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