Bright and Beautiful

Isn't this a great inspirational photo at Paper Lovin' Gals this week???  How bright and cheerful are those flowers!  To join in with the challenge is easy, just pick whatever inspires you in this picture and then create a project around it. It could be colours, the flowers, the layout, or some other feature of the picture that captures you attention.

 I chose all three - flowers, colours and layout. Well sort of the lay out I actually also used the layout from Freshly Made Sketches because it went so well with my plan for the card.  The beautiful flowers are from Creative Elements and are inked up using Daffodil Delight and then Melon Mambo using the Rock n Roll technique.  I used both the leaves from the 2-Step Bird Punch and the Little Leaves Sizzlet.  The sentiment is one of the stamps in Pretty Postage.  These are not colours I use often and certainly not together but I actually like the way it turned out.

Come join us and see what the other Design Team members have made to help get your creative juices flowing!

Happy Stamping

Mashup Vintage

Time to play with Friday Mashup again, I liked the simplicity of this layout because I am trying to be a bit more clean and simple in my creations and I struggle a bit with that.

I have stayed with the sketch fairly closely except for the corners which are on opposite sides to the sketch!  I wanted to focus on the details of this card, making it a bit vintagey (if that's even a word) by sanding the DSP layer and adding some sponging and sanding again until I was happy with the look.  I used some of the Crochet Trim and sponged it with Soft Suede to give it a bit more colour.  The butterflies were an easy edition, and I wanted to keep the centre fairly simple so used a small sentiment and soft colours.  The pearls on the butterflies and the corners were the final touch.

Happy Stamping

Celebrate Under the Big Top ...

I was a bit inspired when I saw the sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches, not only to join in but to use a set I haven't inked up often!  I knew also that it would fit well with Crazy 4 Challenges this week which is to use polka dots and stripes!

I knew I wanted to use the Big Top Birthday  set, and I chose the clown stamp for this one.  To stamp without using the sentiment that usually accompanies the clown I used a post-it note as a mask and then added the Celebrate stamp from Outlined Occasions, I chose some nice bright colours and did some simple colouring in - I didn't think water colouring really fitted with the card. 

Happy Stamping

Simple Christmas

 I might have missed January but I am on track with my Christmas cards for February having joined the Merry Monday Challenge for the second week.

My creation is fairly simple, but given a bit of a lift with a silver Glimmer Paper enhanced star on the top of the tree.  The tree is from Seasons of Joy and the sentiment from Short & Sweet, the DSP is from this year's Letters to Santa collection.

Only a short post for me today, I have a few more projects I have done that need photographing and uploading, so pop back over the next few days.

Happy Stamping

Butterfly Frames

Another week has passed so it's time for another Paper Lovin' Gals challenge, the design team have come up with some great creations to provide additional inspiration so please consider joining in with us.  All you need to do is to make a project taking some inspiration from the picture, for me it was the colour and the frames, and of course the butterfly.

Surprise, surprise, surprise ... I used the Fresh Vintage stamp set again!!!  This time however I chose to down play the floral image, and used the stamp image which I haven't used before.  Instead of cutting it out directly with the postage stamp punch I cut free hand and then mounted on a black postage stamp frame.  I kept to the main colours in the photo and used Naturals Ivory for the base, and then Very Vanilla, Cajun Craze and Basic Black.  The red colouring on the butterflies is actually Cajun Craze coloured with a blender pen, it brought out more of the red tones!

'Til Next Time ... Happy Stamping

Retirement Card

I don't know if you remember the card I put up on Sunday with the spotlighting technique on it, and I mentioned that I had thought of using the little bird from the set?  Well this is the card that the little bird ended up on!

I love water colouring this image, so stamped with StazOn ink onto Water Colour Paper, designed specifically for water colouring.  I stamped the background with the flourish from Creative Elements in Old Olive, and masked an area for the sentiment.  I then reverse masked the area and sponged it with Old Olive to make more of a frame around the sentiment.  I was thinking of making this a sympathy card, but ended up going with retirement instead.  

Happy Stamping

A Blog Award ...

I got a lovely surprise the other day when my good friend Kasey at Kasey's Craft Corner nominated my blog for a Liebster Award!  I happily do my blogging and sharing of my creations and I always get a buzz when the creations are recognised by others, whether it is a comment at the end of a post, or in this case an actual Blog Award.

