Seasons Greetings to all

Hi all


just a quick note to wish all my friends who celebrate Xmas a wonderful day tomorrow. May you enjoy all your wonderful family and friends around you and lets hope there are lots of crafting goodies under the tree....


looking forward to being more active on my blog in 2011. I made some quick Xmas cards and will post some pics soon


hugz
shamela

Blog Candy from Really Reasonable Ribbon

Why not sign up and stand a chance to WIN BIG this FESTIVE SEASON!!!


It's Christmas time, so of course it's time for an Awesome Christmas Candy Giveaway!  We love giving away fun prizes to our awesome followers!

We've gathered a bunch of fun items that can be found on the Really Reasonable Ribbon website and we're going to give them all to one lucky winner! 

Lots of great ribbons, trims, adhesives and embellishments along with a Scor-Buddy Mini Scoring Tablet.  This will keep you going in challenges for a while!  Speaking of challenges, be sure to swing by and take a look at our current challenge theme.  Maybe you'll be inspired to enter a project of your own.

How do you sign up for a chance to win this great prize?

We'd love to have you do one or more of the following:

•Become a follower. We LOVE having you come by and our followers help us out in so many ways.
•Grab our 'I love RRR' badge and display it on your blog (it's located at the top of the right column).
•Tell your friends about us and our giveaway. Blog about it, twitter it, facebook it or just tell a friend.

My Friend ATC

So I think by now all our participants in the "my friend" ATC swap should have received their cards... as you can see its quite similar to the card I made for Barbara's birthday... and of course Barbara's card evolved from this ATC.

Main image is from Crafty Individuals inked with Memories art print brown ink

The word friends is actually 2 different stamps... I used the F from one word and then used the rest of another word friends... I like mixing things up a bit... to add additional interest. These stamps come from a really old clear set from paper Inspirations which I bought about 5 years ago.. and finally had a chance to use it... LOL 

Background is tea dye distress inks with my new hero arts background stamp... is so huge it fills a full A5 card... amazing if you are in a rush... I overstamped that with a penny black harlequin ribbon stamp also in tea dye ink. and of course the wording friends over that again...  the wording in the circle is also from Hero arts which I first punched out and then stamped in art print brown... I found that easier to do. I layered it with mirror tape and a gold chord underneath..

to finish a bit of bling... a tiny rhinestone on the "I" of friends

Thanks for taking the time to look... I loved the color combination I used... I found it lent to the old world charm of the image.

hugz

shamela ;p)

Turning 80!

I made this card for a friend who ordered it last minute!! Now alot of people say I work better under pressure, but I thought I was stuffed since I hit such a desert of ideas... and nothing wanted to work.. I ended up kinda lending an idea from Hero Arts and came up with this..... the lady loved the card... so it was a success...LOL...

flower stamp and background stamp both from Hero arts. 

Vertical Happy birthday stamp from stamp n stuff stamped in versa watermark and embossed in gold

A close up on the flower reveals... my all time favourite... stickles in the centre and the flower colored in with my watercolor paint wheel.

I ran out of stickers... so  used the template of the stickers to trace the 80 outlined it in gold pen and filled it with "glossy Accents" and covered with hero arts glitter... a wonderful fine glitter which works on any color imaginable!

Finished off with a gold and cream bow!

Thanks for popping by... hope you gained some inspiration for the weekend... I just finished another calendar page which I will load later this week after they have been distributed to our club members...  and also the T U V W Artist trading swap still needs to be loaded...

hugz
shamela ;p}

Wedding guest book made for a friend

My daughter Wisaal's long time school friend got married a few weeks ago. She decided to make her a special guest book for her wedding.  the book was made from scratch using chip board for the cover - covered with a cream raw silk finish scrap book paper and a lovely gold and cream embellished sheet of fancy paper I bought at the deckle edge.

The final product...  the left side of the cover is an embossed cream and gold sheet of paper I purchased at the Deckle Edge which is layered over a cream satin raw silk finish scrapbook paper. I cut some of the flowers of the floral paper and attached it to the cream raw silk finish scrap book paper. As always I was in a rush so just used some really handy gold stickers to personalise the names and the date.... a small sticker from a wedding collection sticker set I bought whilst in the UK... added the "new beginning"

I used diamond stickles to embellish the flowers.. it just needed some bling...after all this was a wedding guest book...>vbg<

I stamped this image from Paper Inspirations on the front page of the book in Memories art print brown ink. The inner pages of the book was made with 120gsm cream shimmer paper.

i

I bound the book with cream satin ribbon using the Japanese stab stitch method. Added a gold and cream ribbon to finish.  I also added a cream braid to layer over the join of the cream and gold cover. Having made quite a few books already I can highly recommend you to make a template for the holes so that one gets them perfectly aligned. If these holes are not perfectly aligned your pages will end up being skew in the book... and this looks really awful.

