Just Add Ink

Saturday, 03 December 2011

I love the Just Add Ink site as it always inspires you to start creating, which is especially good when you feel stuck in a rut. You can look at their challenges, get ideas from the design team and then make and enter something of your own for their weekly challenge.

This week the challenge is to CASE of one the designers, Tania Gould. I CASEd her sample that she posted for this challenge. I loved the layout and also the technique of emboss resist and so incorporated both on my entry.

Also I wanted to showcase one of the new stamp sets available now from the new summer mini catalogue. It is called “You Are Loved”. Isn’t it romantic! How do you like the inside of my card? (NB the red used on both the inside and outside of the card is Riding Hood Red, but my poor photography skills makes them look like two different reds.)

Last week, the challenge was to make something Christmassy but not using Christmas paper or a Christmas stamp set (words were the exception). I entered two; one was a combination of the kiwi punch art card and the tree card that I posted last week. The other is the Christmas candles below. The flames are made from the blossom petal builder punch.

Thanks for visiting Rhonda

Christmas punch art ideas

Saturday, 26 November 2011

Christmas Tree Card
I was playing around with punch art on the weekend. If you checked in here earlier in the week. You would have seen some of the cards below but I am reposting a couple as they needed tweeking. (This was kindly pointed out to me by my family).
The punch art tree is made from 5 of the large petals from the blossom petal builder punch each petal has a bit cut off the side so that each one becomes narrower than the one before. Add a few punched out dots and glitter and it’s done!

Kiwi Christmas
The kiwi Christmas card is one that I have been thinking about for awhile, mainly because I wanted a card that would reflect a New Zealand Christmas, rather than the snow and reindeer scenes that really have nothing to do with Christmas in the summer time. The feet and eyes are from the owl punch, the body is a scallop circle (double punched), the head is a boho blossom flower and the beak is hand cut.
OK so this card below is a new post, the old one had the santa hat on it's back. LOL! So below is the new and improved version.

Kiwi Bookmark
Same kiwi as before but his head is raised on dimensionals. The 'fern' is from the leaves bigz die and has been hand cut into the side with scissors. I have some visitors coming from overseas for Christmas so this will be a nice personal touch to go with a book.

Christmas Owl
This gift card hollder is from a tutorial that I saw on line. (pattystamps.typepad.com).
Fold a 6 x 6 piece of designer series paper in half and place the fold line between the 3rd and 4th scallop on the scallop envelope die, so that you have 3 full scallops of the envelope die visible. Run through the big shot.
Fold and make into an envelope. You will find the envelope is bigger than if you just ran it through the big shot normally (without folding the paper). It is great having a bigger envelope as now it is the perfect size to hold gift cards for Christmas!

You will notice a fold mark running down the centre of your newly made gift card holder, this is easily covered with a belly band and it looks rather cute with a Christmas owl on the front.

Rhonda

Working with Vellum

Friday, 18 November 2011

Hi, this week I am featuring some cards made with the Stampin' Up! Vellum card. It is very quick and easy to use when combined with our embossing folders. It reminds me of the Pergamino (parchment craft) that I tried in the 1990's. Only then, I did all my dry embossing by hand and now I can achieve an even nicer result using the Big Shot and embossing folders.
Currently some of these folders are on special. So check out the Promotions and Specials tab on the right hand side if this is something that interests you. (only available in New Zealand and only until the end of November).

Manhattan Flower Sympathy Card - Embossed
The flower embossed image is highlighted on the underneath side with a white gel pen (drawn into the grooves) to give the flowers even more definition.

Butterfly Birthday Card - Stamped
Vellum can be stamped on and coloured in with markers. It doesn't smudge. It creates a soft look to the card and would be great to use on baby cards or wedding cards. This card is embossed along the top and bottom edges with the framed tulips embossing folder and punched along the side with the scallop border punch.

Hot Air Balloon Card - Punched
The vellum card punches out nicely with our Stampin' Up! punches. I have used vellum to create clouds punched with the cupcake builder punch. The vellum is nice to use when a subtle white colour is wanted and where the Whisper White card would be too stark. It would look great for windows on the truck from the Loads of Love stamp set...
Now there's an idea! I will have to try that next.

 If you were wondering how I made the pine trees and bush covered hills, they are stamped with images from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set. The bush is stamped with the oak tree randomly over the foreground (minus the tree trunk of course) and the pine trees are made from the little pine cone stamp, of which one leaf has been inked with a marker then stamped to create miniature trees.
Rhonda

Tag it to me!

