Seasons Greetings

With Christmas just around the corner I have been making a stack of Christmas cards and today I thought I would share with you one using some of the gorgeous Christmas coloured foils available from your local papercrafting store.

The post I am sharing with you today is using a very simple technique but can be very effective both on your card and scrapbooking creations. 

 

I have a range of different widths of double sided tape in my stash and used these to make an array of stripes  across a 5"x7" card base.

 

I just did these messily across my card base and then once complete I trimmed the edges down.  This made is a lot quicker than to do the trimming on each strip down as I went.

Next I chose a gold and a red foil and snipped off a strip of each.  

I removed the paper off one piece of tape at a time prior to placing the foil over the top of the tape and rubbing it with my finger.

The foil adheres to the tape beautifully as in the image below.

 

Here is a photo of the finished card base.

 

 Next I cut a piece of vellum and using the Season's Greeting hotfoil stamp with the same gold foil added the sentiment to the bottom portion of the vellum.  

As I was going to layer flowers over the vellum I just used my normal double sided tape to the back of the vellum where the flowers would go to hold it in place.

 

Taking my 6x6" paper pad I selected one of the papers that had a nice array of poinsettias and fussy cut them out. Next I cut out two sets of the Christmas Branches decorative die from the Let Every Day Be Christmas collection in the Gold with Draft Lines mirror board.

 

I then layered the flowers and die cuts on top of the vellum using 3d foam dots and tape, added bling to the centre of the two smaller flowers and then added some red berries to the centre of the largest flower.

It is a very simple but very effective end result.  I hope you like it like I do.

 

PRODUCTS USED

Let Every Day Be Christmas

CO725508- Christmas Branches Decorative Die

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

 ULT158335 - Season's Greeting Hotfoil Stamp

ULT158299 - 6"x6" Paper Pad

CO725403 - Mirror Board - Gold with Draft Lines

CO725390 - Heat Activated Foil - Deep Red

CO725355 - Head Activated Foil - Vintage Matte Gold

Thanks once again for stopping by.

Until next time..... happy crafting :)

Anita 

xx

 

My Heart - You Had Me At WOOF!!

For a long while now I have only posted creations that I have made using Couture Creations products.  With working long hours and other ad hoc priorities I find very little time for anything else other than DT commitments. 
Well, the other weekend I went away to a papercraft retreat with a bunch of friends and I finally got my mojo on with other products. 

I have to say I love playing with mixed media products and one of the scrapbooking layouts that I created was for a very special friend who had recently lost her number 1 furchild Murphy. 
I was very privileged to have met him and we got on like a house on fire, we bonded from the moment we met.  He was one hunk of a rottweiler and let me tell you each and every one I have met was exactly like him..... a huge big teddy bear.

When my layout was finished I placed it in a white frame and sent it to her. Well the result at the other end was exactly as expected. Tears, happy tears.

So let me share with you what I made.

My chosen mixed media products were Colour Blast.  I just love the quality of all of the products and the best part is that they are AUSTRALIAN MADE..... you can't get better than that!!!

I used the Dusty Charcoal paste with my chosen stencil.  I love the slight shimmer that the pastes have and how quickly they dry and you can continue with whatever project you are using them on.

My chipboard pieces were heat embossed using the gorgeous powders. The  negative piece of chipboard I used the Steel embossing powder and the chipboard 'heart' word was heat embossed using the Stormy Weather powder.

 

The photos just popped straight off the page.  With the white frame it looked amazing.

Thanks for taking a look at this post.

I am hoping to find more time to play with different products and get them on my blog for you to pop back and see.  

Keep your craft alive.

Anita

xx

 

Joyous Christmas Cards | Couture Creations

Hi Guys,

I have really enjoyed playing with the GoPress and Foil machine and have created many Christmas cards.  As much as I love traditional Christmas colours I also love the new brights that we are starting to see more and more of out and about.

Today I have two cards that I recently taught in a class setting, helping to get new owners of the foiling machine acquainted with it and hopefully 'wetting their appetite' for more.

CARD 1

My JOY  card used the stunning bright rose gold foil. 

 To create the background for my card I used some of the Anna Griffin Embossing Paste from Couture Creations and one of the stencils. I have to say that the embossing paste is my favourite from the mixed media collection as it dries so quickly and has a wonderful fluffy texture.  

Once dry, normally around two hours, I then added the foil.  Just be careful because if you foil it too soon without the paste setting properly the heat from the GoPress and Foil machine with 'squish' the embossing paste flat and you will lose the nice details of the stencil.

The 'JOY' decorative die is from the Let Every Day Be Christmas range and mounted on 3D foam dots,  and the doily is from the Bohemian Bouquet collection. 

I added some white seam binding along with a fabric flower and a 

few baubles and the card was done. 

 

CARD 2

For the Merry Christmas card I decided to use the green mirror finish foil.

 

I used the Couture Creations A6 white card bases to create the card, adding a card front in a piece of cardstock from my stash to match my chosen foil. Next I cut down a piece of white card and using the Holly Frame decorative die, hotfoiled the die onto the white card.  

I chose the Merry Christmas hotfoil stamp from the It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas collection and hotfoiled it on to a piece of white card, snipped in the right side of the card and then mounted it on to another piece of the green cardstock.  Using the Holly decorative die I cut two out with my GoCut and Emboss machine.

