Topical Tuesday #77 - Stamp Storage

Hello all and thank you for popping back today for my Topical Tuesday!  They do say better late than never, but I do apologise for my lateness, if you could see my office you'd understand lol!

Today I have a photo TT of how I store my stamps.  I've swapped and changed so many times over the years between one thing and another, but for me space is very tight, extremely tight in my little office that has to be a real office as well!  My crafting space in total is about 1.5 metres x 3 metres, so not big enough!!  I've been planning my next craft space for such a long time I wonder if it will ever come true :)

Every time I go in to Officeworks or Howards Storage I look and see if something is going to make my organisation easier/better.  I came across these buckets that perfectly fit my stamps right up to the 6x8 sets!

Then I had to have pockets for my sets, because I am very slack at keeping them totally clean enough for them to always adhere to the acetate sheets, and I don't like it if I lose one!

They come in two sizes - A5 & A6 - and I get these from Officeworks.  I then cut white cardstock (A4 in half for A5 and in quarters for A6) to fit  and add a label.

These pockets fit 3x4, 4x4 and 6x4 stamp sets, but I had to go a different way for the 6x8, so I use both the packaging they come in and A6 sheet protectors from Marbig.  With the packaging all you need to do is undo the bottom and refold then seal again to give you a bit of space at the top, then run the top through your cutter to make an opening.  These aren't that strong so will only last a short time Im sure, but they are working pretty well so far :)  With the sheet protectors I used these for a while and binders, but stamps are very heavy and found that your normal binder didn't support them properly, so I simply cut the side panel with the holes off taking care to not cut the seal and these make perfect pockets!

I printed up labels because I love everything to be numbered!  I could've gone with alphabetical but numbers are my thing :)

Thanks for stopping by and for you patience!

Hugs for now,

Andrea

Topical Tuesday #77 - Coming Soon!

Hi everyone!  This is the normal time slot for Topical Tuesday but there has been a couple of hiccups in my day today so it will be up tomorrow instead :)  I hope you'll tune in then to see what I have planned!
Hugs,
Andrea

AC168

It's time for a sketch and this is a lovely simple one to settle us in for the weekend!  The Belles have once again been busy creating for us after all their beautiful work for our release last weekend!  Did you get to catch up with everything that happened?  If you missed seeing the sets then you'll find the post HERE!  I won't babble on any longer, let's see the Belle's!

Marcia

Therese

Marion

Kylie

Tobi

Thanks for stopping by!  We hope you can share with us this challenge!

Hugs for now,

Andrea

AC167 Favourite!

Hello everyone, I hope this week is going smoothly as we head towards the weekend!!  We have a new challenge up tonight so be sure to pop back so you can play along and share your beautiful creations with us!!

We had a great range of cards and projects shared with us over the last 2 weeks and they were all fabulous, which always makes it hard to choose just a few to share again today!!

Congratulations Janet with this very dotty card!

Drop me an email Janet and I'll send through the details of your prize!

Thanks also to our Top 3!

Karen

Gillian

Lyndal

Beautiful ladies!  Be sure to grab your blinkie!

See you all soon!

Hugs,

Andrea

Topical Tuesday #76~Basic Fun With Heat Embossing

Hi Guys,

I hope you're all well and enjoying you week!

It's Kylie here for another Tropical Tuesday instalment and today I'm going back to basics with my all time favourite technique...Heat Embossing!

***Warning...Raving Below***

When I was a little girl(many, many moons ago lol)Mum and Dad gave me a card for my Birthday and the images and sentiments were all black and glossy and I fell in love with it(I still have that card today) and as I grew older and brought cards(gasp lol)for family and friends I always went for those shiny glossy black images lol!

I was finishing my last year in high school and I was going to backpack around Europe with friends but things happened and we had to call off our trip and I didn't want to go to Uni(much to mum and dad's disgust roflol)so I got a full time job in a...you guessed it a Card Shop lol and there I was surrounded by all those gorgeous cards with the black glossy images from card companies like Hallmark, John Sands, Biscay etc and I was spending my wage on cards(OK, clothes and shoes too lol)so I went to a card making class and I was hooked and that's how I got into making my own cards and discovered Heat Embossing, just like I saw on all those cards!

So today I thought I'll share with you my love for heat embossing lol!

To start off I stamped my poppy image from the newly released 'Remember When' stamp set in white ink(I wanted to have a shadow effect with the poppy image)and wait for it to dry.

Once dried, I used my embossing buddy and covered the whole front of my cardstock panel!  I always use an embossing buddy when I heat emboss as it removes static from the cardstock, eliminates moisture and helps the powder stick to the ink!

I then stamp my image using Versamark ink or you could use any embossing ink you have in your stash

Now for the fun part...

Pour you embossing powder(here I have used ABS Ebony)onto your inked image, making sure that your image is completely coated in the powder

Shake off the excess powder and return back into the container

Using a heat gun, heat the powder by slowly moving the gun over the image, a little at a time until the powder melts and you are left with a glossy raised finish and allow your image to cool!

Use your embossed image on your project!

Here's my finished card:

My poppy is an outline image but embossing also looks Awesome with a solid image...

For my tag I used ABS White Opaque embossing powder and it looks Awesome on a dark coloured cardstock, love this look!

Supplies Used:
AnnaBelle Stamps:
~Remember When Stamp Set
~Ebony Embossing Powder
~Black Twine
~White Opaque Embossing Powder

Other:
~Black and Kraft Cardstock
~Black Tag
~White Ribbon
~Tag Punch
~Silver Butterfly charm


Embossing powder comes in a huge variety of colours and you can also get glittery ones too!

Here's a few hints and tips I have learnt along the way...

