Good old Peel Offs!

OK. So I am not a fan of Peel Offs. But I do love Francoise Read's or Magenta's peel offs. They are cute or sophisticated and look amazing in when they come in white and black. This one card I made as part of making a few samples cards for QVC, the kit consists of Francoise's peeloffs, ribbon and mulberry paper. I had a lovely time making the samples!

Again, you can see I took a crap photo of the card. to be honest I do not enjoy that much taking photos of something else than people. I love portraits, there is nothing like capturing peoples beauty with the camera. Taking photos of my projects... BORING! I need to change my attitude respect that, I am even thinking of getting a light tent which probably would help, but I rather spent my money in another lens.

So, I will just post a photo of my lovely husband that I took last Sunday in a BBQ we attended. It was hot!


I edited the photo using Lightroom, a fantastic program by Adobe that makes developing the photos so cool. You can save the presets that will then work in a similar manner to the Actions in Photoshop. I prefer Lightroom to Photoshop just because you can really edit a workload in very little time.

Back to everyday cards

Another Penny Black image. The village I grew up in -Campanet, Mallorca, Spain- has a few fields that in late spring get spotted with beautiful and fragile red poppies. They are such a delicate things! So I could not resist this image from Penny Black.
Again forgive my coloring in.

I just realized I haven't post anything other than card and little explanations for the last few weeks. The thing is that my life is pretty boring, so nothing much to share. Maybe I just should mention how hot it is here today, about 30º C (no idea Fahrenheit!). It is lovely when you know it's going to pass soon as it makes you enjoy the sun and the heat, back in Spain, it is hard to know that for the next two months it is going to be pretty much like this or hotter. For me that is not good!

Maybe I should share that I have been designing new products, new craft designs rather as they are nothing revolutionary. I do enjoy designing stuff so much, whether be cards, layouts, workshops or just papers, die cuts and so on. One of the greatest things is to see the actual thing you designed be used by other crafters, every time I see in a shop or over the internet my messages InCircles -manufactured by Craftwork Cards- I get so happy, so proud that people are enjoying and using something I created.

Too early for Christmas?!

Not for us cardmakers! There are some of us that are really organized and make Christmas cards all year round. Personally, I always leave it to the last minute so I can use the latest season products, ie scrapbook patterned paper that only arrives to the UK in November the earliest so the excitement of the new product makes the whole process even more enjoyable- yes I do love making all the cards that we need to send out.
However, I often get commissions for magazines articles in summer so I think Christmas all year round. So, I have learnt the lesson of stocking my christmas product box all year round. That is how I got this Penny Black Stickers called Christmas Everywhere. They are gourgous and quick and easy for a great look without breaking the bank - The Glitter Pot stocks them here. The message is one of my InCircles and the red heart pin is from Sugar and Spice which stocks an amazing range of loose embeelishments perfect for someone like me that is so picky about colours and shapes and sizes.
By the way, today there is a three hour -14:00-17:00- craft program on QVC dedicated to Christmas Cardmaking. Dawn Bibby is hosting it, I hope that I get to see some of the cards I did for some of the kits last week.

Coloring In

Coloring is something of a love or hate thing for me. I have always opted for rubber stamps that featured solid images. Part of it is that my coloring is not that great. The thing that, although I don't think I do it properly, I enjoy coloring in as I find it relaxing. So, forgive me if the colouring in is not up to your standards.

This is one of my favorite cards at the moment. The blue paper in the background was a left over from a Cuttlebug demo. I used the back to write "Gone for lunch, back in 15 mins." But as I love the blue shade I decided to recycle it

I used for this card Penny Black stamps: Splendor No. 3977H - splendor and salutations
30-014. Making Memories felt button and generic buttons.

And the third Penny Black card

This one was a bit of a miss from the word go. But even though is not perfect -not even the photo is good!- I kind of liked. Reminds me of having fun while making cards, not to worry too much about card perfection but learning during the process.
For this card I used queen anne's lace 3939K and allegro 30-033.

More Penny Black

Following yesterday's post, I kept Thinking Inking and did this other card. Like yesterday I used distress inkpads from Ranger.
Yesterday's card had a message that read " Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful" and kind of thought it is absolutely true only if one is able to appreciate it. We often forget all the goodness that surrounds us because we often concentrate in the not-so-good stuff.
For this card I used hillflowers 3938K and the message is from the clear set sentiments 30-025.

Stamping just for fun

One of my favorite card makers, Jennifer McGuire is doing a series of video tutorials, Thinking Inking, on Ranger inks and stamping and invited everyone to participate. I have been watching the tutorials and been very inspired to have a proper play with the inks and some beautiful stamps.

Last week I got a load of Penny Black stamps. I love them, in my opinion, they are some of the best traditional rubber stamps out there. I love their images. And they have stamps to suit every taste! So I decided to use some of them for the Thinking Inking.

For this card, I use the japanese maple 3932K and allegro 30-033.

By the way, yesterday early afternoon I had the delivery of the iPhone. It's so cool! And sending sms is so easy. I used to hate sms and since I had so many minutes included used to by default call rather than sms. But I think that is going to change now!

More demo cards

You can see the estate of the table!

Look what I just bought!

After much deliberation -over a year!- I finally ordered a new iPhone. I am nervous as it is the first time that I actually had to pay for a mobile, but since I needed a new phone as the old one used to freeze every now and again -with emphasis in the now- and could do with a calendar/email/iPod, I took the plunge.
I should get it in a few days! Can't wait!

Patterned acetate

I love acetate, but patterned acetate I find difficult to use. So a few months ago, I challenged myself to use some, here you have the result.

More Bo Bunny

This card was part of an article I did using Bo Bunny Papers for Cardmaking and Papercraft. At first this colours didn't do it for me, but then I loved them. The brief was quick cards and that is what I did, almost always do!

Card Keeper

Out of all my articles I think this one is one of my top favourites, mainly because even though I made it to fit a brief sent by the editor of the magazine, it is very useful and not only decorative as most of the other articles stuff.

It was published a couple of years ago in Scrapbook Inspirations.

I used the Cricut Expressions to create the envelopes out of large sized card in increments of half an inch.

The pages inside were left quite plain as i like simplicity.

Just beacuse

... I haven't post any cards lately!

No electricity

So we got the other day a letter informing us that today we would not have electricity. Nice.
So far still we got it, we will see in 10 minutes!