Just cruisin' with Wellington Bear birthday card

Hi blogging friends

Sheesh - sure is windy where I live - which makes it very hard to take photographs of cards outside but inbetween gusts, I managed to take a photo of my husband's birthday card:

My husband's birthday isn't until August so I am a little ahead of schedule - yay me!

The main image is from the Docrafts range - Wellington Bear - and came already diecut so I just popped out the pieces and trimmed off any daggy bits then layered them up with dimensionals.  I did actually trim the panel down a bit on the sides because it was a bit too wide for my card base.  I just LOVE this Wellington Bear range:  so perfect for masculine cards I think.  

The designer papers - the blue and the dotted paper - are from the Fancy Pants Beach Bum 6" x 6" pad.  I love how the dotty paper had the blue and rusty red colours in it that matched the car and Wellington's scarf so perfectly.  The card base is kraft cardstock.  All the layers were trimmed to 1/16" using my Perfect Layers Tools.

The ribbon came from Riot Art and Craft (a recent purchase) and was attached in 2 separate elements and I added Fray Stop to the ends to stop them from fraying.  This ribbon frays terribly so the Fray Stop is fantastic for those types of ribbons because you can add the Fray Stop first then trim so the ribbon doesn't have a chance to unravel.  The ribbon knot was glued on using Fabric glue.  The ribbon is quite thick and I chose it specifically because of its knitted texture echoing what I think Wellington's scarf would be like in real life (yes, I have a vivid imagination - as if you would see a teddy bear driving a car!).  

The buttons are from my stash and have matching thread sewn through them before gluing on using Crafter's Pick Incredibly Tacky glue.

The sentiment is also from the Wellington Bear pack and was popped up on dimensionals.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Splitcoaststampers - Ways to use it - WT489 - lots of dots (or spots)

I think you could use this card for Father's Day as well as a birthday card.

I haven't had much cardmaking time nor blog visiting time of late as my loved one has been sick for the past few weeks - in total (including their cold) about 5 weeks straight.  They are slowly improving so I hope that once things settle down, I'll have a little more "me-time" to catch up with my blog visiting.  

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today!

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps and Ink:  None

Designer paper:  Fancy Pants Beach Bum (2011) 6" x 6" pad

Accessories:  Docrafts Wellington Bear A4 Ultimate Diecut Decoupage pack (image and sentiment), dimensionals, Multicraft Imports SR108J ribbon (Riot Art and Craft), Fray Stop, Crafter's Pick Incredibly Tacky glue, blue buttons (stash) and matching sewing thread, Perfect Layers Tools, kraft cardstock

Vintage Dasher Christmas card

Hi blogging friends

I am almost over my wretched cold (thank goodness!) and I am really now just tired and lacking energy.  We had some wonderful visitors over the weekend:  on Saturday, my American sister-in-law and her grown-up son (they reside in Australia but in another State so we don't catch up very often and they were on a stopover in Melbourne on the way home from the USA). My sister-in-law has always been a HUGE supporter of my cardmaking and a couple of years ago suggested that I start a blog to showcase my cards.   

On Sunday, my gorgeous friend Y and her 12 year old son from Brisbane visited for a couple of hours after lunch.  Y is the one who first introduced me to lots of different crafts:  dried flower arranging, then decorative painting and then cardmaking.  I never had any confidence with my crafting abilities and in fact, I didn't think I had a creative bone in my body until I met Y - but she was so encouraging and enthusiastic that my confidence slowly grew.  Y is one of those people that even when you don't see each other often, when you catch up, you just pick up where you left off.

And of course, when you are with people whom you love dearly and get on so well with, the time always passes far too quickly - and when they leave, there seems to be a void

So what card am I sharing today?  It's another Christmas card!  Yep:  I have the Christmas-cardmaking-bug and there is nothing I love more than rifling through my Christmas stash finding things I have forgotten about - a great journey of discovery...fun...fun....fun :-)

One of my all-time favourite Stampin' Up Christmas stamps is:  Dasher.  I love Dasher because the image is so versatile and lends itself to many different styles of card whether clean and simple or layered - and today, I am sharing my vintage-inspired version.  I am a little crazy about Vintage Christmas images at the moment so I have a few projects on the go and lots of ideas running through my head and my Craft Room is in total chaos LOL!

I stamped Dasher onto cream cardstock using Stampin' Up Crumb Cake ink and then after diecutting and layering the image panel onto crimson cardstock, I heavily distressed the panel using Ranger Antique Linen Distress ink and my Ranger Blending Tool.  I added some Kaisercraft blue-grey rhinestones and Bo Bunny burgundy rhinestones to Dasher's antlers.

