JAI #216: Just Ad Watercolouring

Hi!

Oooh, these Fridays keep sneaking up on me too quickly!  Anyhoo, Friday means a new Just Add Ink Challenge!  This week we have challenged you to add watercolouring to your project.

I decided to go for something bright and cheerful, and as I had yet to ink up my new stamp set Happy Congratulations.

On the front I decided to watercolour the lanterns, but on the inside I cheated a little and used the stamp that comes with the set to fill the lanterns.

I hope you have fun with this week's challenge - I know I did!  Can't wait to see your beautiful creations at Just Add Ink.

Bye for now,

Tina

Quick and Easy Happy Birthday with Simply Stars

Hi!

Today I have a quick and easy Birthday card for you featuring the Simply Stars stamp set and Retro Fresh Washi Tape.  The two in combination are fabulous for bright, cheerful cards.

I stamped on the base card first using the small splatter stamp from Gorgeous Grunge.  I love the way it adds some extra interest tot he card without being too out there.

I kept the inside fairly simple, but I think I added a few stamped stars before I mailed it for a bit of extra oomph.

Bye for now,

Tina

Cheerful Hip Hip Hooray Card

Hi!

Today I have a lovely, bright and cheerful birthday card for you, made using the Scallop Tag Topper Punch to create a fancy opening.

These cards are so much fun to make - and easy once you get the hang of it!

I used one of the Hip Hip Hooray stamps that come with the Hip Hip Hooray kit.  It's a fabulous little set of stamps and the kit is pretty awesome too.

With a bit of careful planning the inside was stamped so that the sentiment would not be visible when the card is closed, but the two right hand stars are.  Very cute!

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 35 and 36

Hi!

I'm still at Convention in Melbourne and having the best time!  Today is the last day, which is a bit bittersweet.  I will miss my Stampin' Up! friends, but it's nearly time to come home to my beautiful family.

The layouts I have for you today are more of my Paris trip.  Are you sick of it yet?  I'm only half way through!  Yes, we took a lot of photos and have a lot of memories to record.

In my last post I showed you the layouts I had completed  about Versailles and the Gardens there.  In the gardens are the Palaces de Trianon, which were the summer houses of the Royalty.  These were certainly not a little shack at the beach!  While nowhere near as luxurious and extravagant as the Chateau, they were still astounding.  The French do luxury so well!

We had a lovely day for wandering around the buildings and gardens at Versailles, but I made the mistake of wearing thin ballet flats and my feet were killing me by the end!  Thankfully there was a little 'train' you could catch back to the Chateau from the Palaces, so we jumped on that for the ride back.

We had to change trains at the Metro station that is located underneath the Arc de Triomphe, so we decided to take the opportunity to go and see it while all lit it.  It really is a spectacular monument.  I forgot to look for the 'Diamonds and Rubies', which is the pretty sight the car head and tail lights make as they travel to and from the Monument.  I'm sure I was so tired by then I was just thinking of bed!  Oh well.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #215

Hi!

I just thought I'd pop in to remind you that Just Add Ink Challenge #215 is still going!  Most of the JAI team are having a blast together at Convention, so the challenge is running over 2 weeks.  In case you've forgotten here are the colours.

And here is the card I made with them.  You can see my original post here.

Bye for now,

Tina

Spiral Flower Die

Hi!

As you're reading this post I'm on my way to Melbourne for Stampin' Up!'s Annual Convention.  I'm so excited, as I get to see all my Stampin' Up! friends and get inspired by lots of fabulous displays and speakers.  Let's face it, it's also nice to have a break from being 'mum' and just enjoy being Tina.

Anyway, today's card is one I made for a Flower Cards Class last month.  If you subscribe to my newsletter you would have already seen a picture, now you can see a few more.  A good reminder that it you haven't already, you can sign up for my newsletter over there on my side bar =>

The Spiral Flower Die makes making these flowers a breeze! So quick and easy - the hardest part is sitting there holding them while the glue dries, and that's only hard because I was itching to get on with my card!

I like adding a Jumbo Rhinestone to the centre of the flowers for a lovely finishing touch.

I'm still loving the sentiment at the bottom rather than in the middle.  It's great on a card where you have a lot to write and a centered sentiment would disrupt the flow of your message.

Bye for now,

Tina

Papillion Potpourri Mother's Day Card

Hi!

I'm back today with another of the Mother's Day cards I made this year.  This one was made as a class sample, and was made to be versatile.  It could easily be made into a birthday card by changing the sentiment in the middle.

I CASEd this card, not changing much.  Why mess with a great card?

I thought the use of the butterflies was perfect for a lovely, soft feminine card.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #215: Just Add Colour

Hi!

