Vintage Birthday

I am a fan of mixing up challenges, so was excited to try this one from Runway Inspired Challenge and CAS(E) this Sketch.  I haven't seen Runway Inspired Challenge site before so that was a nice find as well, they take their inspiration images straight from the runway!  So on trend for patterns and colours which is a bit fun.  

I decided to turn the sketch on it's side as it fit the sentiment better.  I have been having some fun recently with the Gold stamp pad, here I have stamped onto Basic Black card stock with both Flower Shop and Petite Petals stamps.  I finished off the centre flower with one of the Antique Brads, I haven't used these for ages so it was nice to brush the dust off!  The sentiment is from Perfectly Penned and also seemed to fit the vintage feel of this card.

I have taken a second photo so that you can see that I have spritzed the Modern Medley DSP so that it has a shimmer to it, the flowers have also had the shimmer treatment.  I found this helped tone down the starkness of the DSP, and tied it into the Brushed Gold layer.  I was thinking about adding some colour, but decided against it and kept the monochormatic look.

I have a very special Easter project to share with you, but as I haven't given it away yet I won't post that until Sunday. I will say it is a very different feel to this one with much brighter colours, although it does use the Gold ink again!

Happy Stamping

JUGS 174

 Looks like I am on fire right now - as soon as I look at challenges an idea pops into my head!!!  This was certainly the case with the Just Us Girls sketch challenge.  I am also really loving playing with all my FREE Sale-A-Bration stamps and products.

I used my Framelits for the sentiment and for the 'ribbons', as well as the edges of the banner.  I love my Big Shot, it makes creating cards like this so quick and easy.  I have of course used the very pretty Bloomin' Marvellous set for the sentiments, flowers and butterfly.  The frame and ribbons have been stamped with Illuminate ink using a little stamp from Tiny Tags.

Happy Stamping

A Little Bit Late

Here is a funny story ... I somehow managed to look at an old Mojo Monday sketch instead of the current one lol.  This sketch was put up 31st December, but I decided to link it anyway to give context to my card, maybe I need more sleep.

 Here is the card I made from the sketch.  I always keep fairly close to a sketch when I do a challenge, and this is no different.  I added an extra layer of perforations on the Framelits and stamped off the Rich Razzleberry flowers to mirror the layers of colour on the DSP.  I really wasn't sure about the colours in this DSP but I am really liking them.  

The ribbon, stamps and DSP are all available FREE as part of Sale-A-Bration, see the link to the flyer at the top of the right panel on my blog.

Happy Stamping

Gusseted Bag Toppers

Final Christmas Gift to show you are ones I made for my husband and daughter, I wanted to make them something special and unique just from me!

I had made them some candied cashews (coated with chai sugar and caramel syrup and baked).  I packaged them up in some of the gusseted cello bags that Stampin' Up! have in the current Holiday Catalogue, and the good news is these are going to still be available in the new Seasonal Catalogue as well! For these I put a base in the bottom of the bag to help them hold their shape (5" x 2 7/8").

I made the toppers from the Window Frames Dies in Raspberry Ripple and Gumball Green DSP and matching ribbon.  The sentiment is from the Greetings of the Season set.  Both hubby and daughter loved them and the nuts inside, and luckily for me are both willing to share!!!

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

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

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

Something Old and Something New

I am entering the Sunny Challenges & Creations challenge today, they have a combination of a sketch and a birthday theme.  I am behind on sending out birthday cards at the moment so I decided this was a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone!

Speaking of birds, I just love the little bird in Betsy's Blossoms.  This was one of the sets we could buy in pre-order and I just LOVE it!  The big bursting blossom is also part of the set, as are the stamped images on the background paper.  I made 19 of these cards, using a variety of the retiring in-colours, matching the main flower image and border on the framelit to the background card stock.  Now I just have to pop them in the post and hope the recipients like them!

Happy Stamping

Summer Days

I made this card yesterday for the Just Us Girls and Friday Mashup Challenges.  The JUGS colours this week felt very summery to me and the mashup was to use the sketch and/or a Lazy Summer Days theme. I guess because it is still winter here in Australia, with freezing nights and frosty mornings I decided I could do with something to remind me of lazy summer days!

What says summer better than the cute images in the Summer Fun stamp set?  I chose the cute little swimmers from the set and used the Framelits dies to cut out the image and layer it, this shape is achieved by cutting out with the die once, and then turning it 90 degrees and cutting again.  I did a combination of water colouring and sponging to create the water, and then some masking and sponging to create the summer sun in the sky.  The water I added some Frost White Shimmer Paint to to give the feel of waves on the water, I like how the effect turned out.