I would in turn like to pass the award to five ladies who inspire me on a regular basis, in no particular order they are ... 

Shirley at Stamping Elephants - I love Shirley's work, it is usually bright and cheerful, she often uses bright colours that I find a challenge to use.  I was lucky enough to meet Shirley at Convention last year, and stayed with her just a couple of weeks ago.

Tina at Scissors Paper Card - Tina has a 'can do' attitude and nothing seems to get her down.  She inspires me with all of her creations - I think it might just be her scrapbook pages that will one day get me scrapping again!

Deb Fearns - Deb is a fellow demonstrator here in Canberra, and while I don't see her in person I love following her blog, and am hoping we might catch up at Convention this year.  I love the way Deb adds the extra details to a card, she has a real knack for making a simple card extra special with a piece of ribbon or twine, brad or hand cut embellishment.

Paula at Stampinantics - Paula has a simple elegance to her creations that I find really beautiful.  I also love the way she decorates the inside of her cards, not overstated but in a softly complimentary way.  I also got to meet Paula at Convention last year which was great.

Ann at A Perfect Day For ... - Ann is another Canberra demonstrator who I met for the first time last year at Convention.  She is so friendly and such a genuine person.  Ann does beautiful work, whether it is on a card or scrapbook page, her attention to detail is something that inspires me. 

I would ask that each of these lovely ladies pass the award on to five creative blogs that inspire them, or that they feel deserve a special mention.  Ideally this award is for the lesser known bloggers, with less than 200 followers, it is funny because I didn't think any of my recipients would have less than 200 but all of them do!  Please visit them and let them know how much you too enjoy their work.

Happy Stamping

A Christmas Challenge

I have come across a couple of blogs lately that have Christmas challenges, now you might think that it is too early to be doing Christmas cards in February.  I thought the same until I realised that if I made a card or two a week I would have all my Christmas cards finished ready to post by the end of November.  As well as making the cards I am addressing the envelopes and putting the card inside that way there is an even better chance that the people on my Christmas mailing list will actually see a card this year - many missed out last year because Christmas crept up on me all too fast.

This is my first entry in the Merry Monday Challenge, and I thought it was a good way to feature the DSP from this year's catalogue.  I also left it a bit late to enter the challenge so wanted a nice quick card with not too much stamping, and that I achieved nicely!  The stamped sentiment is from Four the Holidays, and I have blinged the card up a bit with a Red Glimmer Paper ornament punched with the ornament punch.  I took this photo and decided it needed something else to give it a bit of a lift, so ...

I added a small bow from the 1/8" Old Olive ribbon which I attached with a Glue Dot, and I may add a couple of rhinestones on the DSP ornaments.  Now to write the envelope and tick the first name off my Christmas Card List!!!

I am going to try and join in each week with this challenge and get my Christmas Card stack built up over the year ... wish me luck!

Happy Stamping

I'm Feeling Blue - In A Good Way!

The colour combo on Hand Stamped Sentiments this week just caught my eye and I knew I had to do an entry, I still can't believe that there was a time that I didn't like Not Quite Navy or Baja Breeze!!! Now I love them and  put together with Crumb Cake and Marina Mist - yummy.  The layout is from Crazy 4 Challenges, and I liked the simplicity of this one, allowing the stamped image to really stand out on the card.

This is the first time I have inked up any of the images from the Sale-A-Bration set you can earn for FREE - Elementary Elegance.  I think it goes really well with the Extreme Elements set and so I used that for the gold crown in the centre of the image, as well as to stamp the back ground of the main card and the two strips of card behind the main image.  The sentiment is also from Elementary Elegance and I just love the script they have used on this set, the sentiment does fit inside the main image but I wanted to stick with the layout and am happy with the result.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Stamping

Every Moment

I just love the picture for Friday Mashup this week, isn't he just a cutie?  Sadly I didn't have any penguins to add to my layout so I just did the spotlighting technique on my card.  The sketch came from Freshly Made Sketches challenge - I have to say these are two of my favourite challenge sites and it was nice to be able to do a card that fit with both two weeks in a row!

