Bodacious Pastels

One last card featuring products from this months promo... the background for this card was something I made for a Kristina colour inspiration challenge and then changed my mind and it's been floating around the room ever since. I came across it the other day, and decided to incorporate it into a catalogue CASEing challenge from a demo Yahoo group I am on (excuse me for being lazy and not finding a link for you, I'm beat from staying up too late last night and shopping with my girls all day today). For those who haven't come across the term before, CASE stands for "Copy And Steal Everything", though in most cases (no pun intended) there are a good deal of changes made in the copying. Anyway, this hasn't really come out how I intended, but it's a bright and cheery card which is quite fitting for our weather lately.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Old Olive, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise
Stamp Sets: Bodacious Bouquet, Bodacious
Inks: VersaMark, Regal Rose
Accessories: Stampin' Pastels, sponge dauber, Bold Brights brads, 1 1/4" square punch, 1 3/8" square punch, Fairytale Ribbon Originals, dimensionals

Leaves With A Flourish

I promise this will be the last Carte Postale card I share with you for a while - I hope you're not sick of it! I think I am going to have to hide it again so I will actually use some other sets. This is a card I have been demonstrating lately, it's a reincarnation of this card, however the above card features masking, In Color markers/blender pen markers and of course one of the bundles from the Free Wheelin' special that ends tomorrow. If I've inspired you with all my Carte Postale cards, or any of the other bundles catch your eye, get your order to me quickly so you don't miss out!

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White, Soft Sky
Stamp Sets: Carte Postale, Leaves a la Carte, Frames With A Flourish
Ink: River Rock, Purely Pomegranate, Basic Gray, VersaMark
Accessories: Pretties Kit, Purely Pomegranate blender pen marker, Soft Sky blender pen marker, River Rock blender pen marker, dimensionals

Pretty Postale

September is drawing to a close, which means there are not many days left to take advantage of Stmapin' Up!s Free Wheelin' special. This card again uses one of the bundles available from the special, Carte Postale. I think every time I use it I can't help mentioning it is one of my favourite sets, though I tend to use colours that traditionally fit it's "vintage" style. When I started makin gthis card I felt it was high time I used some brighter, prettier colours - so teaming it with some Pretties Kit accessories seemed a natural progression. The main feature of this card uses a square aluminium edged tag. I stamped directly onto this with the 'Carte Postale" stamp using my Stamp-a-ma-jig to position it (which was a little awkward given the raised edge of the tag). I didn't even need to mask the words on the stamp as these went onto the aluminium edge and any ink was easy to wipe off. And yes, I know it's another green & purple card but at least I did mix it up a bit and swap out the Bayou for Teal!

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Almost Amethyst, Taken with Teal, vellum cardstock
Stamp sets: Carte Postale, Leaves a la carte
Inks: Taken With Teal, Soft Sky, Whisper White
Accessories: White Aluminium Square Tags, Pretties Kit, Soft Sky double-stitched ribbon, Sage Shadow marker, Almost Amethyst marker, Soft Sky "marker" (blender pen + refill), dimensionals
Show watched while creating: House

Metallic Delights

The other night I was heading off to bed when Glenn informed me his mum would be at our place at about 8 the next morning, dropping Glenn off after he'd put our car in to be serviced. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, however it was going to be her birthday and I didn't have her pressie wrapped or card made as I didn't think I'd be seeing her until tomorrow. ~meep~ So, 2 hours later her pressie was wrapped in some nice coppery foil wrapping paper and I had made this card to go with it. I have been thinking about doing this sort of thing for some time, but thanks to Steph Pike I've got a wriggle on with it. The background of this card is a piece of copper cardstock from the Brushed Metallics pack. The top 3/4 of it has been stamped with the circular image from Simple Delights using VersaMark then heat embossed using clear embossing powder. Over the top I have brayered Chocolate Chip ink. I was pretty sure the Chocolate over copper would look good and I was very happy with how it all turned out.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, copper Brushed Metallics, Very Vanilla
Stamp set: Simple Delights Simply Sent kit
Inks: VersaMark, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: brayer, clear embossing powder, heat gun, 3/4" circle punch, Aged Copper hodgepodge, Pumpkin Pie 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals

Merry & Sparkle

We are down to 13 weeks till Christmas, can you believe it? I haven't got very far with my Christmas shopping so far this year, but thankfully I'm not doing too bad with the cards. This card uses the same background as one I posted on the Elite Challenge blog earlier in the month, however instead of the baubles I chose to feature the word "merry", stamping it in Wild Wasabi before then over-stamping it with VersaMark and using Heat & Stick powder to adhere the Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I love the fun style of the Merry Merry set, it's making a nice contrast to the rustic style that I also seem to be doing a lot of for Christmas this year.

All supplies by Stamping Up!
Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, Certainly Celery, Pretty In Pink, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Merry Merry, All About Christmas
Ink: Regal Rose, Certainly Celery, Pretty In Pink, Wild Wasabi
Accessories: dimensionals, Soft Subtles brads, Heat & Stick powder, Dazzling Diamonds glitter

Priceless Swirls

Here's a cute little card that was the make & take from a weekend workshop. I couldn't resist using one of my favourite colour combinations at the moment, my favourite punch (the scallop circle) and swirls! For accents the large flower was inked with Almost Amethyst and then selected areas coloured with a Lavender Lace marker. The small flowers were inked with Lavender Lace, stamped on Almost Amethyst and then punched out with the Three For You punch.

Tonight I've also uploaded a card over at the Elite Challenges blog, which you can find here. I used another colour combination that I've been loving at the moment, Sage and Pinks, and yes... more swirls!

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Almost Amethyst, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Priceless, So Swirly
Inks: Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Almost Amethyst, Lavender Lace
Accessories: white grosgrain ribbon, scallop circle, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, Three For You punch, dimensionals, mini glue dots

Ahoy! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Some of you may recall this card I made a little while back. At the time I was having so much fun with Matey and those colours that I decided to make a few more cards, and since this is International Talk Like a Pirate Day I thought I'd share them with you now!

Can you even tell there is "flowery" paper on this^ card?
Here^ I used my "three rhinestone brads" idea for Matey's sunken treasure.
"Flowery" paper strikes again, and Matey's parrot seems to be trapped.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Soft Sky, Confetti White, Blue Bayou, River Rock
Stamp Sets: Ahoy Matey, Matey's Map
Inks: StazOn Jet Black, VersaMark; inkpads used for watercolouring: Blue Bayou, Blush Blossom, Chocolate Chip, River Rock, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi
Accessories: Aged Copper hodgepodge, Ice Square & Circle Rhinestone brads, hemp twine, Earth Elements brads, Crystal Effects, aquapainter, Cutter Kit, Spring Showers DSP

And now for my pirate smiley fest...

Almost Paisley

This is my card for the first Inklings Cyberstamp challenge. Lin Mei kicked off the night with a colour challenge, using some shoes as inspiration. My first response used Fine Lace as the background stamp, because on this occasion I was consciously inspired by the photo with it's lacey shoes. I decided that it wasn't really the look I was after, so I remade the card using Paisley for the background... If only those shoes were Paisley I think I'd be hunting them down (although what I would wear them with I have no idea!)! If you click on the image of my card to view it larger you will be able to just make out that the sentiment has been shadowed with Almost Amethyst. Another little trick I used was to SNAIL the two ribbons together so they were easier to control. And I have to say I love using Basic Black when I need a black but don't need to watercolour, much easier to clean (and it smells better too).

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Almost Amethyst, Whisper White
Stamp sets: Paisley, It's Your Birthday
Inks: Basic Black, Almost Amethyst
Accesories: designer label punch, Styled Silver hodgepodge, Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon, black grosgrain ribbon

Boo!

