On the 5th day of Christmas...

my true love sent to me, faux metal technique (imagine that in my most fantastically loud singing voice! hehe) Hard to photograph this one because a) dull weather, and b) it is shiny! Anyway, I used the punch pals set for this one, and the faux metal technique to get the centre of that stamp to really pop. The sentiments are from seasons of joy (so happy that one made it to this years catty!) The colours are whisper white, bashful blue & not quite navy. Oh, and also silver ink for the snow flakes up the top. This was another card we made from the bling workshop, so much fun! Happy Christmas in July:)
Here is a close up!

On the 4th day of Christmas

my true love sent to me, embossing to the extreme! This card (with a few modifications) is one that we made in the bling workshop on Thursday night. You simple get some jac paper, randomly stick on scrap bits of dsp, the pour over the embossing powder. It sticks to the sticky bit, heat her up and viola'. A very impressive result for something that takes a few minutes and uses up your scraps! I have coupled this technique with the Christmas Classics set, kiwi kiss, not quite navy and baja breeze. Happy Christmas in July :)

On the 3rd day of Christmas in July...

my true love sent to me, 3 novelty Christmas cards! I cased the Santa hat from here on Sam's blog and the Santa suit here on Liam's Blog, last November/December. I thought they were so impressive, I kept them in the back of my mind until I knew what to do with them. These are the 3 cards we will be making at my Christmas in July Saturday class on the 18th. How fun! These are my favourite kinds of cards. Merry Christmas in July :)

On the 2nd day of Christmas in July...

my true love sent to me, 2 silver baubles! Hehe, can you tell I am having fun getting ready for my Christmas in July workshops? Gotta love Christmas, especially without all the cooking!
So I have used the Christmas Classics set for this card. I fell in love with this set as soon as I saw the catalogue, and just knew that it would be beautiful embossed! The sentiment was added later to cover a boo boo (I cant remember what now cause I made the card ages ago) I used night of navy, riding hood red and brushed silver card stock and I drew on the stings of the baubles with a silver gel pen. Merry Christmas in July :)

On the first day of Christmas in July...

my true love sent to me, a heat & stick glittered Christmas Tree! Now, I hope that that does not keep playing around in your mind the way it has been in mine! Very annoying! I have made this card for my Bling Christmas workshop this week. I am sorry to say, that it does not look blingy at all, but in real life, this baby shines.
I stamped the tree in versamark, then handsome hunter ink, then applied heat & stick powder, heater her up, added some diamonds then set with the heat gun. I tore some edges and distressed everything in site. Using the handsome hunter & bravo burgundy has given this card a very rustic feel. It is quite lovely IRL (so I keep saying)! Anyway, happy Christmas in July! Do try not to over indulge! lol!

Art Wall Hangings

My kids are always painting, drawing, stamping etc, and I am always trying to find somewhere to display their art work, so I made these little boards to hang up in my craft room:


It is just mdf boards covered in dsp. I still have to finish embellishing them, but thought I would post them anyway. I was concerned with how I was going to hang them, so I thought I would try my cropodile. I tell ya, that baby will cut through anything!

A Newbie!

Hi all! Just wanted to take a moment to introduce my fellow crafter, good friend and soon to be Independant Stampin Up Demonstrator, Annette Bowes. She has just started her blog and posted for the first time today. I am sure she would be chuffed if you stopped by to say hello!

Workshop Wonders

Happy Monday to you all, hope you are not feeling as grumpy as I am! 2 late nights and one week of school holidays under my belt with 2 weeks to go has left me drained, tired and very little crafting time, so I am not my usual self today. To cheer me up, I thought I might share a card that I made for a workshop this weekend:
I really love baja breeze with the chocolate a& cocoa colours. Very pretty. And I used the 'Simply Said' stamp set which was my second set I ever brought way back when, and now I hardly ever use it, so very glad I dusted that one off! And for the hostess (Miss Phil) I made this sweet little bag:
Blues & browns are her colours. I used the baroque border to decorate the bottom of the bag, and the sentiment is from 'Best Yet' hostess set. Have a lovely day, and I will hopefully be back soon...after having some craft time! Grrrr!

Update: Just realised how well these projects match my blog! lol!

Tickled P!NK

This time last night I had my "ROCK MOVES" happenen let me tell ya! I went to see my all time fav artist...can you guess who? Here are some photos that we took




We were standing not too far away from the end of the cat walk and we had such a fantastic time, but it was over way too soon, wish we were back again tonight!

