Saturday 18 February 2012

Stamp, stamp, stamp...

Good evening friends,

I hope your weekend is so far so good.

I took a day off work yesterday (Friday) and took my two daughters to see The Muppets. "Life's a happy song when there's someone by my side to sing along..." just couldn't stop humming the song!! It was a great movie. Aimee and Jasmine loved it too!

Since my first attempt of one layer card last time and it failed (I didn't realise that paper piecing is adding on a layer), so I thought I would have another go. I decided to play at the Simplicity: One-Layer Wednesday (OLW) 70: Stamp, stamp, stamp... This challenge is to use at least three, preferably more, stamps on your one-layer card. The more, the merrier!

This time I made sure it is one layer. Apart from stamping direct on a card base, I didn't dare to add a spot of glitter or gem, just in case that makes another layer. (Does it? Let me know.) This really gives me the chance to play with Paula Pascual Filled with Flowers clear stamps set which I bought before Christmas last year. So here is the card. I counted and recounted and I've used 12 stamps for this card.

And here is a closer look of all my flowers.

I think I have not stamped so much in one card. No colouring, no layering, no cutting, nothing but stamping. I like the card up to a certain point then I guess I got carried away and stamped too much and made it too busy. So here is my second attempt (yes, another card!):

It is less cluttered and simpler. I think it looks a bit better than the first. Here is a closer look of the image. This time I've only used 8 stamps. Oh, forgot to mention that the flourish stamp is from Crafter's Companion Clearly Hand Stamped set. 

What do you think? Which one do you prefer? Surely I've managed a one layer card this time!! Better go and get the dinner ready. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Hugs,

Tuesday 14 February 2012

You're the cream in my coffee

Hi blog friends,

Didn't think that you will see me again this quick huh?! ^_^

Talking about quick, this will have to be a quick post. As it is very very late and I should really be in bed by now!! Just want to share the card that I made for my husband tonight. It is not the usual Valentine colour but I like it!

I guess this is the quickest card I ever made too! I think I am getting used to clean and simple styled cards. All the stamped images, including sentiment, are from TPC Studio Coffee Cafe Clear Stamps set. I have paper piecing the coffee cup. Stamped the row of coffee beans in Brilliance Coffee Bean ink colour. (I am not sure about those coffee beans. I don't think they are straight!!) Then stamped the sentiment "You're the cream in my coffee" at the bottom and added gems on each side.

Here is a closer look of the main image.

I am entering this card to the following challenges:

Less is More: Week 54 One Layer Card with Stripes (I don't think I ever made a one layer card. It is hard to keep it to the basic. Hope paper piecing still count as one layer, if not feel free to remove my entry.)
*Edit: Just found out that "paper piecing is actually adding a layer as it can't really be regarded as an embellishment". Nevermind, first attempt. Now I know it. Will try again with one layer card next time.
Sweet Stampin': Clean and Simple

Hope you have a great day and Happy Valentine's Day to you all!
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Sunday 12 February 2012

Free Digi... (if you are interested!)

Hello blog friends!

Hope I have not kept you waiting for too long. I did say that I was going to show you something that you've not seen before in my last post, didn't I?

Well, it was my daughter Aimee's 9th birthday last Sunday (where has the time gone? She has grown so fast!). We had around 6-8 kids around our house for a fun party with yummy food. To start the party off we had a craft session first. We made key rings, ear rings and magnets out of shrink plastic. The kids enjoyed it! It was their first time to see such a thin plastic sheet wiggled and wriggled and shrinked to 7 times smaller into a hard piece of plastic. It was great watching their faces being amazed at the transformation! ^_^ Then we had an intense and exciting sports team competition and funny dance along games on the XBox Kinect. Gosh! I almost forgot that I am not as young as these children. After the party, I was aching everywhere!!

Anyway, enough of me talking. The thing I was going to show you are the party invitations which Aimee and I made. Aimee had a special request for her invitations. She said she would like a fancy dress party at home. Therefore, she would like to have an image of someone dressed up in costume as the main focus on the invites. And as it is the year of dragon this year, preferably someone dressed up in a dragon outfit. Hmmm.... this request turned out to be almost impossible. Where would I find a stamp/ image as she described? There might be one out there (if you come across one, please do let me know) but due to time restriction I didn't have a choice but to try and draw one myself!! So here it is, our first invitation with my creation. You have been warned, there will be lots of pictures in this post!! tongue smileys

I think I haven't done too terribly here, have I? I think she looks quite cute in the dragon outfit! When I drew her I had Aimee in mind, so I decided to call her Em. Here is a closer look of Em, holding a birthday cake too:

And here are some of the invitations which Aimee coloured in. She coloured them in according to her friends favourite colours.

Here's a closer look. I particularly love the colourful wings on the far right. We also added  Stickles Crystal glue on the wings and 3D Crystal Lacquer on the dots of the dragon, which unfortunately didn't show up very well in the pictures.

I also wanted a sentiment specifically for this invitation, thus I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 to create the circular sentiment image. We used coloured pencils on the centre smaller circles and attached gems on each side.   

This is the inside of the card with all the party details. I applied double sided tape on three sides so it acts as a pocket for the RSPV tag.

Here is a picture of the RSVP tag.
Hope I have not bored you with all these photos. If you have managed to stay with me this far, I am delighted to tell you that I am happy to share Em with you. I know there are a lot of talented artists out there and their creations are amazing. But if you like Em and would like to use it on your cards, scrapbooks or any craft creations, please email me HERE and I will email you a copy.

Thank you for reading my post. I will come back soon. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.