Another Challenge ..

It seems that this week is Challenge Week for me - both in my creativity and my non-creative life.  I have been taken with a few challenges this week, as well as the challenge of returning to work after holidays, and returning to diet after two weeks of my mum's cooking!!! 

The card challenges that I worked on for this card come from Less Is More and Stamping 411.  I don't often join in the less is more, because I have a habit of filling up the card and not leaving enough blank space, but the 411 sketch challenge gave me a layout that had a fair bit of space.

The Less Is More challenge was to add something fruity, because I don't have any fruity stamps, I immediately thought of this strawberry made from the Heart Embosslit Die, the 5-petal flower, 2-step bird and boho blossoms punches.  The idea came from Denise Willerton who was a featured artist on Stamping 411, there is a link to the tutorial on that site.  I chose Real Red, Pear Pizzazz and Aways Artichoke as the colours on the card.  The centres of the three flowers are little brads, which give some dimension to them.

Happy Stamping

A Touch of Old and New

I can't believe it has been a week since I got home from my holiday in QLD, and that I have only made one card since coming home!  It prompted me to go searching for inspiration and I found a couple, well three, challenges that took my fancy.   

Mojo Monday, Colour Throw Down, and Hand Stamped Sentiments. There were a couple of others that caught my eye, but you can only fit so much onto one card! Don't forget to pop over and check out what all the design teams have come up with to inspire us.

With the new Idea Book & Catalogue just around the corner the current hostess sets will be retiring so I thought I would take this opportunity to give them another inking up before saying good bye.  I wasn't sure if there was too much pink, but I think the Soft Suede breaks it up sufficiently.  The flourish is from the Creative Elements stamp and I think it works well on the back panel.  I know a few birthday girls at the moment, now I just have to pick who to send this to!

Happy Stamping

At Thing of Beauty ...

Can you imagine my surprise when I found out that my lovely up-line and friend Kasey awarded my blog "A Thing of Beauty Award"!!!  Perhaps you have to understand how wonderful her creations are to fully appreciate it, so please pop over and check out her wonderful creations.

As part of receiving this award I have to do two things.  The first is to tell you five things about myself, and the other is to share this award with five blogs that I find inspiring.  First things first ... Things you might not know about me ...

1. I love to cook
2. I am currently trying to lose almost 30kg (doesn't always go well with the love of cooking!!!)
3. My favourite colour is purple
4. I love to read
5. I spent a number of my childhood years living on a yacht, cruising up and down the QLD coast.

Onto the super fun part of the award, the part where I get to pass it on to 5 fellow bloggers.  These ladies have blogs that I frequently visit, in fact I have them on "follow" so I don't miss any of their up dates!

Shirley ~ Stamping Elephants
Deb ~ Deb Fearns, Stampin' Up! Independent Demonstrator
Andrea ~ Enchantink
Sandra ~ Sandra's  Stamping Spot
Leonie ~  Stamp a Latte

I would like to give these ladies a special "thank you" for all of your constant inspiration.  Please pop by and see their lovely blogs and wonderful creations.

 

Happy Stamping

Challenge Time ...

Well I am back home from a lovely visit to my family in Central Queensland, sooooo much warmer up there than here, will be warmer still when we go up in January for my brother's wedding!!!!!  No stamping or creating for 2 weeks meant I came home and had itchy fingers so got straight into creating. 

Now you know by now I love The Friday Mashup Challenges, and this week is no exception, but I didn't do the full mashup.  The theme this week was a colour challenge and a birthday challenge, I just couldn't get my head around the colours for the birthday card I wanted to use so also headed over to The Colour Throwdown which was to use a rainbow of colours.  I also took inspiration from Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge and came up with this little card.

Not my 'usual' style but I was in an experimental mood!  I liked the layout and as soon as I saw it I thought of the Party Hearty stamp "celebrate you" which I stamped in Pacific Point, cut out with the scallop circle punch and layered on another scallop circle cut from Pumpkin Pie. The centre I also layered with Daffodil Delight and a little present stamp from the same set, which I added some bling with Dazzling Diamonds.