Friday, 11 November 2011

Name tags
I have just done two weekend extravaganzas back to back and have extra workshops and training sessions booked this month so I have been very busy, crafting every day and letting the housework pile up!
I thought I would show you some of the things I made for the ladies attending the extravaganza in Tauranga, NZ. They all received a goodie bag with their name on - I made green tags stamped with the soft holly wheel stamp.

I kept to my favourite colour and made the little gifts inside to co-ordinate with the name tags. The very merry box holds two small chocolate bars. Once again it is stamped with the soft holly wheel stamp and it also uses stamps from the short & sweet stamp set and tags til Christmas stamp set. The small tag on the green mint sweets bag is also from tags til Christmas.

Jewellery tags
This week I also entered another "Just add Ink" challenge. The challenge was to just add tags (or a bookmark). My first entry was a vintage style card with two tiny jewellery tags added.

Swing tags
I decided to add a second entry in case these the jewellery tags were considered to be too small and so made this wedding card for a friend in colours to match her wedding stationery.

Thanks for stopping by...
from Rhonda 

Tent cards

Saturday, 05 November 2011

Christmas Tent Card
This card was one that I taught at an extravaganza event last Christmas. It uses the ornament punch, once again, to make the cute little snow kid. The original punch art idea for this snow kid came from the talented Jackie Topa (you can find her at jackietopa.typepad.com).
The tent card doesn't open up but creates a 3D scene in layers. You write your message on the back of the card.
If you would like instructions for this tent card, you can find them on my tutorials.

Owl Tent Card 
This next card I made last week as I was trying out some sponging. Still a bit of work needed on my technique but overall I was quite happy with how it turned out.

Rhonda

Punch Art Christmas Cards

Friday, 21 October 2011

More ornament punches:
This is a quick and easy Christmas card that I made as a swap last Christmas. I heat embossed the whisper white card with white embossing powder and then sponged pink and blue ink over top. (This simple technique is called emboss resist as the ink will not settle on the embossed images.) Once this pattern was made, it was then punched out with the ornament punch.

Christmas Lights:
The little lights on this simple card were made using the second largest petal from the blossom petal builder punch and the top hanger was made using the jewellery tag punch which was then inserted into the small oval punch to trim a section off the tag. The swirl stamp used to hang the lights from is the stem stamp from the cottage garden stamp set.

Here comes Santa:
This card is made with the stocking stamp set and co-ordinating punch. The bricks are from the top part of the stocking. Santa's red legs are punched with the biggest petal on the blossom petal builder punch. The white trim at the top of his boots is the square scallop punch (doubled punched). It was a very easy card to make.

Hope these ideas inspire you as you start to get organised for posting your Christmas cards and letters.
Rhonda

Using the ornament punch

Friday, 21 October 2011

Ornament Punch - Candles
It has been awhile since I last used this punch. I got it out only a couple of weeks ago to make Christmas cards for a class I was teaching. I wanted to show the class how versitile it was and so made up a few samples of how it could be used. I cased some ideas of the internet such as this candle card below. (The original was made by Lynda, from the USA. You can visit her website at stampingdoc.blogspot.com) She had a great punch to make the oozing wax effect but I have used crystal effects instead. I have also used the bird wing (from the bird builder punch) to create the inner flame and I have made holly leaves using the large oval punch which I then inserted into the square scallop punch to create the indents in the leaves. The holly berries have also been given a shine with the crystal effects.

Vase of Daisies
A lot of people have made the ornament punch into a vase. I chose to fill my vase with daisies made from the smallest petal of the blossom petal builder punch. 

Perfume Bottles
This was the swap I made for the Fiji incentive trip. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I have instructions in how to make this awning card and the bottles on my tutorials.

Thanks for stopping by from Rhonda 

Fiji

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Incentive trip
I was so blessed to be the lucky person chosen as a guest on the Stampin' Up! Incentive trip to Fiji. Patrice (my upline) achieved this trip and took me along. It was incredible, meeting wonderful people from the Stampin' Up! family and being throughly spoilt as well as being taken out of our comfort zones. One day we went on a 5 hour white water rafting trip. Our raft hit a rock and popped. We were rescued by another raft and continued our way down the river. It was huge drama for me at the time but I am very glad I completed the trip. Another day we got taken to an outer island for snorkling.

Every night Patrice received a wonderful gift from Stampin' Up! She didn't want me to feel left out and so made little gifts to put on my pillow also. This is what she made for me the first night. I loved the card and how she made it fit in with the Fiji theme and feel of the place. The gift was lip balm wrapped with hand stamped paper.

I love how Patrice did the wrapping paper. She has used the packaging that comes in all our Stampin' Up! parcles. Very clever I thought!
I am heading back to bed, the trip and busy days before-hand have all caught up with me. I will post again in a few days time.
Rhonda