Panel Card

The idea of this card is to attempt to show motion, like an old film strip or cartoon sequence. I've included some photos below of how I constructed the card including a colour guide for those who might be interested.

Stamps:

Poultry in Motion clear stamps

Poultry in Motion digital stamps

Fab 'n' Funky

She may have a muffin top and fallen arches but she's bright, colourful and showing up for her exercise class! I'd say, all things considered, this is a lady who has her act together.

Stamps:

Poultry in Motion digital stamps

Poultry in Motion clear stamps

Colouring Goodness with Kathy

Today we're joining the lovely Kathy Asper in her crafty space for some colouring goodness. She's been hard at work researching different long-legged birds to show us some colouring options for one of the images in the new Big Wishes digital set. Can you identify the birds she's chosen?

Kathy used one of the images to create a fabulous Thank You card for someone special. Have a really close look at the way she has coloured and layered the image... there's even brown paper wrapping the flowers!

Stamps:

Big Wishes digital stamps

Did you manage to figure out what birds Kathy has showcased in her colouring? The first one is a blue heron, followed by a flamingo who was probably given away by his pink plumage, and lastly, a crane. Kathy has kindly shared her colouring guide for those who are curious about her medium.

Kathy's Blog

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Card and Colour Guide

I am not a morning person. Never have been and I'm absolutely sure I never will be. In fact, if it were up to me the working day wouldn't begin until noon, and that would be considered an early start! 

Stamps:
Poultry in Motion clear stamps

Poultry in Motion digital stamps

Gift Giving Fun

Digital images have the benefit of easily being resized, which makes them ideal for big projects such as this awesome gift bag that Anesha is sharing with us today. The bag is A4 in size and required a nice large image to fill the front panel. Anesha enlarged one of the images from the Poultry in Motion set, coloured with her Derwent Inktense pencils and a little bit of water and embellished with large die cuts and some pretty flowers. 

She has kindly included a colour chart for those interested in what pencils she used on her project.

Anesha's Blog

Birthday Card Set

The new Big Wishes set really lends itself to lots of fabulous bright colours! I printed the pre-coloured images from the digital set, backed them with gorgeous bright pink card stock and mixed in some multi-coloured sequins and fun embossing folders for birthday cards with a bang!

Stamps:
Big Wishes digital stamps

Everything Papercraft - Inks

So many inks! So little time!

One of the basic supplies for stampers and card-makers is the trusty old ink pad. In the early days of paper crafting, our choices were really limited, but these days the story is quite different. We have a huge range of inks that perform in different ways depending on the surfaces we’re using and the mediums we’re applying over the top. Sometimes choosing the right ink can be the most difficult part of the entire project!

Solvent Inks: Generally permanent and can be used on a wide variety of surfaces including leather, glass, wood, metal and other non-porous surfaces. They don’t perform too well on fabric given that they aren’t designed to be regularly laundered. Solvent inks should only be used in well ventilated areas.

Pigment Inks: Usually thick and relatively slow drying, pigment inks are a great choice for heat embossing. They can be either permanent or non-permanent so it’s important to check the label before using them on your project, and keep in mind that you may have to heat set the ink to dry it fully. Pigment inks come in a huge variety of colours and finishes including chalks and metallics, and they tend to be more brilliant than dye inks as they sit on the surface of the project rather than sinking in to the fibres.

Dye-Based Inks: Dye inks are the most common form of ink on the market for paper crafters. As such, the range of colours is almost endless. The ink pads come in various sizes and are made from various materials including linen and foam. The properties of the inks vary from brand to brand, and include highly water-reactive inks, which are great for watercolour techniques, as well as waterproof dye inks that won’t bleed when mixed with water-based mediums. Once again, it pays to check the label before you begin your project.

Hybrid Inks: As the names suggests, hybrid inks are a combination of pigment and dye-based inks with the associated properties of both. They tend to dry quickly, making them unsuitable for heat embossing, and they’re easier to clean up than solvent based inks. Different brands will give you different results, so it can be a matter of trial and error.

HINT: I use a simple mnemonic to remember which inks work with what mediums... “oil and water don’t mix”. Oil, which in this case is your solvents and alcohol inks, won’t bleed or smear with water based mediums such as paint. Similarly, water-based inks won’t smear with solvent or alcohol based mediums such as Copic markers or Sharpie pens.

Tutorial - Scraplet Cards

I may be overly optimistic to call this a tutorial since it's basically just an A-frame card, but I have been a little obsessed with these cards ever since I discovered them in last year's Month of Holiday Cards Challenge. Nancy Soetaert had some wonderful examples on her BLOG, and it was like a light bulb moment for me. All those little strips of card stock, previously banished to the scrap drawer, now had a new and wonderful purpose! Let me show you how...

I use a lot of A4 sized card stock to make my cards, which is a very common size here in Australia. Generally, I trim these down to 11" x 51/2" for a good sized square card, leaving me with a strip of card stock measuring around 111/2" 23/4", which ends up in the scrap drawer for sentiments, punch shapes, or whatever little snippet I might need. Today, that's the piece we're going to use.

1. Start with a piece of A4 card stock. Trim 51/2" from one long edge, and reserve for later card making. 

2. Place the thin strip horizontally on your scoreboard and score at 57/8" (or just fold in half if you prefer).

This is the card base for our scraplet card!

3. Now all you have to do is decorate. Because these little scraplets are so narrow, you can add elements that are much wider than the base and still use an ordinary envelope. They're fabulous for using up scraps of patterned paper, ribbon and any other off-cuts you might have.

I hope you enjoy making these little cards as much as I do!

Stamps:

Cards With Carla

We're off to Carla's place today to see three fabulous cards she created using the new Big Wishes digital stamp set. She has even included a free template so you can create your own version of her awesome gift-shaped card! Just print it on A4 sized paper, cut around the edges and trace it on to your card stock. If you love fussy cutting then this project will be right up your alley!

All Carla's colouring has been done with coloured pencil on white card stock. Her preferred brand is Faber Castell Polychromos but she also uses Derwent Coloursoft.

Now take a look at this fabulous creation! Carla has designed a gift-shaped card complete with a double-layered bow and she has very generously allowed the pattern to be published for everyone to use. I'm sure she'd love to see any of the cards you make with her design, so please drop her a line with a link to your blog if you make one.

Carla's Blog

Fussy Cutting

Today's quick tip is about making your fussy cutting a little easier.

After you've stamped or printed your image and coloured it in, spend a little time looking at the different areas of the design. It's always easiest to cut away any internal areas with a craft knife before you cut around the outside of the image. The extra paper around the image helps to provide the structure your knife needs when pulling through the paper. If your image is particularly intricate, it's easy to end up with tears when cutting with a craft knife.

In the example below, I started by removing the little bit of paper between the chicken's feet with my craft knife, then went to work removing the remaining paper with a pair of sharp little scissors.

Stamps:
Poultry in Motion clear stamps

Poultry in Motion digital stamps

Pre-Coloured Projects

Today, Karin is sharing three fun and quirky cards she created using the pre-coloured images from the Poultry in Motion set. Although she really enjoys using her pencils and crayons, sometimes it's nice to print out the coloured images and get straight to work on the design. 

Check out the first card she created. It has a little circular window in the front that peeps through to the centre where she has perfectly positioned one of the chickens from the set. Just one image to decorate both the front and the inside of the card... clever huh?!

The other two cards Karin is sharing feature the ever-popular colour combination of red, white and blue. Great for men or women... even kids would love these fun creations.

Karin's Blog