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It’s a Monster Ride!

This is a Happy Birthday to my nephew Max – he is turning 5, which means SCHOOL! This pair of Scary Pals from Avery Elle are racing to join in with his birthday celebrations, complete with gifts and balloons.

The outer frame is the Grand Photo Mat. This single die cuts all the pieces at once – the frame, the background scenery hill pieces and clouds. It also has a pretty line of embossed dots around the edge of the frame window. You can colour the pieces up however you like and put them back together, just like a puzzle. You could leave the background scenery out altogether, and instead have a brilliantly large photo frame.

I stamped the images with Gina K Amalgam ink. This ink is my top choice as it suits just about all mediums for adding colour, from alcohol inks, to pencils and watercolour, without smudging or smearing. You can stamp images and colour them months later and not have to worry about which medium you can and can’t use.

Flicks of the marker can create the look of fur

Copics Used:
Car & Red Balloon – R59, R29, R27, R24,
Tyres & Grill – C9, C7, C5, C3, C1
Headlights and Sky – B00, B000
Driver – BG78, BG75, BG72
Passenger – Y38, Y18, Y15, Y11
Gift – YR16, YR15
Balloon & Hills – G28, G09, G05, G03

I then cut them out with the matching dies – there are separate stamps and dies included in the set for their paws for extra fun.

The Happy Birthday was stamped along the bottom using Versafine Pigment ink – I like to use this ink for my black sentiments as it stamps in a crisp, dark black, and I clear heat emboss for a nice shiny finish. I prefer this method than heat embossing a sentiment directly with black embossing powder – very hard to achieve the same tidy result.

Glittery shiny finishes

Other finishing touches include Nuvo Glitter Gloss pen on the balloons, Nuvo Crystal Glaze on the balloons also, as well as the head lights and the driver’s eyes.

The Scary Pals were carefully secured to their car along with their gift and balloons, and the entire car is mounted onto the background with foam tape – on a slight angle to infer speed and a sense of excitement!

The card front is adhered to a card base of Neenah #110 white cardstock and this complete’s Max’s birthday card! Amélie was super excited to give this, along with a gift, to her cousin and celebrate with him.

Links below to products used, including NZ shops where I can. Please check with your local craft store and see if these products can be ordered in for you directly as I do like to support our small businesses where possible. Otherwise, these links will take you to where they are currently available. Some are affiliate links – this means I get a small commission from the store when you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. This helps to keep my blog and craft activities going, so thank you for your support!

https://linkdeli.com/widget.js?1559654439292

For handy information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock and inks to the most useful tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.

If you have any questions regarding the putting together of this card, please feel free to message me – I’m only too happy to help! Thank you for visiting 🙂

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A Cheeky Birthday Wine

It’s a good friend’s birthday (Happy Birthday Jo!), and I am celebrating her with a cheeky wine – both in my glass, and on this card!

I was inspired by a cute layout from Marieke Slaats featuring a wine glass shaker, and wanted to create something along similar lines.

Supplies: (please note some affiliate links used whereby I may earn a small commission when you shop at no extra cost to you).

I white heat embossed the background stamp – this is just a small stamp, which doesn’t actually cover the entire card front, but perfect for a party backdrop. For information and instructions on how to Heat Emboss, click here.

I then masked off the bottom fifth of the card front using Post-It notes, and inked above them using Distress Inks and a Tim Holtz mini inking tool with foam, covering the heat embossing we’ve done in the previous step with ink. I used the Vintage Photo at the bottom, Wild Honey in the middle and Fossilized Amber towards the top, going dark to light. Buff the embossed image with a rag or cloth to remove excess ink from the confetti, this makes the embossing look nice and crisp.

The wine glass die set makes it very easy to create a quick shaker with the matching pouches. My Favorite Things have a great variety of pouch shapes to suit various dies they have in their collection.

You can see the confetti sitting in the pouch

I cut the wine glass twice, and heat embossed one of them a couple of times using Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder. I glued them together, and glued the shaped pouch in the middle.

I placed a little pile of confetti carefully on the card in the area I wanted to place my glass, and carefully glued the glass down with liquid adhesive – the confetti can now be shaken about in the pouch.

For shaker cards and windows, you can use tiny punched shapes, glitter, beads, buttons, sequins or microbeads in the shaker pouch – whatever you happen to have on hand.

A close up of the little fox and the birthday sentiment.

I stamped with Gina K ink, coloured and cut the cute critters from the Stacey Yacula Sending Sweet Celebrations stamp set – the fox carrying a gift, the cake and the banner, which I cut down to fit the top corner of the card. I popped them on the front of the card and used foam tape for dimension.

I was flicking through my sentiments, and stumbled across the Taylored Expressions Big Grump – he has some brilliantly snarky sentiments, and this one fits perfectly with the theme of the card.

