Thinking Outside the Card

It's High Hopes challenge time! I am hosting this one too! This week we are thinking outside the card so basically, anything that isn't a card! Here is what I made:

This is my stamp index... I have been using this for almost a year now to show me what stamps I have and where they are. I couldn't possibly keep up with them all so instead of rummaging through my drawers I just flip through my little notebook. Up until this week it has just been raw and uncovered but now it is finally pretty!

So, this is how I store my stamps, all in drawers and categorised. So I know where everything is I have categorised my stamp index too.

I have little front pages for each category... like this....

Then I have little thumbnail pictures of all the stamps that live in the drawer. To tell you the honest truth... without my stamp index I can never remember where anything is and I never remember what stamps I have!! Each page is printed on regular printer paper and lightly glued in. That way if the page changes with new stamps I can easily remove the page and replace it with the new one. I have purposely spaced some stamps out on some pages to leave room for more to fit in without having to pull the notebook apart and insert another page.



My animals category keeps all of the animal stamps that are not from the latest few releases or don't fit into Farmyard or Fairytale.

Everyday things is the spot where I keep trees, flowers, balloons and general bits and pieces that don't fit specifically and only in one category. This is the area I come most to... usually when I am looking for a filler for a card and can't think of something to occupy the spot!

The latest category is Garden... these new release stamps are so cute!! I also have a category for people but I haven't quite finished that one yet so it isn't in the index. I have started Christmas from the back because that is going to keep on expanding so it wont outgrow its area. When the book gets too big for the spirals (that might be soon!) I am going to take it to a binding shop and see if I can get bigger spirals for it. That way I will never have to change it! Well hopefully anyway!!

Splish Splash!

Splish Splash, Burt I was takin' a bath
Long about a Saturday night
A rub-a-dub, just relaxin' in the tub
Thinkin' everything was alright
Well, I stepped out the tub, put my feet on the floor,
I wrapped the towel around me and I
Opened the door, and then I
Splish, Splash! I jumped back in the bath.
Well how was I to know there was a party going on?

They was a-splishin' and a-splashin',
Reelin with the feelin, movin' and a-groovin',
Rockin' and a-rollin', yeah!

This card was a hoot to make and it still gives me a little chuckle when I look at it. Burt looks so happy having a bath in his bird bath doesn't he?

This month Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft put out a call for cards using song lyrics instead of the sentiment and this is one of the cards I came up with. I did two others but they are a secret so you wont be seeing those for a bit yet!

It's a pretty straight forward card but using rub-on's instead of stamps for the words and poking a bit of raffia out from under the flowers.

Whitby Whale is Famous...

I went to the newsagency last night with Matt. We usually go so he can look at computer magazines... occasionally I look in the craft section. This time I was so stunned to see my Whitby Whale card on the front cover!! I grabbed the mag and started jumping around calling across the room "My card's on the front, Matt" I think he tried to hide behind his mag when people started looking!

The issue is Vol 14 No 10 !

These are my posts of the cards...

Best Fishes
Relax... It's Your Day
Tons of Love

Have a GREAT Easter!!

Meet..... Gabrielle

I took up bear making for a few hours this weekend... by few I mean about 10. I got Gabrielle's bits and pieces at the Townsville Craft Fair from Brentwood Bears and started yesterday at dodgily sewing her. So, now she isn't a pile of fur and parts... she's a little bear! Surprisingly, she is actually holding together too!

I have always wanted to make a teddy bear but I am so challenged when it comes to sewing its not funny. If you had to have a license to use a sewing machine they would take me aside, sit me down and distract me while someone raids my house and smashes my machine into a million little pieces! Want an example? Last night I got my head so close to the machine the little silver bit that goes up and down near the top of the machine hit me in the forhead!

You know, from this picture she actually looks pretty good. To be honest I am rather proud... thank goodness for the fur... it was horrible to sew when you have no sewing experience but it hides all the flaws! I am so glad that no one ever needs to see what it really looks like on the inside!

Happy Easter

HAPPY EASTER! It's almost here anyway. This is my card for this weeks High Hopes Challenge. Kathrina has provided us a sketch. I am getting better at sketches now... I used to find them really hard but this one was lots of fun. I was a bit concerned as to why I chose blue for the bunny and up until I watercoloured his flowers I was still trying to work out what made me choose that colour. Even though, I am more than happy with it now.

I used all sorts of tools this week. My nesties, my brand new Martha Stewart leaf punch... (woohoo ebay!) and my two SU! circle punches. I didn't have a stamp that would fit in the circle so I hand wrote 'Happy Easter' and put a little heart in the middle.

I am going to send this card off to my friend in Townsville. I don't think she reads my blog so I don't think the surprise will be ruined.

Well, back to work in the morning... its another four day week this week with Easter at the end. Thats something to look forward to!

Bewareth Ye...

