Double Challenge

I am joining in with the Create with Connie and Mary Challenge 232 and the Stampin' Royalty Challenge 156. 

The first thing I thought of when I saw this colour combo was snowflakes and Christmas, but honestly I just can't face doing another Christmas card or project for a while!!!  So skipping forward the next celebration is Valentine's Day - even though it is not as big a deal here in Australia as it is in the US, it is nice to let that certain someone know you love and appreciate them.  This sketch also gave me another chance to use my new Pretty Petites stamp set and matching punch from upcoming Sale-A-Bration!!!  The sentiment is from Wacky Wishes, and I would have liked to stamp it in Pool Party also but it just got lost on the page, so I went with black.

I hope you like my creation and pop on over to the two challenge blogs to see what others have created.

Happy Stamping

More Christmas Gifts

Another of my Christmas gifts, this time for my two nieces Alyssa and Sarah, both beautiful little girls who I don't get to see nearly enough as they live over 1,720km and a 19 hour drive away - the wonderful benefits of living in a big country!  I am going to visit them after Stampin' Up! Convention next year which will be great.

This is the set made for Alyssa, Sarah's set was made from Mellon Mambo, but was wrapped ready for sending before I took the photo!

Each set has one large box with a collection of pre-cut card bases and coloured card stock in colours from the Brights Collection. The smaller box was filled with stamped, punched and die-cuts in matching colours.  These sets were made to go with my old-style ink pads from the Brights Collection.  The girls loved them by all reports!

The boxes are from another tutorial by the very talented Tanya Bell.

Happy Stamping

Freshly Made Sketches #66

With Christmas behind us and another week off work ahead of me I have had some time to sit and create!  This time I have taken inspiration from the Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I have mentioned that a brown box of Stampin Up goodies arrived on my door step, well along with the Pretty Petites and matching punch, it also had another SAB set in it.  The stamp on this card is from the Vintage Verses set, and I wanted to use it to make a more masculine card - not sure if I have hit the mark - thoughts?  Also in my brown box was the bright and cheerful World Spectacular DSP which I have paired here with Polka Dot Parade DSP.  

Back to the craft table!
 
Happy Stamping

Sneak Peek - SAB 2013

I get so excited when new products come along, even more so when you can earn them for FREE!!!  From 22nd January Sale-A-Bration begins and you can earn one of 19, yep nineteen, products for free!  As a demonstrator I get the opportunity to pre-order some of these items and am allowed to show the items I create with them.  So without further ado here are my first creations:

My daughter was headed to a birthday party tonight and so I offered to make a card and matching gift box for her.  The favourite colours of the birthday girl are blue, purple, black and white.I started with the gift box and used my new Purse Die and Island Indigo DSP.  The new mini Curly Label punch is perfect for making the little tags that you get on bags, and the matching Pretty Petites were just the thing to add something special.

With the box sorted I knew I wanted to do a version of the Build A Cup Cake punch purses, however I again used the little punch and matching stamp set to make the top of the bags.  The stamp is the same on all bags, but the middle one I turned around so the little heart would show.

 Here is a close up of the bags, you can see how the centre purse has a little heart, I used Silver Dazzling Details to make it sparkle and added a small rhinestone to the other two bags.

One of the things I just love about Stampin' Up! is that I can make packaging for gifts and matching cards, and make them fit the recipient with colour and style.

Happy Stamping

Christmas Gifts

This is another project I did before Christmas.  Each year we have a pre-Christmas BBQ with some of our friends and while we don't exchange gifts, this year I wanted to share with each of them some of my favourite wine from Brown Brothers - Cienna. 

To make them festive, I made some cute little bottle tags, first seen on the lovely Jenny Adams' blog Treasure Trove back in September 2010! I had to down size these for the little bottles and used the Perfect Punches for the sentiment. Everyone loved them which was great!   I used Raspberry Ripple and Gumball Green and matching DSP and ribbon.

Happy Stamping

Chocolate Holders

This is the first of a number of posts to catch you all up on what I have been up to in the weeks and days before Christmas.  The first was inspired by wanting to give my work colleagues something in the lead up to Christmas.  I had seen a number of cute Ferrero Rocher chocolate holders but it was the ones that Tanya Bell created that had me captivated. 

I made a total of 20 of these little cuties, they were reasonably easy to mass produce and Tanya's tutorial is well worth getting if you like these - just go to her blog and click on the Tutorials tab at the top of the page.  Tanya is so very talented and done some lovely work.

Here is a close up of one of the 'boxes', I think they would look so cute with a couple of holes punched in the top of the dome with some pretty cord threaded through and then hung on the Christmas tree.  I made all of these using the current Christmas DSP - Be Of Good Cheer, I love this particular pattern for this project.

Pop back over then next few days as I will have more posts of my pre-Christmas projects, as well as a couple of new ones made with some of the Sale-A-Bration products that you can earn from 22nd January 2013.

