More Artist Trading Cards

Sunday, 09 October 2011

Earlier in the year, I show cased some Artist Trading Cards (ATC’s) and I have some more to show this week.
The first are themed “birthdays with balloons”
Artists are L) to R) Rhonda Fawcett, Lisa Bullock, Bev Poultney, Narelle Hoggard, Vicky-Lee Mueller and Sharna Russell
Sharna’s card in the bottom right corner had a surprise inside when you opened it up.

This second set of ATC’s has a masculine theme.
Artists are L) to R) Rhonda Fawcett, Bev Poultney, CarolMcCready, Lisa Bullock and Katrina Bongers.

 Artists are (top to bottom) Nikki Spicer, Sharna Russell and Narelle Hoggard.

 NB Not all ATC's feature images and products from Stampin' Up!
Rhonda

Pinking Hearts Corner Punch

Saturday, 01 October 2011

Pansy Card
I made this card for a friend's 70th birthday, using the new in colour - wisteria wonder. The pansy is made from two butterfly punches that have been sponged with ink to give nice subtle shadings.  (I only discovered when I posted this that the pansy is upside down haha!) The circle background is yet another using the wet wipe technique. The border around the circle is made with the pinking heart corner punch which is this week's featured product!

The leaves have been made using the new blossom petals builder punch. I punched out the largest petal and attached a post it note to give me something to hold as I reinserted the petal piece to take a slice off the edge and make a smaller leaf shape. I then drew in lines with a marker pen to create the veins of the leaf. I was pleased with how it turned out as I have a minature pansy growing on my window sill and I think the finished leaf looked very similar. Check out the photo below to see what I mean.

The following card I made a while ago using the pinking heart corner punch and the pinking heart border punch to create an interesting frame. It is a little tricky to line up the punches hearts correctly and I didn't get it 100% on this card but as it was my first attempt I am not too worried.

Dragonfly Card

Other uses for the pinking hearts corner punch are to make fancy photo corners for your scrapbooking pages. I have used the punch mostly for this up until now and it is easy to do if you have the old (now retired) photo corner punch to layer the pinking hearts corner onto. However I really like the lacy border on my pansy circle in the first photo. It is made with 13 pinking heart corners. See photo below, which shows how I cut the white punched corners in order to glue them behind the circle.

World cardmaking day is at the beginning of October, so I hope you are inspired to make some more cards!
Happy creating,
from Rhonda 

Wet Wipe Technique

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Brown Butterflies
Here is another two cards to show off the wet wipe technique that I talked about in my last post.
First is the Brown Butterflies card using the 'Every Moments' stamp set. To make this card, I swiped the glossy circle with my inked wetwipe, then stamped the images and lastly used the Stampin' Markers to colour the images in. The scallop edging around the circle was taught to us at the National Training day and uses one long strip of cardstock that has been punched with the scallop border punch. Frequent snips are made with scissors along this strip so that it can be curved.It is adhered to the back of the circle a few scallops at a time. You almost have to pleat it as you go.

Totally Tools
This is another favourite stamp set of mine. This time the wet wipe technique is used to just provide a subtle background border for the main focus of the card, which is the three squares of tools.

Rhonda

At the beach

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Last week I talked about starting my on Christmas cards, well to me Christmas is synonymous with the beach, so this week I am showing some beach inspired cards.
Surf's Up: Do you like my surf's up card copied from page 61 of the new catalogue. I have made three small changes only. Can you spot what is different?

Seagull: I decided to make this card after I heard that someone had used the bird punch to make a seagull. I chose to add a bit of colour to my bird and was very happy with the result. The bird punch also makes great tui's and parrots and Christmas Cardinals. So versatile!

Sailboat: This card shows the wetwipe technique (which is also on the surfs up card).This technique uses reinkers on a folded wet wipe which is then dragged across glossy white card to leave a nice smear of colour. The sailboat is stamped over the top of this swiped background. Quick and easy and it gives a really nice effect.

When I showed this card to my husband, he said he didn't like it! :( But only because I used a seaworthty stamp again. So my challenge for next week is to make some more cards using the wet wipes technique but NOT a stamp from the seaworthy stamp set!
Check in next week to see what I come up with...
from Rhonda

Step cards

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Side Step Card
Well it's that time of year when I start to think about making Christmas cards. I came across this side step one that I made last year. It is a "partridge in a pear tree". The pear and branch stamp are from the now discontinued cheep talk stamp set. The greeting is printed from my computer. I do like the bird stamp though and decided to make another step card, using the same bird.

