ZIG Clean Color Real Brush from Kuretake

I haven't been attempting any stamping or card making in the last couple of months; I've been spending lots of time watching videos on youtube and reading blogs to look at techniques and products and get ideas about what I like and don't like before I spend too much more money. 

 

One thing I'm trying to work out is colouring - I really like the look of watercoloured images but I also like Copic Coloured images.  But Copics are so expensive - in a local store they are $11.00 each, You can find them a little cheaper on the Internet, but still, it will be quite an investment. 

 

So I've been looking at videos of cardmakers using the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers, particularly Jennifer McGuire's videos and her blog posts.  So I decided I'd go ahead and buy some - I could get more "bang for my buck" than Copic's and by buying off eBay from a seller in Japan I could save $100 on the 80 set.  So that's what I did. 

 

They arrived late last week.  And the very first maker I pulled out to have a play with was a deep magenta colour and the ink flowed quite freely.  Well it went downhill after that.  I tried a few more and they all were dry.  I tried different papers to see if it made much difference but it was like they had all dried up.  I didn't want to test too many colours as I thought I would pursue getting a refund.  So that's what I did.  And thankfully I was able to return the item and get a full refund. 

 

Since doing that and googling I've seen similar comments about dryness on Amazon, and people questioning their validity and whether they got fakes.  I didn't mention this to the seller, but when she replied to my refund request (with photos), she said she was surprised as they came direct from the manufacturer, so I can't say whether they were legit or not.

 

So that was a very disappointing experience.  I've now booked in to a Copic Beginner's Class at a local store, so that I can try them before I buy anything.  The class is $35 and you get two Copics to take home, so I thought that was a fair amount to pay and less risky than buying some and not being interested.

 

This is one example of the testing.  The creamier card is not watercolour card, but the lighter one is. 

 

 

 

Julie Nutting Paper Doll Cling Stamps "Skyler"

I'm a bit late to the party as I only discovered Julie Nutting's stamps a few weeks ago.  I've been pinning madly on lots of images.  I've bought three stamps so far, and yesterday I tried one for the first time - a boy, Skyler.

He's stamped on Kaisercraft paper, the t-shirt, long sleeve shirt and jeans are paper pieced from various papers and the hair and shoes are coloured with inks and an aqua blender.  Now I just need to work out what kind of background to put him on.  I want to do a DL sized card.  I'm thinking of doing some cards for Combat Cards SA and I read they need more boy/male cards. 

My fussy cutting could be a bit better, so I think I will need to sponge the edges to take away any white sports, particularly near the jeans.  Anyway, happy with my first effort.

CAS(E) this Sketch #181

This week's sketch:

My card:

Supplies:

Precut craft card (square, cut down to a C6 size)

Stampin' Up! Whisper White cardstock

Stampin' Up! Tap Tap Tap stamp set

Stampin' Up Tip Top Taupe inkpad

Altenew Ruby Red inkpad

Stampin' Up! Washi tape

Some new goodies

I've been watching quite a few videos from various crafters, but particularly Jennifer McGuire. She's so talented and knowledgeable.  I watched a couple of her videos last week on the different types of ink pads and thought maybe I'd check out some of other brands of inks besides Stampin' Up!  I was planning on getting the inks and the coordinating card stocks from Stampin' Up! but wanted to look at some other inks to compare the quality.  And to be honest I don't want to limit myself to one company.  So I have also been checking out a lot of the other stamp companies.  Very much falling in love with Altenew, and some Hero Arts stamps are on my wishlist now too.  This is hobby is way too expensive! 

I decided to get an ink pad from Ranger, some Altenew Crisp inks and some Hero Arts inks.  I tried to choose some colours that I didn't have in the (very few) Stampin' Up! ink pads I have. I also want to try out Lawn Fawn inks but the online site that had this lot didn't stock them, and I wanted to try to keep shipping costs down by purchasing from the one place.  It's very hard to find stuff in Australia - few shops in Adelaide anyway that are close to me, so I have to resort to online.

