Happy Birthday to my Big Sister

I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and Boxing Day holiday.

Lucky for me, I also get to celebrate my big sister's birthday today. Yep, I get to do lots of celebrating in December, especially with a lovely new addition to our family with a beautiful great-niece born on 22nd December. Just to explain the extent of my December joy, I have two sisters, a brother-in-law, a niece, two great-nieces and a great-nephew who are all born in December. Yay! I may sound factitious but I love each and every one of them and I gladly offer them birthday and Christmas gifts at the same time. (The moths have flown out of my purse and are long gone by now!) No, I'm only joking!!! It's just that it's hard enough to come up with ideas for Christmas presents, without also having to double-up with birthdays.

 Anyway, I made a card for her that used a brand new Happy Birthday to You Banners cutting die set from Poppy Crafts. Since her favourite colour is green, I was able to use some Christmas patterned paper along with some old cardstock that I had in my stash. It also had to have gold on it, of course! I finished it off with some Apple Green Nuvo Crystal Drops.

Anyway, bye for now.
Love,






PS. I wanted to share a photo of my new great niece Aaliyah, as well as a photo of my beautiful boy, Alex, taken at lunch on Christmas Day.

A lesson for new Cardmakers at Christmas...

Hi, I'm back with a rather long (but very informative) video tutorial for beginner cardmakers. I wanted to do something for total novices who don't know where to start or what they need to "start" making cards for Christmas.

Using a designer paper pad, white cardstock, scissors, adhesive and simple embellishments, I created about 20 cards to display what can be made; and then I demonstrated the creation of three cards, using very simple techniques. I also introduce the use of the internet and a printer as an alternative to buying sentiment panels. I downloaded a file from www.papercraftermagazine.co.uk/downloads/free-debbi-moore-christmas-digi-stamps to use as it's chock-full of great digistamps and sentiment strips.

Below are a few of the cards I made for this exercise (the rest have been sent on to their new homes).

The video can be viewed below or watch it on YouTube by following the link.

I'll be back soon.

Love,

Oh oh!!!

I went AWOL for many weeks earlier in October/November, due to my mum tripping and dislocating and breaking her left shoulder. UGH! I happened to be away in Sydney/Melbourne on holidays at the time; but once we got back, Mum came to stay with us and I had to look after her, doing everything for her. The resulting stress caused my Chronic fatigue to flare.

The great news is that both of us are continuing to heal. Mum's back in her little place and I'm back doing some cardmaking and housework. Yay!!????

Some of the things I missed posting about included:

Angie's Digital Stamps had its last challenge for the year with a "Happy Holidays" theme.

I used Angie's Little Lila with Musical Instrument digi stamp for my card and coloured her in the reds and greens of Christmas. Some distressing and edge inking gave the card a slight vintage feel; but I just had to add a touch of glitz with the gold die cut "greetings". Nuvo Ebony Black Crystal Drops completed the card.

Get Creative Challenges also had its last challenge for 2017. Challenge #64 had a theme of "Holidays".

My card used a digistamp by one of the sponsors, Rick St Dennis called "Winter 2017". I coloured the image using my Copics and combined patterned paper, white paper roses,

organza red ribbon, some silver flower centres, leaves and a stacked red die cut sentiment. I have always admired Tracy Wray and her distressed and layered cards; and wanted to have a go at it.

Simply Create Too's last challenge for the year had the theme of CAS and I had fun creating a card using a Santoro Gorjuss "Fly Away With Me" stamp set. Did you know that Nuvo Crystal Drops will flatten? I stacked it along with some other cards (after it had been sitting out drying for several days) and when I later looked at it, the drops had flattened.

Anyway, off to have some more adventures (disasters???) in my life. I'll be back soon.

Bye for now,

Love,

A new banner for my blog and Faux-Brush Lettering tutorial

Well...what do you think of my new banner? Owing to the mystics of the computer world, I lost my previous banner and didn't have it any more after my computer died last year. Uhg! I really need to back-up more often. I used a digikit from Creative Market called Rose All Day Design Elements as well as a digikit from Hungry JPEG called Watercolor Glitter Floral Headers Flower Clipart. I used my PhotoShop Elements program to create it.

Anyway...I've been doing some lettering lately (instead of doing my practice drawing). I used a faux-brush script lettering style when you start with single line lettering and then you add extra lines to simulate the brush lettering style. I've done a step-by-step tutorial showing the stages involved.

Faux-Brush Lettering
I used the Magnolia Sky font as the basis for my lettering exercise. I like the rise and fall of the letters, so I've been practising writing using this style. The full suite of it can be obtained from Creative Market  if you like it as much as I do; or a sample of it can be downloaded from Dafont.com.

Step 1. Draw some guidelines and then handwrite your design using a light pencil line. Overwrite the design with a single line of black fineliner marker. Erase the pencil marks once complete.

Step 2. Draw a second pencil line on each letter to represent the downstrokes. Make sure all downstrokes are drawn on the same side.

