Dude Card

This week for the High Hopes Challenge, Niki would like us to make a dude card! I spent a good lot of Saturday watercolouring mine! I used Roasting Marshmallows which is one of my all time favourite stamps! In my first High Hopes order I got about 8 or 9 stamps and this was one of them! I also used Tree Element which is the bigger of the two trees in the last release.

Swing on over to the High Hopes Blog and remember, if you join in, make sure you leave a link to your card so you can go in the draw to win some stamps from Tina!

Stamps For Sale

HAPPY SATURDAY!

I have added some new crafty stuff to my Stamps 2 Go blog! Click here to see them and I have also added some stamps and punches on ebay... they end on Monday so click here if you would like to be directed to ebay!

What's Up?

It's High Hopes Challenge time again! This week, Kimmie would like us to use dry embossing on our projects. This was a hard one for me! I have heaps of Cuttlebug folders but I never know how to incorporate them into a card so I usually just don't use them! This is the first time I have used Sm Monkey Mike and the Banana Tree so I had fun... even though I started the card at 8am yesterday morning and didn't finish it until 5pm!!

We are having some interesting weather here. There is a cyclone over "there" somewhere... it's not really affecting us but we are getting blasted with rain. If it was strong enough to cross land a bit further we might have been bothered as it would have hit us square on but it is supposed to turn off before it gets here. It has been raining constantly since Friday (it's now Monday for those in other time zones) I am not sure how I am going to go driving to work this morning. We had 160mm (6.2") of rain since midnight last night and its only 6:30am! Good thing I got Matt a weather station for Christmas... he can tell me exactly how much fell on our roof rather than just relying on the Bureau of Meterology website which measures the rain ages away!

A Special Request

I have been working on this card for a few days now. I do need to learn to watercolour faster! Tina, the amazingly generous owner of High Hopes Rubber Stamps asked a special request this week. Her grandpa is turning 88 on January 21 and seeing as she isn't able to visit him, she thought it would be a fantastic surprise if he gets hand-made cards from all over the world! Tina wrote the High Hopes Diva's an email earlier in the week... this is what it said:

"My Grandfather will be turning 88 on Jan. 21 and he has been a bit blue for the last several months. He is a widower and misses my Grandmother and had been dealing with being alone for several years now, however his health is starting to fail him (his mind is as sharp as a tack). He has arthritis in his knees that makes it difficult to walk now so only leaves the house on Wednesday nights to go to his adult writing group ....(a group of older writers...not porn writers...hehehe) ...and my uncle picks him up to take him to his house for Sunday Dinners. He has a pacemaker now, and has been slowing down quite a bit, due to other health complaints. As he told me my last call to him "Well honey, I do not buy anything with a long shelf life anymore but I still feel safe buying a green banana..." hehehe... God Bless Him..."

So, as all cardmakers know, we LOVE any reason to glue, stick and stamp! If you would like to join in and send him a card too, email me and I will be happy to send you his address! Make sure you leave a comment to your card if you post it on your blog so we can all go see it!!

I put this little treasure chest on the inside of the card.

Card Candy

I have some card candy to give away... do you want it? Leave a comment and it could be yours! You have until January 10 to put your name in the draw!

The winnder is Shannah - To Wander and to Wonder!

Thanks for visiting!

Hugs

This is my second card for this week's High Hopes Challenge using tearing. You may recognise Hugable Hank from my watercolouring tutorial. Has anyone tried my way of watercolouring yet? I would love to know how you went!

As you can probably see from the last couple if cards, I am desperately trying to break away from using wire and flowers. I got a bit excited with that idea in the lead up to Christmas so I am doing my best to think of other ideas. So far its not going to well!! I may need to do more blogging!

Leo the Lion

The High Hopes Challenges have started again! Crissy is hosting the first one for 2009 and she would like us to use paper tearing on a project. Pop on over to the High Hopes Challenge Blog for more information and if you do decide to join in, make sure you leave a comment with a link to your card on the HH blog to go in the draw for some rubbery goodness from Tina!

