Bethinking

Discovering Kraft

I've had a bit of a light bulb moment recently. I've discovered how fantastic Kraft cardstock is! Now, I know there's a bunch of you thinking, "well, yeah... der, Beth, we've known that for ages..." but sometimes you just have to find these things out for yourself.

So, I'm loving Kraft. It seems to go with everything, and looks especially good with this year's In-Colours. I've used all the In-Colours on this card. It's a pretty simple design - stamp some random images, punch them out with the 1" circle punch, then add accessories, but I really like how it's turned out. I have to give it away as a birthday card tomorrow, so I think I'd better make another one now before it leaves the house!

For those of you who subscribe to my Newsletter, I recently had an article about how to use the "Build-A-Brad" kit. I've finally used one of my home made brads - the little bird brad in the bottom right corner. If you don't subscribe to my newsletter, please feel free to sign up so that you can also find out about classes, specials, products and techniques!

   

Thankful

Thanksgiving is not something that we celebrate in Australia, which means that we miss out on the opportunity to annually reflect on our blessings and be thankful for them. I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to create something that I can look at regularly that will remind me to be thankful. I’m blessed with so much, and I find it so easy to forget that in the day to day running around and lack of sleep that seems to make up my life at the moment.

So, thanks to Shelli for making “Thanksgiving” the topic for her November Creative Challenge. This scrapbook layout has been swirling around in my brain for a while, looking for an opportunity to get out! Of course, there’s more to the project that’s not pictured here yet – my journal that I’m making where I can record in more detail some of the things for which I am thankful. I figure hey, at least I’ve started the process and had some time to be thankful as I’ve been making it.

It was fun to create, too, basically choosing all my favourite images and "patchworking" them together. Here are a few close-ups, too:

        

    Supplies Used:

Stamps: Lots! Always, A Beautiful Thing, Live Your Dream, Big Deal Alpha, Pick a Petal, Looks Like Spring, A Happy Heart, Priceless, Fun and Fast Notes, Life Definitions, In the Spotlight.

Cardstock: Spring Silhouettes DSP, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla, Whisper White, Watercolour

Inks: Pretty in Pink, Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery.

Embossing

Way back when I was a really beginner stamper, embossing was one of the techniques I learnt that really wowed me. I love the magical way the heat fuses the embossing powder together to make the image raised and shiny. I still love embossing, and so on this card I embossed the So Swirly wheel in silver, by using VersaMark to stamp the image, then sprinkling silver embossing powder over it. I also embossed the image from Snow Flurries to use as the flower centre, using the "Faux Metal" technique, which is basically layers of embossing.

The colours used for this card are Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White and Basic Black, with silver. The flower petals are from Pick a Petal. If you're keen to learn more about embossing or faux metal, then let me know and I can organise a class or workshop for you!