Stephanie's Second card challenge - CAS-ual Friday!

(I didn't want to put two challenges in one post, considering Steph made two different cards for two different challenges.)


This is another post for Steph's second card during our Sunday crafting session. It is for CAS-ual Friday Challenge

CFC133

CFC133: Create a Clean And Simple project that uses hearts in summer colors.
While we are featuring lots of CAS-ual Fridays Stamps products, you can use any products from your stash, and enter before noon on July 18th.
*the use of CFS products is not required to play or win*


And here's her work. :-)

PS: Because I'm more of a stamper than Steph is, we use my stamps and ink pads to do all the card-making.  And therefore in my next post I'll be showing the same mason jars images on my card too.  :-)

You Are Amazing! CAS Card with Chevron Washi Tape, Stamping and Liquid Pearls

So I haven't done any challenge for a month now.  I've been busy with my friend, Amanda's troublesome maid who stayed at my place for three weeks comfortably while Amanda was back in Japan to see her husband.  She brought me troubles while she was here, and worst of all, she took off after Amanda's back in Dubai, leaving her alone with her two kids.  But that was another story.

During the whole April I also signed up on a driving school, going to lectures and taking theory test, failing the road test, taking driving classes, failing test again, and taking more classes now.  More time and money wasted on a testing system that is totally confusing and there's nothing you can do unless you keep paying money.    So all in all this last month was not great.  But I did manage to survive, thanks to some great friends who give me support and love all the time.   

So Yesterday I made a card for a challenge.  It is the CAS-UAL Fridays Stamping Challenge

And here's my card. I use three major ingredients for the card: Chevron washi tape, Stamping, and liquid pearls.  (it looks a bit like a Christmas card with the pearls, though.)

This green/blue chevron pattern is my favourite washi tape. I line them up one by one and it's just clean and modern.

The dot on the flower was originally light blue. I put a liquid pearl later on just to add a bit of a small pop, just like the first photo.

See the silver finish on the wreath?  I haven't used perfect pearls for a while and this is just great to add some shine to the stamped image.  (I did use a silver pen to fill in the upper left side of the wreath but it didn't work very well.  Glad I stopped there and didn't go on) 

All in all, I'm still not feeling excited about this coming road test.  After hearing a lot of dark sides of the testing system I'm just not feeling hopeful at all.  But life has to move on. We'll see.

CAS-style Happy Birthday card - with Avery Elle Laurels Stamp Set

In the world of the flower-loving scrapbooking and cardmaking, I'm probably the odd one who doesn't like using flowers as embellishments - especially the frilly ones with glitters on them.  The less, the better.  Too many petals, too busy.  All in all not a fan of flowers in my projects.

But a while ago I've been seeing lots of fantastic CAS cards with the prettiest leaves and simple flower shapes and I hesitated.   And I got this stamp set from my great friend Renee - 

Avery Elle Laurels Stamps http://www.averyelle.com/laurels-clear-stamps/

This brand is know for its quality stamps, and they have matching dies to offer as well.  Unfortunately I didn't get any dies so I have to hand-cut the shapes.  But nothing is too much of a hassle for card-making, and after 1 hour of inspiration seeking, stamping and cutting, I made this card.

I chose not to stack up the stamp colours as its original purposes, and just add liquid pearls on the flowers.  They look modern and simple.  Also love the vibrant colours it brings out. Highly recommended! 

Pink birthday card for teenager

Since after I got back from Dubai I really haven't gotten much time sitting down put the cards I made online. The reality is, I've had about a dozen of farewell gatherings with friends in Singapore - the play date mums, different groups of friends, school mums, scrapbooking friends, etc.  Nonetheless, I feel thankful to have made so many great friends within such a short time in Singapore, and so my blog's pageviews which has dropped to average 1-2 per day is just miner issue.

Apparently during the holiday season, people still have birthdays (LOL).  So I've made some birthday cards in between the Christmas card making marathon.

