Crafty Treasures

Hi Crafty friends, just popping in to share with you a few Christmas cards from 2014, I sent them off before I got some pics! I only made a few cards for family and close friends late last year due to being so busy, so here are just a few. I have also started on Christmas cards for Christmas 2015, starting them earlier this year.

Polar Express

For this card I stamped up a Darice rubber stamp (Retired) which I have hardly used, that I have had for many years and coloured it with copic makers. The background was stamped with stampscapes stamps, making a scene with some layering. For some fun, I adhered some faux snow to the polar bears body. I finished it off adhered these onto a dry embossed background.

Stamps: Darcie – Rubber Stamp (Z-3394 – Retired), Stampscapes – Various Pines, Me To You – Tatty Teddy/Clear Set (Sentiment)
Colour/Inks: Black Dye Ink, Copic Markers,
Card: Basic White, Deep Red
Accessories: Cuttlebug – Embossing Folder/Swiss Dots
Embellishments: Glitter, Faux Snow (Polar Bear.. Fur)

Christmouse

With this card I stamped a Whipper Snapper stamp and coloured it also with copic markers. I made a cute square frame with a Pampered Pets (rectangle) embossing folder, highlighted with white craft ink. This technique has been around for a while, I found a lovely tutorial for you here.  I punched some trees on a strip and I embellished the trees with some glitter. The background was dry embossed with snow flakes and some faux panels. I added a Santa hat from an old clear stamp set, I’m pretty sure is Stampendous, it’s quite old now and is starting to perish, so I have to be very gentle when I stamp with this set, as this size was perfect, just fitting in-between his ears.

Stamps: Whipper Snapper – Mouse With Flowers (WM Rubber Stamp) CY849, Stampin’ Up! – Teeny Tiny Sentiments (Retired Set), Santa Hat (from an old clear set)
Colour/Inks: Black Dye Ink, White Craft Ink, Copic Markers
Card: Basic White, Deep Red
Accessories: Carl – CP2 Punch/Tree, Pampered Pets (Collection By Andrea Jane) – Universal Embossing Folder/Frame, Papermania – Embossing Folder/Snowflake
Embellishments: Jewel Glitter – Regal Red

3D Snowman

This card I used a lovely tattered lace die cut coloured with distress inks and a papertole image I have had in my papertole tub for many years (sorry folks I’m not sure if it’s a web freebie or a brand one?). I still enjoy papertole and still have sooo many tubs of made papertole.. bought from craft shops and shows over the years and also found freebies from online.

I have slowly, over a few month’s, just finished with some papertole sheets from the Do Crafts Magazine and some Le Suh designs and a few others, I take them with me when we go places to finish a few more. My sister in-law recently asked whatever happened to the cards that looked raised, I worked out after a while.. it was Papertole! I would like to make up some gift boxed cards, using up some papertole and older cards and clear out some stuff.

Great idea, I should have thought of this way back when, and write the brand/designer on the back of the made unmounted papertole, but that does not help me right this minute because back then I did not have a website, so the thought would not have crossed my mind to write it on the back, anyhow you live and learn. I dressed the outside edge of the papertole frame with glitter and adhered these to a embossed background.

Image: 3D Papertole, Me To You – Tatty Teddy/Clear Set (Sentiment)
Colour/Inks: Ranger – Tim Holtz/Distress Inks
Card: Basic White,
Accessories: Tattered Lace – Christmas Rose (D587), Cuttlebug – Embossing Folder/Victoria, Snowflake Punch
Embellishments: Glitter

Good Evening! Happy Sunday, hope you all had a wonderful week. I had a fairly busy week as usual,  but at least we had some sunshine the last two days, just glad I got all the washing dried and ironed with some slightly cooler wet weather around.

I am here today to share something super fun and and somewhat frugal. Have you seen Brushos? Brusho is a brilliantly intense paint powder that comes in little pots and is water-based and completely non-toxic. After trying to access these little pots of magic online to purchase them, I found that exercise extremely difficult here in Oz (Australia) to obtain, so I resorted to making my own.

I have collected quite a few sets of KOH-I-NOOR water colour wheels over the years, but also knew the two cream coloured wheels I owned were extremely pigmented, so I sourced  KOH-I-NOOR (Brilliant Water Colours) and found they actually made a 24 pack in the same set and I purchased them. I crushed these in a mortar and pestle lining both with fresh foil each time and then stored the powder in some children’s paint pots (cheap set found at a $2 shop) and the excess paint from the pots I am using up on some mixed media pages. Each colour pan in a wheel yields 3 grams of powder, but it will go a long way. I will eventually pierce a hole in the top of each pot, so I can spray water and sprinkle straight from the pots. As you can see from the images above they give excellent results.

