Collage Owl

 

Mini-Card:  FUN FOR BIG AND LITTLE KIDS!

Threw this one together today, felt like making something a little bit fun :)

1. It's pretty simple really:
2. On white paper (I used normal copy paper), scribble with a watercolour pencil, then roughly spread the colour around with an aqua brush (or brush and water) so that you get a wash with the scribble still visible in it.  Alternatively you could just use a patterned paper, it's up to you.
3. Once the paper is dry, tear out an owl body shape so that the edge of the owl shows the white tear of the paper
4. Tear some rough wing shapes out of newspaper or a book, create eyes with small circle punches or use googly eyes
5. Glue a stick to your card and hovering just above the stick, glue your owl pieces onto the card.  Draw a beak, 'feathers', ear detail, and legs onto the card
6. Roughly cut out little leaves and stick them on the card around the stick to create a tree branch - I created the paper for the leaves the same way that I created the paper for the owl
7. Apply your greeting however you want!  I liked keeping the "torn" theme going.  My greeting was simply printed from the computer and cut out.

Done!

Happy Hooting!

 

Dani :)

 

 

 

 

First Wobbly Tooth

STORY OF A PSYCHOTIC MOTHER

Sorry if this is messy - posting from my mobile because my camera is flat again.

What an eventful evening! My son declared he had a sore tooth whilst eating afternoon tea so off to the dentist we raced - I'm an anxious mum and he doesn't brush properly!

 

 

 

 

All good though - he liked the dentist, his teeth are wonderful ... And he's get his first wobbly tooth! I'm ridiculously excited!

So what do I do? Why, I spend my evening agonising over the possibility of him losing his tooth at school, so I create a cute/fun incentive for him NOT to.

A Tooth Cosy!

I showed it to my husband - he gave me an "are you mental??" stare.

See the below pics - its a simple envelope with the sides sealed with double sided tape (I'd sew but I suck at it), the flap held down with restickable glue, a folded up tissue (cut down to a suitable size) stashed inside and whatever decorating you want on it. I even stamped the tissue decoratively :)

The restickable glue will need to be reapplied, I think, and is not entirely ideal but my best option for making sure he can open and reseal the envelope. My original idea involved punching a little hole in the flap and another in the front wall of the envelope and feeding a piece of ribbon through each hole with a knot at the end so that the package could be tied shut ... But he doesn't know how to tie knots and bows yet! Even if the glue doesn't hold, it should be secure enough anyway :)

It doesn't have to be fancy - just needs to be cute and hold together long enough for the tooth to make it safely under their pillow.  Hey - even if you're not psychotic like me, it's also a cute way to "present" the tooth to the tooth fairy!  Easy enough for the kids to make / help make / decorate, too.

 

 

Happy Wobbling!

 

Dani :)

 

 

 

 

Wedding Fever: The Conclusion, I Think

 

THIS MIGHT BE IT - WEDDING CARD

I think I've done it!  I've put it into an envelope and am putting the fact it's mounted slightly crooked out of my mind because other than that, I love this card!  I think this will be the one I give to my friend for her wedding (unless my OCD and self-criticism rages out of control in the next month or so).

 

What do you think?  I am adoring its simplicity, yet dainty prettiness :)

The pretty cut out is a Shapeability die cutter and embosser that I ran through my Cuttlebug.  The background design was painstakingly hand-stamped and bejewelled :)  The "love" is heat embossed.

Yeah, I'm loving it!

Happy Weddings!

 

Dani :)

Wedding Fever

I have a friend who is getting married in October and I want to make her the perfect card. Don't know if I am there yet but happily throwing a variety of styles of cards together as practice to help me decide what I will finally make for her :)

One is in silver and white with a big lovely fabric flower and a skeleton leaf for a delicate splash of colour.

Another is going with more chocolatey tones, using my own stamps to create patterned paper and making it pop with a scattering of jewels and pearls.

And finally, I made a couple of simple ones, utilising heat embossing (which I love!). Minimalist and cute!

Hope you enjoy!

Dani :)

Christmas is-a-comin'! - Ongoing Update

BE PREPARED!

Stay Tuned - This Will Be Updated Each Time I Make More

Scoff if you will, but I like to be prepared!

The first couple of years that I made my own cards, I slaved away doing mass production for the month of November. And frankly - it was a bloody miserable experience!

So now I like to make one here and there in the last several months of the year and tuck them away in a cute Christmas box to keep them fresh and clean.

Below are the cards that I have made - each one very different!

 

As you can see, even though my blog has been quiet, i have still been productive - Hope you enjoy!  I'll update with more card pictures as I make them.

 

 

 

Christmas Obsessing

Dani :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet n Lacy

 

SWEET N LACY WITH LOVE

A friend of mine did a lovely card using a layered lace technique with the same border punch and I couldn't resist making something of my own!  It's a simple and effective card to throw together in a hurry!