Here's the one I made for my niece, who's turning 15 this December.  I use my favorite Swiss dot embossing folder and Spellbinders Nestabilities dies to accomplish the layers, plus Martha Stewart butterflies stamp to stamp the butterfly, Copic colour and trim it.

 

Inspirations! Lovely Doily Christmas Card

As mentioned earlier this month, the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 is going to be hectic - and it is.  My daughter and I just came back from Dubai last week, and we were both exhausted.  Good thing is we're lucky to be given enough time to recover, and now I'm good to make some more cards again.

Although not very productive I still managed to make a very cute birthday card for a friend's son, and another Christmas card inspired by this one:

http://mercedesweber.blogspot.ca/2013/11/aww-nov-1.html

My version is not as pretty but still not too bad, with a change of colours

For the snowflake shape and the round label I downloaded them from Silhouette Online Store. One is a Print-and-Cut file and the other a plain cut. The rest is all pretty easy.


It is really fun making this card although I know I need more practice to make it as beautiful as the original. And as always you'd think you got it all perfect and clean and bam! a scratch of my gel pen is left on the card.

Forest Fantasty Christmas Card - with embossing resist technique

Yesterday while my hard-working husband was too tired to tell me to go to bed early, I managed to finish a card inspired by Jennifer Mcquire's starry night sky card demonstration, with the 'emboss resist' technique.  Because I rarely make distressed styles, this is one of the few that I actually enjoyed and accomplished with great satisfaction.

Well, I do not have all of Jennifer's gadgets, so I simple use what's at hand to make it. And I don't even have a proper snow flake stamp! Eventually I found a teeny tiny snowflakeskish (forgive my crappy English) stamp to make it.  To be honest I'm not sure about the flakes.

So, here it is.  (I also made a bow too but not sure if it's unnessary.)

This card is also up for  CAS-ual Fridays challenge! 

Tools used:  

Stamp - Inky Antics and Inkadinkado

White embossing powder by AC Zing!

Ink pads from Versacolor - Scarlet and Turquoise 

Here're the pictures before the snowflakes

Embossed Christmas Card - Red and Beige

Today is my scheduled scrap-booking date with my good friend, Nathalie, and as usual we produced quite a nice batch of Christmas cards.  Although I didn't make as many as she did (please see her works at http://nathouest.canalblog.com/) , I'm quite happy with the result of this one.

This is actually inspired by Papercrafts Magazine Issue Nov/Dec 2013.
http://www.papercraftsconnection.com/blog/2013/10/novdec-2013-go-to-sketch/

Here's the sketch. Quite easy, isn't it?  Well yes except the bow, which I tried tying it up through a punched whole, and I ended up breaking it through!  In the end had to use a glue gun to make the piece. Whew.

But anyway, I did it, and it looks great!

Woohoo!  So now I have only about another 10 different cards to make.  (I only send 1 style to 2-3 people. I don't make 30 of the same cards and send them to all different people.)

Blue Christmas Card Part 2 - Glittering Star on Christmas Tree. No special tool needed!

I believe that in every card-maker's mind, deep-deep-deep-down somewhere, there's always a little voice trying to tell us to just stop buying for this year's Christmas paper/stamps.  For just once.  So my determination this coming Christmas is stop buying Christmas paper, which I did!  (But there's no stopping buying stamps)

So I flipped through my old Christmas stock (so glad I bought a lot last year)  and found some nice paper to use.  And I did too, with a little help from this year's stamps woohoo!

And I really love it!  The last thing I want my Christmas card to look like is those commercially made ones that screams "Boring!"  To me personal style is very important, whether if it's traditional, cute, nostalgic, retro, Victorian, distressed, flashy or cheeky.  So whilst it's not perfect, it is definitely of someone's style and unique.  (That is also why I don't like to send all my relatives and friends SAME Christmas cards)


But making your own style doesn't mean you can't get inspirations from Two Peas or Pinterest. For example I looked on Pinterest for layout inspirations and made this card. Besides every time I look at other great works and think "I'm gonna make that too!" and it always end up differently, which is part of the fun too.  