This is what I came up with this week, Leo the Lion. I watercoloured him using SU Classic ink and a Blender Pen and then wen't over him with some Twinkling H2O's to really make him look more interesting.

Product of the Month - January

Well, here it is! The stamps you see used here are this month's POTM from High Hopes Rubber Stamps which mean that when you purchase this set you get them at a whopping 25% off!

T-040 Candi Tooth Fairy 15.00

D-067 Tooth 5.30

E-062 Floss 6.00

F-091 Tooth brush 6.70

H-127 Tooth Fairy Saying 8.00

Purchased together these stamps would regularly be $41.00 CDN mounted but for January they are on sale for 25% off which works out to be $30.75 CDN mounted, $23.10 cling mounted or $15.40 unmounted!

Swing by the High Hopes Challenge Blog if you want to check out what some of the other Diva's have made with this set!

Juliet and Elmer in Print

How exciting! This is my first set of High Hopes cards officially in print! They are published in Australian Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft Vol 14 No 6 and it went on sale on Boxing Day 2008. I am so proud to see my cards over three pages I emailed this to my family and friends just to show everyone! So, it has been a long wait to see these babies in print but here they are... you can click on the pictures to see them better!

Blog Candy

Would you like some 6x6 Stampin' Up! Pattern Paper and a couple little surprise gifts included? If you said "yes", make sure you leave a comment on this post before 30 December 2008 and you will go into the draw!

Updated:

THE WINNER IS HEATHER "HEV"!

Thank you everyone for your comments!

No Worries!

Hooray for Ace! He is such a cool dragon! I made this card to give to my High Hopes Blog Hop winner, Tamara. I wanted to wait until she had received it to post a photo of the card and I just realised that I still haven't posted it! I assume she would have the candy by now so here he is... ACE!

Best Fishes

Well, I am nearing the end of my Christmas cards now. That is provided I don't make anymore in the next couple days! This is the second last one I have made. I can imagine what you are saying right now... "what... more flowers and wire?".... yeah, I promise I will work on moving away from them very soon! I usually find a good thing then stick to it... especially when I am a bit restricted by time or I am a little low on stampin' mojo.

WOOHOO! Christmas Eve... only one more sleep!!

BEST FISHES FOR A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

HO, HO, HO

Ever wondered what Santa gets up to on Boxing day? This apparently! This Santa is a pretty cool one! This is pretty much what our Christmas is like here in Australia... you wake up, put on the air con to cool the place down and then you try not to go outside to much in the heat of the day! Well thats our Christmas anyway, some people are more keen than us and go to the beach and stuff... meh... it's to hot there!

Well, its getting closer to Christmas.... YAY! I have been so excited for days. This is the very first Christmas or birthday EVER where Matt and I have not chosen out own presents... he keeps teasing me and saying that I will love it and I will never guess it. The pressie is in medium sized box... there is a big bit that slides from side to side and a small bit that rolls.... YEP... I have spent some time under our stick tree shaking it! As for the stick tree bit, we were going to get a real tree this year but didn't get around to it so we ended up getting a dead stick from the park out the back and hanging decorations on that. It's very 'Aussie'. Next year... I'M GETTIN' ME A REAL ONE! It's rather exciting... I've never, ever had a real tree in my entire life... just plastic ones.

Watercolouring Tutorial

I often get emails asking how I watercolour... gee are there A LOT of different ways out there and I have tried dozens of them! I remember when I first started, I read and read and still didn't know where to start. This tutorial shows how I watercolour and techniques I personally find the best at giving me the results I like.

What I use:

• Stampin' Up! Blender Pen
• Stampin' Up! Watercolour Paper
• Stampin' Up! Classic Ink Pads
• Jet Black Stazon Ink
• Twinkling H2O's
• Fine Aqua Painter

1. With the classic ink pad closed, press the lid hard into the ink pad to transfer ink onto the lid. This will be your palette. Use a blender pen to pick up a small amount of ink and then watercolour as if you are using a marker. Scribble the blender pen on scrap paper to clean and remove the ink and change colour.
Tip: Start with your lightest shade first, allow each layer to dry fully and then work on building the colour rather than trying to watercolour the shade you want it straight up. This way you will have more control over the tonal variation of your image.