• Fold your base card in half and set aside
• Select your four pastel coloured papers and cut them to be about 4 centimetres high and 3 centimetres wider than your card
• Using a lace design border/edge punch (Mine is a Fiskars one), punch out the lace design along a long edge of each colour piece (quick technique at the bottom of this page for getting an accurate continuous pattern)
• Layer the four colour lace pieces as you see above - this is why you made them too long for the card, so that you can have enough "give room" to line the alternate the lining up of the design
• Cover the top edge of the paper lace with ribbon, using double sided tape
• Embellish with a big pretty flower and skeleton leaves
• Stamp your greeting
• Done!

BORDER PUNCHING TECHNIQUE:

First of all, punch in the centre of the edge, as per standard instructions.  Now we do things a little bit differently - flip the punch over!

Maybe I don't have that special touch but everytime I try to follow the guides on the punches, it comes out looking all hacked up and horrible, things just don't line up as they should.

If you flip it over, you can still effectively punch and this way you can line up your previous punch with the actual punching mechanism!

See in the punch how there is a gaping blackness?  That's because that's where I've lined up my last punch!

Happy Punching!

Dani :)



Happy As A ...

 

PIG IN MUD!

My friend and I were at the shops last night buying gifts for 6 year old girls (panic!) and in the card section my friend happen to exclaim at the cuteness of a pig card.  So, since I wanted to avoid cleaning today anyway, I made one for her!

...probably she just awww'd at it because she thought it would be cute for a 6 year old girl.

First of all, I cut out a bunch of pink circles with some punches I have.  Large one for the body, smaller one for the head, even smaller for the snout and teeny ones for the ears!  I edged them all with a similar pink ink.

Piece together as above picture.  To add some dimension, use foam tape between the head and body and the snout and head.  Attach the little ear circles to the BACK of the head.  Find some silly goggle eyes and glue them on.  And finally, use a regular hole punch to create nostrils with black card.

I wanted to have nice rounded feet but because the legs are really no more than a centimetre wide, it was a little tricky to achieve ...so I went for pointy, still using my corner punch to make it as neat as possible.  Of course, me being me, I changed my mind later on and quickly rounded off the ends :)

Anyway, I inked the edges of the legs just as I did the circles.

Since he is a pig in mud, I used a brown ink pad and some cotton buds to gently apply some "mud" to the feet.  I started with a rolling action, to carefully apply the ink, then started to smudge it around a bit.

Stick the legs to the back of the body so that they're the desired length.  Smudge some more "mud" over the rest of the pig, wherever you like really!  No sense in having a happy pig in mud if it's clean!

I also used a cotton bud with pink ink to accentuate the ears a little, as well as shadows at the tops of the legs and under the chin.  I drew a mouth directly onto the pig's face because, you know, it's happy!  Plus without a mouth it was starting to give me the creeps..

I created the pig pen mud with brown card that I cut a gentle wavy design into the top of.  I then used the off-cut wavy design as the front layer of mud that the fence posts sit behind.  The fence is made, obviously, from ice cream sticks.  For the standing posts, I trimmed them down to about 3/4 length.  I roughly, but generously, rubbed a brown inkpad across each stick before sticking the mud and fence onto the card.

The order is:  Mud, fence, mud top layer, pig.  I used foam tape between the mud top layer and the fence; and the pig and the fence.  The pig's feet are stuck directly onto the top layer of mud.

I drew a curly tail directly onto the card (it's short in this picutre but you'll see I later extended it).  I had big plans for using string or wire or something curly but at the end of the day, this seemed easier  and less busy on an already busy card.

Next I decided (yes, I was working without a plan!) to add some colour so it would pop a bit more.  I created some tufts of grass by cutting out thin green triangles and then fussy cutting the spikes at the top.  Then I put a little tape behind them, slotted the bottom tips of them under the mud, so they were positioned against the fence, and stuck them down.

See?

I also decided to shorten the top layer of mud a bit.

The finishing touches:

• Lengthened the tail
• Using the same technique as with the grass, I punched a circle and fussy cut spikes to create a little sun to fill the top right corner  I trimmed it to fit the card after I stuck it down so that it would fit the corner perfectly.
• Fussy cut a little apple and leaf for the bottom right corner, again just to add a little colour
• Used my computer to create the "Happy as a ..." and " ... in mud!", cut them out and stuck em down!
• Used colour markers to draw tiny highlights onto the apple, leaf, grass and sun.
• Done!

Happy as a ...

Dani :)

Whale Of A Time!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! :)

This year, my husband and I will have been married for 8 years - together over 10 years :)  We're celebrating this by taking a little whale watching cruise!  So in honour of that, I've themed the card I'm giving him.

I make the effort to annoy my husband and show him EVERY card I make.  He's patient but only glances at each card and says "Cool." - it's not his cup of tea.  So it's become tradition for me to make him cards - mostly because I like being annoying!

