Please help us find Winnie Beagle Dog

Hi,

It's with a very heavy heart I write this post. Some of you will know that I am part of an animal rescue group called Beagle Rescue NSW (also on Facebook).

One of our foster carers has lost one of her own much-loved beagles. Sheryl and Bec live at Captains Flat near Canberra & a week or so ago when there were very bad storms down that way, Winnie & Buffy beagles escaped. Buffy came back the next morning but Winnie has not been sighted since.

They have searched wide and far on foot, motorbike and car then placed an ad in the paper & contacted the Pound & vets in the area but no joy. It is possible she has been picked up and moved out of the area hence the campaign to spread the word far and wide.

Please pass this message on to anyone you think may be able to help. Above is a photo of Winnie - everyone please pray and/or cross everything that she finds her way home.

Please email enquiries@beaglerescuensw.org.au or phone me on 0402 347 010 if you have any news.

Thanks for reading and if possible, acting to spread the word.

Love from Crafty Kim

Christmas Ornaments

Just popping in quickly to show you this cute fella with his baubles. I coloured him up to match the decorative paper and used a jumbo eyelet and ribbon to jazz-it up. Greeting and two punches later, it was done. Voila!

Hope your Christmas-card making is more advanced than mine! Instead of making cards, I've been trying to clear out some household bric-a-brac and I'm on quite a roll. But do you think I can find anyone to take a large box of quality toys? We're not talking incomplete/lost/broken here, but good stuff. These days many charities accept only new items. Our toys just want to be loved and played with. To suit toddlers, a mix of boys and girls stuff. So if you're local to me (North West Suburban Sydney) and can use them, they're all yours. Just email me or leave a comment.

Back to card-making soon; my son finishes his current school year next week and the kids exchange cards and treats so I need to magic up 20+ items real soon.

Love from Crafty Kim

Polar Bear

Like the icy blue polar bear? Nothing could be further from Christmas in Australia but I still love these snow scenes and images. One day I hope I'll enjoy the novelty of a White Christmas, 'til then I'll make the cards for my Northern Hemisphere friends.

My photography isn't up to showing you but there are tiny dots of glitter at the bears' paws and on his purple-and-green scarf.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love from Crafty Kim

Gingerbread Hugs

Back to Christmas cards. I love gingerbread; to stamp and colour that is, not so much to eat (I'm more of a shortbread girl). I've had this gingerbread stamp and matching sentiment for a long time so I coloured it up. I used a glossy accent on the hearts in the centre of the little men. I decided to continue the heart theme - what I really wanted was a heart embossing folder but nothing suitable in my stash so I made do with some heart punches.

I've loved the loopy border punch since I first spied it. Christmas cards need something sparkly so I added some small rhinestones to selected loops along the border. Some ribbon finished it off nicely.

Thanks for looking.

Love from Crafty Kim

Soccer Boy

This was a card made in a hurry. No time for fancy stuff. But I reckon the image and background paper are big enough stars to pull it off.

I got this stamp from my friend, Julie. It really suited the occasion because Ashley's friend had a soccer-themed birthday party. Picture about 20 boys running around a soccer field. Then came a thunderstorm but the kids quickly adapted the soccer game to a water bomb site. One child proclaimed it to be the "best party ever".

Ashley is off at another party today in this Sydney heat. I left him slipping and sliding along a sheet of plastic sprinkled with water and soap. It's a pretty good life for an 8 year old boy in our end of the world. This time he made the card for the party boy so I'll be back at some stage to show you his work.

Happy Hot Sunday in Sydney and thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim

A Mini-Beastly Card

My son and his class mates have been working on a Mini-Beast (whatever happened to the word Invertebrate?) project for the past month. Last Friday was the hand-in and present date which saw the teacher hosting two redback spiders, a scorpion and a jar of Mosquito wrigglers for the day. The kids were very excited...

During the preparation period, one of Ashley's school friends celebrated his birthday so I thought a Mini-Beast theme would appeal. This card was inspired by a creation from the very talented Karen Thomas. It's a very simple but cool idea to use two different circle punches to make a magnifying glass. The handle can be hand cut but I used the ever-handy Word Window punch from SU!

