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,

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.

2nd Challenge for the Year

My second challenge for the year is for Get Creative Challenges. Challenge #54 has the theme of "Anything Goes" and is being sponsored by Ike's Art, OddBall Art and Shadow Clocksy. Winners will be awarded digistamps of their choice from the sponsors. (See Angie's blog for more details.)

For my card I chose "Ellis the Chibi" digistamp by Shadow Clocksy and decided to create a New Year's card. After colouring the image with Copic markers and fussy cutting it, I attached it, using fun foam, onto a sheet of silver holographic reactive foiled cardstock (left over from Christmas cards), crisscrossed with pale blue lace (also a Christmas scrap). To simulate fireworks I stuck heaps of blue, silver and gold sequins onto the card. (That took me AGES!!!) What do you think? Was it worth it?

I don't know, there's something funny going on with her right eye.  😕

Anyway, get on over to Get Creative Challenges and GET CREATIVE!!! Have fun and join in the action.

Bye for now.

Love,
Janelle

Happy Easter

First of all I'd like to wish everyone a happy and safe Easter. Hope the Easter bunny comes to you all.

Yesterday (Good Friday) was my father's 80th birthday. I'm posting the card I made for him using my new Mini Minc machine. 

I foiled the background using the Signature 12x12" paper pack with some Teal foil. The Charming Themed card was also foiled with the teal foil. The sentiment was foiled in gold onto a sheet of toner paper and then die cut using MFT Brushstroke Birthday Greetings die set. The 80 came from the Ephemera pack and was also foiled in gold. These were  layered onto a 14x14cm white card blank and decorated with some teal sequins. 

(OMG! It's so hot as I'm typing this - sweat is running down the sides of my face.)

The photo is terrible as I quickly took it before we drove to Dad's place for a birthday lunch. The glue has also shown up in the photo, but IRL you can't see it at all where I smudged it gluing the sentiment in place. You also can't see the colour properly. It really looked so stunning IRL.

Dad's not the sort of person who really cares about cards, but it was an excuse to play with my Minc. I'm loving it and learning a lot about it, as I've just finished a commission for Practical Publishing about the Minc machine (doing a review and cards).

One thing I've found out, though, is that, while it may be more economical to print a sheet of toner paper using a laser printer, you don't get the quality of finish as you do with the Minc Toner paper. If it's just for a background mat, the laser toner paper would suffice, but if you can see most of it, then you really need to go with the Minc toner paper. I also tried out the Minc toner pen and, while it's great for adding strokes and swirls to your paper for an artistic effect, it is NO good for colouring in sentiments etc to cover with foil (uneven and smudgy result). Also if you're die cutting a sheet of cardstock you've already foiled, leave the plastic cover sheet in place and die cut through it. You'll get less scratching of the foil.

My favourite technique to do is double foiling. I'll post a couple of cards using this technique in a couple of days. You'll love it too.

Anyway, bye for now.

Love,
Janelle

Inlaid Die-cutting

Over the two weeks or so I've been trying out ideas to do with inlaid die-cutting. I'm working on a commission for Practical Publishing and I've been investigating cutting dies as well as assorted techniques. I'm posting a couple of cards I've made (but these won't be going to print).  :)

The first card uses a die from the Couture Creations Floral Lace Collection called "Bold Bouquet". I applied tape over the back of the areas where the very small flower pieces were and left them gold. It would have been too tiresome to replace all of those pieces. As it was, the replacement of a lot of the pieces was as frustrating and difficult as hunting for nits. Some of the pieces were so small that I couldn't even pick them up with a pair of tweezers. Thanks for my QuickStik. :) The sentiment is from a Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz set called Crazy Talk.

I'm pleased with how it turned out, but it is certainly a die for the stout-at-heart with plenty of patience. An easier way of achieving this same look is to cut it out of white cardstock, keep all of the pieces in place and then just colour the pieces as wanted - like a Faux-inlaid die-cutting.

The second card uses a couple of dies; the "Balloons" from Couture Creations Kalini Collection; and the other, the "Birthday Girl Die" from Echo Park Paper. The die cut background also uses a set from Lawn Fawn called "Puffy Cloud Borders".

I made the background pinkish because you can't really have a blue background for a girlie card, can you? The ombre effect, hopefully, looks like a sunset sky. Sitting here, looking at the card on screen, I've just realised that I've made a mistake on one of the balloons. Can you spot it? I will be using these dies in my commission, but not exactly how I've used them here. I'll have to remember to fix up that booboo.  :)

Anyway, gotta go. Bye for now.

Love,
Janelle

Back at last!

So many times over the past months, I've made up blog entries in my head, only to have something come up before I was able to get it typed up. From sickness, family issues, computer failure, magazine commissions, lack of inspiration - you name it - I've had it!