Are you ready for another Just Add Ink Challenge?  This is a super challenge - it will go for 2 weeks, so you will have plenty of time to enter.  Most of the Design Team will be heading to Melbourne next week for Stampin' Up!'s Convention (me included!) so we thought we'd allow some extra time for the challenge.

Enough chat - time for the Challenge.  This week Mae has given us a very challenging Colour Combination to work with.

I thought this combo was going to be a huge challenge for me, but once I had an idea it all came together beautifully.  Don't you love it when that happens?

The flower from Peaceful Petals was stamped in Stazon on Water Colour paper and then coloured using my Aqua Painter with Cherry Cobbler ink. I love the way that water colouring softens the colours.  I also water coloured a few of the leaves in Garden Green to pop behind the flower.

I used my last piece of this Cherry Cobbler ribbon on my card. I think I've been through two rolls of this ribbon!

Of course, I always decorate the inside of the card to match the outside.

Have fun playing along with us at Just Add Ink this fortnight, and if you're going to Convention come and say Hi!  We love to put faces to names :)

Bye for now,

Tina

Peaceful Petals for Mother's Day

Hi!

Did you have a lovely weekend?  I celebrated Mother's Day with my family yesterday.  I had a wonderful day and received lots of fabulous handmade gifts from my beautiful children. I was very spoilt!  Today I have a Mother's Day card to show you that I made for my Mother-In-Law.

I made this card as a class sample.  Not all of the ladies wanted to make a Mother's Day card so I tried to make it a bit more generic for them.  A Thinking Of You sentiment on the front makes a great all purpose card.

We stamped the main flower on some Blushing Bride cardstock and then trimmed around it and popped it up on Dimensionals over the top of some stamped and trimmed leaves.

I didn't get a good picture of the inside of the card, but this is a close up of the centre of the inside.  I stamped the flower in Blushing Bride and then the sentiment in Primrose Petals.

I'll be back on Wednesday with another Mother's Day card.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 33 and 34

Hi!

Can you believe that it's Saturday and I've actually blogged all of my regular blogging days this week?  It's been a while since I've achieved that!  My secret is that I usually sit down of a Sunday evening and do the whole lot of posts for the week.  With school holidays and public holidays I've really been out of whack!  Hopefully I'm back on track now with my routines - they aren't just for children it seems!

I think this was about day 5 of our trip.  We spent most of the day visiting Versailles, which is such an incredibly luxurious, decadent place.  We had to catch about 3 different trains to get there, but I didn't mind as it gave us the opportunity to see some more of Paris.  Once you get to the outer edges you seem much different things.  One thing I noticed was all of the kitchen gardens at the back of the houses adjacent to the rail lines.  Nearly every house had one.  We were going to fast to see what they were growing though.

 

When we got off the train at Versailles we didn't need to ask for directions to get to the Chateau, we just followed the crowd heading there!  The Chateau was completely over the top with the decadence.  I felt like my jaw was on the ground the whole time!  After we walked around the Chateau we decided to have lunch before visiting the gardens.  We had the choice of a cafeteria or a restaurant for lunch, so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch in the restaurant.

After lunch we headed out into the gardens.  In the photo below you can see how extensive they are!  From where we were standing it would take you an hour to walk to the far end of the garden, and they stretched out on either side nearly as far.

As it was the start of spring the gardens weren't in great shape.  They were still pretty bare after the harsh winter.  We didn't spend much time there, but you could tell that in full bloom they would be gorgeous!  While we strolled through the gardens we came across an Australian sports team there too.  I think they were a high school rugby team representing Australia.  Funny how you can go so far and still find pieces of home.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #214: Just Add A Sketch

Hi!

Woo Hoo!  It's Friday again!  Time for another Just Add Ink Challenge.

This week Chantell has designed a great sketch for us to use. I really loved it, as it leaves quite a bit of room to play. I decided to do a layout, and as I hadn't had a play with My Digital Studio for a while I decided to do a digital layout.  I found the Star Wars graphic on the internet, as well as the font for the text.  The font is called Star Jedi.

The photos were taken at a library "May The 4th" event that Rob took the kids to.  For those that aren't Star Wars fans, it's a play on the line "May the Force be with you" from the movies and is celebrated worldwide on the 4th of May.  Alex using his new dressing gown to dress up as a Sith Lord, and Ada and I threw together her Padme outfit in about 5 minutes!  The other characters are from a group called the 501st Regiment.  They attend a heap of Star Wars and other themed events, especially children's and charity events.

I used a Basic Black base for the layout, and then added a star burst overlay on top in Daffodil Delight.  I was going for the warp speed look with the stars turning into streaks as the Millennium Falcon speeds through space.  I was quite pleased with the look.