I always like to decorate the inside of the card if I have time which is no often as I tend to make these cards on the morning of the party :0


Did you see the button on the card? Well Buttons are my new obsession. I've just taken delivery of a whole stack of them from the US, courtesy of the mighty Australian dollar. Enjoy it while it lasts I say.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope your wet weekend includes some paper-crafting.

Love from Crafty Kim

We Stamp for Lara - Online Stamping Event

Just a quick note to publicise a great opportunity to get some fabulous paper-craft tutorials while supporting a special little girl named Lara May Dunn. You can read more about Lara HERE.

You can join by making a deposit into the account below. It’s going to be awesome! And did you see?? You can win A BIGSHOT!!! Yep, you read that correctly!!

Please note, YOU CAN JOIN ANY TIME IN NOVEMBER AND RECEIVE ALL THE TUTORIALS.

Heritage Building Society
Mrs M J Dunn T/F Lara May Dunn
BSB 638010
A/C #: 12189650

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Lara's devoted Mum, Madonna. She's an awesome stamper, proud Mummy to four cherubs and a delight to know.

What are you waiting for? It starts tomorrow...the target is 200 sign-ups, please consider being one of them.

Love from Crafty Kim

Skateboard Dude

Here is another boy card I made. I've used a draggin' stamp technique I learnt from the very talented Renée Van Stralen over in Canada land. Make sure you go and visit her hugely inspiring web site, she's one of my favourite stampers ever. She has posted some very helpful tutorials too.

It took a few practice draggin' runs to get the look I wanted but I was really happy with this card in the end. I wouldn't have thought to put purple and orange together with brown (I copied the colour scheme), but I think it works. I was also happy to find a home for these fancy paper clips from my stash.

Hope the coming week goes well for you. Thanks for visiting my corner of the papercraft world.

Love from Crafty Kim

Computer Guy

A quick post today. Here's a card I made for one of my son's friends when Ashley attended his ninth birthday party. I've got a few boy images to colour and use for upcoming birthday parties.

It's interesting looking back at cards no longer in your possession, I often think I should have done something differently. This card is no exception; not sure about the ribbon placement over the black scallops!

Hope your weekend is going well, thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim

Christmas Cuttlebug / Big Shot Cards

Well, it's been a while. Lots of reasons, mostly been busy with work and fun stuff like school holidays including a trip to Taronga Zoo where we saw new-ish baby elephants, and to Canberra for a few days visiting friends and Questacon, Black Mountain and Floriade. But feeling a bit shabby with a cold this weekend so I'll cut straight to it.

Here are the cards I've been teaching recently. This class was very popular. I wanted to show different Cuttlebug / Big Shot techniques. The first one is using sponging blocks to apply ink to the raised part of cardboard which has been embossed with embossing folders through the Cuttlebug / Big Shot machines:

The next one uses ink applied directly to the Lace Tree embossing folder. The tree is then cut out and mounted on to a matt sponged with ink in the shape of the tree:

I love the Kraft coloured card with red and chocolate.

The third card uses card stock that has a coloured core. Meaning when you emboss it and then lightly sand it with a sanding block or even sand paper, you get this look:

I dusted off my deckle-edged scissors to edge the Kraft card behind the greeting panel and decided I should use them more often. Quick and easy alternative to a border punch.

Last one was the fast bonus card. It is a clean and simple card. The wreath comes as a die and embossing folder pair. I've done it in both red and green card, then cut the ribbon only out from the red one before applying it to the green. The white gel pen just adds a bit of contrast and dimension. I used glitter glue to simulate berries but I think small red beads (glued on) may look better, albeit more fiddly.

Note the embossed border around the image and greeting? Not done with a folder, but with a scoring tool. This can really add interest to the card and it's so easy and cheap.

Well I'm off to cough and splutter elsewhere. I've made a few cards in my absence from here, just need to upload them to the PC. My card reader died so I'm back using a cable and it's soooo slow for the high quality photos.

Thanks for looking, hope your week goes well.