This is my card for the third challenge from the Inklings Cyberstamp. The third challenge was a scrap sketch, but since the sketch wasn't going to work with the few photos I do have printed I opted to make a card instead. Lin Mei's directive for those making a card was simply to use a stamp for a theme other than it was intended... owls and Halloween cards aren't unusual, but I have done something different with the owl.

One day while working on a Kristina colour challenge I was trying to use the Celebrate Everyday owl but I didn't feel like the colours were working, so I tossed my scrap (ok, the envelope I had been stamping on the back of to test out different colour arrangements) aside. A little while later I looked back at it and was reminded of some other images I had seen where people had used their owls upside down. One thing lead to another, and Boo was born! Now just incase there are people reading who haven't seen Monsters Inc, or for those that haven't seen it in quite some time, I've found this YouTube clip of Boo in her monster get-up so you can see what I was trying to copy.

To create Boo I inked up the owl with StazOn being careful to avoid the feet. I had previously created a mask for the inner details, which I then used to cover this area so it wouldn't stamp. I stamped a second owl, with no masking, so I had the tummy section to cut out for teeth. I then cleaned the stamp and inked the eyes with my Basic Black marker and stamped those where the feet should have been. I then coloured the body in, using the aquapainter to dampen the areas first to help blending. I threaded some linen thread through for the hair, trimmed and attached the teeth and she was done! Then I had to figure out what to do with the rest of the card! I decided to stamp her name in the hopes that anyone who couldn't tell by looking at the pic should be then clued in enough. A smaller font may have made things easier, but I only have two alphabet sets at the moment and I Big Deal is great for kids stuff. The card has ended up an odd size, 4 1/2" square, but sometimes you just have to listen to the muse.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Almost Amethyst, Basic Black, Lavender Lace, Confetti White
Stamp sets: Celebrate Everything, Big Deal
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, VersaMark
Accessories: aquapainter, Lavender Lace marker, Sahara Sand marker, linen thread, dimensionals, clear embossing powder
Show watched while creating: Bones

KW Colour Inspiration #23

This weeks challenge from Kristina uses Bravo Burgundy again but this time I found it much easier to work with. In part I think it is the other colours in the combination, but perhaps having to use it last week has helped me warm up to it a little more. After pulling out my swatches, and thinking about how Kristina had described the colours as "autumn-y" and I wasn't in the mood to make an autumn card, I started off with the Touch of Nature butterfly. Not liking how that came out I switched to the Touch of Nature flower and it wasn't until much later that I looked at the inspiration photo again and remembered that it had flowers in it too! Often I am consciously inspired by the subject of the colour challenges, but this week I seem to have immediately put it out of my mind and yet still came back to it.

The proportions of this card were going to be a little different before I forgot the old adage "measure twice, cut once" and stuffed up one stem piece and so deferred to this one. I had also intended for the central piece to be layered on Old Olive but it did not look right in any way, so I've ended up with a high contrast card but I am quite happy with how it has turned out.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Confetti White, Chocolate Chip, watercolour paper
Stamp set: Touch of Nature
Inks: StazOn Jet Black, Bravo Burgundy; So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive also used for watercolouring
Accessories: aquapainter, Whisper White taffeta ribbon, dimensionals
Shows watched while creating: Stargate Atlantis, NCIS, Rush

Swirly Spinner

Last night was the September Inklings Cyberstamp, this month hosted by Lin Mei. This card was for the second challenge, to create a spinner card. Like many of the other Inklings, this is something I have thought of doing for quite some time and never got around to it, so it was great to have it on the "to do" list. I decided to use Priceless and So Swirly together again, and I am so happy with how this card came out I may just use it for Shaelea's birthday card! The colours were supposed to be ones from a Kristina colour challenge that I missed, but once I got creating I forgot that she had specified Very Vanilla and I had used Whisper White... oh well!
The idea with spinner cards is that part of the card spins along a track. Unfortunately, my pictures don't really reflect that... I didn't even attempt taking an "action shot", but I failed to realise that the butterfly was pointing in the same direction after it's bit of a spin!

