Friday Mashup #8

Well today is my last day of being a Guest Designer for The Friday Mashup, and I am a little sad.  But I will keep playing along with the challenges so keep checking back each week to see what I come up with.  Before I get onto that though just a quick update on Sharon, the amazing lady who has not only conquered breast cancer but made it her goal to conquer the highest point on the planet and climb to the top of Mt Everest ... she made it!!!  You can read her account of that last push here.  

Now onto this week's card challenge, you can join in by doing any one of the three options: 

1. Make a card using Night of Navy, Pear Pizzazz and Pretty in Pink
2. Make a card using the sketch
3. Or mash it up and make a card using both the colour combo and the sketch

Again I have chosen to do the mashup of the challenges - Initially I looked at these colours and could not really picture them in my mind, so I took out my scrap card and lay them on the desk and just started to fiddle around with them.  I decided the base of the card should be the Night of Navy and then it was just a matter of fitting the colours to the sketch.  Wow what a sketch, there are a lot of elements on this one, and I was trying to work out what stamp would go nicely into the circle.  I think it was a combination of standing in front of my stamp sets and thinking that the Pear Pizzaz would be a great colour for leaves, and BAM I saw the 5th Avenue Floral and decided that the big rose was close enough to a circle to count. 

For the rose I stamped in Basic Black onto Pretty in Pink card stock, then when the ink was well dry I used the aqua painter with bleach and ran it around the edge of the petals which bleached the colour out of the card stock and gave it a nice accent.  I had tried this technique previously, but like many others it had slipped to the back of my mind until it was demonstrated again at Convention.  I think it really works for this card. 

Please pop over to The Friday Mashup to check out the other cards the Design Team have come up with to inspire you this week.  Check out the entries to the challenge too, and don't forget to leave a little comment to let the artists know what you think.

The great thing with the mashup is that you can pick and choose with the challenge, so don't be shy, give it a try and join in for some fun.

  

Happy Stamping

Friday Mash Up #7

Well here I am back from my very first Stampin' Up! Convention, and have been a bit unwell so haven't been here to update my blog since then.  I hope you liked my swaps and gifts for Convention, I did manage to trade all my swaps and now have a big box of some really great work - some I will feature here over the next few weeks. So much to tell from Convention, but for now I want to focus on this week's Friday Mashup.

This week it's all about Ribbons, and Pearls, and all things Girls!  Now, I am not usually a "girly" card maker but one of the things that Shelli Gardener, founder of Stampin' Up!, spoke about at the Stampin' Up! Convention was a lady from Cairns, Sharon Cohrs, who had her own struggle with breast cancer and who had made some of these cards to raise awareness of this disease that affects so many women.  Now Sharon is also a mountain climber and as part of her recovery she and her husband Alan plan to climb Mt Everest, and coincidentally is due to arrive at the peak in mid May (right about now).  One of the things Shelli told us about this story was that when you climb Mt Everest and reach the peak it is traditional to bury something of meaning at the top.  Sharon is planning on leaving one of these cards up there!  That story really touched me in so many ways, but the thing I really take away is that no mountain is too high if you have the right determination.  You can follow Sharon's journey via her facebook page.  As of 19th May they had begun the final push up the mountain.

 Having heard that story just last weekend it seemed just perfect to recreate one of these cards for hte Friday Mashup, what could be more girly than that.  And of course it was easy to add ribbon and pearls!  I got the template for this great card from Stamp Owl's Studio and was so happy with how it turned out.  I think the crochet trim gives just the right lacey look to this card, who wouldn't want to own a cute little bra like this?

Now what is a cute bra without a matching pair of knickers?  This is the back of the card and you might notice that the pieces that have been cut out for the legs are actually the pieces you use for the front of the bra!  How clever is that design.  I just love these, and might just be making a few more 'pairs'!

I would encourage you to join in over at the Friday Mashup, it really is a lot of fun and I am totally loveing my experience as a guest designer for May.  Don't forget to pop over and see what the rest of the design team have come up with to inspire your creativity, and check out the other entries while you are there.  Don't forget to leave a little message here or there to let the various artists know you like their work, we all love that little bit of encouragement.

Happy Stamping

My Other Convention Creations ...

I wanted to make this post to show you some of the other things I made for special reasons this convention. 

Firstly my room mate gifts, I will be sharing with two ladies who I have never met before except for chatting on-line, and wanted to make them a little something extra than the usual swaps.  Now I know from our many chats that Leonie is a lover of coffee, so what could be more perfect than a decorated take-away coffee cup?  I saw these in Office Works and just knew I had to bring them home and decorate them up!  Each one is filled with coffee bags and favourites chocolates. I hope they liked them :)

These gifts are for special ladies who I have met through Stampin' Up! and each one holds a little charm made from the Hodge Podge, and each has the recipient's name on the back - great for popping on scissors, or even our convention bags.  As I said these are gifts for the special ladies who have enriched my life in the past 15 months. I knew I would love the Stampin' Up! products, but no one ever told me I would make such good friends when I joined as a demonstrator!  . 

These last two are special birthday gifts, one for my room mate Libby, and one for the room mate of my other close friends, Sharon.  It is amazing how many people have birthdays this convention, including one of the ladies coming over from head office in America!  These little boxes are just the right size to fit a box of Guylian chocolates, and the scrunched flower on the boxes is detachable.  Why?  Because the ESAD ladies all agreed to wear one at Convention so we could easily find each other in the crowd,  I have mounted each one onto a broach clip for convenience.

Keep watching my blog, I am going to be posting some of the photos from convention, including some of my favourite swaps.