I use last year's BoBunny cardstock, putting glittering powder on the star on the Christmas tree and adhere the piece on the right side of the card, which was stamped with scripts in white ink.  Then I emboss Christmas Greeting on scrap paper, cut around it and stick it on the corner with foam tape.

Then I stamp the snow flake on another scrap paper, cut around it, get a whole, and tie the twine through it and tie a knot. Finish!

Stamping and Embossing: Simple Christmas card.

About stamps.

Although I am not a 10-year veteran stamper, it's safe say that most stampers can't feel much difference amongst stamps made of different materials - whether rubber, wood-mounted or clear.  I have pretty bad wooden ones as well as 'cling' stamps which do not cling to the grid block at all. And some say clear stamps can be tricky and hard to line, but stored properly they're still great and easy to use.  And even for larger stamps it still requires good skills to get a perfect image.  So to me the there's no best brand or type.  More importantly it's the ink pads you choose to achieve different effects, and the tips to stamp a perfect image that really matter.


For this card I use three of the most commonly used card-making techniques - stamping, embossing and die-cutting. For stamping this card I use Studio g stamps, one mounted, one not.  Studio ghas lots of inexpensive clear and mounted stamps, and in terms of quality, I can't feel any difference from other popular brands such as Hero Arts or KaiserCraft.  However I did make a mistake, which is that I chose a textured card stock to make the base. It caused the stamp not able to adhere ink onto the surface and therefore you can see some dents in the image.

Materials used:

Embossing and cutting - Cuttlebug, Spellbinder Nestibilities Dies
Stamping - (for the tree and sentiment) Studio g clear and mounted stamps
Cardstock - AC

Layout-wise, this is probably one of the most easy cards I made. And it's cute too. :-)

Christmas Card - Rustic Label and Blue and White Snowflakes

And Christmas is just 'round the corner... especially for card makers.

The other day I have bought many cheap Christmas stamps and have spent the next three days experimenting with them.  For 1.9 SGD each they are fantastic deals!  

(Pictures above are from Made with Love, my favourite local scrapbooking shop)

http://madewithlove.com.sg/fantastic-new-arrivals-friday/  

Admittedly I'm not a fast card-maker.  And too much play means not much work done.  Eventually I only produced one Christmas card.  Barely.  

PS: Not a pro shot since I only got one ordinary Canon camera and no special lighting equipment.  And hey it's homemade and low budget, and it's the heart that counts! Love.

Blue Christmas Card

For a while I didn't think I could do anything with this Kaisercraft stamp since I bought it at a local sc shop.  I have wondered and tested with this stamp in different projects and just couldn't come up with a satisfying result.  (See pic. From left Kaisercraft, Hero Arts(?), Inky Antics mounted stamp)

But this morning I finally made up my mind to stick it through and test-made a Christmas card, and it turned out pretty nicely.  I wouldn't say it's great but at least I know what to do with this stamp in the future.

1. Make card base
2. Cut blue panel from card stock, stamp background and central image with Kaisercraft and Inky Antics stamp. Adhere with a slightly bigger red panel.
3. Stamp poinsettia on scrap paper and cut around. Punch whole and brad it. Tie bow with baker's twine around panel and through cut out.

For the sentiments I used StazOn Blazing Red and Teal Blue. For the poinsettia StazOn Blazing Red and Versacolor 20 Turquoise. I love using StazOn for sentiments than say water-based ink pads because it's solvent you don't see the ink seep through paper and cause smudge much.  It's also great for stamps with fine details.

Heat-embossing Happy Birthday Card

In general, I'm quite a happy woman - I have a really cool husband who is a big supporter of whatever I do, a 3.5 year old daughter who throws her tantrum like - never, and a whole bunch of good friends who are funny, interesting, and share their lives with you sometimes in a silly way just as you do with them.  And I sleep well, eat well, and have little things to worry about. As a result, I don't have migraine very often. Maybe once a month?  

