July Card Class – Little parcels of Love July 14, 2012

Hello everyone! I hope that this post finds you in good health and happy spirits.

This month’s class is focused on pretty packaging, that makes the recipient feel your love with all the time and effort you have put into their gift.

We’ll be making one of each of the following

First up is this cute little basket.

Can you see some delicious home baked goodies in here? Or maybe some soothing bath products? The possibilites will keep coming to you!

Next is this pint-sized luch pail. Isn’t it just darling?

I must add in here that both the basket and lunch pail ideas came from Nichole’s blog. Unfortunately the templates she used are no longer available for purchase, so I have created my own! I was quite pleased with the outcome

And last is a whimsical mini album.

A look at the inside.

Undo those pretty green bows to reveal the accordian fold pages just waiting for your personal touch!

This too was inspired by the talented Nichole.

Class will be held on Thursday 26th July at my home, 7.30pm

Cost is $20.

If you would like to come along please email me by Tuesday 24th July (freshcutsbylu@gmail.com)

Thanks for stopping in today, have a great week!

Happy Crafting

Aliessa

Reverse Spotlighting June 27, 2012

Aahh, the challenge of a new technique! Recently my cousin, Amy motivated our group of demonstrators to begin a monthly card swap. Sam suggested we use the technique ‘reverse spotlighting’. I looked at the example and thought how lovely it looked. I had an idea in my head to use SU I Dig You stamp set – and try to steer away from flowers and girly things, as that is my usual style. In retrospect I wonder if I should have stuck with what I know…Anyway, this is what my card for the swap ended up looking like.

The idea is to stamp the image in black on the front mat, then punch a shape of some sort (I’ve used a circle) randomly. Take the same image and stamp it in colour (or on another colour card stock), and line it up with the front image. Back it all with another piece of cardstock, add your sentiment and you’re done.

Simple right? It took me a bit of playing around to get it where I was mostly happy with it. I can’t say I am entirely pleased, but it worked. The beautiful cards I received in return were stunning!

I will endeavour to practice this technique and experiment with different stamps, punches and dies. I might hit on something I really like I’m looking forward to a new challenge next month and seeing everyone else’s take on whatever it may be.

Thanks for stopping by. I will endeavour to post more regularly now. Life got away from me a little lately and blog land was the first thing to go

Happy Crafting

Aliessa

April Card Class April 10, 2012

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and my April Card Class will give you a beautiful gift for mum, or any friend really!

We’ll be making 2 box sets of 4 note cards, $20

Class will be held on Thursday 19th April, 7.30pm at my house.

The gift box – this has a band (the red strip) to hold it closed.

Idea credit to Betsy Veldman, however pattern is my own.

 

Card 1

Card 2

Card 3

Card 4

If you would like to join this class, please RSVP by next Tuesday (17th) to freshcutsbylu@gmail.com and I’ll have a kit ready for you!

Thanks for stopping by,

Happy Crafting

Aliessa

January Card Class January 2, 2012

I hope you have all enjoyed a relaxing and peaceful week. Our family have loved Christmas and New Years – family, food, friends, food, fun, and oh did I mention food?? It was so lovely to enjoy a Sunday Christmas. We attend church each week, but having Christmas day on a church day made it so special.

 So, the next card class will be held on Thursday January 19, 7.30pm at my house (address given on RSVP), $20 to make 8 cards (2 each of 4 designs)

Here are the cards we’ll be making

Card 1 – The design for this card is a CASE from the Stampin’ Up! Catalogue and Ideas book, with a twist

Card 2

Card 3 – something for the boys

and card 4.

Looking forward to an exciting and happy year, and wishing all of you the same

Happy Crafting!

Aliessa

Birthday circles June 25, 2011

Just popped in to share a quick card I made recently for my 9 years old son’s friend.

Papertrey Ink have recently released a number of boy and older male collections. I don’t own any of them yet, but I tried to get a similar effect on this card using a stamp set I already have.

The circles in the right hand corner are the “copy”. I really haven’t done a great job of copying it, but I think it works on the card anyway. The circles, including the red double circle with the star, are from a retired SU! set. The little present inside is from SU Party Hearty. The birthday ticket up the top and the ‘name & date’ on the right are from PTI ‘Just the Ticket’.

