New Bundle of Joy

It's probably obvious to long-time readers that Bundle of Joy was my favourite baby set. Now that it has retired I don't have an actual baby stamp, but I made sure one of the first hostess sets I got was Punches Three so I could have this "Bundle of Joy" stamp. This card is for my new nephew Karl, using a colour combination I've been dying to use since I physically laid eyes on Pacific Point. Along with the decent splash of purple on the card I sent a couple of Target royal purple suits up for him - he's my nephew he's going to have purple! The chipboard letters have been coloured using a technique picked up from convention, inking them with a dauber and reinker. I actually can't remember if the technique was demonstrated with wetting the letters first but that's what I did by brushing my Aquapainter over them first. The layout was based on WSC81.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Taken With Teal, Pacific Point, Orchid Opulence, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise
Stamp Sets: Polka Dot, Punches Three
Inks: Taken With Teal, Pacific Point, Orchid Opulence, Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: Tempting Turquoise 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, Circle Ice Rhienstone Brads, Onboard Timeless Type, On Board Lots of Letters, dimensionals

May Inklings Cyberstamp Challenge 3

Aka "The Prettiest Frisbee I've Ever Seen" - at least that is what Tiarna exclaimed when she saw it! Then she realised it was attached to a card and thus not so much a functional object . I've made one of these before in my teabag folding days, so even though the night was getting late and I have been trying to get decent bedtimes since convention, I stayed up and made my pinwheel... then had to think what to do with it! I decided a little square card was the best bet, and with no sentiment on the front it could pass as a Christmas card with it's colouring.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Kiwi Kiss, Real Red, Pink Pirouette
Stamp set: Polka Dot
Ink: Real Red
Accessories: Raspberry Tart DSP, Fire Circle Rhinestone brads

Cinema Saturday #19

Another late night, another short post. This is for Cinema Saturday, the movie this week was Emma.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Certainly Celery, Vellum cardstock, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Polka Dot, Yummy, So Many Sayings
Inks: Old Olive, VersaMark
Accessories: Old Olive marker, white embossing powder, Soft Subtles brads, Spring Bouquet punch, Certainly Celery narrow grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals
Show watched while creating: Emma

KW Colour Inspiration #32 part 2

Well, as you can see, I couldn't help myself and had to make a second card for Kristina's challenge. I was going to start reading Twilight after watching House so figured it was my last chance to do anything before getting sucked into the book (man, they aren't wrong when they say it is an easy read... you just keep going and going and going!). And yes, I have gone with spots today... honestly it has nothing to do with the pox, they just suited the tree stamp! This time I went with lots of red, a bit of gold and silver (ok, it's aluminium but it has silver-ish colouring!) and a bit of shine with the embossing and Crystal Effects. This is a great little Christmas tree, another item from the soon-to-end Spring mini so don't forget to contact me if you want to snap him up before he's gone.

I've included a close up so you can see the Crystal Effects baubles better.
All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Rose Red, Very Vanilla
Stamp Sets: Celebrate Everyday, Polka Dot
Inks: VersaMark
Accessories: gold embossing powder, clear embossing powder, White Aluminium circle tags, Whisper White taffeta ribbon, Rose Red marker, Crystal Effects, dimensionals
Show watched while creating: House

Kiwi Chocolate

This is another one of those ideas I have had floating around in my head for ages before I did much about it. When I say idea, I'm refering to the kiwi fruit, not the whole card design. And quite frankly, it is only fitting that I didn't make this card till now (well, technically yesterday, but who's counting). You see, when I first got Tart & Tangy, I had a bit of a play, and somehow came up with the idea of making a kiwi fruit with the citrus stamp. I even perfected the colours (a Certainly Celery kiwi fruit is nowhere near as appetising). But I never went beyond that... it sat languishing in the "to do" pile in the back of my head. This week I finally caught up on my swaps, had no other commitments, and nothing else in the "to do" pile that was raising it's hand higher.

And then I went shopping.

And I finally found the cinnamon Lindt balls my sister had been raving about (with good reason).