*Note: Crushing these is not for the faint hearted! I had blue up my nose (why blue, when I crushed all the colours?), blue under my feet as the powder is so highly pigmented and very fine when crushed. I would suggest crushing these outside in a ventilated and breeze free area and also suggest wearing some disposable gloves is a must (my hands were unrecognizable!), but it was fun. I found the foil crinkled up in the mortar and pestle and the powder wanted to settle in the tiny crevices, making it tricky to tip out so I used a fresh piece of folded paper for each colour and tapped it out onto the paper for easy transfer to the tiny pots, but it may be worth trying some baking paper on top of the foil, I think the baking paper would be better than foil for easier transfer. If you think of something else let me know or show me what you created, but most of all have fun with it!

With Love

Here is a card I made with Crusho’s (Koh-I-Noor – Brilliant Water Colour Wheels crushed) and a retired PSX stamp, an oldie but a goodie!

Stamps: PSX – K-023 Botanical Rosa Rose
Colour/Inks: Koh-I-Noor – Brilliant Water Colour Wheels, Gel Pastels, Gelato’s, Black Marker, Charcoal Pencil, Oil Pastel, Acrylic Paint
Paper/Card: Water Colour Paper, Basic White Cardstock
Accessories: Spellbinders – Shapeabilities In’spire Dies/Celebration Two (Wording), Plaid – Simply Stencils/28985 , With Love Die, Sizzix – Tim Holtz/Embossing Folders/Courtyard & Trellis
Misc: Masking Fluid, Water, Coffee Too!
Embellishments: Sequins

Hi Crafty friends, Today’s project is a miniature Double Tri Shutter Card necklace. A wonderful combination of tiny, paper crafts & jewelery. I have been totally fascinated and I adore all things miniature or tiny for as long as I can remember. I especially like that the fact that this is useful and not just tiny or paper crafts, but that I can accessorize and wear it.

Generally Tri shutter cards are an average greeting card size closed and making many tri shutter cards over the years, I had fun making this into a tiny one that I could wear. Keeping in mind there wasn’t a lot of room for too much, I used up some Graphic 45 scraps, ephemera, and added a tiny paper clip & heart button, to embellish it.

Closed it measures: 1.3  x 1.2 inches.

Open it measures: 5.4 x 1.2 inches.

Happy Easter Crafty friends,
hope you all had a wonderful relaxing time with family
or friends.

Hi Crafty friends how is everyone, hope you are all in good spirits and creatively crafting in some way. Today I am sharing with you, my shade house makeover. Quite a large project, I started a few weeks ago. Our shade house was in dire need of restoration and some luvin.. lots and lots of luvin!

It has been a while since my last post… sorry peeps, my bad : (  I have been very busy as usual and lately it’s mustering up the energy to get the pics, etc done. We have mulched all the garden beds, done a hard waste scrounge for collection here and at my sister in-laws, pruned roses, re-potted all the plants in the shade house are just are few of the jobs keeping me busy over the last few weeks, oh and I had 2 lots of dental work done, which left me painfully swollen and bruised for a good week, that.. was.. not.. fun. It feels like I catch up with everything and then back to catching up again! This is sadly funny, one of those catch ups being a Christmas card I made for a dear friend who has patiently waited til recently for me to make and write on the insert for her lol.. Seriously!

Oo yes I have made some Christmas cards and cards (I will share them with you soon), and something wonderfully frugal to show you as well (no clues mwuahaha! Super fun though, my brain amazes me sometimes) and some mixed media I am working on as well, but not quite finished with that. Oh I also have a jewelery project I made, and a few other projects, no not another bear either..ha gotcha! I better get crackin’ with pics and posting.

Outside under our carport where I had enough room the sew this big project, I set up my trusty Husky (Husqvarna sewing machine, my first ever sewing machine 26 -28 years ago, works like a draft horse!) that will no doubt need a good service after all this hard work. I do have another machine dedicated solely for dress making etc, a Janome and it’s also a very good sewing machine. I have never had any dramas with my sewing machines, luckily. Who wants to see some of my sewing, I’ll grab a few items (that I don’t fit into right now!) and get some pics together for you, not all of them a clothing either, I’ll keep you in suspense.

Using the old shade cloth as the pattern template and good old clothes pegs, I sewed up the new shade cover with 60-70% block out shade cloth material and also altered and sewed a rain cover for our shade house as well. Some parts were a squeeze through the machine aperture and also I had to unpick the whole back section to fix a boo boo (my own fault, thought I was smart cutting corners and ended up with the wrong seam allowance, giving me to much play with full finished stretched size) It seemed like it was never going to end at this stage, nothing worse than unpicking it, it’s like retracing old ground eeew! I would rather being going forward.. than backwards to go forward, I’ve plenty more crafting to do lol! But I got there eventually and I was glad when it was all finished. I was surprised and delighted how well it came up, when the missing aluminum lengths were added and it was all stretched and secured. Doing the happy dance!

I had an already decorated plaque I made (dated on the back ’99’.. makes me feel somewhat older!) so I hung it on the shade house door. I do remember I painted the plaque with acrylic paints and vaguely remember.. I think it came as a kit style pack with a few stencils, my older brain is slippin!

I first thought mmm, don’t think I’ll have much too write for this post, but now I’m finally done.

See you soon!