Happy Stamping

My Convention Swaps ..... Part 3

Final post while I am at Convention, my final swap for the event another masculine card, but this time with a slightly different feel ...

This one also uses Sail Away. I knew I wanted to use the Polished Stone technique to make the ocean for this card, the photo doesn't do justice to the technique.  Polished Stone is achieved by putting some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, then dropping different colours of re-inker onto the ball. In this case I used Pacific Point and Tempting Turquoise, and then just a small amount of Platinum Shimmer Paint. Then you dab this onto your cardstock, Glossy cardstock works best as the ink doesn't immediately absorb and sort of blurs together.  I found through trial and error and advice from others, if you use too much alcohol the colours dull a little.  Cardstock is Basic Black and Pacific Point.  I have used one of the Teeny Tiny Sentiments on this card, it would be very easy to change this to suit the occasion.

Happy Stamping

Friday Mashup #6

It's mash-up time again with the new challenge from Friday Mash Up.  This week the challenge is all about Monochromatic Man!

You can do one of three things for this

1. Make a card using a monochrome colour scheme - different shades of the same colour, or neutrals with one colour.
2. Make a masculine card
3. Mash the two together and make a masculine card using a monochromatic colour scheme

As usual I have done the Mash Up.  This is a fancy fold card, we made one of these on the online class on Crafters Anonymous on Monday night and the inspiration struck me to use it for this week's challenge.  I have used the lovely Sail Away stamp.  You can see I have used water colouring in shades of blues for the water, highlighting the waves in different colours. 

This is a side view of the fancy fold card, my up-line, and Design Team member also showed this to me when she last came to visit.  I altered the dimensions of this slightly, just so that it would better fit with the Sail Away stamp.  I hope you don't get sick of this one, as you will see it a bit on my blog over Convention weekend.  If you have a look at my swaps both of them also fit the Monochromatic Man criteria!!!!  What a fluke that was, I hope you can get some inspiration from one of these!

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Design Team's creations at The Friday Mashup and the other entries in this week's challenge.  Don't forget to show a little love when you visit blogs, let them know how much you like their designs by leaving them a comment.

Happy Stamping

My Convention Swaps .... Part 2

Another pre-scheduled post, it is the second day of Convention and I am sure I am having a great time!  As promised here is the second of the three swaps I made.  This time it is a card front - with swaps you don't make the whole card, just the front of one.  Swaps are primarily to share ideas amongst each other.  I like showing the swaps I get off at workshops I do, it lets my customers see styles that are different from my own, and also at times are made with stamp sets or accessories I don't own (yet).

This card uses the a la carte stamp "Sail Away".  I love these stamps because they are single stamps that stand alone really well, and are a great way to get something in a new theme.  For me masculine cards are a bit of a challenge, I think they are for most of us.  When I saw Sail Away I just knew it was for me, and knew I wanted to make a Convention swap with it.  This layout came to me one afternoon when I was waking up from a nana nap!  I have used the Newsprint DSP and mounted the images on Not Quite Navy cardstock, I love the way the circle matches the shape of the sails on the yacht.  The card needed a little something to "finish" this so I used three eyelets to give it that little something. I purposefully left a sentiment off this card, leaving it free to be birthday, father's day, or even a retirement card.

Pop back tomorrow for a look at my final swap .... it too uses Sail Away

Happy Stamping

My Convention Swaps .... Part 1

This is the first of three posts that I have set to automatically load up while I am away at Stampin' Up! Annual Convention.  It is being held in Melbourne this year, and I have been so excited to attend.  Aproximately 500 demonstrators from Australia and New Zealand all getting together in one place for 3 days!!!   One of the best parts about this event is swaps (at least that is what I am told!).  I have made 3 different swaps for the event and will be scheduling a post each day to show them off.   

One of the first unofficial events that I will be part of at Convention is the ESAD dinner, through ESAD I have met some amazing, supportive, inspiring, and genuinely caring ladies, and the ESAD dinner is my chance to meet some of them face to face. Some of us will have started our swapping at the dinner, and this is what these little swaps are for.   I wanted to make some little bags and was originally inspired by one of the videos over at chic n scratch, but made some changes to the dimensions of the bags to hold different things. 

I made about 36 of these little bags, 12 with 2 teabags, 12 with a coffee bag, and 12 with chocolate bar. All of the bags have been made with the colour collections DSP, and I chose the polka dot pattern as it matched the dots on the cup stamp.  I hope you like these, especially if you were lucky enough to get one as a swap!

Happy Stamping

Friday Mash Up

Today is my first contribution as Guest Designer for The Friday Mashup, and I am really excited and honoured to be part of this challenge.  There are three ways you can enter this challenge

1. Make a card inspired by nature
2. Make a card with some embossing on it
3. Or Mash it all up and make a card with a nature theme and some embossing on it somewhere.

I decided to do the Mashup of the two themes and came up with this one.

I just love the Just Believe stamp set, and have used it here as the background image.  I then formed a frame around it using the Framed Tulip Embossing Folder, embossing in sections to get it just the right size.  I created the frame of colour by masking off the centre of the piece with post-it notes and then sponged with Certainly Celery, I really like the effect this gives.  To add a bit more embossing and nature I added some of the beautiful little butterflies from the Beautiful Wings die, and embossed the next layer of cardstock with the Polka Dot Embossing folder.  The other colours I have used are Almost Artichoke, Rose Red, Rich Razzleberry.

Don't forget to check out what the Design Team have created to inspire you, as well as all of the entries in this week's challenge.  Don't forget when you visit and are inspired by a card, let the creator know by leaving a comment. 

Happy Stamping