And I got myself a pack of peanut butter Lindt balls too (and a second silver lantern with the cinnamon Lindt balls for good measure).

And then I came across Whittaker's Kiwi Chocolate.

I'd love to give you a link for it, and the cinnamon Lindt balls, and the peanut butter Lindt balls... but all their websites are pretty woeful really. And I'm woeful too because I forgot to photograph the chocolate as I photographed the card. But I will tell you I found the Lindt balls in Target (Charlestown Square store to be precise) and the kiwi fruit choc in Big W (also Charlestown Square).

Oh - and we are playing NZ in the cricket at the moment (I'd love to make some witty comment about eatting the kiwis but we aren't going as good as we should in the cricket), we're playing them in the rugby league world cup tomorrow and I am sure there was some other sporting event between the two nations soon. Oh well, those were enough signs for me to realise I had to make this card yesterday... and Julee's Mojo sketch for the week worked in nicely (with a few adjustments of course - it is rare for me to follow a sketch to the pixel).

So here we have it... the Tart & Tangy citrus image inked in Gable Green, ink removed from the "peel" with a cotton bud before inking it with my Close To Cocoa marker, then reinking with the Green, removing the peel ink again and stamping over the top of the original impression, but rotating the cardstock a little. I then added the seeds with my Basic Black marker and cut it out. The background is larger black seeds (I mean Polka Dots) stamped in Basic Black ink, and I just had to use the velvetty Close to Cocoa ribbon for the hairy kiwi skin. The segments are a little more distinct on this one than my practise, which makes me think that I had forgotten that I'd stamped off first with the practise, but I think this works well enough.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Close To Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Gable Green, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Tart & Tangy, Polka Dot, Alphabits
Inks: Basic Black, Gable Green
Accessories: 1/4" circle punch, 3/16" corner rounder, Theater Ribbon Originals, Vintage brads, Basic Black marker, Close to Cocoa marker, dimensionals
Shows watched while creating: Aus v NZ test cricket, Bones, Heroes

Festive Owl

This is something I have been wanting to do with the cute Celebrate Everyday owl but never quite got around to until recently. Crabby's Santa hat is the perfect size for the owl, I'm sure he didn't mind lending it out . I stuck with the Holiday Harmony colours as I thought they'd work well for the owl with the addition of Chocolate Chip. To create the sentiment I carefully inked just the "hoo!" with StazOn (as that's what I had out... a marker probably would have been easier!) and stamped it on my card. This is made easier by the way I have mounted my stamp. This set, along with all the others from the Spring mini, come die cut. The images in Celebrate Everyday have the sentiment attached to the bottom of the image, however I cut the sentiments from the images and have mounted the image part where you normally would mount it on the wood block, and the sentiment is mounted on the end. This was particuarly handy when re-inking the sentiment for the second impression as I only had to avoid the 'w' from "whoo!", instead of the 'w' and the owl. The last "special" thing I did for this card was to colour the owls eyes in with Whisper White pigment ink. I opted to use a blender pen to apply this rather than just use a white gel pen as there were some tight spots I wasn't sure the gel pen would get into.


All supplies by Stampin' Up! Cardstock: River Rock, Mellow Moss, Whisper White, watercolour paper
Stamp Sets: Celebrate Everyday, Crab and Company, Polka Dot, So Swirly
Inks: River Rock, Mellow Moss, StazOn Jet Black
Accessories: Chocolate Chip marker, Sahara Sand marker, River Rock "marker" (blender pen + refill), scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, Sherbet Ribbon Originals, dimensionals, mini glue dots

Crabby Claus

Another simple Crab & Company card for you, this time a Christmas card with traditional colours for a very non-trad Christmas image. The hat was stamped separately, coloured and cut out to attach above Crabby's eyes... I was tempted to have it all jaunty over his eyes but thought I'd be the only one to get that, so the hat sits levitating over his eyes.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Glorious Green, Real Red, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Crab & Company, Polka Dot
Inks: StazOn Jet Black, Real Red
Accessories: watercolour pencils, aquapainter, Bold Brights brads
Show watched while creating: X-Files movie