Magnolia Down Under Challenge-Brown, Vanilla & Blue

I hardly ever play along with these challenges because I do not have any Tilda stamps, and I really cant afford another obsession. But, luckily for me, my very kind friend Philippa came over today and brought along her selection of Tilda's (which is fast growing) to stamp off for my daughter to help keep her occupied over the school hols! Well, I managed to stamp off a couple for myself too! (Gotta keep the Mama happy too!!)Coloring is so relaxing, and I am so thankful to Yvonne for giving us (her team) some coloring tips at our last team meeting. My coloring, whilst still needs practise, has improved so much since then! I had a brainwave to create a scene within a picture frame, so I looked up the "faux wood" tutorial on Marelle Taylors site and whipped up the frame. Then I hunted through all of my retired SU DSP, because I just knew I had some that resembled wall paper, I only had a very small amount left, luckily, enough for this card! Then I just created a bit of an "outdoorsy" theme with the lovely as a tree stamp set & some sponging. I have a heap of pewter hodge podge left over from last years catty too, so I used that to "mount" my "frame" on my "wall" lol! Such fun, so glad I could play along this week :)

Awards

I never get around to passing blog awards on which is really slack of me, I know, but I am always rushing to get my posts done and anyway...better late than never huh!I got this award from the lovely Debbie Pamment. Not only does her blog make me smile, but you are always guaranteed a comment on your blog from Debbie, usually witty & kind, so her comments make me smile too! So that is what I am going to base my awards on; Peoples comments who I can always rely on to make me smile! Thanks Debbie!
Sylvia's Blog
Sam's Blog
Philippa's Blog
Robyn's Blog
Liam's Blog
And this one was given to me by Kristy Young and it is an opportunity to share 10 things about myself then pass it on to 7 people! Here goes:

1. My first daughter's middle name is named after my Best Friend Kelly!
2. Have known my husband since I was 17, when he was dating one of my best friends (blushing!)
3. I used to work in Real Estate before I found Stamping!
4. Brushing my teeth makes me gag when I am pregnant!
5. I get such a kick out of sharing stamping techniques at workshops
6. I am a savoury girl, not sweet
7. My netball team is called Team Edward
8. I secretly prefer vampires to human men! (OK, maybe not so secretly)
9. Lately, I have been watching old ep's of Sex and the City instead of stamping at night!
10. I am really enjoying spending time with my baby girl since m,y big girl has started school, but I miss my big girl so much!

Now to share 7 people that I would like to hear 10 funny facts about:

Judy's Blog
Kellie's Blog
Leigh's Blog
Petronela's Blog
Ramona's Blog
Sandy's Blog
Kathryn's Blog


I hope you take the time to have a look at these fabulous blogs, they are some of my favorites!

Color Throwdown #47

I love playing along with a color challenge. Color selection is not my strongest point, so a challenge is really a challenge, especially these bright colors together. Cameo coral is actually one of my favorites, but I usually team it up with purples or other soft colors, this one was tricky! Anyway, bold colors deserved coupling with a bold set so I chose Priceless and sort of did a "patchworky" number:
I have also created this little footy(afl) "spinner card" for one of our friends birthdays coming up in July, he is Geelong mad, so I am sure he will appreciate it.

Hope the weekend is treating you well, Girls will be here soon for a workshop so best be off...Ciao!

High School Musical

With Prep D girls at the moment, if it is not Hannah Montana, it is High School Musical! They love, love, love it! Logan was invited to a High School Musical Cheerleader Dance Party tomorrow arvo, but unfortunately the birthday girl is out with the flu so the party had to be postponed, but I thought I would share her card anyway:
The Mum of the birthday girl is actually my upline! So sad her baby girl is sick :( but with three weeks of school holidays ahead of us, I am sure we can catch up soon! Anyway, back to the card. I just scored and folded to make the curtains, and the "pelmet" was run through the crimper and border punched. The EHS (East High School) is stamped using the retired "Letter Press" set and cut out, and I made the pom poms from red & white ribbon. TFL! Hope you have a great weekend!

Cinema Challenge - Fairytales

The challenge this week over at Cinema Saturday is inspired by Beauty & The Beast. You need to come up with a Fairytale themed project. This is right up my alley at the moment with all of the little girls birthdays I have right now. I got out my retired "Snow Globe" set again and wanted to practise some more with my chalks. They give such a soft touch. I borrowed the fairy stamp from my daughters stash and bunged on the glitter. To me, a fairytale is about believing, dreaming, wishing and of course...fairy dust! Here is a close up so you can see how sparkly this card really is!
And this little number here is for my very good friend, Sarah. My vac just broke and she is living at her Mum's while her new home is under construction and lent me hers. I had the perfect Hannah stamp to make a thank you card for her. I used water color paper, markers and an aqua painter on the image. Obviously, I need a bit more practise, but I am getting better. I have also put dazzling diamonds on the soap bubbles, but unfortunately you cant see it in this pic.
Personally, my favorite thing about the card is the sentiment, something I think we, as a group should live by! "A clean house is a sign of a lazy stamper!" and none of us would want to be considered lazy now would we?

