Girl you're amazing

phfffff...that is me blowing the dust off my blog! lol! I have two weeks off from school again, so I plan to spend a bit of time creating (fingers crossed)

Anyway, here is a page that I have been working on since May! lol! I had all of the elements cut out and ready to put on, just needed the time to do it and now viola'!
This amazing little possum is my beautiful God Daughter and the apple of my very best friends eye. She is the most amazing, beautiful baby (yes I am biased). One of the things I love about Miss Amelia are her captivating eyes, and every time I hear the song 'Just the way you are' by Bruno Mars I think about her, so I decided to put it on a page. I saw the idea somewhere around the traps and agreed it was a fantastic tribute to someone you find amazing!

Sparkle, Shimmer, Shine

I got the idea for the first card from the monthly Stampin Up magazine you get when you are a demonstrator. Here it is:
So that really shiny flower in the middle has been stamped in certainly celery ink, then I applied shimmer paint to the stamp and stamped again over the top. It is so pretty in real life. The line of glitter is achieved by applying a line of double sided tape and tipping the glitter on top, give it a shake, and the glitter sticks to the sticky strip! Easy! I made this one in pink too, but it was a bit of a failure for some reason. I have posted it below for you to see, but I think it was much nicer in old olive & certainly celery.

My next card was a simple one, with very little stamping at all:
The range of Stampin up punches is so large now that you can create almost anything without any stamping at all. I really love the new cup cake punch, it is so versatile! Here is a cute card I made a while back using the cup cake punch to make a little bags, and here is an ice cream card I made using the same punch! I especially love the sweet little cherries :)

We also made a Christmas card, but I gave it away at a Christmas in July party, and when I downloaded the photo, it was all blurry! Shame!

Anyway, here is that pink card I was talking about, it just doesn't have the same pizazz:

Hope you have a great weekend :)

A Case of the Sew Suite

Last week I spied a series of cards made by Mel Sharp using the Sew Suite stamp set, and it inspired me to get mine all inky for the first time. The first one is almost a complete case of a card that Mel made, I just made a few minor changes:
I am really loving the subtles collection this week! lol! Does anyone else go through stages like that? Anyway, the second card is based on the first one, just different images and flipped.
Thanks for the inspiration Mel, I now really, really love this set too!

Replacing Punches?

I have decided that I totally love how the new style punches store and that I will slowly replace my old ones. My plan is that each time I place an order, I will replace one or so at a time. Since making this decision, I have placed two orders and what do I do instead? Order more punches that I don't already have of course! lol! I have been holding out for the Owl punch for almost a year, thinking how much will I really use it? The other day I thought what the heck, it is so darn cute. Well, it arrived today, and here are some cute little creations:
I love the combo of crumb cake, black and bashful blue, please excuse the photos, it is a little bit late here, and I just couldn't wait :)
Anyway, best be off to bed, nighty night xx

Moving Motorbike

Hi all! Hope you are all keeping well :) We are on school holidays here in Melbourne, so I thought I would take some time out to share some cards I have been making. Today I am posting some fun I have been having with the motorbike stamp. By stamping it multiple times without re-inking you can create the illusion of movement, check it out:I made this first one when I was trying to come up with a card for a class, but I decided it didn't make the grade, so then I made this one, which I have nicknamed 'bursting out'.
This 'bursting out' is not my idea, I have seen it around the traps in a few different ways. The last one is the same just using different colours, and its my favourite of the bunch.
I have used the Extreme Elements stamp set which is fast becoming one of my all time favourite sets! No matter what you do, it seems to look great. I cant believe it took me so long to buy it!

I was on such a roll with my crafting and then we started painting the house, so my craft room is empty and my house is upside down. I have also started a new study period for school, so I know that my creative time will be limited, never the less, here are some cards I hadn't had a chance to share yet:
Both of these cards were inspired by the incredibly talented Teneale Williams, her work is just divine, and I love the combination of baja breeze, black and white so much I used it on both cards:)
Who knows when my next post will be, but until then, happy stampin'

Flutterbies

I had a bit of a crafty day last week and made these two cards, just to have on hand. Quite a simple design that I have seen similar around here and there.
I have used concord crush & pirouette pink, which is a lovely combo. I think this is the first time I have used the concord crush too!
Our painter is coming tomorrow, so in a few days I will have a gloriously freshly painted craft room (baja breeze of course), I cant wait!!!!!