But yesterday I had one that lingers in my head, on and off for a whole day.  Perhaps that explains why out of the blue I made a card using these colours.  But they turn out great!  :-D

To shift my thoughts away from too much youtube, which I think is why I had migraine, I 

1. Made card base

2. Picked a blue patterned paper and red embossing powder and heat-embossed it.  

3. stick it to the card. Adhere ribbon

4. Affix pearls to Happy Birthday die cut and adhere the piece to card.

Tools used

1. Zing! Embossing powder - Rouge

2. Spellbinder - Nestabilities Labels 4

3. Cuttlebug (to emboss) 

4. Staz On Solvent Ink Pad -Blazing Red

5. Martha Stewart Butterflies Stamp Set

And the result is a really cool combination of red and blue, and the red embossed butterflies really pop!  It also proves that it's really not my fault to burn the paper the other day when trying to emboss a panel at Nathalie's place. Hint: Someone should probably consider changing her 10-year-old heat gun. Hehehe.

 

Just look how beautiful the emboss is!

Make Waves Card - simple and bright. Inspired by Amber Daigre's design in Papercrafts Magazine JulyAugust 2012

There are always brilliant artists who can make simple things wow, just like Miss Amber Daigre (http://www.damasklove.com/).  This morning I was just flipping through my old magazines, and happened to find a simple yet beautiful card creation by Daigre.  And it just happened that I also have the stamps (Borrowed from my good crafty friend Nathalie Durand, when she's on vacation to Bali two weeks ago!)  So I thought, hey, why don't I try with my white embossing powder?

What can I say? I love the embossing effects and am so excited about the look on this light orange paper.  Woohoo!

1. Make white card base.
2. Make orange panel. Stamp Shell and Make Waves with glue pad.  Emboss with white embossing powder and heat tool.
3. Mat panel with cardstock and adhere with foam tape.

Best Wishes Card for a dear Friend

Singapore is a place where you can have a full-on sunny day in one hour but the next hour turns gloomy and dark then the rain starts to bucket down and pour the entire city, with stormy wind blowing trees sideways. This is probably why people get sick all the time, colds and flu all year round.  Dengue, which is terrible and could kill a person.  Kids get HFMD and have running nose three out of ten in a kindie.  Perhaps that's why I've noticed myself been particular busy making Get Well cards recently.  One of my friends, Ting Ting just recovered from her flu and I thought I make her a Best Wishes card for a change.  

To be honest I am not hugely crazy about distress styles, albeit I have the tools needed.  I always use distressed embellishments sparingly, such as on this card.  Distress styles to me is artistic, but if using too much it creates a bit of gloominess, something you don't want to put all over the card to cheer up your sick friends. This is why I like to show an up-lifting spirit in all my cards because cards are supposed to cheer people up.  (Except if you have very artistic friends and they love that style. That's another story)

Method:

1. Make card from card stock. Round upper-right corner.

2. Make patterned panel and affix with chevron washi tape. Affix to card.

3. Cut doily and affix to card. Cut a long strip same length as the card. Affix.

4. Affix already-made pocket and scalloped circle border with glue. Adhere distressed tea-cup die-cut (see below picture) with foam dot.

5. Stamp sentiment, round upper-right and lower-left corners. Punch hole and affix mini brad. position it close to card base's upper-right corner and affix with foam dot.

6. Tie with baker's twine.

I die cut tea cups with Silhouette Cameo. Distress then stick two layers together. I use Ranger Distress Ink: Tea Dye, and Prima Marketing 6*6 card stock.

A closer look at the card. For the envelop it's actually super easy. Just fold a piece of patterned paper and glue the edges, then border punch top and then you can put a tea bag in it. Cute.

Happy crafting! 

Thank You Card (Washi tape rocks!)

My Fourth Thank You card for the International Voluteer Managers is done.  Super easy!

Method
1. Make card base
2. Use 3-4 washi tapes and affix on a white panel, leaving a line space at about 3/5 distance from top of the panel.
3. Stamp Thank You.  Adhere piece to card base.