Back in an April post, I chatted about how I'd been playing with Core'dinations cardstock and I wrote about some of the distressing techniques I had tried on it. This is the background from that post but, at the time, I couldn't share the card I made with it as I'd submitted it for a magazine challenge. But at last I can share the finished card. To get this look, I scrunched it, sanded the creases and then inked some of them to add a little more interest. The two moulded pieces are cast from Krafty Lady moulds (AM250 Ornate Vase and AM085 Crest) and the stamps are from Krafty Lady and Stamps in Motion. You can find more detailed instructions on how to make the card in the June issue of Vamp Stamp News in the challege combining stamping with Art Moulds....

As promised, here's some eye candy made from those demo samples I prepared at the Scrapbook Expo. This first one is for everyone celebrating Father's Day this weekend looking for a really quick card for the Dad in your life. Here in Australia (and New Zealand for that fact) we don't celebrate Father's Day until the first Sunday in September so I'm feeling a little bit organised with a card made so many months in advance! I've used an image from Stamp-Its County Life 9up by Rachel Greig. This sheet has 9 wonderful rustic images on it which are really well suited to male cards and they need very little embellishment. I used a sheet of Black Magic which I randomly sanded and then layered onto a sheet from the Vintage Collection. I sponged a bit of Vintage Photo Distress Ink on a length of printed twill to age the tape a little and then it only needed a few extra touches like the photo corners and studs to tie it all together. I die cut the letters using my favourit......

What a fantastic weekend it was at the Scrapbook Expo....... It was great to meet so many of you at the Stamp Antics stand and be able to demo the Bow-Easy first hand for you. I bet you never thought tying perfect bows could be so simple! Remember, if you get stumped with the instructions that come in the package, then head over to my website and go to the Tutorials page where you can download and print some really clear, easy to follow instructions with step-by-step photos. The Core'dinations card stock was another popular demo. I happily sanded, scrunched, inked and tore away at the card stock and produced lots of bits which will be great additions to cards later on. Here's a bunch of the cardstock I was working on. I'll make them up into cards later on and post those also. As you can see, I really enjoy working with the Black Magic collection..... I just love the contrast between the black and the core colour when you sand it back..... it's definitely my favourite!...

This weekend Brisbane plays host to the annual Australasian Scrapbook and Papercraft Convention. Brisbane is the only city this show comes to which is so exciting for all us Brissie girls. I really look forward to it because of it's unique mix of retailers with scrapbooking, cardmaking and jewellery supplies all happily residing under the one roof and the friendly and relaxed atmosphere. I'll be demonstrating for Jenny at Stamp Antics using some of the newest Krafty Lady Art Moulds including that gorgeous frangipani which has been so popular. I know Jenny's stocks are already dwindling so you'll want to be early to get one of these. I'll also be playing with the Core'dinations cardstock range and as I mentioned last month, I'll be demonstrating how to tie bows using the Bow-Easy tool. You won't believe how easy it is once you know how! I hope you'll stop by (stand 18-19) and say hello - I'd love to meet you! So to whet your appetite with a sampli......

I've had a hectic week with teaching and preparation of samples for upcoming classes but I wanted to share this piece with you. It was a bit of an experiment to see whether or not acetate would turn white when it was embossed through the Cuttlebug. Well that's what I'd expected would happen, and I had some ideas on how I would use this in a project but, to my surprise, the embossed pattern on the acetate stayed clear. I could immediately see possibilities with alcohol inks and this is the result - a gorgeous tapestry look when the acetate was layered over a sheet of card from the Core'dinations Vintage Collection range. I'm really loving this look and can't wait to try out some more ideas. If you'd like to learn how to create this look, I'll be teaching the technique in a class at Stamp Antics in July. Check out my website for more details....

I've been playing with the Core'dinations cardstock again this weekend to see how else it could be used and as I rummaged through the Hocus Pocus pack I noticed that there's a nice range of colours in this collection graduationg from dark pinks, to light pinks, salmon and a couple of shades of yellow and thought this might be something interesting to work with. They looked rather nice together but they didn't blend together as well as I'd hoped. But then something wonderful happened...... I tore the edge of the deepest pink and a much softer shade was revealed. The same thing happened with the other four colours I'd picked.... each one revealed its much softer core colour once I tore it. And when they were all laid out together, I had beautiful sunset colours to work with. This was just the look I'd been after! It reminded me so much of the sunset, that I decided it would work well with something tropical. This is one of Krafty Lady's newest art moulds, ......

Here's another idea for distressing Core'dinations card - place a chipboard shape underneath the card and hold it firmly in place whilst rubbing the surface with sandpaper. This works really well with the colours from the Black Magic Collection. Here I've used a star from Making Memories but it reminds me of starfish. Here's a closeup of the sandpapered star. The base card is the same coloured cardstock which I sponged with a slightly darker ink. And the finished card with some embellishments. The sand dollar is a stamp from Stampington & Co which I pressed into Delight Air Dry Modelling Compound and the starfish is a mould I cast in Vanilla Sculpey. ...

I'm having loads of fun playing with the Core'dinations card stock. Having run the Hocus Pocus card through the Cuttlebug, I started thinking about other ways it could be distressed. So here, I've lightly crumpled it and then sandpapered the ridges. This piece is from the Spell Caster Collection. But I didn't stop there - I also rubbed and inkpad across some of the ridges just to add a little more interest. There seems to be a slightly glossy finish to the Core'dinations card stock and my usually trusty Encore! gold inkpad seemed to smudge so I used Brilliance Galaxy Gold to highlight. Here's the finished piece with a few gold highlights. I used it as the background on a card I submitted to a challenge, so that card is under wraps at the moment but check back later and I'll post a different card using the same technique. This post edited 31/5/08: I've just had word that the card I made this background for was published in the June issue of Vamp Stamp Ne......

I've done a little more playing with this card stock since my last post. I wanted to try sandpapering the surface to see what sort of effect I'd get. Nothing technical about this - just scratch the surface with the sandpaper to reveal the hidden colour! Well that worked, so I pulled out the Cuttlebug and an embossing folder and ran a piece of card from the Hocus Pocus collection through. Once again the front is black and the back and core are another colour. I used 180 grit paper, but you'll get different effects with different grits. Because of the linen texture, it didn't completely remove the black surface but it still revealed the core colour in a distressed sort of way. I used the same card to die cut the letters and also to make the card. The back of the card is about 1cm wider than the front so that you can see the inside card colour which is black. The flower pic is a Rachel Greig black and white image from Stamp-It and I've used chalks to add just a hint of......

Whilst I was at Stamp Antics this week Jenny showed me a snazzy new card stock called Core 'dinations . What a great idea......... 2-sided card stock with a coloured core! After a quick explanation on the effects you can get by distressing the surface, I left the store with a few sheets to play with. So, what makes this card stock so different? Well, you can do all the usual things you do with regular card stock, but if you sand or tear it, you'll reveal the core colour. What I really like about it though is that it takes the guess work out of colour coordination because the core colour is a lighter shade of the main colour. I didn't have much time for playing when I got home but I couldn't wait until I did, so I just ripped right into it - neat effect. These are a couple of sheets from the Black Magic Collection. The front of each sheet in this collection is black with the back being the same colour as the core (the photo shows the back of the card stock). You can almo......