Thursday, May 26, 2011

Doily Sympathy


Doilies have become very popular in paper-craft recently. Not all of them appeal to my personal taste and sometimes it can be hard to find the right-sized doily for use on a card front. But then I came across a die cut to make the above doilies.

Originally I cut the doilies from vellum but then struggled to find a good way to stick the vellum down (lots of cursing here in the craft room about the ineffectiveness of vellum spray). So in the end I went back to regular cardstock in a complementary colour.

I never met a purple I didn't like (yet) and it goes very well with silver. Being a sympathy card, I wanted a subtle look which I was aiming for with the silver butterflies. The base looked quite plain until I embossed it with the "branches" embossing folder. I'm not sure if I've pushed it to far with the rhinestone brad, again not wanting anything too flashy.

Anyway, hoping you've enjoyed your visit to my end of the crafting world. I'll be back as soon as I can with more creations.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love from Crafty Kim

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Stampin' Up Weekly Deal # 4


This week's deals:
Item

Page

Description

Regular Price

Sale Price

113838

62

Right on Track Stampin' Around Wheel

$11.95

$8.37

115619

68

Retro Remix Stampin Around Wheel

$11.95

$8.37

119975

134

Vintage Type Rub-Ons

$15.95

$11.17

118760

134

Play Date Rub-Ons

$16.95

$11.87


If you're having trouble displaying the above table correctly, please click HERE to visit the relevant SU! web page - all details are given there.

They are available from Wednesday, 25 May 2011 until 11:45pm Tuesday 31 May 2011.

If you're interested to purchase any of these at the special prices, please email me or leave a comment or phone/SMS 0402 347 010.

Thanks for your interest. I'll be back with a card to share real soon now.

Love from Crafty Kim

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Punch Art Runner Card


Last year, we made an exciting discovery: my son can run long distances and quite quickly at that. Not sure where this talent originated - not with me. I've done my fair share of running for fitness in days gone by, as has Ashley's father, but neither of us are fast.

When a small boy ran towards the finish line after his first 2.5km school cross-country run, ahead of many other runners, a nearby school mother poked me and said "is that your boy?". I said that I doubted it and glanced briefly in the direction of the field. And there he was...concentrating hard, almost out of puff and plenty red in the face - check out his expressions in other race pictures below. He went on to compete at the next level of competition, against boys from other schools.

Later in the year, he had a try at shorter distances, 100m and 200m sprints, where he did similarly well. I soon found myself with other tired parents at Little Athletics on Friday nights. The friendly salesman at the local shoe store introduced me to shoes I never knew he needed!

I made the above card to encourage him and to let him know how proud I am of his efforts. I was inspired by Michelle Hoffman. I matched the colours to his school athletic uniform. I've used mostly the Stampin' Up! Word Window punch but also the Tag punch and some circles. The Sun also uses a Star punch.



Anyway, just another idea for kids' cards. When I finally get a chance (working full-time at the moment so not much crafting happening), I'm going to try making a footy player card along the same lines so please stay tuned.

Love from Crafty Kim

Friday, May 20, 2011

Star Sympathy

I bought this stamp some years ago - fortunately, haven't needed to use it very often but the idea comforts me. In case you can't quite read it from the photo, here it is in text:

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”


My stamp says it is an Indian saying but other research suggests it originates with Eskimos?

I've been looking for a star embossing folder for some time and when I saw the one used above I snapped it up. I made the card shimmery by sponging silver ink lightly on the raised embossed areas.

I wanted to keep the card low-key but the star clips fitted the theme and the silver mesh ribbon helped distinguish the top layer of navy blue from the navy base.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love from Crafty Kim

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Stampin' Up Weekly Deal # 3 - BLING ALERT


This Week's Deals:
Item

Page

Description

Regular Price

Sale Price

119750

137

Daffodil Delight 5/8'' (1.6 cm) Satin Ribbon

$16.95

$11.87

119963

137

Certainly Celery 3/8'' (1 cm) Taffeta Ribbon

$12.95

$9.07

109112

139

Square Fire Rhinestone Brads

$19.95

$13.97

109113

139

Square Ice Rhinestone Brads

$19.95

$13.97


If you're having trouble displaying the above table correctly, please click HERE to visit the relevant SU! web page - all details are given there.

They are available from Wednesday, 18 May 2011 until 11:45pm Tuesday 24 May 2011.

If you're interested to purchase any of these at the special prices, please email me or leave a comment or phone/SMS 0402 347 010.

Thanks for your interest. I'll be back with a card to share real soon now.

Love from Crafty Kim

Monday, May 16, 2011

Autumn Birthday Card

Here I am with a very speedy post :D It's not like me to be so brief but small or nothing is the order of the day.

I made this card for a dear friend of mine who hails all the way from Canada. Hence the maple leaf which was one of the first stamps I ever bought about 8 years ago.

And then this gorgeous autumn weather, with the sun shining through the deciduous trees, set the colour combination.

