Gabrielle's cards & jewellery

About Me

I've been making cards for about 8 years now after a friend invited me to a Christmas card making workshop & I got hooked. Just couldn't believe I was creative enough to make cards! Now I can believe that I am *grin*

I am currently addicted to rubber stamping - whether it be the actual stamping for cards etc or just collecting them & dreaming about how I will use them J. I have also developed an addiction to creating beaded jewellery as well as, it seems again, collecting the beautiful beads

My other hobbies include cross stitch/tapestry, glass painting & Egyptian dance though I do love almost any type of dance.

I have lived in Paris, France for 2 years 2002-2004, but am now back to living in my home in Canberra. I am finally setting up my craft room...

My family

I have a loving husband Matthew of almost 9 years (who loves chocolate, red wine, "tea earl grey hot", roleplaying and more), a fluffy-licky-puppy by the name of Rascal & an insane puppy called Wiggley. Our home web-site is www.hodgsononline.org & has photos from holidays as well as links to our other sites.

My parents, Vince & Rose, love, absolutely love, dancing together - I think they love Latin (? stuff like rumba, slow swing etc) the most & they have been dancing together for well over 40 years. If you go to Tamworth for the Country Music Festival or WinterSun at the Gold Coast you may well have seen them dancing - & no not line dancing. They regularly get people coming up saying that they had seen them at so&so a place & either have pictures or video of them - even when they were visiting America!! They are currently trying to sell an amazing 'Development Opportunity' property in Karuah.

Favourite craft items

Love of the moment

Well I am currently in love with Twinkling H20s - they are so wonderful & they make me look like I can paint as they blend so well! Especially with my water brush... I don't yet have TW-670 or TW-671 - They must have recently come out...

Stamps

You may well guess that I love rubber stamping. I am currently trying to put all my unmounted stampas on EZ mount & create an index - well I hope to be organised one day!! I love unmounted stamps - they are so much cheaper & the shipping is a lot cheaper if ordering from the States. And you can get amazing grab bag deals!! My favourite sites include Scottish Borders Stamping, Time to Stamp (I have tonnes - something about 1 pound of rubber grab bags...), Enchanted Ink Designs (love their Antique Florals), Sunday International (both for their stamp sheets & their EZ mount), Purple Onion Designs, Designs Inkd (they have sadly closed their doors), Oxford Impressions (don't have any of their's yet though) etc etc... Hero Arts are amazing & so are Judikins but as they are mounted they are a lot more expensive.

Ink pads

Best pad of all - VersaMark - its so versatile!! You can use it to create a watermark, to do embossing with, to use with soft pastels/chalks & tonnes more uses! I must have in a stampers toolbox.

Distress Inks are pretty cool - the colours are great & they don't separate when wet. The initial brown ranges are great for distressing paper etc as well as stamping & sponging (try it with sponging blocks). The more colourful range can also be used the same but generally paper doesn't go those colours when old *grin* Supposedly each of the new range was designed to go with one of the old range. Try scrunching up some dark paper & running a pad over the crinkles & you can also spritz with water - you can get some cool background papers.

I love my Versafine pads as they give such great detail for photo stamps or normal stamps & dry so quickly on porous card - great for using with watercolours (think Twinkling H20s *grin*). But they don't dry on glossy - learn from my mistake!

Colourbox Fluid Chalk pads have an amazing range of colour & I love the chalky look - they look amazing stippled, sponged & stamped with. The colours are very rich.

Brilliance inks are pretty cool - you can stamp & let dry/heat set or you can emboss as you want. The pealescent & metallic colours work really well. Try scrunching up some dark paper & running a pad over the crinkles - you can get some cool background papers.

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