Love from Crafty Kim

Christmas Punch Art Cards

Here are the cards that we made my Christmas Punch Art card class earlier this month. My favourite would be the polar bears, so cute! This isn't my original idea - there are some very creative punch artists out there who magically turn punchies into card features. These polar bears are popping up all over the place and I couldn't find where they were born :(

Next up is the Christmas tree:

This was made by layering pieces of paper which have been edged with a lacy border punch. These lacy border punches really are so versatile and useful (earlier this year I used one to create a flower, click HERE to look again).

Another cute card, the reindeer here from punch guru, Debra Clarke:

I have to say I'm loving the grass edge border punch; very useful.

And the last quick one at the end of the night is Santa, original punch art designed by Ros Davidson:

Thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim

Card for Grandpère

Here's the card we gave my father-in-law, Lex, for Father's Day recently. The design was inspired by Kendall Joyce and it uses a technique called Faux Tiling. I've done some other "tiled" cards in the past, click here to view.

We celebrated Father's Day this year with a trip to the footy, to watch Sydney Swans play Carlton. It was good game, full of suspense, with Sydney just beating Carlton in the last few minutes.

Thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim

The Tooth Fairy's Been Visiting

Ashley has been later to lose his top two teeth compared with many of his peers. The dentist says this isn't a bad thing because the older kids are when their adult teeth come through, the more likely they are to look after them well. But Ashley was very excited to finally feel his top teeth wiggling. I was less thrilled; more evidence that he's growing up and in a few blinks, he'll be an adult.

Without much fuss the teeth were soon gone leaving "the gap":

I thought I would make this card to mark and celebrate the occasion. The tooth fairy paid his visit too, although in our house, he's quite frugal ;)

It's not a great photo thanks to being taken late at night but there is glitter on the fairy's wings. I wanted to use a star embossing folder for the red panel but alas, none in stock, so I approximated it by punching stars in the same card colour and gluing them down. As with most punch art, it was fiddly and I ended up with glue in unwanted places but no matter.

I'm enjoying Ashley's toothless smile while it lasts. Thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim

Cards Inspired By Nature

Here are the cards I taught last month (has a whole month passed? Surely not!). You may remember I have a real thing for trees, birds, flowers and leaves and these cards are part of this current interest of mine.

First the trees:


I thought the lattice border punch made it appear as if the viewer was standing in front of a fence looking into a field.

And here's the birthday owl:


I was pretty impressed with myself for combining two embossing folders on one sheet of cardboard (not too often I have a new idea). I took the design of the stamp (branch at bottom, dots on party hat) and chose embossing folders to suit. The join of course is hidden by the ribbon, not that I need an excuse to use ribbon.

And lastly, made especially with my friend Dianne in mind, the flower:

I used die cuts made from tissue paper to make the flower and then had an attempt at something approaching shabby chic/vintage, a style that doesn't come easily to me at all. But I was content with it for a first go. That was until Dianne did the class and made an even nicer flower on her first attempt (from the same materials as mine). Humff. I'll see if she'll share her flower with you when I get a spare minute. I also used black tea to tint my lacy ribbon from white to cream, worked out well for future reference.

Thanks for looking,

Love from Crafty Kim

Happy Birthday Andrew

One month and one day after my birthday, a friend celebrated his birthday. I made the above card for him using papers in some of my favourite colours and punches. Lots of sticking-down but apart from that it was very easy and I was chuffed with the end result. Another great way to use paper scraps (click here and here for other ideas).

We had a good night out at Gourmet Pizza Kitchen followed by a memorable walk through a construction zone (don't ask). I was a bit slow to capture the moment with my camera and he wasn't keen to pose so this is the only photo I managed to get:

I've been a very good blogger lately; still more cards to share so pop back when you can. And check out my links (on the right, down) which I've updated - lots of eye candy there.

Love from Crafty Kim

Look out for Legacy Today

Regardless of your stance on war, please consider supporting Legacy which cares for the families of deceased war veterans. Volunteers will be selling pins today to fundraise for the cause but if you don't happen upon one of these, Telstra is donating $1 for every "Legacy" text message sent to 0447 877 678 during legacy week (ends midnight 10 September 2010). To find out more, please click on the image above.