LadyBug Card

I have been racking my brain to come up with a card for one of Logan's friends birthdays for this weekend. Her Mum handmade the invitations using a black, red & white theme, so I knew I wanted to stick with those colors, but what to make for a little girl using those colors? Anyway, last night after attending Kylie's workshop I had a design of the little baby card we made running through my head and came up with this little number:
The little ladybugs are from Garden Whimsy set and the sentiment is from Occasional Greetings. I have used the new border punch and ran that through the crimper (thanks for the loan Phil). The ladybug is a scallop circle, 1 3/8 circle and punched out dots from the cropodile, all finished off with a strip of riding hood red ribbon and some punched scallops in the corner. I am very happy with the outcome.

Kylie's Workshop

Last night after a very physical game at netball, my friend Philippa and I went along to another local demo's workshop. Her name is Kylie and we are part of the same downline. It was so lovely to go along and enjoy, not be the one thinking of the designs, chopping the cardstock and providing the instruction. Thank you Kylie for having us, and thanks for a fun night of stamping! Here is what we made:

Little Boxes

I had so much fun at a workshop on Sunday. We made this card that I posted a couple of weeks ago. It was a special request from my lovely hostess Lecia (waving at you Lecia, I know you should be working, not reading this post!) And she also thought her friends would get a kick out of making this Sunny Boy boxes as well, so we gave those a go too.
I also demonstrated this cute little open box. It was so easy to do, when you join Stampin Up you get access to so much stuff on their demonstrator website, this template is one of them. I added a little stamp and gave this away as a door prize.
And here is a brighter version I also took along to demonstrate the versatility of the project (and it matched a card that I demo'd but forgot to take a pic of)And, this gorgeous little purse was a gift for Lecia, and of course there was a little stampy gift inside too. (Another great template from the SU demo website)
Anyway, as I said, I had a heap of fun, and I hope the girls that came along did too!

Color Throwdown Challenge!

I had so much fun playing along with this challenge! Having 2 girls I hardly ever have the need to make a boys card, but I had this idea quite a while ago and had actually stamped out the pirate but then didn't know what to do with it, so when this challenge came along, I thought, brilliant, I can finish that card! Unfortunately, I thought the color was bordering blue instead of brocade blue, and discovered my error too late, but oh well!
I stamped the skull onto vanilla, and sponged so saffron all around to age it. I punched out circles for the eyes rather than the hearts that are on the stamps. I stamped the skull again on the black card stock with white craft ink. I had some so saffron dsp left over from last years pallet of prints so I used that and some ribbon for the bandanna. The background map & sentiment were just printed from my computer. I layered it all on, roughed up the edges and added some sponging to give it just a bit more texture.

Photo Frames

If you follow my blog you will know that my best friend Kelly recetnly got married, and my family travelled over to Thailand to share her special moment. Yesterday, my mailbox looked simply smashing when we opened it to find 3 bright pink envelopes. One for me & hubby, which was a gorgeous thank you from the happy couple and the other two were addressed to each of my girls and had these stunning photos for them. Miss Matilda was home when the post arrived so of course she was carrying around her pic, and getting it all screwed up so I suggested that we put it in a frame. The only frames I had were purple in color and they were the wrong size, so I thought ... I am a creative person, I can do this. And they turned out so cute, I am wrapped!This is Matilda's pic. The frame is actually very close to pale plum in color, so I matted the photo onto perfect plum, then added a splash of cameo coral (you may remember that this was the main color of the invitations I did from a few months ago). I actually had a couple of silver embossed flowers left over from when I did the invo's so I popped one on the corner to add to that tropical feel.
This one is Miss Logan's photo which we did when she got home from school. This photo also has the other bridesmaid in it, Miss Paris Lee, which believe it or not, is only 14 years old! Kelly is God Mother to both Paris Lee & Logan so having this photo with both her God Daughters was very special for her. While we were over there, Logan took quite a shine to Paris Lee and has not stopped talking about her since, so this photo is a very special one to her. I has taken pride of place in her bedroom, let me tell you!

Anyway, I know I am rambling a bit, but I am just really happy with how these frames turned out, the have really added a little pizazz to what were already fantastic photos, and it took all of a few minutes each. Thanks for looking:)

Charisma Cards Color Challenge

Hi there, this week over at Charisma Cards the weekly challenge is to use brown & pink, which is one of my favorite combos. Here is the card that I came up with:
I used the petal pizazz stamp set which always gives a really clean design. This set is fast becoming one of my fav's! I used a combination of stampin up colors, choc chip, close to cocoa, pretty in pink, regal rose & rose red, plus a bit of whisper white card stock and twine. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are warmer that we are here in Melbourne. We have been in drought for over 10 years here, and whilst we really, really need the rain, does it really have to be this cold? I cant get the chill out of my bones! Making it very hard to type!