Overwrite the pencil markings with the black fineliner marker. Erase all pencil marks.

Step 3. Fill the spaces in with the black marker.

I decorated my design with a simple hand-drawn frame. This is a quick and easy hand-lettering technique that looks quite effective on signs, home decor etc. The more it's practised, of course, the better and smoother the lettering will appear. You'll also get a more clear understanding of the principles of hand-lettering so you can then progress to brush-lettering styles.

I hope this sets you off on the road to hand-lettering. hahaha!

Bye for now.

Love,

A little bit ghoulish for Halloween.

For the latest challenge for Angie's Digital Stamps, I had to make a spooky Halloween card. As luck would have it I changed my plans halfway through, and ended up with two cards instead.

I traced the haunted house from an image I found on the internet, and the background was sponged using Distress Inks and masks made from Post-It tape. I went berserk with my white opaque Signo marker to create stars and added a dash of Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist (the girl card was sprayed a bit more liberally than it should.) You should NEVER spray Glimmer Mist in the dark as you can't tell how much you actually have put on. I was in a hurry and too lazy to turn on the light in the kitchen and just went with the ambient light from elsewhere in the house. (Forehead smack!) Doh!!!

I generated the sentiment on my computer. I love the All Over Again font that I downloaded from Dafont.com. It's perfect for this type of occasion and for masculine projects, as it's a little bit grungy/graffiti.

The girl image is a digistamp called Daisy May with a Candle from Angie's Etsy store that was coloured using Copic markers.

The ghost was found after trawling through the internet, and after gluing several copies together, I coated it with Diamond Glaze. If you look really closely, you can see the bubbles I wasn't able to pop. (I hate it when it doesn't go on smoothly.)  The black dots are my new Nuvo Crystal Drops in Ebony Black. This was the first time I've used it and I LOVE IT! I think I'll be wanting the entire colour spectrum. It sure is easier than trying to glue enamel dots in position. Hahaha.

Stop by Angie's Digital Stamps and play along with Challenge #14. Make a Halloween card or two and see what your fellow crafters have created as well.

Bye for now.

Love,

There's still time to play at Simply Create Too

This time at Simply Create Too Challenge, I made something a little different to my usual work. The theme for Challenge #131 was to use buttons and bows.

I had been browsing on the internet and stumbled across Jen of Eve Designs and her wonderful handmade photo books that she designs, makes and then sells the templates for others to make their own. Anyway, I CASEd a few of her ideas and created my own little photo book using my own measurements, page ideas etc. I made it for my niece's birthday, and considering she has three gorgeous kids, it shouldn't take her long to turn it into a special brag book.

I made a classic rookie mistake when I decorated the front of the album with my placement of the embellishments. While it looks lovely when it's untied; once the ribbon is secured, the heading can't be seen. Oh well, I'll know better next time. :)

This shows the inside of it with spaces to glue photos and journalling panels. (I particularly liked her cute little envelopes and pockets.)

Head on over to Simply Create Too and join in the fun with a whole new challenge. You never know - you could be selected as one of our top three entrants.

Bye for now.

Love,

I'm sorry about this...

I apologise to all about this, but since I had a very bad cold/flu/whatever over a month ago, I've been behind in everything in my life. It's only now, as I sit in a nice hotel room in Sydney, that I can post things that I should have over a fortnight ago.

One of these things is a card for Get Creative Challenges Challenge #62, that has a theme of Autumn/Fall.

I hope you can see the background design I tried to achieve with a stencil, double-sided tape and various containers of gilding flakes. The stencil is a gorgeous one by (forget the name but I'll fix up when I get home) with a leaf pattern over it. I lay some wide double-sided  tape over some white cardstock, positioned the stencil over top and then tried filling in the leaf patterns with a bronzy mixture of gilding flakes. There are some areas that represent the sky/void space, which I covered with silver; and then after removing the stencil, I filled in the leaf outlines with a greeny mixture. One thing with gilding flakes is that when you drop a piece on double-sided tape, there is NO chance of picking it up to try again. Anyway, that's it for the background. The image is AliciaBel's Felicity that was coloured using my Copic markers to tie in with the autumnal theme. You should be able to see the other accoutrements I used to finish the card.

This challenge is sponsored by Angie's Digital Stamps, AliciaBel and Fred, She Said Designs. Winners of this challenge can win 2 digistamps from Angie's Digital Stamps or a $10 voucher to spend at AliciaBel or Fred, She Said Designs.

Join us at Get Creative and see what Autumn goodness has been created. Make a card and join in the fun.

Bye for now.

Love,

A card for a friend

I was proud to be asked by a friend of my mum to make a birthday card for her grand-daughter. This is the card I came up with. IRL the middle layer of the card was a pale pinky-apricot pearlescent cardstock, but in this photo it just looks white. 

