Taken With Butterflies & CraftExpo

Yes I know, it's been another long break between posts. After days of thinking "I'll update my blog later" and it never happening, I've taken time out from preparing for CraftExpo to finally share something. This is a snippet of the card I have made for this months Elite Challenges colour challenge "Point Taken". While these colours just scream "peacock" to me, I thought they'd work well with butterflies. And I'm just a little obsessed with butterflies at the moment! Hope over to the Elite Challenge blog to read all the details.

What was that I said about CraftExpo? Fellow demonstrators and myself will be there with displays, demonstrations, a Make & Take and daily lucky door prizes. Drop by to check it out!

Where & When: Friday February 19th to Sunday February 21st at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre (a short walk from Broadmeadow train station).
Open: 10am - 4:30pm daily.
Tickets: Entry is $14 for adults, $12 for Seniors/Pensioners, $7 for Children (5-16yrs), Children under 5 are free. A family ticket (2 adults and 2 children) is available for $34.

Find us at stand F13

Rock N Roll butterflies

Today I've uploaded another card over at the Elite Challenges blog, this time for the Sketch Challenge. This month's sketch is based on the second card on p29 of the Stampin' Up! catalogue.
I have made a card similar to this before, however for this incarnation I cut the antennae out with the rest of the butterfly. In the snippet above you get a better indication of the colours on the blue butterflies than you can see on the full card. Once again I have been Rock n Rolling, this time inking the butterflies with Pacific Point and then with Brilliant Blue.

Cinema Saturday #24

In keeping with my tradition of late...Here's my card for Cinema Saturday #24, the movie being Willy Wonka/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I've watched the Gene Wilder one many a time, so I watched the Johnny Depp one (for only the second time all the way through - it's the way it is when you have kids and they are watching something when you have things to get done) in preparation for this card. I had forgotten how funny the newer one was, lots of one-liners that had me giggling my head off. In the end though I feel I used elements common to both movies... Cocoa and Chocolate (for obvious reasons), both Wonka's have purple and red in their clothing, and the green is for the grass in that first real room of the factory that the kids go into - where everything is edible (though the shade of green is definately more of a 2005 shade).

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Close To Cocoa, Orchid Opulence, Cameo Coral
Stamp Sets: Priceless, Everyday Flexible Phrases
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Close To Cocoa, Elegant Eggplant, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Bold Brights brads, dimensionals
Show watched while creating: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Rabbit-Proof Fence

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

And no, I don't have wedding cards to share with you!

I'm sharing these cards in reverse order of how I made them. The card above uses completely current SU items, among them are retiring chipboard, Designer Series Paper and two In Colors - Soft Sky and Blue Bayou. I made this one in part so you could see the difference between some of the old and new product, and just how nicely the old and new mix.
Here's my card as it was intended. Something old is Soft Sky, a retiring In Color; the chipboard flower which is from the retiring Onboard Accents; and the Berry Bliss DSP which is also retiring. Something new is Baja Breeze and Pink Pirouette, forthcoming In Color colours (the sentiment is also from a new set). Something borrowed is the layout, this is from Julee's Mojo Monday challenge. The blue is more for the first card that has Blue Bayou, but Soft Sky, Baja Breeze and Blue Bayou are all in the same vein of greenish blues. If you loved Soft Sky and Blue Bayou I'm sure you'll love Baja Breeze, look how nicely it coordinates!

I also love how Pink Pirouette is so different to Pretty In Pink. You think Pretty In Pink is rather pale until you see it beside Pirouette... I can see myself using the colour a lot. I also think it's rather cool that Pirouette is so close to the base colour of this Berry Bliss paper with Pretty In Pink being the colour of the motifs.

And it's only now that I have thought "I should have put a Pretty In Pink brad in the middle of the flower"! Oh well, I still like both cards and that's two more ready to grab when I am in a hurry!