I hope you can play along with us at Just Add Ink this week.  It's a great sketch to play with!

Bye for now,

Tina

oh, PS: This is my 67th layout this year :)

Sweet Sorbet Card Box

Hi!

As I mentioned on Monday, I found 2 Sale-A-Bration projects that I hadn't blogged yet, so I decided to blog them this week.  Are you missing the Sweet Sorbet DSP as much as I am?  I have stashed away a few packs for a future project!

This box was my monthly class project in March.  The ladies got to construct the box using the Envelope Punch Board and then made some cards to go inside.

It was a fabulous project.  I ended up making a few more cards (it easily fit 5) and gave it as a gift to my mum.  Now she has a small stash of cards to use for a variety of occasions.

Here are the two cards we made in class.  I used some more of the Sweet Sorbet DSP on them, as well as the Papillion Potpourri stamp set.

I deliberately kept the cards nice and flat with no embellishments to stick out so that they slide in and out of the box easily.

Bye for now,

Tina

Sweet Sorbet Watercolouring

Hi!

I know Sale-A-Bration is long gone, but I found 2 projects in my "To Blog" folder that I must have missed before now.  I thought I'd show them to you anyway, as I really love both projects.  Today's one is a card using the Sweet Sorbet paper.

This card was made as a sample for my Stamping Ladies, who had asked me to show them a watercolour wash background.  We achieved the look by simply brushing some ink over watercolour paper using an Aqua Painter.  So easy but so effective!

I realised just as I presented the card to the group that I'd stamped the watercolour panel upside down!  I used Summer Starfruit, Pistachio Pudding and Crisp Cantaloupe for the watercolouring and I'd intended to have the Summer Starfruit section at the top as a contrast to the Crisp Cantaloupe flower.  Oh well, I think it still looks good.

I like using a little snippet of the DSP from the front in the inside of the card.  In this case I used some of the ribbon too.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 31 and 32

Hi!

Today I'm continuing my Paris scrapping with you.  The first layout is three pages that show our visit to the Louvre.  We got there fairly late in the afternoon and only had about 3 hours to try and see it all.  it's simply not possible!

We had a skip the lines pass, so at least we didn't waste a lot of time in lines!  We quickly went through the Medieval foundations of the building and then emerged into the Egyptian section.  This was probably a mistake, as Rob is absolutely mad on anything Egyptian and he probably could have spent all three of our hours just in this section!  My feet were killing me by this point, so I sat for a while and let him explore before I hurried him on to other sections.

We were using the Lonely Planet Guide to France to guide us through most of the Museum.  They have a "cheats" map that takes you on a route that goes past all of the more famous exhibits.  We weren't strict to the map though and explored as much of the museum as we could in the time we had.  We were a bit surprised by how big the Mona Lisa was - yes that's right - how big it was!  We had so many people tell us how small it was before we left that we were just about expecting a postage stamp sized portrait.  Well, not quite, but you get the idea!

In our rush to see it all we forgot to go and see the inverted part of the glass triangle.  I don't think I even realised until we were home in Australia that we'd completely overlooked it. Oh well, just another reason to try to get back to Paris one day!

This layout was about the doors all around Paris.  it was just one of those things that I noticed about the city - the huge, beautiful doors everywhere.  Some lead into buildings, but others open up to allow you through to a courtyard in the centre of the building.  Most of the doorways were built when horse and carriage was the main form of private transport, so they are very wide and tall.  Some were plain, others were very ornamental.  They were all beautiful.  Can you imagine coming home through a door like these every day?  I think I would smile every time.

Thanks for sharing a bit more of my Paris scrapping.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 213: Just Add Inspiration!

Hi!

Here we are with another gorgeous Just Add Ink Challenge to sink your teeth into.  This week Nikki has put together this beautiful set of images to inspire you to create.

Isn't it lovely?  The colour palette is so pretty!  I decided to use the colours to create my very first card in a box.  It was lots of fun to create, and very easy too.

It was quite difficult to get a lovely picture of the card, especially of all the flowers in the top.  Being a gloomy day didn't help either!

I was a bit lazy creative in colouring the flowers.  I stamped the flower in Pool Party and then stamped one of the splodge stamps from Gorgeous Grunge over the top in Blushing Bride.

I'm not really a gold person, but I wanted to include some on my card.  I stamped the sentiment in gold and then clear embossed over the top of it.  I also used some of the thick gold Baker's Twine.

The back of the card in a box is where you write your sentiment, so of course it had to be stamped too!

What will you pull out of the inspiration photos to inspire your creativity?  The design team have a wide variety of cards to inspire you too.  Why don't you pop on over to Just Add Ink to check them all out?

Bye for now,

Tina