Lots of sponging, some more stamping, leafy paper, twine and do you like the branch border? Thought it perfect for this card.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you're keeping warm and getting a chance to enjoy the festival of falling leaves.

Love from Crafty Kim

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Blokey Cards

Cards for blokes, bit tricky aren't they? Some might contend it's not worth spending much time making cards for the significant males in our life but I like to think it's worthwhile.

My first card (shown above) is inspired by a current paper-crafting trend, hot air balloons. I don't have any balloon stamps so pulled out some spotty paper and put my punches to use. I used dies to cut the clouds and sun and made my own tag with computer-generated sentiment (perfect for when you know what you want to say but don't have the stamp to match).

The second card is to appeal to the home handyman. I also love the bright colour combination. The card elements come mainly from the decorative paper along with some rub-ons but I've dry-embossed the black panel with a tool folder (in the Big Shot) and sanded the paper to make the raised images more pronounced. A home-made sign completes the card :)


This one is my attempt at vintage card, designed for the "young at heart". It's a style that doesn't come easily to me by I think I've pulled it off. I love those cogs. And twill, with metal embellishments, all great for guys. I "aged" or "distressed" my card using Glad Wrap and an ink pad (as an alternative to using a sponge). It's a good if your sponge is missing in action. The little clock face is cut-out and popped up too, although you can't really see it in the photo. I also love the colour combination (yes, another one); rustic red-brown (Cajun Craze in SU! speak) is one of my favourite colours.

Lastly something for the petrol-heads...vroooom. I tried what is termed "motion stamping" which is basically repeat stamping without re-inking in between. Or stamping in a progressively lighter-coloured inks. Each time you shift the image across and up or down (away) from the original image. See those large silver brads, I wanted to put them in the centre of the wheels, thought that would look very cool. But I was advised by the MOTH (man of the house) that it wouldn't be correct. Given he is representative of the target audience, I relented and put them on the side instead. But I wasn't alone in thinking this wheel placement of the silver brads was a good idea, my talented friend, Fiona Redknap (go check out her blog, she's been posting up a storm lately), made the same suggestion to me without any prompting. Note for the keen stampers, motion stamping works best with rubber stamps rather than acrylic - they just stamp-off so much better.

I have this long list of ideas for male cards if anyone is interested to receive it? Just leave a comment with your email address or email me and I'll email you the file.

Just looked at the time, off to bed for me. Hope you're keeping snug and warm in this chilly Sydney-town if you live in my city.

Love from Crafty Kim

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Stampin' Up! Weekly Deal # 2


This Week's Deals:


Item

Page

Description

Regular Price

Sale Price

120963

142

Stampin Pastels New Color Kit (19)

$28.50

$22.80

115957

151

Thanks Embosslits Die

$21.95

$17.56

114513

151

Sweetest Stem Embosslits Die

$21.95

$17.56

113483

155

Pennant Bigz XL Die

$74.95

$59.96



If you're having trouble displaying the above table correctly, please click HERE to visit the relevant SU! web page - all details are given there.

They are available from Wednesday, 11 May 2011 until 11:45pm Tuesday 17 May 2011.

If you're interested to purchase any of these at the special prices, please email me or leave a comment or phone/SMS 0402 347 010.

Thanks for your interest.

Love from Crafty Kim

Monday, May 9, 2011

Cricket-Themed Birthday Celebration

Back in February we celebrated my son's birthday with a cricket-themed birthday party for 34 kids. No, it's not a typo, we hosted 34 kids on a warm, sunny Sunday morning. Mostly 9 year old boys. It was a big effort on the part of the grown-ups but the little people had a blast, especially with their water guns to keep cool with. Thanks go to the grandmothers, Sports Kickstart and other parent helpers for their assistance.

Ashley is passionate about cricket and sport in general so there really wasn't any other consideration for a birthday party theme. I made the above birthday card for him in keeping with this theme. The idea for the card came from the inspiring Jayne Mercer. I've used Just Cricket stamps on watercolour paper with markers to colour in the cricket bat. The background grass is from Inspired by Nature - this grass has so many uses, I never knew how much I needed it until I acquired it.

On the day of his birthday, Ashley opened gifts and enjoyed a home-made chocolate cake. It was a quick after-school and post-work effort so I was lucky to find these little cake decorating charms at Woolworths:



Pretty cool heh? But for his party, he wanted a cricket pitch cake. Out came the old edition of Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Cookbook and I started to scope out the job. There were thoughts of coconut tinted green for grass but I was beginning to feel overwhelmed - and the birthday boy objected to coconut ("I don't like it") - so along came Veronika from Sugar Dreams Cake Design who made this beautiful cake:



If you're into cricket, you'll note the play on words with Ash's Cricket (versus Ashes Cricket).

In my next life, I'm going to take up cake decorating because it seems like a lot of fun....thanks for stopping by.

Love from Crafty Kim