Thanks for reading. Have a good day.

Love from Crafty Kim

Hot Chocolate

Well Spring is upon us in the southern hemisphere so I'm a bit late posting this wintery card which I made for the occasion of my friend Leanne's birthday. Leanne really feels the cold and has endured a chilly winter while her home has been renovated (meaning part of the house was open to the elements and no central heating). She also loves hot chocolate (like me, she drinks neither tea or coffee).

So this image was perfect for her card. In keeping with hot chocolate, I used cocoa and chocolate coloured paper and card. The pink was only chosen because it goes well with brown and the blue, hmmm, it must have been to go with the jeans.

Anyway, hope you have a warm and sunny day tomorrow whatever the weather is.

Love from Crafty Kim

Swimming Congratulations

A small deal in the overall scheme of life but my son Ashley started at a new school this year which is fortunate to have its own aquatic centre. He'd been enjoying learn-to-swim lessons at a local swim centre but for the sake of convenience and consistency, it was decided to move his lessons to the school's facility.

His school's approach to swimming instruction differs from his past teaching so he's taken some time to progress from the class level he was originally assessed at. He's watched quite a few of his class mates get promoted while he's stayed put. There's been some comments along the lines of "they're so fussy Mum" and "it's no fun" and I've wondered whether I made the wrong choice. But to his credit, Ashley has stuck it out and after nearly three school terms, he's been promoted to the "Goldfish" class.

So I made this little card for Ashley very quickly late at night. It's super simple but I was really happy with it, especially when so little time and thought went into it. If you have any questions about the card, please email me or leave a comment.

Anyway, thanks for enduring my proud mother moment.

Love from Crafty Kim

Bon Voyage Maria

A friend of mine is off to Europe for a well-deserved break and a reunion with her daughter who is currently on a working holiday. I made this card to wish her well in her travels.

I've got a thing for VW vans and the "flower-power" design also appealed. I followed a sketch design and wasn't sure about rotating the van?

If you have any questions about the card, please email me or leave a comment.

Hope you're having a groovy weekend.

Love from Crafty Kim

Helping Hudson

What is Helping Hudson? It's a group of stampers who are raising funds for a little boy named Hudson. A KidWalk will help him learn to walk, and take another step toward more independence. You can read Hudson's story here.

There are some great ways to contribute. Paper-craft challenges are running; for a small entry donation, you're eligible to win some great prizes. Some very talented crafters have donated their time and creativity to make tutorials which contain great ideas and are good value. Here's a sneek peek of the punch art one:

PLEASE take a minute to visit the Helping Hudson website and help if you can.

Thanks for looking,

Love from Crafty Kim

A welcome card for Baby Jack

Back in January, my family was blessed with another dear baby boy, Jack. Born to my brother and his wife, I am very lucky to be his aunt. And he is a new cousin for my Ashley. Following is a photo of the two of them. Unfortunately, I didn't get the timing right...Jack was coming up to a feed and therefore not the happiest chappy but it'll give the cousins something to talk about one day :)

I was very slow to make a welcome card for Jack but was happy with the result. The colour combo of yellow, blue and warm grey along with ribbon and scalloped border works well.

Of course Jack is a bouncing bonnie bubba now, with his newborn phase long gone. He's onto solids and I'm sure he'll soon be on the move.

Love from Crafty Kim

Game Console Boy

During the very cold and wet winter school holidays, my son entertained himself with his game console. Fortunately, he also enjoyed playing tennis, basketball, AFL and other sports at various school holiday camps. But the game consoles are very popular with boys of his age.

So when Ashley was invited to a school friend's birthday celebration (which was a trip to the Power House Museum, very cool), my mind turned to the stamp shown above. In the gaming theme, I added the sentiment "It's your turn...." and inside:


Happy birthday to a special 9 year old. Time sure flies, I can hardly believe that 9 and 10 year old birthday parties are on the agenda.

Thanks for looking.

Love from Crafty Kim

Simple Felt Card

Yes, the SALE is still on but it was getting a bit boring having it at the top of my blog so I'm back to regular posting. Just click HERE to see my sale items.

