New found hobby!

While making scrapbook albums, I wanted charms to attach..I couldn't find any..so I thought I'll make one myself...and trying to find supplies in the regular market, its not easy. I needed to hit the old city markets for that...fast forward after all the searching and roaming in the sun...
This is what I made....

I think I'm in love with these, and will continue to make these. Still searching for charms to attach...

And for those of you who want them...I'll be happy to make for you too.... I'm planning to make whole load of these and sell it. I

It's raining in Kerala, and I'm off to play in the rains...

Would love your feed back on my new charms!

Butterfly and Bling

This is the first time that so many challenges just fell into place for me. Everything just fit into the card I had in mind. This is a CASE of my own card here.

The theme this week at Less is More is butterfly/Butterflies...how could I not play!
Then CAS-ual Friday challenge is bling..how could I not add Bling?
And at Wee-memories, its Stamping! Simply Fabulous!!
Also this card uses Smriti's Simply Sketches #1.

We both loved Waltzingmouse Sketches, but since they have a requirement for using WM Stamps, which we both don't have. So she started her own sketch series...and I love the idea.
I've rotated the sketch a bit.

The flutter-by is from Hero Arts Antique engravings, the butterfly trail from PTI- Little lady and the sentiment is from 3 bugs in a rug- baby boy ( I think). The butterfly was stamped on CS and then layered with a embossed vellum butterfly. The bling took me so long to place, but loved it.

My flutterby ready for take off!!

I'll be off for vacation end of this week..will set some scheduled posts for next week...I might not be able to comment anywhere, but rest assure, I will stop by once I'm back. 
See you soon!!

Handmade roses

Hey everyone..

 I got down to making flowers...I followed the tutorial from Tim Holtz's blog..and instead of the die cuts, I used my Shilpi Cut-n-Tuc flower template to get the 6 petal shape.

Roses and punched out leaves. Butterfly punched out from colored parchment paper. Duly glittered and blinged! :)

The little pink flower got covered in the first pic..so another one, to show the dimension. This is the first card I made with so much dimension..wonder how I'll end up gifting it? a box perhaps?



A few Q & A about my previous ATCs...

Parchment v/s vellum v/s gateway sheet

From what I researched, originally vellum and parchment were made from animal skins..but for papers they're made from plant fibres and cellulose. What I use are Pergamano parchment papers which are thicker than vellum.
'Pergamano' uses a heavyweight 140/160g (weight in grams per square meter) European made paper of archival quality that is strong enough to withstand fine perforating and pressure embossing without tearing,
90g weight and below is usually called vellum.
Thicker tracing paper is called gateway sheet (as much as I can gather about it). It does come in various weights too...from 30gsm to 280 gsm.

For embossing, I would suggest parchment paper or gateway paper in higher gsm...since most dye based inks will stay wet longer on parchment paper, no need for versamark. Just hold the heat gun away from it and keep moving it around the parchement paper.
And in case if the paper curls, heat it from the opposite side to uncurl it.

ATC overload

What can I say...I just finally (thank the Lord for that) got my Hero arts stamps. Apparently international shipping is taking around 20-25 days now!! I finally (yes, finally) own a butterfly stamp. For all the butterfly craziness that goes around in my craft room, I don't own a single decent butterfly stamp..that is until now..Say hello to Antique engravings and Kiss for the sun!! What yummy sets!!

I've been wanting to enter HA challenges for a very long time....Having one sentiment set never really quite cut it, so here are my first entries for the HA challenge, to create ATCs.

This uses the Kiss from the Sun set..Colored with my Sharpies, glue and gloss and background done with distress inks- Broken china and shabby shutters.

This ATC uses my most wanted set...I've been wishing for this set for over 6 months..finally its mine.The Antique engravings set.  This ATC took the longest to make.
-Started out as white Fabriano CS base, covered it with Worn lipstick distress ink.
-Clear embossed with magical background and covered the whole ATC with broken china. The embossing shows the color underneath..
-Stamped the sentiment in Broken china, clear embossed it and covered it with worn lipstick. (reverse of the ATC base)

I learnt this from Britta and Heather Maria

And my most favorite of all 3. I love this butterfly....
-I stamped the butterfly with black on vellum, clear embossed it and colored with sharpies on reverse of the vellum. It looks like glass..simply awesome!
-The base of the ATC is covered in shabby shutters and stamped with magical background using the same ink.
-Distressed with vintage photo on the edges.
-Stamped the moth on the ATC base, then attached the vellum butterflies with glue dots.

Just showing the dimension on the butterflies, and little bit of glitter.

Hope you enjoyed my newest craze. I'm addicted to distress inks.  (You think?)

OLW52

Boy, I sure missed a whole lot of OLWs!! ...for this week, I knew I had to do it..why? coz I had a ton of new stamps to play with (for those who know I'm mourning the loss of hero arts stamps, they've not come yet..still lost in transit or stolen). These are the stamps that I'd won from Imaginisce, got a ton from Lani.
This week is circles on OLW! And I wanted to be a little smart. Not use circles in the conventional way..so here goes my smart way of using circles on a One Layer Card...

