Here's a snippet of my latest upload to the Elite Challenges Blog. This is another card I made on the team weekend away, using one of the colour challenges (which was an old KW one, shall have to check up which one). There was some suggestion that I had over-embellished this card... I think it went close! Those that saw it on the weekend may also notice it looks a little different now. That's because I was not happy with the sentiment being on a circle, but you see with the Carousel Note being a circle, I felt the sentiment had to be too (you know, like you have to wear brown shoes if you are wearing a brown belt...). But it really wasn't working, so when I got home I ripped it off and re-did it with the new scallop oval punch. Looks much better! I also had to move one of the buttons&brads, so the card is a little ugly on the inside but looks fine from the front 
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This weeks Cinema Saturday challenge is Casablanca. A classic no doubt, yet a movie I had not seen in full until last night. This week Sankari and Brooke also gave us colour guidelines, very fitting for this movie. I had initially picked out Pale Plum as my free choice, but as soon as Rick mentioned that Ilsa had worn blue the last time he'd seen her I changed my mind. I knew I was going to use this additional colour sparingly, aided by choosing a pale shade of the colour, though I wasn't quite sure how, but I made myself watch the whole movie before really starting on my card and I am glad I did. I was going to draw inspiration from Sam's piano though I have few stamps with a real Morrocan feel to them (ooooh, but how i would love it!), but as soon as I saw Ilsa's paisley blouse it was a done deal... I am a sucker for paisley, especially when I have such a gorgeous stamp of it! I ended up basing my card on that whole scene, the conversation that gave fond memories of Paris back to Rick and Ilsa. There's the paisley for her blouse, the ribbon for her sash/belt, the frame for a slightly Morrocan touch, the sentiment for the memories and the Carte Postale flower for the French connection.
The next card I have for you in the Cinema Saturday #14 series is for the other Fellowship member who parted ways in the FOTR movie: Boromir. Boromir's costume has a lot of texture and detail, and I have drawn on a few specific parts for this card. The background is based on Boromir's fur-line cloak, most prominent as they trudge through the snow. It was impossible to replicate burn-out velvet with cardstock so I just opted to stamp the swirly design in Chocolate Chip so it had the darker colour like the design on the cloak appears darker than the velvet nap (in truth the back of the velvet is the same colour as the nap it is just the lining fabric that makes it appear darker... some geeky costume details for you!). Of course the Close To Cocoa velvet ribbon had to come out again for the fur lining. The Ruby Red layer is inspired by the gorgeous bullion embroidery on the sleeves of his tunic (~cough~ sari fabric ~cough~), and the framed sentiment piece is supposed to be reminiscent of the decoration on his belt. This is another thank you card because in the end he did good (the EE gives a lot more to his story and thus his end isn't as big a turn-around as it seems in the original cinema version... and I will admit I was tainted with knowledge of ROTK EE too which adds to Boromir's story even more).. I have been literally bouncing, and randomly giggling to myself all week as another idea pops into my head. Initially I couldn’t think where to start, and then I realised that starting wasn’t the problem… the problem would be stopping! Anyway, when I really thought about the one main thing that I wanted to focus on for this movie, it was the hobbits. Particularly their homey nature and fun-loving ways despite everything that is going on. While there is that undercurrent of trouble through the early part of Fellowship, it’s still largely fun times with Gandalf’s arrival and Bilbo’s party, so I kind of went with those. I had two main ideas in my head: the Party Tree and Bilbo’s door. I decided to combine them. So we kind of have a framed picture of the tree hanging on the front of Bilbo’s door, brass doorknob and all, along with the birthday banner. The tree and frame was simple enough, I had to dig around for a “brass” brad large enough for the proportion, and for the banner I printed that out from my computer (I have like 10 LOTR fonts, this one is ‘Hobbiton Brush Hand’). In the movie the banner has some green swirls around the writing, but I chose to move those to the bottom of the door. For me, LOTR is where I really fell in love with all those swirly sorts of patterns.
Being such a huge fan of these films, and knowing the incredible about of work and detail that went into making them, I felt I too had to put some work into this card that wouldn’t be initially obvious… so inside the card you have the hinge. I’m trying to be less anal and ignore the fact that my door opens on the wrong side and opens out rather than in as Bilbo’s does…
Now, how was it all done? The first thing was to make the door... I spent a good while walking around the house for something round and the right size to trace around since I don't have any fancy circle cutting tools. Upon finding a bowl the perfect size, I traced it on Garden Green and Caramel cardstock and cut them out. I then cut another slightly larger Garden Green one for the front of the door. Of course, it was only after I had the card all together that I realised the back piece didn't have to be Green as well, and a better colour would have been Naturals Ivory to match Bilbo's walls.... In the mean time I will point you towards one other Lord Of The Rings card I have already made, a Legolas card.
I know, I said we don't really do anything for Halloween... but I came across some glow in the dark M&M's and some glow worm jube thingies (there is a light thing that then has the lolly around it). And since I bought them I had to make something fancy to put them in! With a nice long afternoon nap yesterday I was feeling pretty good last night, so once the girls were in bed I got started.