 

I also couldn't resist getting this Mama Elephant Labelled Messages stamp set; I really like the "dymo" labelled look or typewriter style fonts for sentiments.  I thought it was a pretty cost effective set given all the sentiments you get.

Hey!

Today's card using an image from a Butterick 1965 sewing pattern catalogue:

I used the new Labeler Alphabet stamp set from Stampin' Up! and gosh was it hard to stamp it.  I'm not steady enough to stamp such small stamps I think (each letter/character is an individual stamp).  A bit disappointed, I think I should have got the rotary stamp before it retired - it's probably more of the look I want - that typewriter style font.  Oh well.

And, my Carl trimmer has gone a bit wonky again, so I'm having trouble cutting straight lines and getting a rectangle instead of a rhombus! So annoyed, given it cost $100 for this trimmer. 

Supplies:

Stampin' Up! Whisper White notecards
Stampin' Up! Lost Lagoon (?) cardstock - I'm not really sure if that's the colour of the green cardstock
Stampin' Up! Moonlight Designer series paperstack (retired)
Stampin' Up! Hello Honey ink

Birthday card

For my husband's nanna who just turned 91.

Supplies:
Stampin' Up! Whisper White Notecards
Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Berry Bliss (retired) and Mint Macaron card stock
Stampin' Up! Berry Bliss (retired) and Mint Macaron ink pads
Stampin' Up! Flower Shop stamp set
Stampin' Up! Pansy Punch
Stampin' Up! Cottage Greetings
Stampin' Up! Metallic Enamel Shapes

What a shame the Berry Bliss ink has been retired, it's such a gorgeous colour. All products (except retired) can be purchased here.

CAS(E) this Sketch #178

This week's sketch, found here:

My card:

Supplies:
Stampin' Up! Whisper White Notecard set
Stampin' Up! Love You Lots Hostess Stamp Set - image and sentiment
Stampin' Up! Watermelon Wonder Ink
Stampin' Up! Aqua Painter

CAS(E) this Sketch #176

This week's sketch:

I had this vision of using the Stampin' Up! Six Sided Sampler stamp.  Well I couldn't get them to line up neatly so then I thought I would use one of the stamps and colour it with ink and the Aqua Painter, punch them using the Hexagon Punch, then mount it on Whisper White cardstock and then stick on a Crumb Cake notecard.  It looked good in my head but it didn't turn out what I expected. The watercolour paper I have was quite a different white to the Whisper White and it looked terrible. So I cut around it.  And I hate that too.  But here it is, in all it's averageness.

I'm thinking of giving this up; it's an expensive hobby especially when you don't feel like a creative person and nothing really turns out how you envisage it.  It started because I wanted to just use up my vintage kids books - I never meant to get into stamps etc. Fools rush in... 

Or maybe I should try some card-making classes. Don't know.


Supplies:
Stampin' Up! Whisper White Cardstock
Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake Notecards
Stampin' Up! inks - Lost Lagoon, Watermelon Wonder, Cucumber Crush, Tangelo Twist, Hello Honey.
Stampin' Up! Six Sided Sampler stamp set
Stampin' Up! Hexagon Punch.

Stampin' Up! Goodies

Finally picked up my goodies from the post office last night.

I had a few things I wanted to get from the retiring list, so I didn't buy many things in the demo pre-order period. Though I did get a couple of the cute hostess stamps (you can view details here):

Here are some cute images from Stampin' Up! using the stamp sets

I love the "Sorry, I'm Not Too Bright" sentiment.

Two on the retiring list:

I also got the Hearth and Home Thinlits to go with the Happy Home stamp set.

Some Project life goodies at a really good clearance rate.  Next quarter I'm going to buy some Project Life albums and inserts and finally start printing out the hundreds of photos I have on my hard drive.  I haven't printed any family photos or photos of the boys since they were born. 

The Happiness Is Accessory Pack is currently $6.78 and the Card Collection (with 100 cards) is $8.38.  Great prices.  Unfortunately my photo does not do justice to the colours, but if you check out the links you can see it better there.

Some background stencils and sponge daubers.  My 4 1/2 year old would like playing this.  He did some stamping with me a few weeks back and keeps asking to play and to learn what the Big Shot does.