This one is using a stamp from Imaginisce ...Let's roll collection....(the train's wheel's are to be the circles, if you have to ask me. and yes, the border is crooked. I do have OCD about perfection but this time I'm letting it roll)

Another one from the Splash Dance collection..I think this cute puffball qualifies as a circle... I hope Susan will agree!! Its a tiny 3x3 card left over from this set...

 

Not too neat coloring...I think I'm going to keep learning how to color...

Should be back soon, with some more coloring!!

My First Distress Inks!!!

I just got my first set of distress inks and one HA background..And I had a blast playing with them. I need to experiment a lot with these... they are so so versatile..I'm still learning...

This is not my best attempt, this is my first attempt..so forgive any imperfections...I love the colors..and most probably will be getting more colors...

I've used Hero arts magical background with clear embossing. Distress inks used are Wild honey, broken china and shabby shutters, along with Vintage photo on the edges and the sentiment banner.
Sentiment is again Hero Arts valentine sayings. Bronze pearls (local find).

So what do you say?
Entering my card into the following challenges
Sugar Creek Hollow - Embossing 
OSAAT - Embossing
The Crafty Pad - Pearls and Swirls

I just called to say...

Hey everyone...Its already May..the scorching month in this part of the world..temps are supposed to touch 46C. Its already 43...so not far to go!!

Coz its so hot I wanted to use some cool colors...and after searching through my archivies of digital images, I found one that I loved. I'd won this image in Jaya's challenge blog. The image is from Di's digi downloads..super super cute..

My mom's on a world tour right now, and I will miss her terribly on mother's day..so this is what I'll be doing on mother's day...Calling up my mom and telling her that I love her!!
Echo park papers, Little girl collection.
Colored with Derwent Inktense, Faber-castell watercolor pencils and a few blings!

The sentiment was printed along with the image..


Looking forward to your creations!

Couple of Awards and RAK's.

I'm very very grateful to have gotten these few awards the past week...and some that I've gotten long back, but never got around to posting..thanks so much all of you..I had a couple of RAK's to post too..never got around to that too!!

This one is from Bhavna. Thank you so much.
Passing this on to E.T, Asha, Priya Venkat, Shobhana and Kavitha.

The next one came from Aditya (the sole male crafter in our midst!! ) but surgical skills on the paper like none I've ever seen.
I've passed this award the last time, so I'm gonna skip this time..

And this one comes from Mustavecoffee at Crafty Musings! A wonderful blog and a lady with a quirky sense of humor.
Passing this award to Shalini, Ujjwal, Snehal, Anita and Spardha.

I have to pass these on to other people and list few things about myself..what can I tell you that you don't know!
Just a few things..

• I am a terrible control freak. I get mad when things go out of my control..and I ain't a pretty sight when I get mad. 

• I hate gyms and hate exercise, and the fact that I have to do it, doesn't help me at all.

• I love reading..just finished 5 books..Nicholas Sparks-True Believer, Lee Child's 61 hours, John Grisham's The confession and tons of mills and boons...yep, I still read them.

• I am dying to learn how to make jewellery..not the diamond ones the casual kinds..(any help there?) 

phew, those were too much for me. I think that's enough for now...more tid-bits later!

Just to share one more RAK that landed on my door before I left for mumbai..this beautiful card and a huge box of goodies came my way...I love all the RAK's that Lani's sent for me. Tons of papers, stamps and flowers! You've made my entire year I guess with your gifts!!

Another surprise came from Priya Venkat. I seem to have misplaced her card in my rush of packing things before I left for mumbai, but as soon as I find it, it'll be here. Thank you so much for those papers and those precise cutting instructions..I'm saving the post-its!!!

A peek into my craft cupboard!

 Since I don't have any cards to show you right now, I thought I'd show you my space..the place where I work, and where I store my stuff.....

I don't have a dedicated room, just one huge cabinet and I picked out the shelves that were empty..

This is a part of the cabinet, shared by my hubs and me..those are his files below my boxes..photos are self-explanatory..let me know if you want to kno w

This is a drawer in the cabinet, it has all my to-go items..things that I need  frequently..colors, tapes, scissors, markers, glue, binder rings etc..

 

Another part of the cabinet, all my wood mounted stamps..I'm planning to sell most of these, so if you are interested, keep an eye out on my blog..

A peek  into one of those wood mounted stamp storage box..I have way too many stamps...most of them are RAK's.

So there you have it, a tiny peek into my craft space...let me know what you think and if you have any questions!!

A break....

I will be on a break for a week....taking time off to visit parents...will be back soon...if time permits, will be around to keep checking on  your blogs!!

Till then I'll leave you with a pic of my  newest baby album..full pics will come later..see ya soon!