Like most people I think, when I started stamping my cards were quite simple with no real embellishment. These days I rarely make a card that doesn't have a bit of ribbon or a brad on it - how times change! My card today gets most of its embellishments from the Pretties Kit, a fabulous collection of flowers, beads, brads, pearls and hatpins. I've also used the very yummy Basic Gray taffeta ribbon and created a corner feature by punching a stamped image. Paper piercing is a simple embellishment method that I often use as it adds a little bit of extra interest without overdoing things.
Yep, we are yet another week closer to Christmas! This card is a mix of simple and more complex elements, the simple being the abstract Baroque Motifs tree, and the more complex part is the sentiment and frame. I first stamped the frame, then used a marker to ink just the one word from the Many Merry Messages stamp and used the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to help me position it. It's really not that complex, but does lift the card from "quick and easy" status. I just love trimming that frame and popping it up on dimensionals!
This card was inspired by more bedding! I saw this Sheridan quilt cover in the Myer catalogue the other week and just had to make a card based on it. My method with this card was a little haphazard... living with an electrician does not mean you will be free from electricity related issues. I have asked for some time now to have a double powerpoint put in behind the desk so I can plug my heat gun in, and I am still waiting. Of course I could go out to the kitchen and heat emboss there, but you do it once and they say you can do it that way every time. Don't tempt fate! So, no emboss resist. I decided to give crayon resist a go on this one but I ended up rushing it a bit and didn't get everywhere I wanted to. Still, I can live with it (especially after seeing the sheets in the flesh - not as pretty as the catty pic!) and I do like how the card came out. I've used the Simple Delights Simply Sent kit stamps for most of this card, as well as once stamp from Baroque Motifs (there's no stopping it ). I stamped the circular and square motifs on the gloss white card using So Saffron ink, let them dry thoroughly then went over it with a white wax crayon (the kids haven't noticed it missing). I then brayered over the whole piece with Soft Sky ink, buffed off the wax, trimmed it to size and mounted it to my So Saffron card base. I stamped the small flower along a piece of Close To Cocoa using VersaMark, dotted some 2-Way glue on it then sprinkled it with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I attached this to the card front then stamped the sentiment using So Saffron ink.
This was my response to the second Inklings cyberstamp challenge, a sketch and colour combo challenge. As I was playing catch-up with the challenges I had only skimmed what they were, opened the corresponding images in separate tabs in my browser, yadda yadda yadda... created a card based on the colours, then created a card base on the sketch. At some point I went back and saw they were to be combined... d'oh! Ah well 
Last week the Inklings had a cyberstamp. I was a bit slow with completing the challenges, and with my net troubles I'm only just getting them uploaded now! This one was my response to challenge 1. It was a scrapping sketch challenge, but well all know I don't scrap (well, I didn't have any photos on hand, the print needs new ink etc etc...) but I thought it'd make a nice card. I've used the En Francais and Floral backgrounds as well as a few stamps from Baroque Motifs (yes, that one is a new favourite!), lots of VersaMark, some Purely Pomegranate, Old Olive and Whisper White ink (I'm falling back in love with that). Cardstock is Confetti White, Pale Plum and Old Olive. The card is covered in stamped images so I decided to have a non-stamped focal point and pulled out the Pretties kit again. The smaller flower has been died with a few drops of Purely Pomegranate ink, the large one left white and in the centre is a medium lilac circle rhinestone brad. If I had my time over the Old Olive piece would be a little lower, but it's a minor quibble... I really enjoyed making this card because I forced myself not to think about it too much, just get on with the stamping!
Today is Glenn's birthday so I thought I would share the card I made for him. I know I'm not alone when I say I struggle with cards for men, but I thought this turned out OK. I can't remember where I got the colours from, I think they were a happy accident of my pile of swatches being in a mess! I used Well-worn Words for the background, stamped in Close To Cocoa on Kraft cardstock, mounted on a piece of Sage Shadow. The central image is a stamp from Baroque Motifs, inked with Sage Shadow and Mellow Moss markers and stamped on Ivoy Naturals, layered on Mellow Moss with a Close To Cocoa button in the centre. This is all popped up with dimensionals, and to finish it off I added a couple of Always Artichoke brads to the Blue Bayou card base.
Here's the card I have made for MIL, and it was after I made this one that I realised Mther's Day was a whole extra week away. The colours for this card were inspired by some bedding I saw in Myer made by Kas Australia, but unfortunately they don't have it on their website and I have been unable to find it elsewhere. I think (going by my scrawled note on the back of a bus ticket...) that the bedding was called Vivid something, though it doesn't look very vivid to me and was just stripes from what I remember! Anyway, my daughter Tiarna and I agreed that the colours were Close To Cocoa, River Rock, Bordering Blue and Whisper White (yes, my daughters know SU!speak too, LOL). All of the gorgeous floral and swirly images are from the Baroque Motifs set and the sentiment is from Occasional Greetings, stamped in Chocolate Chip. In the center of the large layered flower is a medium Ice Rhinestone circle brad in blue, and the flower is popped up on dimensionals (what a surprise!)
