Frangipani Thank You

Hi fellow crafters,

It is now just over 2 weeks since I last blogged, so my frustration is growing at not

being able to spend lots of time crafting and happily drooling over your lovely creations.

My poor dear John is still bleeding, and is just getting over another Golden Staph.

infection. We have had an endless round of appointments, and the urologist has 

decided that John has to go back into hospital for more surgery, in an effort to repair 

all the internal damage that was done to him in August 2015. We believe that the

legal case will be finalised towards the end of the year.

The card I have to show you is the one I made to thank the 2 lovely, kind lady

Paramedics who took me to hospital just before Christmas. 

I adore frangipanis, and had several trees in my gardens back on our farm. I planted

one right near our back door about 25 years ago, and during summer the perfume of 

its hundreds of blossoms would waft throughout our house. Before we moved, I took

6 cuttings from it, and they are all happily growing and blooming in large

garden pots in our courtyard, and on our front porch.

This stamp was one of the first I ever purchased, and the image is 

ever so easy to colour. I used my trusty Promarkers.

The inside of my card is very simple, with plenty of space on which

I wrote my message of gratitude to my 'Angels of Mercy'. My

embellishment frangipani is from 1 of my potted cuttings.

Image - Stamp-it Frangapani

Colouring - Promarkers

Paper - Unnamed A4 Vellum (15 years old)

Dies - Spellbinder Classic and Scalloped Rectangles; Spellbinder Decorative Labels Eight

Peel-off sticker and gold brads from my junk stash

Here in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, and in many other regions of eastern Australia, we are experiencing unprecedented high temperatures (mid to high 40s), with nighttime temps only dropping to 26 to 32oC. This summer we have broken a large number of records, and this weekend our bushfire danger indices have been graded 'Catastrophic Plus'. However, many of you are having record cold temps, so where ever you are, please stay cool or warm what ever your case may be.

Until next time, thank you for visiting,

Hugs,

Jennifer x 

Demonstration Rose

Hello fellow crafters,
As I mentioned in my previous post, I did a demonstration on making vellum flowers at the Stamp Camp/Retreat I attended last weekend. This was the card I made with the rose I created at the demonstration.

I used my Tim Holtz 'Tattered Florals' die to cut out the petals, and to give my rose a fuller look, I cut 2 of the largest flowers. The leaves are also vellum, cut with Spellbinder 'Foliage' die, and coloured with 'Crushed Olive' distress ink.

The petals are coloured with Adirondack 'Raisin', and the centre is Flower Soft 'Lemon'.

The inside of the card is decorated to co-ordinate with the front. I layered 2 Spellbinder Classic Scalloped Squares over the DP, and added a Memory Box 'Madera' corner die-cut. The gorgeous DP, was a fab '50% off' special on a bargain table at an art shop in Newcastle recently. I only bought a couple of sheets (A4), but wish I had bought more. It is by Cristina Re, and has the most luxurious texture. I was so pleased to find that the reverse side matched the colour of my rose perfectly..

I used Spellbinder 'Fleur de Lis', and Marianne dies for the card front. The sentiment is computer generated 'Brock' font.

I would like to enter my card in the following challenge -

             Daring Cardmakers - 'Vellum'

Until next time, thank you for visiting,

Hugs,

Jennifer. x

ATCs and More

Hello fellow crafters,
Sadly, my Stamp Camp/Retreat is over for another year. I look forward to it for months, and it feels as if we have barely settled in, and it is time to pack up and travel home. I know many of the other ladies feel the same.

The meals, prepared by Chef Mick, were as always, beautiful, and.....as always, I ate far too much.

Our instructor this year was the very talented Rachael Grieg, of Darkroom Door. We got very inky fingers, but it was such fun, and we learned a lot.

In my previous post I promised to show you some of the ATCs and other projects I had made for the weekend. I did 2 different styles of ATCs, as some people like 'pretty' styles, and others prefer a more grungy style. Below is a selection from the pile I made.

Unfortunately the photo above doesn't show the fact that I had embossed the majority of these ATCs with clear embossing powder. The brick wall card was put through a Tim Holtz embossing folder, swiped with Frayed Burlap distress ink, then clear embossed. The other cards were sponged with distress inks - Milled Lavender, Tattered Rose, Antique Linen, and Spiced Marmalade, then over-stamped. The tree and birds stamp is by Tim Holtz, while the flowers one is Hero Arts. 

The flower toppers are by Craftwork Cards, coloured with Promarkers; the middle card was embossed using 2 Cuttlebug folders - Swiss Dots and Argyle, then the raised Argyle side was swiped with Milled Lavender distress ink. The round flower stamp is from a very old Hero Arts set. For the 'quilted' cards I ruled squares, coloured them with Promarkers, then drew tiny flowers freehand. I pierced holes around the edges and drew faux stitching. I cut the scissors with a Marianne die.

This is a selection of the vellum flowers I made as samples for the demonstration I did at the Camp. Most are cut with different dies and punches, while some are cut freehand. They are coloured with various dye inks, either with single colours or blended on the flowers. The centres are Flower Soft.

These are the cards I made to thank Pat, Wilma, and Tara for all their hard work organising the Camp. (The photo which includes Tara's card was too blurred to publish). I also gave them a big box of Maltesers each. The toppers are by Craftwork Cards, coloured with Promarkers, and the DPs are First Edition 'Desert Bloom'.

This morning, one of my fur-babies, Pagliacci woke up with a closed eye, so off we went to the vet. The poor old boy (almost 14) has a huge ulcer on his cornea in one eye, and a small one on the other. Goodness knows how they occurred, but I have to put ointment in his eyes 4 or 5 times per day for 5 days. Oh dear, what fun I am in for - he is not known for his cooperative attitude.

As with previous Stamp Camps, we waste very little time sleeping, so I think it is time for me to try to catch up.

Until next time, thank you for looking,
Hugs, Jennifer. x

Cuttlebug Squares

Hello fellow crafters,
As I thought might be the case, we were delayed in Newcastle yesterday - the specialist was 1 hour behind with  her appointments, so by the time we got home it was time to feed and bed down all our furred and feathered babies, and then prepare our dinner. I didn't get a chance to make a new card today either as we had unexpected visitors, so I will show you 2 mosaic, grid-style cards that I made last year. You may recall I mentioned in my last post that I have often made these cards in various forms.

I was showing some friends, fairly new to card-making, and with new Cuttlebugs, how they could use several embossing folders on a card, instead of one large background. They had also never seen chalking done.

For the first card, I cut 9 squares using my Spellbinder Nestabilities. While one was still in the die (the middle one) I sponged it lightly with Versacube Baby Pink ink. The remaining 8 squares were positioned in 4 different embossing folders in a way that highlighted particular areas, then passed through the Cuttlebug. Then I very lightly coloured the raised images with soft pink and green chalks. I then adhered the 9 squares to pink cardstock which was in turn adhered to card front. I added 3 punched vellum butterflies, the largest of which was glued, 3D fashion over one embossed butterfly. Tiny flat-back pearls were attached to that butterfly's body.

My second card is almost the same as the 1st. I added 1 punched vellum and pearl butterfly to centre panel with silver peel off sticker; punched vellum flowers; pearls. The backing paper is oyster grey pearlised waterwave paper. I put tiny dots of 'Crystal' Stickles in the centres of the embossed flowers.

I sent both these cards to non-crafting friends in different states of Australia, so I didn't feel there was a problem with making them so similar.

Thank you for looking...until next time...happy crafting.

Jennifer. x