Almost all supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Priceless, So Swirly
Inks: Certainly Celery, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink
Accessories: Chocolate Chip marker, Regal Rose marker, scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, word window punch, dimensionals, 5c coin
Show watched while creating: Aussie women's wheelchair basketball team winning bronze against Japan at the Paralympics

Tiarna's Howler

Saturday was Tiarna's birthday. She's a mad keen Harry Potter fan and has been since she first watched Philosopher's Stone when she was 18 months old. After years and years of dragon cards I decided to go with something a bit different this year, and made her a Howler. I first saw this on Melanie's blog about a year ago, however I have made mine a little different. The base is a 12x12 sheet of Real Red textured cardstock (I went with textured because it is a little thinner than the normal cardstock) and inside is a 21cm square of printer paper that isn't completely folded in the fortune/chatterbox/cootie catcher way (ie the last folds into the middle are not done). I had decided to stick the top and the bottom together in the middle (using sticky strip), so I trimmed the paper that was to stick in there a bit to take out some of the bulk, cut the teeth and stuck it in. This does mean that it won't lay flat but that's ok since I wasn't posting it. The tongue is a bit of 5/8" Real Red grosgrain ribbon.

As cool as Tiarna thinks her card is, I think it is all in the delivery... I think she would have fallen off her chair if someone hadn't been standing on the other side as the Howler told her off for not opening her presents (did you know father's can face inquiries at work over that?).

Priceless Butterflies

~*sigh*~ right when I was going to do up another post my net went down and has been down for DAYS! Thankfully I had some things to keep me occupied but I am very glad to have it back, feel rather out of sorts if I don't get on the net every day!

Anyway, for this card I went back to another favourite colour combination of mine, purple and green. I saw this scrap of Whisper White sitting on my desk and decided it was just the right size for a Jumbo wheel, so I wheeled So Swirly across it, stamped a few extra flowers from Priceless, mounted some Rock n Rolled butterflies (very subtle rolling on these), more swirls on the base card, some yummy Kraft taffeta and ribbon slide and I was done! As the spine for the card was on the left I simply cut a slit in it so I could have the ribbon going around the front of the card.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Whisper White, Almost Amethyst
Stamp Sets: Priceless, So Swirly jumbo wheel
Inks: Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Almost Amethyst, Lavender Lace
Accessories: Kraft Taffeta ribbon, Styled Silver Hodgepodge, Lavender Lace marker, mini glue dots, dimensionals
Show watched while creating: Bones

KW Colour Inspiration #22

This week Kristina has posted another very pretty colour challenge. I did find it a little hard to work in the Burgundy, beside the Roses it didn't seem very red at all, so I did use a second generation of it so it wasn't as dark and more of it's red could show through. Using the Three for You punch on the A Beautiful Thing row of flowers was something I had contemplated doing last week for Regionals swaps but ran out of time to try, so after thinking about a few other sets this morning this idea popped into my head. It looks pretty simple but is a little more time consuming because you have to stamp the little flowers so many times to get enough.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Whisper White, Regal Rose, Soft Sky
Stamp Set: A Beautiful Thing
Inks: Soft Sky, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Bravo Burgundy
Accessories: Three For You Punch Box, mini glue dots, Fairytale Ribbon Originals, Eastern Elegance rubons
Show watched while creating: nothing, just can't figure out why Google Reader won't work on Firefox today

Rustic Wishes

On Saturday I attended the second Stampin' Up! Regional Seminar in Sydney. The weather was absolutely terrible but the day was equally fantastic, catching up with so many people again (even if I did miss a few), watching the fantastic presentations, creating the fabulous make&takes with brand new product. Another one of my favourite things about SU! events is the swapping - I love receiving creations made by others face to face and being able to ask them about the card (though quite often it's not till later I get to have a good look at things). This is the card I made for swaps. I wanted to make more and different ideas that I got, but I just knew I didn't have time to do the ideas justice so they are percolating in the back of my head biding their time. I have to say that this card was kinda influenced by Heather of Pine is Here, I love her use of Kraft and white ink/paint. To be completely truthful this isn't one of my swap cards. The weather was so bad before I left I didn't get a good photo of it, so when I got home (well, Monday really) I decided I liked the simple design so much I'd make more for some of my own Christmas cards. Most of the cards were slightly altered but this one I kept true to the swaps except leaving out the piercing.