Using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig I split the row of cakes from Birthday Bakery Hostess set so they would fit into the layout better.  I used some of the Pacific Point DSP from the Brights Patterns Stack to add some extra colour and then spent some time deciding on what to do for the background.  I was so happy when the idea to use News Print DSP came to me, I had overlooked it initially as black and vanilla DSP doesn't really lift a rainbow themed card!!!  But then it struck me that I could sponge colour over the DSP to give it the boost I needed - what do you think?  I was really happy, randomly sponging on Pacific Point, Real Red, and Daffodil Delight. 

Don't forget to pop over to the Challenge Blogs to see what their design teams have come up with as well as the participants in each challenge. 

Happy Stamping

The Last Three

For these last three I have again used a similar layout...

These cute little butterflies are just perfect for cutting out and adding with a Dimensional.  I am just loving Melon Mambo paired with Not Quite Navy!  I would not have paired these together under normal circumstances, I think I found them because I had some scraps on my desk from the other cards I was making.  I think they make a really stunning combo.

I added a little button onto the centre of the flower, what do you think?  I wasn't quite sure initially but am happy with it now I have had time to get used to it!  I wanted the "belly band" to be a bit different on this one so layered the Pear Pizzazz under the Crochet Trim.

Being inspired by the previous card I again wanted the band to be something special so stamped the flourish onto Very Vanilla Satin Ribbon.  This is the first time I have tried stamping onto ribbon, and I was so pleased that the ink didn't bleed!

So that is the end of the cards made for mum, I hope you have liked them, leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I really do love this set and have really loved creating these for mum, I hope she loves them too.

Happy Stamping

  

Yet More Cards for Mum

I hope you are liking the cards I made for my mum's birthday gift.  Here are a couple more, again same layout just in different colours ...

 For this one I wanted the flower to be present but part of the background and used Melon Mambo on the butterfly so it would be the focal point of the card.   The flourish has been coloured  to match rather than left as a line image, I just love that it is so flexible.

Not Quite Navy is the focal colour on this card, and for this one I cut out the flower instead of stamping directly onto the card. 

There are another couple of cards to go so pop back in a couple of days and check them out.

Happy Stamping

Three More Cards for Mum

Here is the next installment of cards in the set I made for my mum.  I kept to a similar layout for these so thought I would share them at the same time. 

This one is a little different, I used Peach Parfait and Melon  Mambo using the rock n roll technique on the flower on the main part of the card, and also a masking technique.  The other is stamped in Cajun Craze onto Peach Parfait cardstock and sponged with both colours, then cut out and put on the card with Dimensionals. 

On this card I wanted to bring in the Not Quite Navy, I stamped the decorative strip all the way across on this one using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to line them up nice and straight.  I like the soft subtle Blushing Bride on this, both in the images on the base of the card, and as the base of the cut out flower, stamped with Melon Mambo.

This was actually one of the first cards I made for this set!  I masked some of the flowers on the base of the card, and used my Stampin' Pastels on the flower.  I have to say I am loving the subtle effect of the pastels, they allow me to add soft colour just where I want it.

Happy Stamping

Mum's Birthday Gift

This week is my mum's birthday and I am lucky enough to be able to travel up to see her.  In fact I am writing this post the night before I leave, and will schedule it for her birthday just in case she peeks at my blog I don't want to spoil the surprise!

Because I am traveling up to see her, I know she would not want me to spend any money on a gift, and I know she loves getting hand made items.  Luckily I make cards!!!!  I decided to make her a set of cards in a box so that she can use them for special occasions that come up.  The base of the box is quite sturdy being made from the backing sheet that comes with the DSP, I used a technique learned at Convention, you get some glad wrap all bunched up and dipped into Platinum Shimmer Paint and dab it all over the card stock.  When it dries you sponge your chosen colours over the top and it gives a great look.  I will be posting a picture of another card made with this technique soon.