The star and circles with ‘ten’ cut out of it were made on my cricut, with SCAL2. I drew on the stitches around the star with a white gel pen (from smiggle). The distressed ink on the background is a really old SU stamp set (I think it was an hostess set). I had it in my pile of “give away or sell if possible”, but pulled it out to try the effect. So it might last a bit longer now .

Right-o that’s all for today. Thanks for stopping in, I hope you’ve found some sort of inspiration!

Happy crafting

Aliessa

A different kind of card May 25, 2011

Hello there! Today I wanted to share with you a card that I’ve been “sitting” on for quite awhile (I made it sometime last year). I originally had the grand idea of submitting it to a magazine, but have since decided that’s a bit out of my league! So, here it is…

A little boring you say? But wait…

It pops open to reveal a a great surprise!

A view from the top. This was actually the second version of this card that I made. For this one I stamped a sheet of whisper white cardstock with PTI background basics Polka Dots II, in choc chip ink. Then used my template to cut out the card. Once it was folded and adhered together I decorated it using SU! Party Heart, Crazy for cupcakes and the little cup cake from Short and Sweet. I’ve white embossed the images on the choc chip cardstock. The Happy Birthday sentiment on the top flap is from PTI Just the Ticket stamp set.

The original version used much bolder colours

For this one I used SU! Tangerine tango card stock as the base card and built on that vibrant colour with the retired Washington apple DSP. There’s also a bit of Riding Hood Red cardstock, Tangerine Tango DSP (a retired version), and some (retired) kiwi kiss DSP. I prefer the brightness of this card, but when I was thinking about submission I read that all products used needed to be current, and the DSP papers I was using had just finished, so were no longer current Hence why I made the second chocolate card.

The thing with this one though, is that it was a guinea pig card, so it has a few “issues”, but that’s ok.

What new cards have you made lately?

Happy crafting!

Aliessa

 

An invite or two May 10, 2011

Recently my “little” girl turned 8. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post in our church 8 is the age when we are baptised. So this was a significant birthday for our family. I just wanted to show you the invitations I made for her baptism and princess party the following day.

Very simple. I had some white ribbed vellum paper that I printed the info on. Then attached it to a white piece of cardstock with a white ribbon. I ran out of one sort of ribbon before finishing all the invitations so changed that, but I was really happy with both styles.

This one was a little more involved. I started with a pink pirouhette base, then layere on the purple lace border (this is an SVG file for the cricut – I downloaded it long enough ago that I have no idea where it came from, so my apologies to the very clever person who deserves the credit!). I’ve used PTI Mat Stack 4 in white cardstock, mounted with foam adhesive. On that I’ve stamped the little girl face from SU! All in the family (inked with markers to get the different colours), and the “You’re invited” stamp is from SU! Sincere Salutations. I’ve inked the edges in Melon Mambo.

On the base card I’ve stamped the beautiful butterfly from SU! SAB set Bliss in versamark then sprinkled on heat and stick powder, heated it and sprinkled on Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I love the effect it gives – but it was a bit of effort and A LOT of glittery mess on my table! But well worth it to see how much Livvi loved it.

And one last photo

This is one of the party favors I made for the 12 girls who came to her princess party. The princess face is from Betsy Veldman, she has a free PDF template you can use. I adhered it to a pink carton from the dollar store and filled it with princess things – I can’t remember what exactly now, but I do remember there was a “septor”, a cute little note pad, lollies (of course), and a bunch of other girly things… And I hand wrote each girls name on a rectangle of white cardstock with a little flower stamped at either end and adhered it under the princess face.

She had a wonderful birthday spread over 3 days (having the baptism and party on seperate days to her actual birthday helped ).

Well, that’s all! What invitations have you made recently? I’d love to hear about them! 

Aliessa

Tiles and Vinyl April 22, 2011

Recently some friends celebrated their engagement. I was stumped for what to give as a gift. Fortunately I have an awesome sister-in-law, who gave me a FABULOUS birthday present that was ideal to copy!

What she made for me was a 12 x 12 frame painted rustic cream with a saying in vinyl letters “Family, a journey to forever”.

I didn’t have a frame, but I do have a local Bunnings store where I picked up a tile and some fixings for a stand.

This is what I came up with…

I used SCAL2 and my cricut to cut out the lettering and flourish.

The stand was made from these metal pieces and bolts, secured to

These wall bracket thingys.