I quickly got over my phase of thinking he'll cherish these cards, so I never make much of an effort - and generally I like to make them super cheesy!  Strangely, they often end up being amongst my favourites, anyway.

This card was simple:

1. First I used publisher as a quick and easy way to find a  cute picture of a whale - I love this one because it was a good cut out that sits neatly at the bottom of the card.  I also created my greeting on publisher.
2. I fussy cut the whale and cut use a paper trimmer to cut your greeting strips.  When I fussy cut the whale, I trimmed off the spurt of water.
3. I cut white card 12cm x 24cm and then folded in half.
4. I cut a strip of blue card, about 3cm wide and slightly longer than the card.  I used a border punch to create the "waves".
5. I edged the blue card with dark blue (Versa Magic 'Night Sky') and stuck it onto the bottom edge of the card.  I trimmed the sides and reinked the side edges of the blue.  (I'll admit now, also, that I trimmed the entire card a little, which is why it looks a little more slender than square).
6. I stuck the whale onto the bottom edge of the card, over the blue card.
7. I created my own spurt out of sticker gems, stuck on the greeting strips and embellished the top left corner with a few more sticker gems

And that's all there is to it!  I plan to stick a folded up "keepsake" copy of the booking for the whale cruise inside the card :)

Now I'm off to stock up on Sea Legs!

Happy Anniversary! :)

Dani :)

 





Updated: Welcome Zahlia :)

 

So yesterday I became an aunt for the second time :)

Welcome, beautiful little Zahlia!

So, naturally, the first thing I do is dash out to my nearest scrapbooking store (45 minutes away).  Yes, I braved the papers and actually picked some out - am quite proud of this because picking patterned paper frightens the heck out of me!  I knew I wanted butterflies so just went for it!

This is the quick and simple page I made for my sister - I did the same thing when my other niece was born :)  I don't put the photo on there - I just think that if it's going to hang in their house, they should pick their favourite picture or picture that best suits!

As you can see, I didn't do too much with it.  It has a very busy background so wanted to keep things as simple as possible.  I just adore the pretty fabric flower and the skeleton leaves!

And here is the card I made!  (for those who saw this page previously, yeah it's a different card - I can't stop fussing!!)

I heat embossed the pitter patter stamp with silver and fussy cut in a circle around it.  Then I used a punch to make a bigger circle in pink.  The edges of both were distressed, no inking.  Stuck them together , affixed 4 skeleton leaves to the back in a sort of fan and then stuck it all onto the bottom right corner of the page!

Added some bejewelling, some teeny tiny paper roses and embossed the Rock-a-Bye directly onto the top left corner of the card.  Punched the botton left corner to soften it and to stop it from looking so neglected :)
Easy peasy and pretty!

Happy Families!

Dani :)

Black & White

 

ROCKIN' THE MONOCHROME!

When making cards, there's no denying that the monochrome look can have a terrific impact - it can  be eyecatching, sexy, classy, modern, masculine (or feminine!), and fun!

And there's no reason you can't tie that into your stamp colouring as well.  If you're  fan of using copic markers, the impact is incredible.  I use watercolour markers, a little more subtle but still fantastic!

I went for cute and fun in this card :)  I think it would appeal to girls in the 10-13 age range :)

I started out by stamping my image and colouring it with various shades of black, grey and white.  To boost the impact I did colour the skin properly and added one element of red, in the cherry, to make the picture pop.

I used only THREE pens in this colouring:  black, red and skin tone.  Any actual black colouring, I used the black marker directly on the card.  Grey was achieved with the black pen, but painted on with an aqua brush (click here for instructions).  I used the pen-tip of the marker to add texture to her hair.

I finished her off with a little jewel on her bow :)

I got a piece of black card with a faint design to back my coloured image.  You could probably use flat black but I think a faint design adds something.  At the other end of the scale, anything with a clear pattern will be too busy and your picture will be lost.

I distressed the edges of the backing card to relax the style and add some definition to the edges (the other side of the card has a design on white so it worked well because when I distressed the edges, the white showed).  I then mounted my image onto the card with foam tape, to give her lift.

I then mounted my image and card onto patterned paper (black pattern on white) that is only a little smaller than the size of my overall card.  The patterned paper I chose is flocked and also has a little shine to it - gotta love textures!

I added black ribbon to break up the pattern a little.

And to finish it off, I stuck the patterned paper onto my base card and inked the edges of the card with black - again to continue the relaxed feel of the card, but it also helps add some definition since you have laid white paper on white card.

I made a little tag - this one I cut out with my cuttlebug, but you could always cut out a rectangle and snip the corners at an angle at the end with the punched hole to give it a tag look.  I used bright red ribbon to embellish the tag, continuing the theme but not overdoing the red.

I then gave it one final touch:  a black heart on the tag with a little red jewel in it!

Happy Monochroming!

Dani :)