Happy Stamping

Festive Friday #50

Chirstmas is almost upon us and it is time for a very festive colour challenge from Festive Friday Challenges. You might have made all your cards for this year, or you may have one more in you!  If not you might like to create a Christmas tag for someone special.  I hope you get chance to join in this week.  

I kept it simple this week, using a combination of Joyous Celebration stamps, adding a rhinestone on the bow for extra bling.  I love how the two Framelits fit together so well, and you know by now that I love my glimmer paper!  

I hope you all have a very Happy Christmas and a safe and peaceful New Year.

Happy Stamping

Festive Friday #48

This week at the Festive Friday Challenge the challenge is to use Punch Art!  While I used to do a lot of punch art (years before joining Stampin' Up!) and loved it, but since then the stamping inky side has taken over so it was nice to get the punches out and get creative.

I have always liked the little Owl Punch used to make reindeer faces but wasn't sure what I could use for antlers, so I put the project on hold.  My very next project (which I can show you soon) involved cutting out some snowflakes with the new Snow Flurry die, and for my project I only used the largest of the snowflakes.  Seeing the other two cut out just lying on my desk I realised that the middle sized one would be great for antlers!!!  And sparkly antlers at that and with sparkly antlers they just had to have sparkly noses too!  I had already adhered the noses before deciding to add sparkle so just used some of the new Dazzling Details to finish them off.

Wanting to add a few more punches to the project I stamped the sentiment onto Very Vanilla card stock and then punched out using the Word Window punch. I then punched a window out of the die cut DSP with the Modern Label punch and used Dimensionals to pop up the sentiment!  The DSP was cut with the Clear Oval Accents with just a smidge trimmed off the top and bottom.

A great way to line up your punch when punching a window is to first punch the shape from a Post-It note (including adhesive) and then position that onto your project.  Then flip your punch over and line up the Post-It note with the punch and you will get it perfect every time.  I didn't take photos as I went for this one but will do so next time!

Happy Stamping

Late Challenge

Funny story ... I completed this project on the weekend with two challenges in mind, Dynamic Duo colour challenge and Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch challenge, it has just taken me too long to upload the picture and we have a new Try Stampin' on Tuesday challenge so my card isn't eligible :(

That will teach me to be slack with my posts!

I used the lovely Natural Composition speciality DSP from Stampin' Up! and made some little tags using the smallest stamp in Daydream Medallions as the wreath, and the from Joyous Celebrations for the bow. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Sentiments.  It is a fairly simple design but with the embossed DSP in the background to give some texture I think it looks pretty good!

Happy Stamping

Non Traditional Christmas

I am on a bit of a roll today, completing my second challenge entry!  This time I am entering in Just Add Ink colour combo, and Sunny Challenges sketch  and non-traditional challenge.

I got inspiration for this card from the lovely Liz Hicks, I saw her do a presentation at Stampin' Up! Convention this year and then more recently she created a stunning scrapbook layout with a technique that I think I described as "sponge, partial stamp, bleach, sponge, stamp"!  Basically you just keep building colour and images  until you are happy with the result.  I used a little stamp to stamp bleach over the right hand panel, dropped some bleach down the left hand panel, splattered some ink using my spritz tool on all layers.  I also did some sanding on the left hand panel to remove some of the colour.  

I really love how this turned out and am grateful to Liz for exposing me to such a fun, and messy, technique.  You can check out her blog here: Liz Hicks - DizzyINk Inkspires you!

Happy Stamping

Double Challenge Time

I was having a look back over my recent blog posts and realised that it has been ages since I sat down and entered some challenges.  Apart from creating for the Festive Friday Design Team and creating items for a Mystery Box swap and presents for my nieces which I will be able to share shortly, I really haven't been doing much creating lately.  So today I have set aside to get inky!

I love the colours in the Hand Stamped Sentiments challenge this week, and knew I would have to use some glimmer paper, the Freshly Made Sketches was just perfect as a design.  I sponged some Melon Mambo onto the silver glimmer paper (this is very messy and takes ages to dry) after cutting it out with my Big Shot.  The decisions on colours really came down to which ribbons I had to match so used Lucky Limeade and Island Indigo and then stamped the ornament in Tempting Turquoise.  The rhinestones are the little ones from Stampin' Up! and I coloured them with a light blue permanent marker, which ended up being a perfect match!  The background is Raspberry Ripple which I embossed and then spritzed for some additional sparkle.

Happy Stamping

Dynamic Christmas

I just love Midnight Muse, and I love silver bling, so this week's challenge at Dynamic Duos caught my eye.  Luckily I have had time to create an entry for this challenge, just in time too as it closes tomorrow! 