Motorbikes

Here is another creation using the extreme elements stamp set (believe me, I am making the most of borrowing this set!), this time combined with extreme dirtbike (not currently available in Australia).
I have used a base of crumb cake, combined with not quite navy & real red, a very masculine combo I think.

And this one is using the motorbike stamp which is available in the current mini.
I have coloured some of the bike in real red and glossed it up with crystal effects. I added some texture with an embossing folder, and some hardware with the cropodile and jumbo eyelets. Overall, I quite like the effect! I have so many birthdays in May, it is great to be having some crafty time. Sadly, next week my creative time will be limited because we are having our house painted and it will be turned upside down for a bit. On the upside, my craft room is being painted out in baja breeze, so I am thinking I will be inspired all over again! lol!

Colour Throwdown #142

Nothing gets the day started like a good colour challenge, and the combo at colour throwdown this week really got me going! I was in need of a few male cards, and as luck would have it, my friend Phil left a few of her stamp sets here for me to play with including extreme elements and extreme dirtbike. I knew that these two sets would work so well with this colour combo!

Here is what I came up with:
I love doing the chalkboard technique, it is simple and quick, and I think it always produces a striking effect. I love how it makes the sentiment pop on this card. If you have never done the chalkboard technique, check out the tutorial section of split coast stampers. I used pear pizazz (I think for the first time), going grey & basic black.

Happy House Warming

When Gardinia posted this card, I knew it was perfect for my friend Philippa who just moved house! I changed up the colours a little and here is what I came up with:I loved the layout so much that I made two more using the funky four stamp set in melon mambo and rich razzleberry:
When my four year old daughter found them on my craft desk she quickly claimed them to give to her grade six buddies (mentors) at school. I hope they like them!
I think they are so cute :)

For My Mum

It is always hard to buy presents for My Mum! And lucky me, her birthday is usually in the same week as Mothers Day! So I always have to think of double the presents and double the cards! This is the card I made for her birthday:
I got the idea from here, it is using the bottom part of the cupcake punch.

And this is the card I made for Mothers Day:
I made on similar a little while back, originally inspired by something made by Teneale Williams.

I saw this really cute idea on Alisons blog and decided to make my own version for our Stamp club get together.

It was really simple to do, and Dawn Griffiths has done a video tutorial, making it even easier!

And this was the 2nd card we made:
I go the idea from Chris on this post. She had a bunch of other ideas using the new cupcake punch too, so check it out!

A Couple of Kids Cards

I have made this card for another family member to give my neice for her 4th birthday in a couple of weeks. She just adores strawberry shortcake:
See how the strawberry is so shiny? That is because it is a scratch and sniff card, it actaully smells like strawberry!

And this next card I made for one of my daughters friends birthdays. She was invited to his lego party and I do not have many boyish stamps, so I googled lego cards, and ended up making him this:
It a lego block, clever huh? So very easy, and perfect for lovers of lego!

Butterfly Vogue

Recently. my brother in laws Mother, asked me to make a birthday card for her daughter in law (my sister in law! lol!) So I got out the trusty vintage vogue stamp set, because it just never fails to produce a lovely card. I used bashful blue and soft suede together, and made a few butterflies with the beautiful wings sizzlet die.
I decorated the inside of the card in a similar pattern too.
It feels very good to be stamping again, I must say!

Elephant Trek

Melbourne has really turned on the weather to welcome all of the out of towners in for Convention! It is icy icy these past few days. The gloomy skies really dont help with taking great photos either, so sorry for the poor quality, but what can you do?

These pages have been floating around my mind for quite some time, and recently my hubby was away on a camping trip, so it was the perfect time to have a few girls over for a craft night! Needless to say, that not very much crafting got done, way too much talking! I did get these two pages started though, and last nights disappointing episode of glee gave me the oppotunity to finish them off.