All supplies by Stampin' Up
Cardstock: Always Artichoke, Kraft, Mellow Moss, Whisper White
Stamp set: Peaceful Wishes
Ink: Whisper White, Always Artichoke
Accessories: Moss gingham ribbon, Aged Copper Hodgepodge
Show watched while creating: Stargate Atlantis (swaps), Bones (full cards)

Happy Father's Day

I know it's getting very late in the day, but I just wanted to wish all the Dads a happy Father's Day for today. This is a very simple card that I made for the school's Father's Day stall and also donated a couple to charity. I made them in various colour schemes to match the ribbon I was using - all of which came from retired Ribbon Originals packs.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Creamy Caramel, Basic Black, Ruby Red, Whisper White
Stamp Set: Occasional Greetings
Inks: Always Artichoke
Accessories: Rustic Retreat Ribbon Originals, Earth Elements brads

SU! September Promotion

During September Stampin' Up! are offering free wheels with 6 selected stamp sets. The wheels on offer are coordinating jumbo wheels, so it really is a great deal - you can read more about it at the SU! website. I love the wheels, particularly the jumbo ones because you can have a card front covered in no time. The other day I posted a card using the Merry Merry bundle over on the Elite Challenges blog, and on KW challenge card used stamps from the Bodacious Bouquet bundle, but today I am going to share a couple of cards using one of the other bundles. This is probably my favourite bundle of the lot, as Carte Postale is one of my fave sets and Leaves a la Carte works so well with it. I started off with a very simple card, using the current Elite Challenges colour challenge as inspirationI knew before I started these cards I was going to make two basically the same, so I took an A6 piece of Certainly Celery, wheeled over it with Leaves a la Carte using Certainly Celery ink, then cut it in half length ways and used one piece on this card (with a little trimming off it's length).
For this second card I trimmed the Celery piece a little smaller than in the first card and layered it on Night of Navy before attaching it to the card front. The other main difference in this second card is I used more than just a sentiment from Carte Postale. The bird and flowers were stamped on vellum cardstock, the flower stamped three times using Blue Bayou ink and the bird twice using Not Quite Navy. I stamped on vellum as I wanted one bird to be flying in the opposite direction and this is probably the simplest way to do that. The flowers were coloured using blender pens on the back of the image.

If you'd like to order any of these bundles don't forget to use the special code as listed on the SU site

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Soft Sky, Certainly Celery, Blue Bayou, Whisper White, Not Quite Navy, vellum cardstock, So Saffron
Stamp Sets: Carte Postale, Leaves a la Carte
Inks: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy
Accessories: Old Olive 5/8" grosgrain, Rich Regals brads, mini glue dots

KW Colour Inspiration #21

Sorry for not posting more this week, all that time without a computer and sorting a new one out and I am completely out of the habit of blogging. But I return tonight with my card for Kristina's latest colour challenge. I was halfway through my card when it took a sharp turn and ended up completely different. Not entirely happy with it, but I think I am still getting back into the habit of creating. It probably didn't help that the card was created in the dark, just my OTT lite on as there was a sleepyhead in bed in the same room. Which also meant I wasn't watching any shows while crafting

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Old Olive, Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White
Stamp sets: Bodacious Bouquet, Bodacious jumbo wheel, One of a Kind
Ink: Rose Red, Regal Red, Old Olive
Accessories: Circle Ice Rhinestone Brads, Styled Silver Hodgepodge