I also had to make an envelope to fit the card (one of the downfalls of using flowers). I successfully used my WeR Memory Keepers Envelope Punch board. To be honest, I've not had a great deal of success using this previously, but on this occasion, it worked perfectly. I was even able to do a 3D step-up version to accommodate the flowers more easily.

Other resources I used included: Kaisercraft Oval Vintage Frame Decorative dies (small), Catherine Pooler Stamp of Approval Happy Birthday dies, Memory Box Distressed Windham Collage Cutting die, assorted paper flowers, leaves and some Glimmer Mist in Gold Iridescent.

I'm glad to say that Joan (my mum's friend) loved the card and was pleased with the verse I included inside.

Bye for now.

Love,

Dance...Love...Sing...Live

I'm back with another challenge for Angie's Digital Stamps. Challenge #12 had an optional twist of "Back to School", but I opted to keep my card purely based on the digistamp. A cute girl with a microphone could only be linked with the quote from William W. Purkey " Dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you've never been hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening and Live like it's Heaven on Earth."

I created the layout on the background with a jpg I designed and then printed it with my laser printer. I was still waiting for my Distress Oxide Inks to be delivered, so had to smooch my background with Fossilized Amber and Twisted Citron Distress Inks. I really like the depth of colour I achieved by varying the amount of water added to the ink smudges on my craft mat.

I'm going on holidays soon so will have to take along my Copics and do some proper practice. Her hair is so bad!

Anyway, pop on over to Angie's Digital Stamps and join in the fun with this challenge.

                                  

Bye for now,

P.S. If you would like a copy of this jpg, email me at adashofflash@gmail.com, and I'll send you a copy.

It's been a long time coming...a new video tutorial!

Hi to all! After a very long time (after much time spent coming to grips with my health issues and those of my Mum; as well as collapsed computers and missing programs) I've finally managed to get it all together for a new video tutorial posted to YouTube. You can see it by following the link HERE. Or you can watch it below.

This time I've demonstrated the making of my "Hugs" Hidden Sentiment card from last week. I loved how this card turned out and I'm happy to show it to you.

While you're watching it, also listen to (you won't be able to avoid it) my own melody, Janelle's Theme, that I wrote especially for my new video tutorials. Please tell me what you think of it. I used an app called GarageBand to do it. (This took my time of creation and performing from two months down to two days.) It's a very easy program to use and I'm getting ready to write my next new song. Hahaha!

If you're not that interested in watching me colour my image (I'll admit it can be a lot tedious) watch the first three minutes or so, and then skip ahead to 17:30 minutes where I show the die cutting etc.

Hope you enjoy my revamped video format and I hope to see you again soon.

Bye for now.

Love,

It's a Wedding at Simply Create Too

Welcome back to Challenge #129 at Simply Create Too Challenge blog where we are celebrating weddings of all types. I chose to include a card I made for my niece's wedding. (I had to make two; one for my mum to give and another for us to give. This was the one for Mum.)

Heat foiling, die cutting and some ribbon were what was needed to make this a super shiny wedding card. I printed out the background patterned paper, sentiment and a plain rectangle with my laser printer, then heat foiled using my mini Minc and some rose gold foil. It allowed me plenty of foiled lusciousness to die cut the sentiment tag and the sentiment background label, while still having enough for the background foiled layer. I love that I'm not restricted in any way - that I can foil whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I have my laser printer and my computer. It's a genius idea! 

I had fun also creating my first triple bow. I used glue dots to position the folds so they could all be seen.

Anyway, head on over to Simply Create Too blog and add a wedding creation of your own. You may be selected as one of the top 3 and get a badge for your blog page. 

Bye for now.

Love,

Thank you and Challenge #60

First up I'd like to thank all of the people who sent me birthday wishes yesterday for my birthday. It's heartwarming to know that there are people all around the world who care about me. I had made this card for Challenge #60 for Get Creative Challenge blog, but it's perfect to show what I'm feeling today.

After seeing a similar technique used by Therese Calvird and Jennifer McGuire, I knew I just had to try it out, and then when I saw this digistamp by Drawn By Krista Mommy & Baby Elephant, decided now was the time. I was lucky to have scored the Altenew Bold Alphabet Dies (they'd sold like hot cakes) and they worked perfectly for this technique. I coloured the elephants with my Copics and couldn't have been happier with the results. I coloured the rest of the letters with a bright green so at first glance it looks like they're sitting on grass. Next time, though, I will colour around the sides of the letter stacks with the same colour. (I attached the die cut letters from the coloured panel onto a stack of three letters the same, cut from white cardstock.) In a couple of days I'm hoping to have posted a video tutorial I videoed showing how I made this card.

Now back to Challenge #60 for Get Creative Challenge blog. This month it's sponsored by Angie's Digital Stamps, Drawn By Krista and All Dressed Up.

Head on over for an opportunity to win digistamps from our sponsors.  The theme for this challenge is CAS (Clean and Simple). I think mine still qualifies, doesn't it???)

Anyway, bye for now.

Love,