtz stamp set called The Journey and are clear stamps.  I still wasn't really happy with this card until I decided to sponge all my paper elements with Vintage Photo distress ink.  Voila!!  What a difference!!!

I had proceeded this far when I ran out of puff.  I couldn't think what to put in that last bottom corner to balance the card.   I wanted to steer away from cogs and gears because I had used them profusely on two previous cards with the ladies.  So has to resort to my usual practice, scanning stamp sets and rummaging through stamp drawers. lol

Success......Stampin' Up set called Postage Due.  The little travel post stamp with the vintage car on it.  Perfect!!!

The image corners have been balanced by using old fashioned photo corners and of course, like I said, I used Vintage Photo distress ink for my sponging.

I realise this is a long post but I thought I might amuse you with my card designing troubles. lol

Enjoy your day!!!

 

Authentique Uncommon Case.

I saw this card on Andrea Ewen's blog and absolutely loved it.  I just had to case it.  Thank you Andrea.  Nowadays I'm tending to make two cards to keep my supply up.  I've changed the trims to lace and braid with different leaves and more of them.  The flowers and silver cord are the same as what Andrea used.  I really like the tag punch I used which is one I bought on sale at Robyn and Sue's shop before they closed down.  The leaves are the Stampin Up sizzlet die which I've used many, many times.  What a good investment that little die has been.

Thanks for visiting my blog today.

Birthday Music

I'm pretty sure that this piece of music isn't Happy Birthday to you, but it's from the new SU paper called Newsprint. I put it with Black and Vanilla with some Lacey Circles and a Just Rite sentiment. Some gorgeous Stamp Simply ribbon with one of the new SU Antique brads down the bottom and a couple of EK Success punched swirls embellished with SU pearls and I was done.
My card was inspired by this card made by Ann Schach.
Thanks so much for visiting my blog and taking the time to comment.

Be Merry Again!

I've so enjoyed making these Christmas cards. Here are two more that I finished a few weeks ago. For the first card I cuttlebug embossed the Basic Grey pink background with my new snowflake flolder. I made a Christmas tree using punches like Francie did. I think it looks fabulous. The star at the top of the tree is an acrylic embellishment out of my stash as is the lace and bling. Stamps are by Papermania and the papers are My Minds Eye Be Merry and Basic Grey.

The second card uses Nesties for behind the Christmas trees which have been cut out of the Be Merry paper by My Minds Eye. I cuttlebug embossed the pink layer with another of my new embossing folders from the UK. Stamps are by Papermania with Stampin' Up punches used for the greeting. Lace and bling from my stash.

Today I received some gorgeous crystals in the mail so hope to get some more of these cards made using them.
Jennifer requested that I do a tutorial on making bows. Well all I use is the Bow Easy and sometimes the rabbit ears technique. I'm not allowed to put the link on here where I purchased my Bow Easy but if you email me, larleigh@bigpond.com, I'll be more than happy to send you the link to where I purchased mine from and also on that same website is a fabulous tutorial on how to use the Bow Easy.

This last week has been spent in non crafting activities for the most part. CWA is finished for the year, the crafting groups I go to have finished up for Christmas and Sunday afternoon was spent with 4 other girls that I went to Primary School with. We have an annual get together at this time of the year.
The fine tuning of my craft room clean up is nearly finished.
Thanks for the many wonderful comments on my blog, I truly appreciate each and every one of them.

Chocolate and Pink

Another birthday card, this time my card for Chris. She loves lace and bears so I thought these papers from Basic Grey teamed with pearls, pink velvet, roses and lace would do nicely.
She loved it. I cased a card I found on one of the blogs I look at, changing papers, colours embellishmets and picture, unfortunately I can't read the watermark on it. I'll have to make sure I print the pics for my idea book at a bigger size.
I thank the original maker of this card, fabulously easy to put together.

Another hot day, yesterday was 39C and today isn't much better. The fog at 5.30 this morning was so thick I couldn't see more than a metre or so in front of the car.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day.

Pink and Blue Christmas

A couple more of the Christmas cards using my lovely papers. I'm totally happy with my Joy card but the other one is a bit iffy. I tried Jak Heath's technique of using the Diamond Dust over acetate snowflakes. Unfortunately mine are certainly not as good as Jak's. I know you can't see them very well. I had a terrible time with this card. It took ages and the snowflakes at one stage were going in the bin. Anyway, they are there now and I know I need more practice at them. If you want to try these, be careful as the acetate isn't easy to punch.
The sketch I used for this card is from the Inspirational Card Sketches blog # 43.
I love my lace and ric rac but had to put a piece of blue underneath to make that feature stand out. The wreath has been silver embossed with little bling placed over the stars. I can't put a link to where I purchased the lace and ribbon I used on this card but it was from the UK and the US.

The Joy card sketch is a version from one of Francie's cards that she was making on the stamping weekend. This card came together really easily compared to the other one. The little pot the Christmas tree is in, is just punched from the border of the MME papers. I thought it a perfect way to recycle the bit I would normally throw away. I managed to make the Christmas Tree using Francie's idea with a punch.
Thanks for looking and once again, a big thank you to all who take the time to comment on my blog.

House Mouse Fish Tales

Here is another House Mouse card I have made. When I first coloured the image I had no idea what papers or sketch I would use with it, so when it came to actually choosing something I was a bit worried. Out came some of the papers I've got in my stash and lo and behold, this paper came to light. Perfect, then I matched cardstock, ribbon and silver pearls, found a sketch from the Stamping 411 Saturday Sketch Challenge for inspiration and woo hoo, finished. I just had to use my new zig zag embossing punch too. My image is bigger than depicted in the sketch but I think it works ok.
Thanks for looking.