The designer paper is really old - Cosmo Cricket:  Oh Joy (I used both sides of the paper) which I bought quite a few years ago now when I was required to make some Vintage Christmas cards for Fat Cat's Card Corner (I was on their DT).  Thankfully, there are lots of Vintage Christmas papers around these days that you could substitute and Kaisercraft has had some gorgeous Vintage papers out the last couple of years eg: Just Believe  - and of course, Graphic 45 has some amazing papers too, just to name a few.  I heavily distressed the card base/papers using Antique Linen ink.

I dyed/aged the cream lace using a tea bag and then tied on some rusty bells (and they even jingle!) using some twine.  As is my usual practice, I added the lace in 2 separate elements and glued the knotted part on using Fabric glue (it's just neater that way for me!) - and I added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.

I added an Imaginisce brad to the bottom right-hand side which is from their Snowy Joe Brad Collection.  I received this set of brads free with an order from an online store and I suspect they are l-o-n-g retired.  It was just pure luck that the colours on this brad matched really well with my card (LOVE it when that happens!).

Lastly, I attached my decorated card front to a cream cardstock base.

Finished size is:  5-3/4" x 4-1/8" or 146mm x 105mm.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - July - Anything Goes

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Stampin' Up Dasher (retired)

Ink:  Stampin' Up Crumb Cake, Ranger Antique Linen Distress Ink

Designer paper:  Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy - Frosty 12" x 12" (retired)

Accessories:  Hero Arts Lace Ribbon CH231 (tea dyed by me), fabric glue, Bo Bunny 'Father Christmas' jewels (burgundy rhinestones) JFC497, Kaisercraft rhinestones Blue-Grey RS406, Big Shot, Lifestyle Nesting Circle and Nesting Scallop Circle dies, Ranger Blending Tool, Pickadoll PT-1550 1cm rusty jingle bells, Darice hemp cord (to tie on bells), Imaginisce Snowball brads - Snowy Joe Collection (retired), Fray Stop, cardstock - Bazzill Basics Crimson, Paper Mill cream

Just-Rite Christmas Treasures Fan Club Christmas Challenge

Hi blogging friends

Thank you for your kind 'Get Well' messages from my last post.  My cold is lingering on and on but hopefully it will start to improve soon.  My loved one is still sick too but they feel quite a bit better than a few days ago and their cough is certainly not as yucky so the antibiotics seem to be working.

Today, I am sharing a Christmas card which I made for the Splitcoaststampers Christmas Fan Club Challenge for July and the theme is "All about the Sentiment".  I have hardly made any Christmas cards this year.  I had originally planned to make a card each month for the Christmas Fan Club Challenge but just wasn't "feeling it" until now.  I have to be in-the-mood for Christmas cardmaking and if I try and force myself to make one when I don't want to, I usually end up with a messy Craft Room and very little to show for it.  

The dry embossing is a Nellie Snellen Christmas Square-1 EFE004 embossing folder.  The sentiment and border is from an old Just-Rite Christmas Treasures set (which uses their own 3-1/4" round stamper) and was stamped using Versamark Watermark ink and heat-embossed using Ranger Silver superfine embossing powder.  I really love how you can see such fine detail with this embossing powder.

After I attached the main panel to the card, I thought that the panel needed something more so decided to cut a silver glitter cardstock border using my Lifestyle Nesting Circles and the Magnetic platform in my Big Shot.  The magnetic platform makes it so easy to cut a border this way because you can lay the dies exactly where you want them and they don't move in the machine.  I glued down the silver circle using Tombow Mono Multi glue.

I used my Perfect Layers Tools to trim a 1/16" border around the silver cardstock base (LOVE these tools - they make crafting so much easier!).  By the way, I attached the silver glitter cardstock to the white cardstock using Ranger Wonder Tape.  Doublesided tape, in my experience, just doesn't work for attaching glitter cardstock - it isn't strong enough.

Lastly, I added silver rhinestones.  Finished size is 5-1/8" x 5-1/8".

Challenges:

Apart from the SCS Fan Club Challenge, I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Anything goes - with the optional extra of doing something for Christmas in July

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - July - Anything Goes 

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #183 - Let's get Sentimental

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today.

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Just-Rite Christmas Treasures (sentiment and border)

Ink:  Versamark Watermark

Accessories:  Just-Rite 3-1/4" round stamper, Big Shot, Big Shot magnetic platform, Ranger Silver superfine embossing powder, heat-gun, Perfect Layers Tools, Lifestyle Nesting Circle dies, Nellie Snellen Christmas Square-1 EFE004 embossing folder, Ranger Wonder Tape, Tombow Mono Multi glue, Papermania adhesive stones Silver PMA351103, cardstock - silver glitter, white