I have kept the sentiments separate so that she can choose herself which card to give for which occasion, I do so hope she likes them.  Because there are a few cards, and I am away for a couple of weeks I will schedule them over the course of the next week so keep popping back.

This is the first of the cards in the cute little box.  Having had so much fun recently playing with Creative Elements I just had to use it on this set also.  Here I have matched Not Quite Navy with Peach Parfait and Pear Pizzazz.  On this card I have put a sentiment, but it is easily covered by one of the little ones in the bag.

Happy Stamping

A Special Gift

Recently we had a lovely lady join our team for 3 weeks placement for her prac for her University study, and what do you know but she loves Stampin' Up!   Do you remember that desk set I made for work?  Well she recognised it and from there the conversation just flowed!  I was so touched when she made me a special thank you gift, and just had to share it with you all.

Made for me by Nicole

Part of our chatting involved me telling Nicole how much I loved the Baroque Motifs stamp set, so imagine how special it was when she used it to decorate my gift.  I love this little box and am going to have to try one myself in the near future.  She also used one of my favourite colours Rich Razzleberry. 

So thank you very much Nicole, it really was a special gift.

Happy Stamping

Christmas in July Class

Last weekend I held my first stamping class, I have thought about doing classes for a while, and the theme of Christmas in July was enough to get me organised.  I had a lovely group of ladies come over and everyone seemed to have a great afternoon.  It went so well I will be planning more for the future!  I wanted to use Delightful Decorations and the Ornament Punch as the featured products for this, the goal was to show the ladies a variety of uses for a single set and punch.  I also used a couple of Big Shot products and Four the Holidays stamp set, a great set with four Christmas sentiments, all in different fonts.

This is the first card we made, it is inspired by a swap I received at Canberra Regionals last year, but sadly I seem to have misplaced the original in all the mess on my desk so can't give credit to the designer.  If it's yours please let me know and will update the post.  I like this especially because it uses up that little bit of card stock that is left over from the leaves die when you put it through the Big Shot - I just love things like this.  I spritzed the Cherry Cobbler to give it some sparkle, and after adhering the Old Olive piece to it rubbed the edges with the Adhesive Remover which took the sparkle off the edges.  It doesn't get rid of it all but it does a pretty good job.

This is the second card we made, it's basic layout was from one I did last year with the Reindeer stamp, and converted for this project.  I used 3 punch outs of DSP, folded them in half and adhered them together.  The great thing about this is that it will lie flat to go through the post.  The panel I spritzed with Shimmer Mist and then put through the Big Shot using an embossing folder to give it texture. 

Finally there was this one, another CASE from Regionals Swaps, this time I didn't lose the original, so thank you to Maggie-Anne Coffison for this one.  I love the simplicity of this layout, you can bling it up with Rhinestones like I have here, use stamps or DSP for the ornaments. 

Happy Stamping

Last Minute Mashup!

I don't know where time has gone these days, but somehow we are in July, half of 2011 has slipped by and it's been ages since I made a post!  Today when I got home I had a quick look at The Friday Mashup! and discovered I still had time to do a quick entry. 

The theme this week was Red, White and Blue, Patriotic.  Now while we Aussies are patriotic it is not usually with the Red White and Blue theme, more Green and Yellow, or Green and Gold as we like to call it.  So this week for the first time ever, I am not doing the whole mashup challenge!!! 

I have been wanting to ink up the Button Buddies set ever since Shelli announced at Convention that we were all going to be lucky enough to take it home.  You should have heard the roar around the convention hall.  Each of the stamps works well on it's own, but even better with one of the Stampin' Up! buttons as a feature.  In this card I have used the flower stamp and done both red (cherry cobbler) and blue (night of navy) flowers, with a contrasting button in the middle flower.  The two outside flowers I left plain to show off their centres which I highlighted with some sponging.

I hope you have enjoyed this creation.  I hope to get a couple more done over the weekend, but I am heading off to visit my family for a couple of weeks so won't be doing stamping, and it is possible you won't hear from me again until I return.

Happy Stamping