This is the opening page... flourishes are from the Hero Arts clear rubber stamps collection

The wording "guest book" was stamped with Hero Arts clear alphabet sets.

Each page was embellished with a "love" verse - the idea was to have guests write wishes to the couple around the verses on the various pages.

The flourish is from a Hero arts clear by design set. The wording is also from the Hero Arts wood mount stamps

An old favourite of mine, this is an old PSX stamp.. unfortunately no longer commercially available.

After loading these pics onto my blog I realised that we forgot to take a picture of the inside cover... I usually cover the inside cover with a contrasting matching paper as well to finish it off... I'll load some pics of my shop's guest book as an example of the inside cover soon so you can see what the inside cover of the books look like...

thanks for taking the time to pop by

have a wonderful weekend

hugz

shamela ;p)

A card for Barbara's Birthday

Our RSA Group recently hosted a "Friend" ATC Swap. I'll load mine later this week once the swaps have been sent out. But I based this card for my friend Barbara on the ATC I made for the Friend Swap.

The Cream is Cream shimmer 120gsm paper - I stamped Hero Arts  Background stamp in Antique Linen distress ink. Over stamped with Penny Black Diamond border  in Tea Dye Distress ink. Finally stamped with wording "friends" Paper Inspirations friends clear stamp set in Vintage Photo distress ink.

The main image is from Crafty Individuals 

I finally finished off the card with a metal heart embellishment. and a little brown diamante on the "i" for the word "friends"

thanks for taking a peek.

hugz

shamela ;p)

A Card for Kathy's mum

Kathy is one of my card group friends.. and her mum turned 94 - to make her day extra special some of our group made Kathy's mum birthday cards... 

It must be wonderful to receive an influx of unexpected birthday wishes... 

I added some flowers inside the card to make it extra special

I used a light green Bazzil card and used matching floral scrapbook paper to cut and emboss the pattern on the front with my Spellbinders borders... 

Classic Lace Border Grand

The ovals were made with my Spellbinders nestibilities
the wording stamp is from Paperchain

Petite Scalloped Ovals SM R265,00 set

Petite Ovals SM R265,00 set

For the loooove of Shoes!!

 So my friend Zubeida turned 40!! yep we are all getting on in years... LOL.. her dearest hubby asked me to maker her a card... now which "lady" doesn't looove her shoes.... I decided to go with some of her favourite colors... Black and white... and of course... some really truly divine shoes.... also a firm favourite of hers... she can still walk on these... I am afraid I have reached the flat's and "crocs" phase...LOL...

the shoe set is a clear set from Hero Arts (CL 303 High Heels) stamped in black Versafine ink.

H2365

I added a pretty ribbon flower as added interest and 2 introduce an accent color

A bit of bling is always welcome ;p)

the light grey wording is a Hero Arts Old French Writing  I used light grey / Silver to match the







.
H2365

Hero Arts small alphabet set CL 408 was used for the wording 

Fabulous at 40!!

I was asked to make a card for a wonderful and vibrant 40 year old... this is what I came up with

The lady stamp is one of my best sellers its called Evening Glow 3679K from Penny Black
she is gorgeous! and so much fun to color in

I cuttlebugged the number 40 to add extra dimension - the dots also matched the dotty background paper 

I used my Penny Black alphabet set Kate Text 20-006 (this is an all time favourite) for the wording

My all time favorite Hero Arts Old French writing H2365 stamped in black on these plain flowers
of course a bit of bling is always fun!

ATC - R is for "Rainy Day"

I edged the trimmed image with Stormy sky distress ink. Then layered it with red and added a red check ribbon with a tiny tag. I hand wrote Rainy Day and finished it off with a little gold brad.

this is the completed colored image - now I need to trim and complete the ATC

To add color I used my chalks

I then over stamped with my Paper Inspirations "Rainy Day" stamp in Black Versafine Ink from Tsukineko

The stamp is H3307 Aged background block from Hero Arts

this is what the stamp looks like - I love distressed looks so just loove this background

`

I started with a strip of white card and stamped hero arts background stamp with stormy sky distress ink

thanks for popping by, I hope you will find some inspiration to use a background stamp. It adds some texture and dimension to your backgrounds. Lots nicer than a plain and simple stark white background

TFL

hugz

shamela ;p)