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