I love cards like this that are so cute and so simple and quick to make.  

Happy Stamping

Throw It Down and Mash It Up!

Sounds like something you might hear on fight night, but not so violent as all that, it is just a double challenge from The Colour Throwdown and The Friday Mashup!

I am headed out today with the family to celebrate the birthday of a lovely little girl who is turning 1.  First birthdays are always fun, especially as the person with the birthday often wants to play with the boxes more than the gifts inside them!  I loved the idea of the mash up challenge this week, which is to use a flag or banner and/or create an envelope to match the card.  I had so many ideas for this, but not all fit well with a little person's birthday.  So I went in search of a fun and bright colour combo and the one at Colour Throwdown was perfect.

I wanted to keep the card fairly simple and used my Memorable Moments stamp set, we received this set as part of our make n takes at Convention in May this year and I just love it, it will be so useful for birthdays and anniversaries.  I haven't used the Cupcake Builder Punch in a while so dusted that off for the little cupcake, cutting the base out of DSP and the top out of cardstock which I then ran through the Elegant Lines embossing folder to get the swirly detail on the icing.  To decorate the envelope I used the matching cupcake base stamp and added some sprinkles to the icing with my retired Silver Encore ink.

Now all I need to do is get changed and head off to the party!

Happy Stamping

16th Birthday Card & Gift

This weekend my lovely daughter had two birthdays celebrations to go to and I offered to make her a couple of cards to take. The first one I will show is the 16th card and matching gift box holding a very special hand made gift.

The first thing I made was the gift box.  I tried a couple of options, but the Box #2 die worked best with the gift (sorry no pic of that) but I will tell you about it.  I wanted to use the Framelits die for the cut out on the front of the box as I knew I could then use the larger frames on the birthday card.  I knew the birthday girl likes purple (I think a lot of 16yo girls do!), and so chose Elegant Eggplant, a colour I used to love but haven't used in ages.  I decided it would go very well with Pool Party, to give it a lift.  I chose Pool Party Seam Binding ribbon to tie up the box and hold the lid shut.  The sentiment is from Memorable Moments, stamped and than hand cut.

With the colour pallette for the project sorted out, and knowing I was going to use the Framelits all I had to do was come up with the card - sounds easy right?  Well it mostly was, I started with the Very Vanilla layer, stamping the flourish from Creative Elements in Elegant Eggplant, and then colouring in the leaves in Pool Party with my Stampin' Write Marker.  The Elegant Lines Embossing Folder seemed to go quite well with this so I embossed the Pool Party layer to give some extra texture.  I still wasn't quite happy, so used the oval from the Designer Frames lightly sponged with Elegant Eggplant to give a subtle highlight to the frame.  I added the Happy Birthday sentiment from Perfect Punches punched out with the Extra-Large Oval punch and sponged around the edges with Pool Party.  I finished off with a little bit of bling on the sentiment, Seam Binding to tie it in with the gift box,  and "16" cut out with my Junior Type alphabet die.

 Here are the two together.  Now what is in the box?  My daughter had to design a project for her textiles class this semester, the criteria was that it had to be affordable and easily manufactured.  She did a bit of research and came up with a concept, the first I knew about it was "Mum can I borrow your Big Shot?"!  She had decided to decorate a Bobby Pin with some material cut out with the Perfect Pennants Die, using two different colours of material.  Her project was chosen as one of two in the class!!! I found out while I was at Convention and actually sold one of her creations to one of the demo's there!  So she had decided to make two of these for the birthday girl, one in purple and a dark brown, and the other a purple and cream one.  They look great and are her first creations as McCrazzy Designs!

Happy Stamping

More Easter Fun

Firstly let me apologise for my post being late, not only did I have a very hectic week, I came home today ready to put up my post only to discover my computer had died! After a couple of hours of frustratingly trying to resuscitate it, I have given up and am working off my 10" Netbook!  Anyway enough of my frustrations and on with today's post ...

Another week flown past at amazing speed, where is this year going?  The good thing about another week gone past is that it is time for another Paper Lovin' Gals Inspirational Picture challenge.  What inspires you with this picture?  For me it was the general theme of Easter, and of course the eggs!