I stamped the sentiment along the bottom uninked area with Versafine Black Onyx ink. This is a pigment ink, and I like to use clear embossing powder to set it. Once the embossing powder is heated and melted, it gives a glossy black printed finish to the sentiment. I have had much better success using this ink and clear embossing powder technique than with black embossing powder directly – I always manage to get dots of black embossing powder everywhere which is disappointing at this stage of the card making process!

Now for the shiny finishing parts!

Nuvo Crystal Glaze
Shimmer Spray – available in Gold, Silver, Sparkle and Shimmer
Radiant Amplify – a liquid that fluffs and puffs when heated with a heat gun

I added sparkle to the card using Tsukineko shimmer spray, and shine to the cake and banner with Nuvo Crystal Glaze.

The party hat has a little fuzzy pom pom on top created with Tsukineko Radiant Neon Amplify – you put the liquid where you want it, and use your heat gun to make it fluff right up – such a FUN little detail, and perfect for pom poms, clouds, fluffy hats and scarves, bunny tails, beer foam, I could go on……

I like to use a piece of white kids craft foam between my card base and card front, for flat, smooth and even dimension. It’s far cheaper and more effective than screeds of foam tape! I buy mine from Lincraft online, and I have sometimes found it at Emporium type shops too.

That completes the card! Thank you for reading this far – I’d love to know if you give this a go too.

If you have any questions regarding the putting together of this card, please feel free to message me – I’m only too happy to help!

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Exciting News!

I have been invited to be a new Affiliate Partner with Scrapbook.com! This means I can include links here on my website, blog, and some of my social media posts, which take you directly to their website. If you like what you see, and make a purchase, I can earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

You can browse, shop and have goodies delivered directly to your door with super fast and brilliantly cheap international shipping. My friends and I have been very happy customers with Scrapbook.com for a few years now, they offer over 50,000 different products, including many of our favourite stamp, die, ink and paper brands.

Scrapbook.com also have their own range of exclusive stamp sets, dies, inks and tools.

I will be spending some time over the next few weeks setting up my own gallery at Scrapbook.com (this is something you can do too and share your cool creations!). I will also be learning how to share amazing coupon deals, projects and products so you can have fun creating along with me.

You can start here with 10% off your purchase, plus a free gift.

Be assured, I will still continue to share how you can shop for your crafty goodies in New Zealand – after all, supporting our local businesses is still very important to me. I have a list of New Zealand retailers here.

For information about high quality, best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series – this series is dedicated to where you can find the products I list in New Zealand, and that won’t change.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing in my exciting news!

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New Gadget Alert!

I do A LOT of die cutting, so this is a very exciting purchase for me! I ordered this machine in through my local shop Scrapbook Central in Petone.

Exactly the same as an original BigShot machine, just electronic – no cranking!

I spent most of 2019 creating Christmas Gift Tags (Gallery below) with the main intention being well-deserved Teacher Gifts, but also, selling packs of them at craft markets at Christmas time and making enough $$$ to purchase my very first electronic die cutting machine. This has already saved much shoulder tension! I’ve found even the intricate dies only need 1-2 passes with regular cardstock yay!!

Purchase from: Ribbon Rose

Soooo many Christmas Gift Tags! For a close up look at individual tags, check out my instagram #inkyandstampytags
Grayson carefully replacing the US plug with a New Zealand plug. He managed this in 15 minutes!
Check out the amazement on Amélie’s face!

There was ONE hiccup in setting up my new machine – the US plug. Turns out, the transformer box fits within the range of NZ electricity requirements, and all it needed was a simple change of plug by hubby (or an electrician). A step down adapter was also an option, but bulky, and apparently voids warranty.

I have owned my new machine for a month now, and I LOVE IT. It is quiet! It has the exact same ‘sandwich’ as the original BigShot and also has the same platform feature that I am used to – I can simply lay my cardstock/stamped images onto the platform and bottom plate, then my die, top plate and run through. No fussing with extra shims, lining up all the extra plates and layers, all my precision and magnetic platforms are perfectly compatible, and did I mention no loud noise???

BONUS: Suddenly my little one wants to help with die cutting……

The control button does need to be held down whilst cutting – this is great for doing the partial die cutting technique, plus reversing and coming back over those tricky and intricate dies in the middle. I like the sense of control this gives me in my cutting.

The BigShot Express packaging

What’s in the Box? Apart from the machine itself, it comes with the base platform, a plastic shim, two clear plastic cutting pads and the power adapter. Other BigShot accessories are available (and can be used with most other BigShot machines), such as the Precision Platform for intricate dies, the rubber embossing mat, the magnetic platform, the extended platform and cutting pads, plus cutting pads in various colours.

For further in-depth information about more of the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series. I do have a page especially dedicated to Die Cutting Machines and Trimmers, so you might want to check that out.

Thank you for visiting – I hope you have found the above information helpful in your card making journey. Feel free to message me if you have any questions regarding the BigShot Express!