Put together it looks like this…

The metal parts and bolts were only available in silver, so my darling husband bought some matt black spray paint and painted them to match. However, I will warn you – if you decide to make your own, assemble the stand FIRST, then paint the silver parts, it all blends right in. If you do it the other way, the threads of the bolts get gunked up with paint and you can’t tighten them properly – yes, I’m talking from experience!

It was a fun project, one you might like to try yourself!

Happy Crafting

Aliessa

More flower clips and a card April 21, 2011

Aaah, the world of craft. I have been crafting over the last month or so, but blogging has eluded me. So, I thought I’d stop in and quickly share some more hair clips I made for a little friend’s birthday (3 year old) and the card we made at last months card class…

First up, the hair clips. I used the same styles as in my earlier post, and just mixed up the colours a bit.

The pink one – I used a layer of glittery tulle on top to give a little sparkle!

Cutesy pink satin ribbon…

The blue and white spot bow

And I think this is my favourite! Some deep purple fabric coupled with the sequinned tulle and a giant button. I saw her wearing it and she looked so super sweet (It really didn’t have too much to do with the hair clip – she’s a cute little girl!).

On to the card

I just adore the colours in this card! Check out this card-as it is where I CASEd it from. I’ve used SU! Petal Pizazz for the big flowers. I stamped the 4 colours Delightful Daffodil, Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise and Melon Mambo onto the same coloured cardstock and cut them out. The leaves are stamped in Kiwi Kiss on Whisper White CS. The blossom trail of flowers and leaves behind is stamped in the same colours with a variety of stamps (Cheep Talk, Baroque motif, Great friend, Short and sweet - I think that was all)

For the centres of each flower I used my cricut to cut the buttons and little flowers. A little bit of twine in one button, some crytal effects on the other for dimension. We had a great time putting these cards together at last month’s card class!

Right-o, off to sew a dress (hopefully!)

Happy crafting!

Aliessa

Something fresh (for me) March 16, 2011

I recently decided to challenge myself to branch out into some new colours (shock!). So I ordered SU brights collection of A4Cardstock and 3 new colours for my collection – Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry and Daffodil Delight. That was a couple of weeks ago, and they sat on my desk unopened. But yesterday was a friend’s birthday and I knew she liked these colours so I took the opportunity to make a set of cards with matching envelopes, a little box to store them in and a matching tag.

First up, the card. I started with a 4 x4 base of whisper white CS. I had a few scraps of retired Pink Flamingo DSP sitting on my desk that was crying out to be used. So that is the spotty strip. the colours aren’t exact matches, but I think they work.

The 5 petal flower embellishment I made with my cricut, using SCAL2 and Inkscape. I was super excited about this because it’s the first SVG file I have made from scratch and am happy with. I cut it from a deep purple Bazzill cardstock (instead of Rich Razzleberry – I just liked the depth a bit better). I layered that with a Melon Mambo scallop circle and then a 1 1/2″ whisper white circle stamped with Just for you from Hostess set Afterthoughts, in Rich Razzleberry. The little butterfly is from the SAB set So happy for you.

From this angle can you see the glitter stripe? This idea I got from PTI Make it Monday challenge. So easy and effective. You just place a strip of double sided tape on the page, remove the backing, sprinkle over the glitter and shake off the excess. It gives such a precise line – I love it!

Inside the cards I stamped the butterfly again, with the little flower from the same set in Melon Mambo (twice full colour the third a second stamp without reinking)

The matching envelopes I made by cutting down a C6 envelope and wrapping a piece of cardstock from the front to the back to make a flap. The cardstock is whisper white stamped with PTI Polka Dots II background basics in Melon Mambo (I ran out of the DSP I was using, this worked out well). The little butterfly/flower combo in the corner and the glitter stripe across the top to tie it all in together.

For the tag I used a left over rectangle of whisper white, rounded off the corners, punched a hole at the top with my crop-a-dile and threaded through some yarn. I adhered a strip of the melon mambo spot cardstock and trimmed it to a banner end. I punched out a deep purple scallop circle and used another just for you white circle on top. Just a little different from the card embelly but co-ordinating still.

The bag they all went in is one I’ve made before (see this post) I just made it slightly bigger to accomodate the larger cards. If you’d like the measurements just shoot me an email, I’m happy to share!

I think something similar to this might make a great card class sometime soon!

Happy Crafting

Aliessa