World Card Making Day Promotion (WCMD)

October is WCMD and Stampin' Up! are offering a 20% discount on all Simply Sent card kits from 4-11 October. If you would like to take advantage of this offer email me here by the 3rd October and I can place an order for you.

Sam's Celebration Colour Challenge

Sam is running a colour challenge in celebration of 20,000 blog hits - how cool is that, CONGRATULATIONS Sam. The challenge finishes tomorrow so I've been busy making a card after getting home from work today. Here is my card:The colours we had to use were Perfect Plum, Soft Sky, Rose Red, Pretty in Pink and Whisper White.

Stamp set: Fabulous Flowers, Priceless and canvas background
Accessories: Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon, rub-ons, pink brad, white eyelet, dimensionals

I thought I would have trouble putting these colours together but I like the end result and am beginning to love this Fabulous stamp set. It was not a favourite of mine but when I had a little play with it when I was at Di's house I had to borrow it for a while (thanks again Di).
For the large flower I used the 'kissing' technique. I inked the canvas background stamp with rose red ink and then stamped it onto the large flower - very easy and effective.
Check out Sam's blog to see other entries in her colour challenge

FABULOUS Emerging Colour

I've made 3 cards using a technique called Emerging Colour that we were shown at Regionals by another Demo Vanessa Webb. I couldn't wait to go home and give this technique a try after seeing Vanessa's cards so when I was at my good friend Di's house last monday we had a play and here's what I came up with:

Colours: Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue, Brocade Blue and whisper white

Ink: Brocade Blue, Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue and versamark

Stamp Set: Fabulous Flowers (borrowed from Di), Canvas background, Priceless and Level 1 hostess set

Accessories: Brocade Blue wide grosgrain ribbon, word window punch, rhinestone brads, embossing buddy and powder in clear and heat tool and brayer.

The Emerging Colour technique was really fun to do. What I did here was stamp the canvas background stamp onto a piece of plain whisper white cardstock. I then randomly stamp the large swirl stamp over the piece of cardstock in Brocade Blue ink. I then inked the large flower and another flower a couple of times from Fabulous Flowers in versamark ink and stamped in on the cardstock, apply clear embossing powder to the flower and heat with heat tool. Make sure you wipe your cardstock with your embossing buddy before embossing to minimise any stray embossing powder that you don't want. I then used my brayer and Close to Cocoa ink to go over the entire piece of cardstock until I had an even coverage of colour. I then cut the flowers out and layered the smaller flower on the large flower.

With this card I brayered the entire piece of white cardstock with Bashful Blue ink. I then stamped the large swirl from Priceless randomly over the cardstock in Brocade Blue ink. Emboss the flower using versamark ink and clear embossing powder and then cut the flower out. Again I've used a blue rhinestone brad in the centre and the wide grosgrain ribbon in Brocade Blue. The card base is Chocolate Chip with a layer of Bashful Blue. The happy birthday greeting is from Occasional Greetings. I really like how this one turned out.

This card I've used Close to Cocoa for the base with a layer of Chocolate Chip and Bashful Blue.

I stamped the smaller swirl from the Priceless set on the bottom half of the card. For the flower in this card I stamped the Canvas background stamp over the entire piece of white cardstock in Bashful Blue ink and then stamped the larger swirl in the same ink randomly over the cardstock. After embossing the flower I used the brayer and Close to Cocoa ink over entire image and then cut it out.

Baroque Motifs card set

A while ago I made a set of 6 cards in a little box for my mum but just haven't gotten around to putting them on my blog until now. Baroque is one of my most favourite stamp sets. You can make a really nice card quite quickly using this set which is great. Here is the card set:When I made this set of cards I wanted to use the same 3 colours but have different greetings on them for a mixture of occasions. I love Certainly Celery and Elegant Eggplant together which I have to thank Di for as those of you who know her know that she absolutely LOVES Celery. I was at her house one day and we made a card using these colours together and have loved the combo ever since.

These cards have a tent opening. You can see that the layout is basically the same but I have changed the colours around and used different ribbons on each.

Supplies: white taffeta ribbon, certainly celery wide grosgrain ribbon, elegant eggplant and certainly celery ink and cardstock and greetings from level 1 hostess set and boho backgrounds

These cards have a side opening. Again they have the same layout as each other just alternating the colours. I've added some brads and ribbon.

Supplies: Cetainly Celery brads and used the paper piercer and mat pack to position them, elegant eggplant grosgrain ribbon, wide celery grosgrain ribbon, word window punch and greetings from Level 1 hostess set and God's blessings.

These cards also have a tent opening. On these cards I've thread ribbon through the front layer of the card using the horizontal slot punch.

Supplies: white taffeta ribbon, celery wide grosgrain ribbon, horizontal slot punch and greetings from Level 1 hostess set.

Chupa Chup Flower Pot

When I was at Regionals a couple of weeks ago I met up with Sam from Canberra who bought up this very cool Flower Pot for Di. Sam saw it on Dawn Olchefske's blog at DOstamping with Dawn so I thought I would make one to show you. How cute is this: Supplies: Summer Picnic Designer Series Paper, Die-cut Blooms, Chupa Chup, pop up glue dots, sticky strip, brads, old olive wide grosgrain ribbon, rhinestone brad and snail adhesive or double sided tape.

Happy Birthday Di

Happy Birthday for yesterday Di, Hope it was a good one:

Here is the birthday card I made for Di:

I love this card, I hope Di does as well.

Stamp sets: Level 1 and level 2 hostess sets

Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Blue Bayou and Real Red

Ink: Blue Bayou

Accessories: Real Red wide grosgrain ribbon, Jumbo pewter eyelet and Die cut blooms (from the spring mini catalogue.

Box of Flowers

I made Di this box of flowers as well. I have had this idea in my head for a while but haven't got around to making it until now. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Die cut blooms in various colours and sizes

Punches: 5 petal flower punch, boho punch, scallop punch, various size circle punches

Accessories: Real Red wide grosgrain ribbon, Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon, wire, florest foam, sticky strip, large glue dots and snail adhesive or double sided tape.

The box was made using an Explosion Box template - very easy. Here is a tutorial you can use to make the box.

The flowers were made using the Die cut blooms from the spring mini catalogue. I also made a couple of extra additions using a couple of punches listed above. Once I sorted them out how I like them I stuck the various layers using snail adhesive then stuck the wire to the backs using large glue dots and sticky strip. I covered the backs in the same coloured cardstock as the base of the flowers in various size circles to suit the size of the flowers. I tied some Wild Wasabi ribbon around the wire as leaves. Then it's a matter or arranging the flowers how you want them into the Florist foam inside the box. I tied some ribbon around the box to keep everything intact and to finish it off.

Regional Swap

I know it's been a while since I've shown you anything -sorry.

A few weeks ago I attended Regional Seminar in Sydney where we learnt lots of cool techniques from other Demo's. I always come away with so many projects to make and a very long wish list; anyway in the past I have made swaps to hand out and planned on doing the same this year but I left it to the last minute and things weren't going to plan so I didn't get to put them together to hand out. I did start so here is the card I would have handed out:

I really like this card.

Stamp Set: True Friend and Occasional Sayings

Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Soft Sky (textured)

Ink: Real Red, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Real Red Wide grosgrain ribbon, 5 petal flower punch, Boho punch, brad, stamp-a-ma-jig and dimensionals