This week on the High Hopes Challenge Blog, thanks to Ila, we are doing Creative Borders. I got this cute little Fiskars Cristina Re border punch on Saturday and I think its really sweet. This is my first border punch and I have only used it once but I am hooked... I love it! I also did some paper piercing (an old fave!) in each corner.

The knight and dragon are popped up on mounting tape and the flames from the dragon's mouth is popped up again so there are three layers to this card.

Remember to pop on over to the HH blog and if you would like to join in the fun, leave a link to your card under Kimmie's post and you will go in the draw to win the stamps that Ila used on her card.

Have a great weekend... boo... its over for me... Monday tomorrow and I have to go to the gym in the morning too... *groan*. At least its only a four day week... I want to go to the Townsville Craft Fair on Friday so Matt and I are taking the day off to go on a road trip and stay for a night or two.

How I watercolour...

I have had a few emails recently asking how I watercolour images... luckily for you, I have a tutorial! Click here to have a read.

Buttons Galore!

Introducing... JUGGLES! It's challenge time at the High Hopes Challenge Blog and this week it is Niki's turn and she would like us to go button crazy! I don't usually use buttons because I usually can't think of anything to do with them but this week I am really happy with how things turned out! So, if you want to join in, make sure you leave a comment on the HH Blog with a link to your card because each week a random person takes home some HH rubber from Tina... hop on over to see what is up for grabs this week!

No Pattern Paper

This is my card for this week's High Hopes Challenge... yeah... there is only one day left but I still made it... technically! I started this one last night and it was partly Matt's idea. He wanted me to do a card with a hole in the front with the picture inside. I got the porthole idea in my head really quickly and knew straight away I wanted to make it look like a pirate had nailed his map to the side of the ship. I couldn't possibly be more happy with how it turned out. I thought not using pattern paper would be hard seeing how much I rely on it now but instead it just came together easily. I cut rough strips of paper and inked the sides for the ship walls and used brads as nails on the map and some boards.

This is the inside of the card... oh... how cute is Burnaby Beluga! I didn't even know what a Beluga was until only a few days ago... I was playing Zoo Tycoon and adopted a couple of them. I gathered from the game that they are white though... that was a bit hard to do on paper so he is a little grey here!

I put the brads through the map and then bent the backs near the ends so they didn't sit flush with the paper. Matt picked up the card and thought I hadn't finished it properly until I told him the pirate couldn't nail it all the way though the wood or he would get leaks! Hey, I was going for the push pin look!

Look What I Found!

It is typical me to stop reading the magazine after I see my own cards in it. I get so excited and run off to take a picture before looking at the rest of the magazine. In this case, as usual, it's exactly what I did but for some reason I took a lot longer to come back and read the rest... my laziness resulted in a pleasant and exciting surpise... my sealife card was the preview photo for next month's magazine! I was flipping away looking at the pictures while I was talking to Matt and didn't expect in a million years that I would see my card in the back of the magazine too!

Spot's Bots!

They are published! YAY... I have kept this one a secret for ages... I have been dying to post my piccies of my little robots. I made these months and months ago for Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft... man was I excited too. This was my first commission project and it is for the Stampers Challenge that they feature every month. They pick some stampers, send a stamp set that we got to keep and we had to make two projects... I almost fell over when I got the email asking me to take part... it was such a privilege!

Here is Robot and Dog:



And here is Robot and Cat:

Sneak Peek

My blogging has gotten really slow latey hey! Well, I thought I would let you in on a little bit of what I have been doing. I haven't really been crafting too much but when I have, I have been working on a couple of cards for Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft magazine. They asked me to make a couple cards in certain themes and I finally finished them tonight!

Here are a couple sneak peeks. It's all I can show you and I am not sure which issue they will be assigned to but I'd say it would at least be a few months. I really hope they like them! This is the second time I have made cards for them and I find it slightly harder doing commission work because it is different to making cards for the sake of making them and then submitting them and being accepted/rejected. I am much harder on myself! I had such a great time and this time was certainly easier than the first lot! I really hope I get to make more!!

Wonderful Adventures

It's challenge time again and I am hosting it! I'm a bit late in posting it hey! Well, this week we are sponging. I went crazy sponging this week. I used my nestabilities to cut a big circle from a post-it note, stuck it on as the moon and then brayered the sky. I did a lighter blue around the moon itself and darker to the edges. Then I removed the post-it and replaced it with the negative so that it masked the blue sky and sponged the moon. After that I sponged the clouds using Michelle's tutorial. I have been meaning to try it for AGES because she is just the queen of clouds and they always look great. My biggest issue was drawing a cloud shape that I like!

Here is the inside with a daytime sky and some more clouds:

Remember, if you join in the challenge, leave a link on the High Hopes Blog and a random winner will receive a prize of First Ride and the Wonderful Adventures sentiment! Woohoo!