Some washi tape (obsessed with washi tape) and some ink and aqua painters so I can try watercolouring stamped images.  Can't afford Copic Markers at the moment.  And the cute, now retired, bird builder punch.  Another tool that I think my son would like playing with.  I really love the Stampin' Up! punches. Very easy to use and I like they how lock flat.

I also got some thick Whisper White card stock, some Whisper White notecards and envelopes, some stamping dimensionals and last but not least some catalogues!

I've got a wish list a mile long, but at least I've got a year to work my way through it.  If you're interested in receiving a catalogue, you can get in touch with me on my demonstrator page

Five

Another birthday card using a Butterick 1965 sewing pattern image.  On the one hand I think the 5 is too small, but the next size up dies looked like they would be too big.  So it was probably better to go with the small but it doesn't stand out as much as I'd like.  The inside is stamped with happy birthday sentiment from a Lawn Fawn set. Didn't photograph it.

Supplies:
Stampin' Up! Whisper White and Calypso Coral cardstock (base, mat and number)
Kaisercraft little numbers die set
Grace Taylor designer paper (discontinued)

Clean and simple using Kaisercraft

I got the 6 1/2" Summer Breeze paper pad on special and made a couple of quick cards last night.  I really liked this paper with the multiple squares on it.  It had 5 x 5 squares so I cut each sheet down to a 3 x 3 and I still have some more squares that I can use on some notecards.

This is the first one I did using Kaisercraft square cards.  These were one of the first items I bought when I started thinking about making cards with my vintage children's books, so I just bought some pre-cut card and envelope packs.  They're a bit disappointing, they haven't been folded very well so the edges were uneven.  I ended up trimming a bit off each one.

I just added some 3D foam stickers to lift the paper up a little and then used some baker's twine.

 

 

 

On the second one, I decided to use my Stampin' Up Decorate Dots embossing folder to give it a little texture.  I think I prefer this one.  You can't see in the photograph but the flowers have a bit of gloss/texture to them.

Birthday card

A birthday card for a girl at my son's childcare who is turning 5.

Unfortunately my phone doesn't capture the true colour of the backing paper, it's more teal than it appears here, which matches the dress.  I stamped Happy Birthday on the inside.  The girl is from a Butterick 1965 pattern book.

Supplies:
Stampin' Up Very Vanilla and Berry Bliss cardstock
Stampin' Up Berry Bliss ink pad
Dear Lizzy Happy Place paper
Lawn Fawn Birthday Tags stamp set.

CAS(E) this Sketch #171

This week's sketch, found here:

Edit:  Redux

Last night I was looking at what I first came up with and I wasn't liking it, so I deleted my submission and reworked it slightly.  I've kept the original below. It felt really flimsy and like it was lacking something.  Wasn't liking the Very Vanilla background.

I matted it on to Stampin' Up Berry Bliss Card stock and then glued that on to Crumb Cake notecards. 

Supplies:
Stampin' Up Very Vanilla and Berry Bliss cardstock
Stampin' Up Berry Bliss cardstock
Stampin' Up Crumb Cake Notecard
Stampin' Up Flower Shop and Tap, Tap, Tap stamp sets
Stampin' Up 2014-2016 In Color Designer Washi Tape
Stampin' Up Berry Bliss ink pad
Stampin' Up dimensionals



Original

This time I grabbed the image on the Facebook page and chose not to look at the blog and the team's creations first.  I don't know whether it's a beginner thing, but I find I take the sketch quite literal ie the flower being a flower.

When I saw it I really wished I had some grungy stamps that I could use for the rectangle and the paint splatters and then just stamp a flower.  I've got my eye on a couple of Stampin' Up sets so I think I'll just have to buy them (gee this card making caper gets expensive).  But I don't have them yet so this is what I came up with:

I used Very Vanilla cardstock this time, so it was a bit hard to photograph.  And I had trouble stamping such a teeny message with a little block, my hand rocked a bit so the "my" is a bit smudged.