Here is the one with Me, Mum and my youngest (2 at the time):
And here is the one with my Dad, Hubby and eldest daughter:

See what I mean about the poor photography? These two pages have a lot of texture (ipossible to see here) and natural elements. The elephants in the bottom corner are actually off a photo album that got confiscated at customs because the pages were made out of elephant dung. The nice customs lady took the elephants off the front of the album for me to keep and they were the perfect addition to the page.

Not another post?

Yes, that is two posts in two days! It must be school holidays! (for me anyway)

This is a card I made for one of my good friend and fellow stamper, Amanda. She was one of my roomies at Convention last year, poor girl deserves a medal sharing with Philippa & I!
I used the vintage vogue stamp set which is one of my favourites, as well as a never fair colour combo of vanilla, soft suede and pirouette pink.

Memories of Convention

I have been so very busy with my studies and life in general that craft and blogging takes a back seat, but I have a brief break in between units, and I plan to craft my butt off! lol!

This is something I have been working on for a little while. It is a shadow box for my craft room that captures my fond memories of the Stampin Up convention last year.
I got some fantastic new glitter pens from paperific expo that make blinging up a piece of chipboard a breeze, check out my candelabra and fancy crackle paint on the frame of the shadow box:
I wanted to have a little bit of everything in my frame, so I printed tiny photos and made them into a few photo strips - Here we are entering convention, on the plane, and when I won a prize
And here we are out in the lane at midnight during a fire drill, meeting Shelli, at the casino, Amanda taking photos (as all good scrappers should!), team shot, singing karaoke, out for dinner, the paparazzi who snapped our photos coming into the awards dinner, meeting Shelli again (can you tell it was a major highlight for me?) and out in the rain seeing the sights on Sydney!
We had such an amazing weekend, that I want to remember every second! Here is a pic of Philippa and I at the awards ceremony, does it look like we had fun?
I couldn't help but include this photo, nothing at all to do with convention though! Philippa and I were at the paperific expo for all of two minutes when an announcement was made that the people doing a make and take at this stand would win a prize, lucky for Philippa, she was doing one!

Stay Tuned

I actually have something to post! lol! Be back soon xx

Scratch & Sniff Cards

I love to discover new techniques and a little while ago I figured out how to make a scratch & sniff card, but then I lost my mojo and didn't really do anything with it. With a team meeting coming up, I dusted off the technique and made this orange scented card:
I wasn't really all that happy with it, I think because orange really isn't my colour, so I then made this strawberry scented card, which was my contribution for the shoebox swap.
After all of the girls left, I made this coffee scented card
If you want to make your own, you just mix together equal parts of clear embossing powder and a powdered drink, then emboss as usual.

Look at what I have been doing today!

I love our team get togethers. We get to share ideas, make a few awesome cards and catch up on each others gossip! I had such a lovely day today, it's been so long since I have been to one, that I had forgotten how much I enjoy the girls company! We usually do a shoebox swap (where everybody brings along a sample card and enough supplies for each of us to make a card ourselves), here is what we came up with today:
This note book was designed by Philippa using the gorgeous "Just Believe" stamp set.
These cute little "Kimono Kids" was Amanda's swap.
This gorgeous easel card was Pene's using the "Vintage Vogue" set.
We got to play with Ramona's "Aviary" stamp set
And Karla came up with today's biggest "wow" with this gorgeous cake shop window using the "Birthday Bakery" set! It was so much fun, cant wait for the next one!

A New Baby Boy

I had so much fun making this new baby boy card for my online friend Sam.
I have been a long time admirer of Sam's creations on her blog and when I read about the birth of her new baby boy, I had just the idea. I have seen a few variations of these kind of cards around, and I was lucky enough to receive a Christmas version last year, so using that one for measurements I was able to create this card. I am really happy with how it turned out, and I cant wait to make a few more for my stash.

Crumb cake, bashful blue cardstock, early espresso, crumb cake and bashful blue inks, well scripted and baby bundle stamp sets (kindly lent from Philippa -thanks Phil). Bashful blue brads, trimmer & scorer, circle, scallop and tag punches, blender pens