High Hopes New Release

WOOHOO! It seems like it has been a long time coming... for me anyway! The new release from High Hopes Rubber Stamps is out and they are online and ready for you to go crazy! There are so many to choose from so good luck choosing!

This release has a few different themes, mainly gorgeous, cute, funny, Farmyard stuff along with a few gorgeous (and big) bunnies, a cute chef called Luigi that has stolen a pizza my heart and a special mention to the mooody cow, Bossie.

So, hop on over to the High Hopes website to pick yourself up some new rubber and see the entire range that is Hot Off The Press today!

I made this card today so you can see some of these cute stamps in action! I used Farm Background, Maribelle Cow (hey, we used to have a cow called Clarabelle!) and Here a Moo.

The image ended up quite big in the end, the stamps are a really good size, some are huge... none of this tiny image in the centre business you're gettin' ya' dollars worth! After hours of watercolouring I put it all together, rubbed a bit of Super Tack glue on some linen thread and then curled it on the corners to add a bit of interest.

A Hoppy Easter Challenge

Hoppy Easter! It's challenge time... gee there is a lot going on today! This week Nikki would like us to make Easter cards... I have never made one before but I had such a great time with this one, I might make some more. I even used my Cuttlebug embossing folder and metallic rub-ons! I never use my embossing folders so this was a real change for me.... I actually used it without sitting for an hour trying to work out how to incorporate it on my card! Breakthough!

High Hopes Hullabaloo

What's a hullabaloo? It's the craziness the Divas are creating to celebrate the fantastic new release of High Hopes rubber stamps.... 'WHEN? WHEN?' you ask?? THIS SUNDAY!

Here is a sneek peek of one of the stamps:


If you want to see more... and who doesn't, hop around to some of the other High Hopes Diva's blogs and you will have some more sneak peeks of what Tina, Bethany and fabulous Crissy have to offer us this time! The Diva links are on my sidebar!

See you tomorrow for the BIG RELEASE! WOOHOO!

Guest Designer Call

Do you want to be a guest designer for High Hopes Rubber Stamps?? If you called out 'yes!', hop on over to the High Hopes Challenge Blog for more information on how you could become a High Hopes Diva!

A letter from Frank White

I am flat out this week so posts might be far and few between but I thought I would stop by quickly to pass on this letter from Frank White, aka Grandpa Frank... Tina's grandpa. You might remember this post for a call out for birthday cards for Frank to make this birthday a truly memorable one, well it worked!

Here is a personal thank you letter from Frank:

Dear Friends,

I am most grateful to all the people who took the time, effort, and expense of sending greetings for my 88th birthday. My son Frank initiated the idea abetted by my granddaughter Tina, that caused an avalanche of cards totaling over one hundred and fifty. I received 46 cards on one day alone!

Many were from relatives, but a great number were from people I have never met. Quite a number of different states were represented as well as many Canadian Provinces. Many customers of Tina's stamp and card business in other countries were nice enough to send greetings. Represented were Australia, Austria, Canada, England, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the Union of South Africa. All these were hand crated and showed effort and originality.

My heartfelt thanks to all who sent these many greatly appreciated greetings. They made this a birthday to be well remembered.

Sincerely,
Frank White

More bubbles than troubles...

I made this card a few weeks ago for our lovely Diva Devine, Kimmie. It was her birthday yesterday!

This is Burt's Bath... isn't he funny as?! He puts a whole new meaning to 'bird bath'. Inside the card I stamped the sentiment, 'May your day be filled it more bubbles than troubles'.

I stuck with my tried and tested SU inks and a blender pen for watercolouring and an aqua painter and Twinkling H2O's to highlight.

In the highest room....

I worked on this pop-up card ALL weekend and it is by far my most complex card EVER. I worked it out and it took me about 18 hours all up! My sister, Kelly came over to stay on Saturday night so I had some company for some of it.

In the begining my 'Shrek' card wasn't so full on but as I went I added bits here and had more ideas there it evolved... in the beginning it wasn't even a Shrek card... that idea came half way through so I had to redo the knight with a green face and a red and purple dragon instead of green. Then in the end I ended up drawing a book for the front and everything (gee, that took a couple hours in itself!) I got that idea when I started watching Shrek last night and at the beginning he is reading the story of Princess Fiona being guarded by a dragon in the highest room of the tallest tower. The idea of the pop-up card came from Moonlight Inker. Sophia's card is just fantastic so you should pop on over and take a look... its worth it!

When the card is open, there is so much to look at and I am so pleased with how it turned out! It ended up better than I was expecting when it was just an idea in my head!

I looked everywhere for instructions on how to put the acetate so it folds down and sits flat when you close the card but no luck. The front stays proped open a bit but it doesn't really matter if you just sit it up like a normal card. It sits perfectly then!