Supplies:
Stampin' Up Very Vanilla cardstock
Stampin' Up Flower Shop and Tap, Tap, Tap stamp sets
Stampin' Up 2014-2016 In Color Designer Washi Tape
Stampin' Up Berry Bliss ink pad

CAS(E) this Sketch #170

This week's sketch found here:

Had no clue what to do/what I was doing with this one.  It didn't turn out how I envisaged it when I was looking at papers to use.  I don't have a lot of supplies at the moment.  I didn't know to measure out to cut the paper to cut it so it had the cross cut out so I drew it on the back of my patterned paper, which meant when I turned the paper over the sketch was flipped.  So first error.  The sentiment I wanted to cut out which said Lots of Love (which I thought went with the multiple hearts), I ended up ruining because the corner punch stuffed up one of the corners, but it would have been too big anyway.  It is what it is, and it's a learning process for me.

 



Mother's Day Cards

Have been working on a couple Mother's Day cards using Stampin' Up products.  I was trying to work out what to put along the bottom of the card, and decided I wanted a bow.  I bought some ribbon but couldn't for the life of me tie a bow, even after watching videos and looking at pictures.  Will have to keep practising.  So I ended up buying some Christina Re self-adhesive bows today.  They're a bit chunkier than I wanted but with Australia Post's delivery times, doubt I would have been able to find something online and get it delivered in time.

Supplies/Tools used:
Stampin' Up 1" punch.  I can't believe they're retiring this product, glad I bought it.  You can get one at a discounted price here. 
Stampin' Up Pretty Petals Cardstock (Mint Macaron and Old Olive) and Pretty Petals Designer Paper Stack.  Another two on the retiring list.  I just love the paper in this stack.  It's on sale
Stampin' Up Whisper White Cardstock 
Canson Black cardstock
Christina Re self-adhesive bows
Double sided tape
Stampin' Up dimensionals

The cards are A5 size and I cut the black cardstock to 10cm x 10cm, and the white cardstock to 9cm x 9cm.  The black card is adhered to the card base with stampin' dimensionals.

I made another one with Calypso Coral as the base, but forgot to photograph it. 

Five Senses

Got a gorgeous book for 50c at my local Vinnies.  Such sweet images.  The book is called Five Senses by Tasha Tudor and was first printed in 1978.

CAS(E) this Sketch #169

The sketch:

I'm a sucker for stripes and polka dots, and I loved this paper immediately when I saw it.  I feel quite lazy with this one - not much thought went in to it. 

Supplies:

Stampin' Up Whisper White Cardstock
Striped paper from Dear Lizzy's Happy Place 6 x 6 pad (American Crafts)
Stampin' Up Mint Macaron ink.

Happy Birthday

My first real attempt at making a card with papers and punches etc.  Quite like how it turned out except for the sentiment, I think the white is a bit too stark and the stamping wasn't the best.  Maybe should have used an off white/cream colour card.

Supplies:

Stampin' Up Lucky Limeade for the base
Stampin' Up Pretty Petals DSP
Stampin' Up Mossy Meadow Ink Pad
Sentiment - free with a card making magazine but I can't recall which one.
Button - free with a Molly Makes mag that I bought ages ago.

Raggedy Ann and Andy: The Little Gray Kitten

All images used are from a Little Golden Book, "Raggedy Ann and Andy:  The Little Gray Kitten"

More cards from Tales at Bedtime

 



The card below was a disaster - not how I wanted it to turn out.  I just wanted it on plain kraft cardstock, but I wanted to round the edges for something different.  But my little fiskars corner punch does not work properly and massacred the edges. I really wanted to keep the image so I just cut around it and stuck some paper on for the background.  But I don't like it.

 

 

 

 

This image was at the bottom of a story, and the kite string went through the text and the kite was up top.  So I fussy cut the kite and part of the string and tail and lined it up and glued it on.

 

 

 

 

A birthday card

Another image used from the Tales at Bedtime book

Big Sister and Little Sister

I found this book, "Big Sister and Little Sister" for 40c.  I still have a few pages I could cut some tags from.  Worked out it cost $2.62 to make this lot.