A couple of years back, I bought some strips of decorative felt without much thought as to how I would use them. They do look good on a scrap page but I wasn't sure what to do with them on a card. Hence they've been hanging out on my embellishment carousel ever since.

But I finally opened the pack and stuck them on a card. I'm big on Kraft-coloured card at the moment and I like the single layer aspect of this card. A bit of bling, a greeting and it was finished. Which is great for me as I tend to overthink most cards, taking way too long and getting overwhelmed with options. My only doubt about this card was the ribbon, to be or not to be?

Thanks for looking,

Love from Crafty Kim

STAMP CLEARANCE SALE CONTINUES

Keeping this post at the top, please scroll down for other entries

*I've added more pictures of sets for sale*

Well I've been threatening it for a while now....I'm clearing out my stash and selling items that I'm unlikely to use before I die. It's all great stuff but with me having less crafting time than ever, I want the items to go to a good home where they'll be loved and exercised regularly.

If you click on the name of the set, you'll be taken to the Split Coast Stampers gallery for a photo of the images and many ideas for using the set. Many of the stamps will suit scrapbookers as well, so please spread the word so I can re-home these babies.

I'll be donating half of the total proceeds of sale to animal charities such as:


Stamps are available for local pickup (Hornsby area of Sydney, post code 2120) or I will post them by Australia Post, most likely in a 500g ($6) or 3kg ($10) red satchel (depending on your post code and weight of parcel).


Especially Suitable for Scrapbookers

Big Deal Alphabet set of 24 brand new wood (mounted) $25

Expressive Flexible Phrases set of 56 brand new wood (unmounted) $25


Nature / Flowers

Infinite Goodness set of 6 brand new wood (mounted) $15

Backgrounds, Frames & Other Useful Stamps

All in a Row set of 4 brand new wood (mounted) $12


Christmas & Other Occasions

Card made with All Through the Year
(Creation & Photo with thanks to Jennie)

All Through the Year set of 8; 7 brand new & 1 used in very good condition wood (mounted) $15

Card Card made with Stipple Celebrations

(Creation & Photo with thanks to Melanie Hawks)

Stipple Celebrations set of 14 used wood (excellent condition) $20

Greetings Galore set of 8 used wood (good condition) $15

Card made with Treat Yourself

Treat Yourself set of 13 used wood (good condition) $20

To buy or make a near offer, please email me or leave a comment. First in, first served. I will accept PayPal, bank deposit, cheque or cash. Credit card possible for combined purchases of more than $30. Once an item is sold, I will remove it from this web site. Unsold items are headed to eBay after this.

Thanks for looking and considering.

Love from Crafty Kim

Happy Birthday Marie

Back in May I had the opportunity to go to "colouring-in school" for a day. Very indulgent. Apart from learning some useful marker techniques, I also got to stamp some images for practicing my colouring-in later. The above card is made with the first colouring-in job I was satisfied with (a few went into the bin).

I used a card sketch for the lay-out and used some co-ordinating paper (the background paper was cut with my Circle Scissor) plus felt flowers and pretty rhinestone brads to come up with a birthday card for my friend Marie. The image probably suits a little girl best but lucky Marie shares my current passion for this style of stamp so she was happy to receive it. The greeting is from a new sentiment set I got recently - I love all the swirls in the tops and tails of the letters.

Thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim.

Clear Acetate Cards

The electricity supply for Sydney's north west has been out since the wee hours of this morning until now. How reliant we are on it for warmth and food supply. My son and I had a game of chess while keeping warm with blankets and eating Madeira cake for breakfast. We didn't have to rush out of the house as Ashley's swimming lesson was cancelled, again due to lack of power.

Back to the cards. Last month I challenged myself to use acetate in cards and teach a class. Above is one resulting card. There are so many techniques using acetate that I had trouble narrowing it down to three in the end.