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Soft Sky used on both cards. First card also uses Blue Bayou and Pretty In Pink. Second card uses Pink Pirouette and Baja Breeze instead.
Stamp Sets: Priceless, Fresh Cuts
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky used on both cards. First card also uses Blue Bayou, second card uses Baja Breeze instead.
Accessories: Berry Bliss DSP, Onboard Accents chipboard, 1 3/8" circle punch, sponge dauber, Soft Subtles brads.
Show watched while creating: Heroes

Cinema Saturday #14 part 6

This card, yet another for Cinema Saturday #14, is inspired by the outfit Arwen wears as she races the sick Frodo to Rivendell while being chased by the Ring Wraiths. Book readers will know that this part was taken from Glorfindel and given to Arwen, but I can forgive PJ because he did need to make sacrifices to condense the story (heck, if Tom Bombadill can't make it into the movie I don't think Glorfindel can complain!) and if it wasn't Arwen in this scene we would have missed out on this fantastic costume . Basically the outfit is a light grey suede with creamy metallic crinkle inner sleeves, dark grey/plum trims, silver butterfly belt "buckle" and plum leggins. The sleeves of the dress have a fine swirly pattern that was probably painted on, so I chose to make that my feature but used a stamp instead of copying the design to cardstock. The Basic Gray ribbon and crinkled Vanilla ribbon are to represent the sashes and inner sleeves and the butterfly is to represent her belt buckle (once again I chose not to copy the exact design because you don't always have to go for obsessive detail! Shocking, but true ).

The butterfly was stamped with silver ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder to give a more subtle look. Nearly all of Arwen's outfits had some sort of link to butterflies and/or dragonflies so it is no wonder I am drawn to them since I love those bugs so much .

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Perfect Plum, Going Gray, Basic Gray
Stamp Set: Priceless
Ink: VersaMark
Accessories: white embossing powder, clear embossing powder, Bsic Gray taffeta ribbon, Beachfront Ribbon Originals, dimensionals
Show watched while creating: Can you guess? Fellowship of course!

KW Colour Inspiration #29

Let's just say I was very happy when I saw Kristina's latest colour challenge. I have been thinking lately how neglected Taken With Teal has been this year, and I can't recall the last time I used Elegant Eggplant... and there she goes and puts them together in a challenge! Pumpkin Pie adds a great contrast, and the colours had me thinking of tropical butterflies. I wanted to combine the butterflies with ribbon to bring in some of the fabric textures from the inspiration photo, so out came the retired Flirty Ribbon Originals so I could use the Teal velvet ribbon. The card itself is pretty straight forward but I did want to point out that I used the crop-a-dile to punch the holes for the brads as this distorts the ribbon less (once you have pulled it back into shape) than if you just poke the brad through. I've used both mini glue dots and dimensionals to attach the butterflies, putting the glue dots under the body and the dimensionals under the wings so the wings are raised off the cardstock at an angle.

All supplies by Stampin' Up! Cardstock: Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White Stamp Sets: Priceless, So Swirly Inks: VersaMark, Pumpkin Pie, Taken With Teal, Brilliant Blue Accessories: mini glue dots, dimensionals, District Ribbon Originals, Flirty Ribbon Originals (retired), Bold Brights brads Show watched while creating: Fresh Prince of Bel Air (what? I had to see the 2 seconds of Chris Judge didn't I?)

Monster Boxes

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.

Rather than doing a lot of trial and error, I made the boxes as big as I easily could with one sheet of 12x12. The box stands about 7" tall with a 3" flap coming over the front for the monsters face. I originally wanted my boxes black so I could have these eyes and teeth coming out of "nowhere" (inspired by Amy Sheffer), but alas the only black 12x12 I had was textured and that wasn't going to work as well for the stamping. The flaps are held down by a bit of magnetic tape I picked up at the cheap shop, which I had to added sticky strip to to keep the magnets stuck on the cardstock instead of each other.

Most supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Lavender Lace, Pink Passion, Whisper White, Basic Black, Lovely Lilac, Rose Red
Stamp Sets: Priceless, Baroque Motifs
Ink: VersaMark
Accessories: Five-in-one Card Cover template, sticky strip, various punches as described below:
* Eyes: 1 3/8" circle, 3/4" circle, 1/2" circle
* Teeth: Small oval, 1/2" circle, Word Window
Shows watched while creating: Stargate Atlantis, Survivor (US are in front of Aus and on a completely different season so I ain't even going there!)

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

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

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