I haven't inked up my Every Moment stamp set in a while, but knew I wanted to do so for this card.  I was initially going to use the little bird stamp from the set, but changed my mind and used him on another card I will put up later in the week. I love masking and layering the flowers in this set, I keep the masks stuck to the top of the stamp set container because they are fiddly to cut out, but well worth it don't you think?  I used Daffodil Delight and Wild Wasabi, not a combo I use often, in fact I don't use these colours often at all but the did fit with this card.  I added a little Vellum butterfly with some pearls - I have only just recently purchased the card stock weight Vellum and am really happy with it for projects like this as it is more robust.

Happy Stamping

Love You 24/7

With Valentine's Day just around the corner love remains in the air and the inspiration I took from this week's picture at Paper Lovin' Gals.  I am also entering this one in Simply Stampin' Challenge a new challenge blog I discovered after the lovely Kelly left a comment on my last post - their challenge is "Heartfelt"! The third challenge I am entering this card into is the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge which is to make a valentines card using only two main colours - with a neutral or two; and 4 Crafty Chicks for their Valentine's Day creation.

I chose to be inspired by the picture to use the colours and the blocks and the bow.  The tiny heart was stamped using a stamp from A Happy Heart and punched out with the small heart punch, it actually has the word 'love' written in it, but is difficult to see in this picture because I covered the heart and the 'u' with a mix of Dazzling Diamonds and Crystal Effects.

I hope you take the opportunity to pop over and check out the creations of the other Design Team members and be inspired to join in this week, whether it is the colours, layout, or theme of the picture, or just one element of it. 

Happy Stamping

Fresh Vintage Valentine

Time for another challenge, or three!  This time I am entering in Colour Q, Freshly Made Sketches, and The Friday Mashup.  Have you noticed lately all the cards I am doing that feature the Fresh Vintage stamp set?  I just love the flower in particular from this set, and can't believe that when I first saw the set in the Sale-A-Bration catalogue I didn't think I liked it much at all!!!

I liked the "go long" theme at Freshly Made Sketches so made a card that will fit into the Small Open Ended Envelopes. Now the name of these initially had me not even thinking of buying them until we got to use them at Convention last year, although called 'small' they are actually 17cm x 8.9cm.  I have used the flower from Fresh Vintage again here both in the feature and again stamped in VersaMark on the Real Red card stock. 

Here is a close up of the featured heart.  In my last post I featured a little box with a heart on the front which I had made by stamping the flower from Fresh Vintage and punching out the majority of the flower with the heart punch.  When I was doing the clean up on my desk I found the scrap of card stock that was left over and I noticed how good the little swirls looked coming out of the punch out heart.  That was the inspiration for the feature of this card, what do you think?  I am really happy with the way it turned out, and even more happy that I have found yet another way to use this beautiful stamp.  

Happy Stamping

Love Is In The Air

Here I am again, back from my holiday away, and what a holiday it was.  I got to visit my Sister-In-Law and her family, my bestie from my old home town, my family and my lovely stamping buddies Steph and Tess.  Of all of it my favourite part was attending my 'baby' brother's wedding on 28th January, even though the day was wet their smiles never faded and it was a beautiful service and a fun reception.  Even my little niece was perfect on the day, looking and behaving like an angel. I was so busy I didn't get chance to miss creating but now I am home with a few days off until I start back at work I have some time to put ink to paper and this project is my DT entry for the Paper Lovin' Gals.  I have also entered this project in the Just Us Girls, Hand Stamped Sentiments and Color Throwdown challenges.

If  you have never played along with Paper Lovin' Gals before the rules are pretty simple, each week there is an inspirational photo and you use this as the basis of your creation for the week.  In this week's picture it was the hearts that inspired me - I have to say if we had the lovely new Heart dies that the US have I would have made a heart mobile using different sized hearts out of brown packing paper and DSP. But as that wasn't an option I went for a cute little chocolate holder using the Box #2 die with my Big Shot, I left the top flap up and covered it with Melon Mambo and Whisper White to cover the crease, I also trimmed off the two small top flaps.  The pink hearts on the front are actually punched out of the white card stock to allow the Melon Mambo to show through. I love the flower in the Fresh Vintage Sale-A-Bration set and thought it would make a great centre to the feature heart on the front of the box.  The "Love" sentiment is also from a Sale-A-Bration stamp set Outlined Occasions.

Pop over and see what the other DT members have come up with this week to inspire you, and join in with the fun by entering your own creation in the challenge.

Happy Stamping