Centre Step Card
So here is my latest card, it is a centre step and uses the stamps from curly cute (happy birthday) and autumn days.
The leaf is a Stampin' Up! die cut that has been sponged and daubered. Some of you may have seen the father's day card  I made using a few of these leaves and also some punch art acorns.

Another centre step card
This one uses the Cute as a Cupcake stamp set, the little cupcake from the short and sweet stamp set and the wide striped grosgrain ribbon. Also the new in-colour from Stampin' Up! - Lucky Limeade.
Do you like it? It is one of five new colours that came out this month.

From Rhonda

For the Ladies

Tuesday, 06 September 2011

Rock Chick
This card was made with the music notes wheel, grunge rock stamp set and the two step bird punch.

Iris Folding
This is my first attempt at iris folding and was taught to me by the talented Bev Poultney. It was easier to do than I expected but that may have been due to the good teacher, aye Bev! All the ladies in our group that made this card agreed that this technique was fun and therapeutic. Leave me a comment if you will like to see this technique taught in one of my classes.

Gift Box
I had one of my customers ask me to design her a gift box that she could use to put in a selection of cards to give as a gift to her mother. This is what I came up with. It holds between 20 to 25 cards and envelopes, depending on how much embellishments are used on the cards. (ie how thick the cards are)

The lid is made from one sheet of A4 card and the base is made from one sheet of 12 x 12 card. It is stamped with stamps from the popular vintage vogue stamp set and the design was inspired by Shona Edmonds. Both Bev and Shona are demos on my team. 

Rhonda 

National Product Day

Monday, 29 August 2011

Pastel Tiling Technique
I attended NZ's first big national training day, with the promotion and play of new products coming out in September. It was a great day, very full on, with lots of demonstrations as well as hands on projects. I was priviledged to be asked to share something on the day. Quite nerve racking in front of 170+ people...
My brief was to show how to make a pleated rosette flower with a squashed bottle cap centre and incoporate it on a card along with another technique. I choose to teach the pastel tiling technique which is very easy. You just get plain white or vanilla cardstock and using a dauber, sponge on pastel colours. I did splotches of 2 or 3 different colours, randomly over the entire cardstock until it was all covered in colour. Then using a ruler and the rubber that comes in your stampin' pastel kit rub out lines of colour. You end up with a very soft and pretty background for your card.

The squashed bottlecap is so quick to make. Just buy the bottle caps from the supermarket (they are used by home brewers) and run it through your big shot. It squashes flat and then you can punch out your desired image with the 1" punch and it fits perfectly in the middle.
Don't you just love this new stamp set? Another sneak peak of what's coming in a few days time. I love the bird's feet.

Finally I decided to make a big card to showcase the rosette and bottlecap as they tend to overpower the smaller cards.
I also wanted to show off some more of my punch art. I so much enjoy playing around with my punches and this is my latest creation - a toucan! I went on google images to check the colour of them and found that there is a whole range of colours especially for their beaks. So I hope you like my creation. I will put instructions for it under my tutorials but I am having problems with that page at present. Hopefully it will be sorted out soon.

Rhonda 

More sneak peaks

Wednesday, 24 August 2011

Goodbye / Hello
It's that time again when we farewell some products in order to make way for more new and exciting things. I am excited to see little silver-like charms in the shapes of keys and crowns in the new catalogue. Also some very cool new punches that are triple layered. To view new products and try them out for yourself, contact me to organise a workshop.

Don't forget this is your last chance to buy some of the retired items. Click on specials and promotions to see what retired items are discounted and email me if you want to order any before the end of the month.

This card below features the retiring stamp set, Sock Monkey. I have also used old dsp from earlier on as it makes a great background for this card.

This next card uses stamps from the new set called Button Buddies. It is designed especially to have buttons added and is a fun set. I made a retro style card using some new products including the new dotted scallop ribbon border punch and the new seam binding ribbon which is thin and papery, a bit like raw silk.

Lastly here is a cute little journal pocket using the pig stamp from Button Buddies. The pocket is made from a flattened pillow envelope. Another great idea that was taught to us at convention.

Have a good week and happy creating...
from Rhonda