I knew I wanted to do a 3D item for this week's challenge this week and the Big Shot Box #2 Die was just perfect for the job.  I just had to use Everybunny stamp set again, I knew this little guy with his own Easter Egg would match the eggs visible through the window cut by the smallest Framelits Die.  It is so easy to use these dies to put a window anywhere that you want, and I just love the shape of them.  I chose the Happy Easter sentiment from Teeny Tiny Sentiments, inking up each word separately and punching them out with the Jewelry Tag Punch.

Pop on over and join in with Paper Lovin' Gals this week, and have a great Easter.

Happy Stamping

ESAD Autumn/Winter Blog Hop

It is that time of the Stampin' Up! year again ... the release of a new Mini Catalogue, this one runs from 1st April until 31st July.  I have to say this is my very favourite mini catalogue ever, well since I joined Stampin' Up!  To showcase some of the great items now available for purchase the girls at ESAD have once again put their creative caps on and have made some wonderful projects to inspire you.

What is ESAD? ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin Up demonstrators.

We so love what we do and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors, but we share our love for what we do with each other as demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know-how, and cyberstamps, and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed.

So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group

You might be starting with my blog, or have come from looking at Narelle Hoggard's wonderful creations, it doesn't matter.  With a blog hop you just follow the link at the end of each post to take you to the next blog in the hop.  So grab a cuppa, sit back and enjoy ...

I have a few projects to show you today, I just couldn't choose which set to use or what to show!  This cute card and matching box set use a number of the new products. The card uses the Bordering on Romance stamp set which is so lovely and soft, and has two stamps that match perfectly with the Edgelits Dies.  You can see the scallop die used in this card, I love how each scallop has it's own little scallops.  The box on the right is made with the new Simply Scored Scoring Tool and the Framelits Labels Collections Die.

Here you can see how I have used the second largest label and folded (along dotted black lines) and cut (the small red lines) to make the top and base of the box.  The ribbon hides some of the flourish but it does look really cute.  I adhered the base onto the Window Sheet with sticky strip and the top fits over the top and the ribbon holds it on.

When new products are released I really like to use them with existing items to see how well they work together.  In this card, and the next one, I have used the Designer Frames with the Bordering on Romance stamps.  On both cards I have also used the new Pleated Satin Ribbon, and I have added some pearls onto the ribbon to give a richer feel to the cards.

Like the previous card this one has used the Pleated Satin Ribbon with the pearls, the difference with this is that I have used the second Edgelits die.  Isn't that a great shape?  The Edgelits are great to use, they are thin dies that are made to go through the Big Shot and even though they are quite thin they are very strong and cut beautifully.

These next few pictures are not so much about my creations as they are to share a couple of things with you that I have found useful with the new Framelits and Edgelits.  The first I came up with to help keep everythign steady when getting it lined up to go through the Big Shot.  I started out by buying a new set of Standard Cutting Plates.  On one side I used my quilting ruler to add paralel lines both vertically and horizontally.  On the other side I smeared TomBow glue along every second line and allowing it to dry, making it become tacky but not a permanent adhesive (you could also use Dotto in this step). Once it was dry I patted my hands over it to reduce the strength of the tackiness a little. As you can see it makes it much easier to line the edgelits up and hold everything steady as it gets run through the Big Shot.  

Finally I wanted to show you how I store my Framelits and Edgelits on my desk.  I have used two of the plastic photo frames and adhered magnet sheet to each one, then added some of the Twitterpated DSP to the front to make them look a little bit prettier.  The magnets are strong enough to work through the DSP and hold my dies in place ready for me to grab when I need them.  I also love this because it makes them so much easier to keep track of - I tend to have things all over my desk as I work and the little dies were at risk of going AWOL before I came up with this system.  I still keep the packets they came in for when I take them to workshops.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my creations, and hop on over to visit Nicole Derendorf and see what she has made.  As you hop around don't forget to leave comments to let everyone know what you think of their creations.

Here is a list of all the participants, just in case any of the links are not working:

Tanya Bell
Michelle Grech
Jane Norish 
Juliette Chapman
Pauline Bennets
Alison Barclay
Keryn Campbell
Sharlene Meyer
Theresa Schirmer
Caroline Cassidy
Michelle Halling
Leonie Schroder
Delys Cram
Libby Dyson
Tina Hewett
Kelly Nelson
Yvonne Walker
Alisa Tilsner
Nicole Stalker
Peggy Quarmby
Andrea Buckland
Carolyn Bennie
Narelle Hoggard
Monique Fielder - You are Here
Nicole Derendorf

Happy Stamping