Can you see I've used that old dinosaur, mulberry paper, in the card above? It's been so long since I got it out of my paper file. But it has lovely whispy edges. And do you like the glittery flower? I laser-printed a digital stamp from my PC onto one side of the acetate and then applied glitter to the reverse. I glued the image glitter-side-down to the backing card, containing the glitter meaning it won't fall off in its travels over time. As you can see from above, acetate embosses well in the Big Shot or Cuttlebug. It is hard to cut though, you need nice sharp dies and plenty of pressure. But here's the result:

Each petal has been cut from yellow card and then another layer of embossed acetate has been placed over the top.

Lastly, we stamped on acetate. Can be a little tricky as acetate is slippery but I find Staz-On good because it is a sticky ink and it also stays-on (most dye inks will not dry and therefore smear). Solid/silhouette style stamps work well. I've used a very old daisy stamp that I still love many years after first seeing it.


To add some texture and dimension, I layered the acetate over embossed card which had been sponged lightly. Acetate is like vellum, you can't apply adhesive without seeing through it so you need to fix it down with brads or eyelets. I've used my new "dog bone" punch for the sentiment piece.

Thanks for looking, have a good day.

Love from Crafty Kim

Happy Birthday Carolyne

Continuing on with the clean-and-simple theme, here's a card I fashioned from not much more than decorative paper for the occasion of my friend Carolyne's birthday.

Paper goes a long way. Just add card and ribbon in co-ordinating colours plus sentiment. I added some paper piercing for interest and layered my sentiment on some punchies. Done :)

If you want to make a co-ordinating envelope (which, sadly, I didn't in my rush to get the card in the mail), you can use the paper to line the envelope. It's a nice touch.

Anyway, Carolyne, if you're reading this, hope you have received my card and are enjoying some time with your famous comedian son during his visit from overseas.

And, speaking of overseas, Happy 4th of July long weekend to my online friends in the USA.

Thanks for visiting.

Love from Crafty Kim

Happy Birthday Tiana

Well here's a card I made for 10 year old Tiana. I choose this digital image because the child and dog look so like Tiana and her Golden Retriever, Sharnee. As with all colouring, the principles of light and shade to give the image dimension were applied. I also tried to keep the colours similar to those in the background paper and card. I was able to use the markers to colour the silk flowers and brad so they matched. The layout is from Mojo Monday 139; always helpful to follow a sketch.

I haven't been crafting much lately between work, kid-wrangling (school holidays are upon us) and having a nasty head cold. The cold and frosty weather in Sydney hasn't helped much either. Sydney-siders just aren't geared up for sub-zero temperatures, it really cramps our lifestyle.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

Luv from Crafty Kim

Happy Anniversary to Bob & Maureen

Here's a clean-and-simple card I made for some family friends as they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Quite an achievement is 50 years of marriage. The happy couple received letters of congratulations from the Queen and the Prime Minister amongst others so my little card was in lofty company.

My little CuttleBug worked hard at this. Of course being a Golden Wedding Anniversary, gold was mandatory. I cut the numbers with an alphabet die set, and the scalloped circle with Nestabilities, picked up some co-ordinating ribbons and it was almost there.

Wishing Bob and Maureen more happy years of togetherness.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love from Crafty Kim

Get to the Moscow Circus

This afternoon I had a really good time at the Moscow Circus with family and friends. I've been to a few circuses in recent years including Cirque du Soleil and Circus Oz and I have to say I enjoyed the Moscow Circus most. It's great value, the action keeps on coming for two hours. It's currently playing in Hornsby (Rofe Park, until Sunday June 27) but moves on to other suburban locations next so it's very accessible.

We all laughed alot, especially at the clown acts and the ring master. And some of us cringed as we saw what we thought was impossible. Our kids (aged 5 onwards) were entranced. Kids of all ages are welcome, the family behind us tried in vain to get their baby to sleep - even he was paying close attention. But it's not just for kids; I reckon the acts appeal to all ages. There was some distinctly Russian acts as well as magic and puppetry not always seen at the circus. Its big claim to fame is a motorcycle act like no other (and it wasn't an assault on the ears either).

At the end of the wonderful show, the ring master asked us to spread the word if we enjoyed the show. So here I am; I can not speak highly enough of the show. More details here or at Ticketek. I hope I'll be able to see the Moscow Circus again when they tour Australia next (about two years away).

Love from Crafty Kim