 The Merry Christmas tag that I made to get the curl in it I adhered it using a hot glue gun, adding my holly diecuts to the left side.  Finally I added some organza ribbon, a contrasting pink flower and then added the 2mm gemstones to points on the holly branch die that I hotfoiled.

PRODUCTS USED

Let Every Day Be Christmas

CO725507 - Flourished Joy decorative die

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

ULT158327 - Holly Frame decorative die  

ULT158324 - Holly Branch decorative die 

ULT158338 - Merry Christmas Hotfoil stamp

Bohemian Bouquet

ULT158078 - Stained Glass Doily decorative die 

CO725391 - Green Mirror Finish Foil

CO725703 - Rose Gold Bright Foil 

CO724154 - 2mm Gemstones - Celadon 

CO723893 - A6 white card and envelope set

 Thank you for stopping by and checking out my two cards. 

Don't forget to come back for some more inspiration from the Design Team.

Anita

xx

Smile | Couture Creations

Hi Everyone,  I had so much fun making this layout using the Let Every Day Be Christmas range from Couture Creations.   You will see it isn't even a Christmas layout.  

My girlfriend Tracey and I recently went to a Thermomix day in Brisbane and got to try some yummy goodies, chocolate mini cupcakes being one of the many treats. We actually went there prior to heading to our QPAC theatre at South Bank to see KINKY BOOTS which was amazing I might add.

This is such a nice photo I just had to scrap it.  The colours matched perfectly with the collection and I really do love using it for non-chrissy crafty items.

 To start I just chose one of my many favourite papers from the collection along with a snow white piece of Ultimate Crafts cardstock and the ephemera pack.

I cut a piece of the patterned paper to 4 1/2" x 9". Then added some strips of the cypress pine green Ultimate Crafts cardstock to the back on a angle as below. I then adhered it to approximately the centre of the white cardstock.

 Next I went through the ephemera pack and took out several pieces that were not Christmassy and adhered them to bottom 1/3 of the page. I used the gorgeous flower and branch pieces along with one of the borders that I snipped in half.

I decided after using the ephemera that I need to use the Christmas Branches die to add a further layer to the cluster in the bottom right corner. I used some of the Cypress Pine cardstock to cut out the die twice for my page.

Next I added flowers from my 'stash' that matched in with my colour scheme and then finished it off with several small enamel coloured dots, added a title inked in a matching colour, and drew a freehand line around the edge of the cardstock.

Simple, but effective and very quick which is even better. 

Below are some more closeups of the finished page.

PRODUCTS USED

Let Every Day Be Christmas Collection

CO725508 - Christmas Branches Decorative Die

CO725493 - Ephemera Set

CO725489 - 12x12" Paper Pad

Other Artdeco Products

ULT200001 - Snow White Cardstock

ULT200031 - Cypress Pine Cardstock

Thank you once again for stopping by.  

Take care until next time and remember to find time to enjoy your passions.

Anita

xxx

Love and Adore | Artdeco Creations

Hi Everyone, today I am sharing another layout using the Bohemian Bouquet Collection from Ultimate Crafts and designed by Denise Boddey.

I really love a lot of the reverse side papers as they make a more subtle background to your pages.  I do really really love the blue shades of this collection and it has really worked well with the photo that I chose of my nephew Thomas with his mumma.

To start my layout I chose a piece of Ultimate Craft cardstock in a dark grey, this one is known by the name HIPPODROME.  I cut down my patterned paper by one inch just on one edge and then distressed it along the top and bottom edges. 

Next I adhered it to the cardstock base with double sided tape.

 

I next chose several pieces of chipboard.  The flourishes are from the Bohemian Bouquet collection and are called Moonlit Orchid.  The other two pieces of chipboard are from the very 1st chipboard release from Couture Creations and are called Love and Adore and Viney Frame.

I next used my Anna Griffin/Couture Creations Gesso and tabbed it all over my chipboard pieces.  I then coloured all up with a matching pink, silver and blue colours.

 

I cut my Viney Frame in half and then used some of my paper off cuts to attach to the back of the chipboard.

 

After double matting my photo with white and blue cardstock I then attached the two pieces of the Viney Frame to the back of the photo as in the below photo.

 Next I cut a couple of different size pieces in another of the blue and white patterned papers and inked the edges in a match blue ink. I cut a paper doily half that I had from my crafty stash and added half to the back of the long vertical strip and on top of the bottom as show below.  I also attached the two Moonlit Orchid chipboard pieces with some hot glue.

 

To embellish the layout I chopped one of the La Belle flowers from Couture Creations in half and removed the centre, replacing it with a gorgeous matching pearl and diamonte centre.  I took two white pencils and coloured them a little with coloured pastes and glued them together, wrapping some white twine around the ends. I attached them above the photo on top of the two Moonlit Orchid chipboard pieces so it looked like the photo was hanging from the pencils. 

I added a couple of flower clusters to the page, added two of the chipboard words and added a couple of the chipboard hearts over the page. 

Below are some close ups of the clusters on the page.

 

PRODUCTS USED

Bohemian Bouquet Collection

ULT158364 - Moonlit Orchids Chipboard

ULT158030 - 12" x 12" Paper Pad

Other ARTDECO Brand Products

CO725689 - Viney Frame Set Chipboard

CO725877 - Love and Adore Set Chipboard

CO724300 - Bulk Flowers - La Belle Vintage Bloom

  

Thank you for joining me today on the blog.  

Don't forget to return tomorrow for another DT project.

Ciao for now....

Anita

xx