I have so much to tell you about, but to start off, I'll tell my Aussie readers about a little shop in Brisbane where you can get your sequins at an amazing price. The shop is called Bead Trimming and Craft Company and is found at Stones Corner. They have a wide range of colours, sizes and shapes of sequins.

About a month ago they had a fire in their upstairs section that housed the Doll and Teddy Bear Hospital, but apparently all is fine and they are back in business.

The selection of sequins you can see in the photo show a few that I picked up when I was there. I bought 2g of each colour and that's probably heaps to last a long time. Check them out.

I also took advantage of the Scrapbook Expo that was in Brisbane (June 6-8). This year I went the entire three days and did heaps of classes (concentrating on cardmaking techniques (of course) but also doing a couple of scrapbooking classes with a girlfriend on the Monday.) Next year, can someone please remind me not to go the whole three days - it almost killed me! I could hardly move on the Tuesday and it took over a week to fully recover from it. My CFS just isn't up to such abuse!  :)

It was worth it with some fantastic classes and heaps of ideas. I'll be including some photos of projects I did over the next couple of days, but I'm going to show you this card I made during the Expo. As soon as I saw the stamp used on this card, I just knew I had to give it to my husband for our anniversary this year. It was part of a set I made with Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door and used some of Dina Wakley Media Paints. These are great for multi-layering with stencils, brayering and stamps.

(The colours aren't quite right - they are much more vibrant IRL.)

Bye for now,
Love 
Janelle

A Card with Strings Attached and my 100th blog post!

The title of today's blog entry comes from my husband, who on seeing the card said, "Ah! This card comes with strings attached?" ???

These two cards are using some watercoloured backgrounds I made while playing around for a commission I was recently doing. 

The first one was just a smooshed colour thing where I smooched colours onto a wet panel of watercolour paper and waited to see what happened. While it wasn't suitable for my commission, I liked the combination of colours, so thought I'd play with the My Favorite Things Weekly Sketch Challenge No. 219.


I basically took all of the elements of this sketch and threw them in a pile. I used  the Lawn Fawn Cuts Stitched Hillside Borders dies to cut the slight wave of gold glittered cardstock and also a Lawn Fawn stamp for the sentiment.


I tried to make the card more dynamic by switching the direction of the large strip and having the sentiment strip crossing over the top. To tie it all together, I added some lime green twine. I really like how the twine looks because it almost looks like the My Favorite Things Die-namics LJD Scribbles flower die cut. Almost???! I'd love to get my hands on those die and coordinating stamp sets.

This is the first time I've done a MFT Sketch Challenge. I hope they don't block my site for totally destroying their sketch. :)

My second card is for my dad's birthday in two weeks time. It also uses a watercoloured background that was created with some embossing paste, a stencil and then watercolouring in the blanks. I wiped the paint off the embossed circles so they showed up brightly. Loved this effect, but once again wasn't suitable for the commission I had been working on - this was a little too masculine. The sequins really set off this card design. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Anyway, bye for now. I'll be back in another couple of days with some more watercoloured backgrounds I have still left over.

Love,

Janelle

P.S. It was only after I had posted this entry that I realised it was my 100th blog post. Wow! I've enjoyed my time over the past 3 years and am looking forward to many more years and posts to come.

Inktense colouring for Mother's Day

Hello to all. 

A belated Happy Mother's Day to everyone. I had a lovely weekend (I'm greedy - I don't just have a single day! :) ) On the Saturday, my husband took us to the Gold Coast's Jupiter's Casino and we saw the stage show "The Ultimate Vegas Show" which was very well done; and then we followed it up with dinner. On the Sunday, my son gave me a gorgeous little snow globe and a poem he'd written himself; and I had a day of lazing around and being pampered. The next day, I followed up with lunch with one of my sisters and my Mum. Thoroughly cool!!!

I'm posting the Mother's Day card I made for my mum, that is very similar to a card I made as part of one of my commissions for Simply Cards.

I stamped with a Dylusions stamp set "Fancy Florals" and then coloured with my Inktense pencils. To finish off, I went mad with some green sequins and a bow with two shades of twine. The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn and is a nice departure from the standard "Happy Mother's Day" one. (The real truth was that my craft room was temporarily blocked off and that was the closest stamp set I could access. ha!)

I wanted the colours to be big and vibrant and, going with the style of the stamps, not realistic at all - so I only did some slight shading in the background. I tried to get an even finish with the water brushing, but on waterpaper that is naturally slightly rough, it's very difficult to get perfect.

Anyway, I'm off to do some shaped cards now, so I'll post again soon.

Bye,

Janelle