2. Watercolour a light wash over the entire image. Think about the lightest area you would like, and do the whole image in that light shade.
3. Allow the first layer to dry then apply some thick colour where the sun would be casting a shadow. Without letting the ink dry, quickly wipe the blender clean and then in small circular motions, blend just the edge of the colour in with the lighter areas.

4. Continue over the whole image returning to areas when they are dry to apply more layers if you would like it darker again.

5. Decide on a secondary colour to really bring your image to life. Watercolour lightly on the shadow/dark areas.

6. Continue over the whole image then add other colours.

7. Apply a small amount of Twinkling H2O's with an Aqua Painter on the dark areas to accentuate them further.

Tip: try not to let too much water leak onto the paper. Lightly wet the entire area to spread the H2O's properly and to avoid having little water line marks left behind.

8. Apply your finishing touches to the rest of your image. I put some Kindy Glitz on Huggable Hank's wings and a bit of H2O's on his scales in blue to make them stand out.

I hope this helps! GOOD LUCK!!

Merry Kiss-Moose

I made this one for my boss. He went to Canada in November to look for polar bears... I don't know if Canada was right where he was looking but he came back with moose presents! A pen and a pencil I have named my Bullwinkle pencil! I thought Merry Kiss-Moose would be a great card for him. Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE Twinkling H2O's? They make any watercolouring look fantastic! It's just subtle but the little shimmer really gives it a little something!

G'Day Mate Kanga

I made this card a while ago too for the fabulous Crissy! I decided that even though she drew the gorgeous kangaroo, she would still like to receive a card with him on it... from Australia! I love these Aussie stamps! I couldn't possibly love the little Kanga and Sydney more!

Now, it was somewhere around watercolouring Kanga when I realised that I couldn't possibly live without my H2O's. All I had used them on before this was Kimmie's 'Sydney Koala' card below... they seriously hide so many little bits of colouring that I am concerned about and they make the colouring look so much more vibrant.... ohhhhh I love them! I just use them to accentuate the shadow/dark areas so it also means I don't have to do so many layers of colour trying to get it dark enough for my liking.

G'Day Mate

I made this card quite a while ago for fellow diva, Kimmie. I needed to send her a stamp that I had one extra of and thought that I should put a card with it too! What better than a little koala card from Australia!

This was my first attempt at using Twinkling H2O's properly and when I was finished I was so happy, now I use them on everything I watercolour!

Product of the Month

How sweet is the High Hopes POTM this month?!

M-042 Branch 10.70

F-155 Nest 6.70

E-150 Perched Birdie 6.00

H-186 Landing Birdie 8.00

H-185 Love Nest Valentine 8.00

The regular price for this set would be $39.40 CDN mounted but for the month of December you can purchase them on sale for $29.55 CDN mounted, $14.80 unmounted or $22.15 on cling foam, which is 25% off!!!

Flower Power

This is the very last High Hopes Challenge for the year! I can't believe how close it is to Christmas! As always, some great stamps will be given to one lucky participant of our challenge and all you have to do is use flowers... stamps, pattern paper, punchies... any flowers!

This card served two purposes this week. I made it for the challenge and also for my boss to give to his wife for their anniversary. She loved it apparently so I am really happy!

Owl Clock

I made this clock on the weekend and I am SO happy with it! I borrowed a couple ideas from Jane Jones' owl album (which I love so much I am going to get some more paper and make one too!) Jane's ideas were the extra little owls on the main tree and cutting out the little trees to the right. I was so glad I came across Jane's album because up until then I had only glued down the main owl piece to the clock and I had hit a wall! I just couldn't be happier with this... it was even good enough to make it to the lounge room for display rather than just my shelves in my stamp room!