~Prepare your cardstock using an embossing buddy if you have done this and have splatters of power on your cardstock, use a fine paintbrush to remove the excess power.

~Pre-heat your heat gun and used the back end of a pen etc to hold your cardstock in place and be careful when using a heat gun as it can get mighty hot(I have to scares to prove it roflol)

~Take care not to over heat the powder by getting too close as you can 'burn' the powder and  loose the gorgeous glossy shine to it

~unfortunately you can not use a hair dryer to heat emboss as the hair dryer can't reach the desire temperature and will scatter your powder everywhere(I've tried this lol)

~If you want to heat emboss and don't have a heat gun, try your toaster!  This is what I used when I didn't have a heat gun, just put your toaster to it's lowest setting, pull the leaver down and carefully hold your panel above the slots(while there, kill two birds with one stone and make some toast roflol)and the heat will melt your powder

~Once you finished embossing allow your project to cool before use to avoid smearing

~If your cardstock warps after embossing, try heating the opposite side with your heat gun to reverse the warping

I hope this has been helpful and once you start embossing you'll be hooked lol!

Thanks so much for joining me, till next time, Take Care and Keep Smiling,

Hugs,
Kylie X

Blog Hop Winner!!!

Hi all!  Thank you so much for all of your wonderful comments on the new release, they were all so appreciated!  Didn't the Belles do an amazing job creating with the sets!  I loved everything they did!!

It's time to announce the random winner of the sets and congratulations goes to 

number 27 - Tanja S.!! 

Contact me via email with your details and I will send the sets Cherry Blossom, Beside the Sea and Remember When.. out to you!

Thank you all again for your support and encouragement!

Hugs,

Andrea

Friday Feature - July Release Blog Hop!

Welcome to our Friday Feature and three new sets!!  It's been a couple of months since we had a new set to play with, but we have some exciting ones coming up over the next few months!

This month we would like to introduce to you two new artists to AnnaBelle Stamps, and the first is Afi from JooJoo Art and she created the images in the following two sets :

Cherry Blossom

Beside The Sea

Both of these sets are 6" x 4" photopolymer clear sets.  Thanks Afi for sharing your  gorgeous images with us!

You'll find Kristy in her Flying Shoes studio creating amazing things!  Here is Kristy's first set with us :

Remember When...

This is a large 6" x 8" clear photopolymer set.

To celebrate the release we have these three sets on offer at a discounted price!  Purchase the three set bundle and save 20%!!  Be sure to add the bundle HERE rather than the sets individually :)  This offer is open until midnight Sunday AEST so you don't have long to take advantage, and don't worry because if you are the lucky winner of our hop and you've purchased the bundle I'll refund the purchase amount!!

Now the second part of our weekend release celebration!  Follow along with our hop starting at my blog HERE, commenting as you pass through each of the Belle's blogs and adding your name to the Inlinkz below, to go in the draw to win the three sets!  Yes one lucky randomly selected person will win all three sets!!  So start hopping now because you only have until Sunday evening at 8.00pm to get your name in!

So let's start hopping!  And be sure to let your friends know so they can join in as well!!  Have fun everyone!

Hugs for now,

Andrea

Sneak Peek Day 3 - Remember When...

The third and final day to this months Sneak Peeks before our release and blog hop tomorrow night!!  We hope you've enjoyed seeing just a little of the sets before the release and we hope to do this each time from now on :)

Tonights set is 'Remember When..' so let's go and take a look!  The snippets below will lead you to the full project on the Belle's blogs :)

Kylie

Donna

Andrea

So there it is, the end of our three days of sneak peeks!  Tomorrow night is the full release, with blog hop and prizes and lots of fun so we hope to see you there!!

Hugs till then,

Andrea

Sneak Peek Day 2 - Beside The Sea

Welcome to Day 2 of our special Sneaky Peeks, and today we have the set Beside The Sea to share snippets of below, but you'll find the full card on the Belles blogs so pop on by!!

Let's go take a look!!

Sue

Therese

Marcia

We'll be back tomorrow night with Day 3 before our big release and Blog Hop on Friday night!!  It's getting very exciting now!

Hugs,

Andrea

Sneak Peek Day 1 - Cherry Blossom

Welcome to day 1 of our sneak peeks!  We have three new sets this month that we hope you will love! I won't give too much away so let's take a little look at some snippets of todays projects using Cherry Blossom, then head on over to the ladies blogs for a full look at what they've created for us!

Marion

Tobi

Andrea

See you again at the same time tomorrow night for Day 2!!

Hugs for now,

Andrea

Topical Tuesday #75 - Lil Monster in (Prisma) Colour

Hello and welcome to this weeks Topical Tuesday!  This week it's 2 hours earlier than usual, and for a very good reason!!  At 8.00pm tonight we start 3 days of Sneak Peeks in the lead up to our release this Friday night!  We are very excited because we have three new sets to share, so we hope you can join us!

This week I needed to be very organised because not only is Friday our release but also Nathan's birthday, so I hope you'll forgive me for yet another colouring TT, but he loves this stamp (nearly as much as I do) and he loves green, so here we go!

Here's the card to begin with and then below I have a video just showing a bit of the colouring process using Prismacolor Pencils and a Blender pencil to blend.  You'll see in the video that I added in a highlight of yellow, but then when I came to finish my card I decided on a non-yellow orange so I did the balloon again and fussy cut it before adhering with dimensional foam.  The shirt I went over with white and added in an extra crease :)

The base card was swiped with DI Ripe Persimmon and the centre base I simply stamped the ink pads directly on my paper randomly, adding in the number 10 to finish!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again in just a little while!  

Hugs for now,

Andrea