I have only just bought myself the Window Frames Framelits and they were just perfect to frame up my little glimmer paper snowflakes cut with my Snow Flurry die, the smallest I stained using re-inker to give it the blue tinge.  The sentiment is from Greetings of the Season, and if you visit my blog regularly you will know that this is my "go to" Christmas sentiment stamp set!  a 1/2" strip of silver glimmer paper topped with the beautiful new in-colour ribbon, and some rhinestones gave it some balance and some additional bling!  

Happy Stamping

Count Down to Christmas

I just wanted to share with you something that I whipped up this afternoon after sending our daughter off on a 4 week holiday to Queensland to visit family.  I work with a lovely lady who every day in the last couple of weeks has said "X working days until Christmas"!  This inspired me to create this countdown frame ...

I used an A4 photo frame and my fun little Scentsational Season stamp set, then added a couple of frames cut with the Labels Collection Framelits.  The idea is that each day we can add the number of days left to the glass with a whiteboard pen and do the count down in style!  Also it will make my desk that little bit more Christmassy!

Happy Stamping

Festive Friday #46

Another week closer to Christmas and time for another Festive Friday Challenge.  This week we have a fun sketch which I ended up doing two ways!

 This is my first go at the challenge, I knew when I saw the wavy part of the sketch that I wanted to use the lovely tulle and use the heat tool on it to melt it, but then I chose to cut it in half long ways to give a single edged ruffle. The second half of the ruffled ribbon I used to create the little rosette.  I love the new Speciality DSP and wanted to add some colour with some sponging to let the embossing show through a little more.

Now I looked at this and knew something wasn't quite right, I loved the cup but it just didn't match the card as much as I had hoped.  I think this image would have been perfect with a different colour scheme, but for this move vintage look it wasn't what I was looking for.

 I decided to remove the panel with the cup on it, and recreate it with a landscape rather than portrait orientation, and added a simple sentiment from the Greetings of the Season embossed in gold on Very Vanilla.  I think this is a much better use of the sketch, what do you think?

Either way I hope I have given you some inspiration to join in this week.  Pop on over to Nicole's blog and check out what the rest of the Design Team have created with this sketch, and I hope you will take the opportunity to join in, there aren't many weeks left before Christmas and this is a great opportunity to get another Christmas card made.

Happy Stamping

Festive Friday #44

 

Isn't this a great picture!  It reminds me a little of the lolly bar that we had at our Stampin' Up! Convention this year - beautiful jars and bowls filled with lollies.  This one clearly reminds me of Christmas and I can almost taste the peppermint just looking at it!  This great photo is the inspiration for this week's Festive Friday Challenge.

I decided to keep my card almost monochromatic using the red and white from the candy canes as my inspiration, although there is a touch of green in the stripes on the DSP, much like the napkin in the front of the photo - good planning, or good luck ... I'll let you be the judge!  I used one of the new Edgelits to create the border on what I think of as the railing.

I wanted to show you a bit of a closer view of the ornaments, stamped with my new wonderful Ornament Keepsakes stamp set and then hand cut.  Now, you don't have to hand cut them because there is a matching set of Framelits that cut them all out perfectly, however I wanted to use this to cut the glimmer paper to back the ornaments and add some sparkle.  For the ornament on the left I stamped in Real Red and then used my sponge dauber to lightly tap some Platinum Shimmer Paint around the edges, the photos don't really do this justice.  I decided to add the sentiment in the ornament shape, and used the new Paper Piercing set to make an outline for cutting the inner shape before adding the Red Glimmer Paper backing.  

I finished off the ornaments with some of the new Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon and some Rhinestones and Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details.

Come and join in this week and share what inspires you about the challenge photo.

Happy Stamping

Christmas Ornaments

I had some fun on the weekend making some Christmas Ornaments with some of my new products and I thought I might just share them with you.

 This first one is a fairly simple ornament that I had seen somewhere on Pinterest, and in hindsight I would have used a couple more of the flower and snowflakes and spritzed the Real Red cardstock.  But all that aside, as a simple ornament I was happy with the outcome.  I found it easiest with the large outer image to adhere the two Framelits together to ensure an even cut each time.  I added some Rhinestones to the Bakers Twine to add some bling.

The second ornament is a variation of the one on the front cover of the Holiday Catalogue, I used Midnight Muse instead of Gumball Green and a scalloped circle as the centre rather than a rosette.  I snipped in toward the centre at every second scallop so that it would sit nicely, then finished off with a Faceted Vintage Button.  Each of the petals of the ornament is made with 4 stamped and cut out shapes, three of them are scored and folded in half and adhered together.  I used the video tutorial from Angie at Chic N Scratch - thanks Angie for putting the effort in, it made it much easier to follow along.

Here is my little tip for scoring all 30 ornaments.  Use one of the negatives and find the middle of the top and bottom and then adhere the negative over a groove on the Simply Scored tool - I have drawn in a line down the 6" mark so I used this score mark.  Just slip your ornaments into the negative and score down the middle - this is much quicker than lining each ornament up, or not scoring them before folding which doesn't give as clean a look.

Happy Stamping