I thought I would also share with you the cards we made at my workshop last week. We were working with vellum which is something that I have not used a lot of, but I think that it really gives a project a beautiful, soft touch. Here is what we made:
I saw a card over at Hubby's Headache that inspired the design for this card, but changed the colors and the stamp set to "Priceless". In fact, it was Debbie's post that inspired the whole 'vellum workshop' idea, thanks Debbie! We used Regal rose, summer sun, old olive and rose red.This card was not inspired by any one in particular but everyone, it seems over at SCS, this is a very popular design. I can see why, it is truly beautiful, and the "Fifth Avenue Floral" set is just gorgeous, so easy to create a pretty card with it. The white craft ink is a bit of a pain to work with, I set mine with a heat tool, but as impatient as I am, tried to finish the card too quickly and smudged it a bit. The girls at the work shop stamped this card out first but completed the card last, so theirs were beautiful and 'unsmudged'! The colors are mellow moss & whisper white and we also used the new border punch too.This card is always a fun one. I think that everybody was really surprised at how simple it actually was to make. We used the "tart & Tangy" set, kiwi kiss & summer sun plus some chunky glitter, a straw and a little umbrella, although it seems as if Little Miss 5 or Little Miss 3 has taken off with the little umbrella, but you get the general idea! There is a really easy to follow tutorial over at SCS for this sort of card.

Blog Candy To End All Blog Candy

Melissa from Creating from the Heart has gone mad! You simply have to see her blog candy to believe it!

Getting Prepared

I have a couple of demo's coming up, and whilst I am not particularly a scrap booker, I still want to show that even people without much scrapping experience can create some really pretty pages using our Stampin Up products. Here is a page I came up with using the Baroque Motifs set & wheel:
Over the next few weeks we have a few little girls birthday parties, so I thought I should get those cards done too. I was up quite late last night and had a sift through some of my retired sets and came across this Fairy Nice set and was struck with inspiration. In the little fairy envelope is actually a fairy letter saying "wishing you a fairy nice day" stamped of course.
And this card was made using my Snow Globe set, which was my absolute favorite set at one stage. It is very sweet and I wanted to do a really soft card, so I used my chalks and blender pens and daubers. I know that I saw a card over a year ago on SCS done this way but I cant find the link, but this was done off memory so it is likely to be quite different. IRL it is very shimmery with dazzling diamonds, but as usual, the grey Melbourne day didn't allow a great photo:(

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #8

I actually missed the cut off for this challenge, but I thought I would share it with you anywho... the colors were a bright pink, chocolate, kraft & vanilla. I used caramel instead of kraft and came up with this yummy card. I pictured it a bit more fabulous in my head, but hey, they cant all be master pieces!
Yvonne Campbell gave us a few tips on water coloring on the weekend at a team meeting, so this card was a good opportunity to practise. Still need to do a bit more, but it's coming along. Quite a tricky technique to grasp.

And there goes the clean desk!

Well, my clean up didn't last too long at all! No surprises there huh? I got busy today creating some cards for a workshop next week. Some of the girls requested some male cards so here is what I came up with:And some female cards:The workshop is on Sunday21st June at 1pm. I still have a couple of spots free so email me to reserve your seat if you are interested. On a completely different note, Emma, who is a regular at my workshops has had to take some time out this month because she has just given birth to her new little boy Oscar. I got a chance to go for a cuddle this week and thought I would share some snaps with you. Congratulations to Emma on the safe arrival of little Oscar, hope to see you back stamping soon! And wishing you all the sleep in the world!Little monkey in the making even opened his eyes for this shot! Isn't he adorable?

A Little Organisation is all it Takes!

I feel like I haven't given you anything for ages, so sorry. I have been creating, but it is all prep work for the next 2 months, so I cant really show it off just yet! Today, however, I brought a new shelf for my craft room and had a MASSIVE clean out! I have never had a space this clean before!I am sure it will not stay like this for very long, I hope I can keep it clean long enough for my hubby to see it (he is due back in a couple of hours! lol!)
Anyway, yesterday we had a team meeting at the fabulous Yvonne Campbell's house, and she gave us a few tips on water coloring (amongst other things). I colored this little fella there from Pun Fun stamp set and brought him home to turn him into a card, very cute I think! Thanks for the tips Yvonne! (Colors are not great due to yet another dark grey Melbourne day!The grey is really bordering blue)