A Starry Wondrous Wreath

Hi!

This month I have run a few classes making Christmas cards.  There's such a wide variety of colours and themes in the Christmas offerings this year so there's bound to be something that you love!  For this card I decided to stick with the traditional red and greea, but I went for colours in the brights range - Real Red and Wild Wasabi.  I have loved this as a Christmas combo ever since Stampin
 Up! had a promotional set of ribbons in these colours several years ago.

Lol, you can see that my inkpads needed reinking before I made this card!  I used Garden Green as the darker green in the wreath. I love the way that Stampin' Up! have made it easy to line up the stamps in this set by adding  a tab to the bottom of the stamp.  Now the only excuse for not getting it spot on is human error!

We used the new starry punch to add the border on the card.  I really love the look of the stars.  A few ladies kept the punched stars to use as a confetti surprise for the person who opens the card. I didn't have room for a large sentiment on the front so I used my Real Red Stampin' Write Marker to ink up just the merry part of the merry christmas sentiment from Good Greetings.

One of the things I look for in a Christmas stamp set is a sentiment that is suitable to use on the inside of the card.  I think this one is just perfect!

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 73 and 74

Hi!

Today I have for you the first two pages in my 2014 album.  Project Life is making it so much easier to create albums like this.  I am trying to do a double page a month.  I started doing this several years ago but I stopped for a few years.  I fully intend to go back and do the missing years - I just need to get organised with my photos!

January is usually a quiet month for us.  The long school holidays are a chance to rest and get ready for the school year ahead.

We did have a few outings though.  There was a hands on Lego display at the State Library that the kids loved.  The bottom right photo is the Lego version of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra that Ada and Rob built together.

We also spent a bit of time at the beach. The kids love going to the beach but I'm not a big fan - too much sand for me!  Still, I love going there to look for sea glass and I'm getting quite a collection.

February was quite busy too, with birthday parties, gardening and a trip to Mildura.

The kids were invited to a superhero dress up party.  Alex went as Steve from Minecraft and Ada went as Cat Woman.  It was a lot of fun!

We had missed out on seeing my family over Christmas/New Years so we all decided to have a weekend in Mildura, as it's about half way between where we all live.  It was a fantastic weekend, even if we scared the local club when all 14 of us turned up for dinner without booking first.  Luckily they were able to shuffle things around and fit us in.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #233: Just Add A Sketch!

Hi!

This week we have a fabulous sketch challenge for you at Just Add Ink.  Am I allowed to say it's a fabulous sketch given that I designed it? Oh well, I've said it now and I think it's true!

What do you think? Fabulous or not? The Design Team must think it's pretty good as they have come up with an amazing variety of gorgeous cards to inspire you.

I've needed a few baby cards recently so that's what I decided to make this week.  I really love this paper in the Lullaby DSP pack. It's a lovely, subtle background for the main panel.

I decided to replace the three butterflies in the sketch with the bow, baby and sentiment.  That's the great thing about sketches - you don't need to follow them exactly.  I also went for a rounded flag rather than a pointy one as I thought is was a softer look, perfect for a baby card.

The baby images were coloured with my Stampin' Write Markers.  I was after a roughish look that matched the polka dots on the front of the card, so I quickly scribbled the images, not worrying if I fully filled each space with colour.

I hope you can find time to play along this week.  I really enjoy seeing how people are inspired by the challenges I set at Just Add Ink.

Bye for now,

Tina

All Is Calm Washi Tape

Hi!

How's your day?  It's a case of another day, another sick child for me.  Bring on the school holidays I say - only 2 more school days to go!  In the meantime, here's a Christmas card using the new All Is Calm Washi Tape.

This was a card I was making as a sample for my upcoming Christmas Cards Class.  I quite like it, but I ended up not using it for the class

The All Is Calm washi tape is in the new Occasions Catalogue.  It's a little different to usual in that the pack comes with not three designs, but five different rolls of tape.  The colours used are lovely, soft blues and green with a hint of silver.

Not long now until Christmas - less than 100 days!  Time to get cracking on those Christmas cards!

Bye for now,

Tina

Perfect Peacock In Blendabilities

Hi!

It's a bit of an upside down day for me today - Hudson is home sick and so my usual routine is out the window!  He's got a cold, so there's a bit of grumpiness and a very snotty nose.  Best not to share those germs!

I have wanted this stamp ever since I first saw it.  Shelli Gardiner demonstrated a few projects at Convention back in May that used this stamp and I think I, and around 700 other Demonstrators, fell in love with it on the spot!  It's such a beautiful stamp, and it was lots of fun to colour with my Blendabilities Markers.

I recently had a niece turn 21 and I thought that such a special occasion warranted an extra special card.  I stamped the sentiment on Vellum so that I didn't obscure the peacock too much.  I cut the 21 numbers using the number dies in the File Tabs Edgelits, and then finished off the card with some scattered Sequins.

The inside of the card looked much prettier in real life.  I had to play with the colours a bit so you could see the peacock I stamped on the inside, which makes the sentiment colour look hideous.  You'll have to trust me that it was very pretty!

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 71 and 72

Hi!

Here we have it, the final two layouts in my Paris trip album.

This page was a bit of a mish-mash of bits and pieces that I collected along the way that didn't belong anywhere else.  The jigsaw of the Mona Lisa that we purchased at the Louvre that had an extra piece, the dollar to Euro conversion chart I made before we left home, some travel passes and some Euro coins left over from the trip.

This final page was, as you can see, a map of the city of Paris.  Most of the places we visited are marked on there, and I also added an arrow to show where our hotel was.  You can see it under the right side of my watermark.

Thanks for coming along with me as I relived my trip, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #232: Just Add Inspiration!

Hi!

How did you like our colour combination last week?  It was a fantastic combo!  This week we have just as fabulous a challenge for you at Just Add Ink.  Kim has found these gorgeous pictures to inspire our creativity.

Aren't they pretty?  I really loved how the flowers are the vibrant pink with the gold through them as well, so that's what I started with on my card.

I made some simple scrunched flowers using my scallop circle punch.  I took some Strawberry Slush cardstock and punched the scallop circles.  Next I scrunched the cardstock to soften it and then I split the cardstock to make it thinner and give it a suede, soft look.  I also punched some of the new Natural Filter Paper with the same punch and then layered it in between the layers of cardstock.  I was really pleased with how these flowers turned out!

The do make the card quite bulky though, so it will be a hand delivered card only!

I really like how the inside turned out too!

I hope you can play along with us this week at Just Add Ink!  See you over there on the blog.

Bye for now,

Tina

Dotty Angles Confetti

Hi!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love the new Stampin' Up! photopolymer stamps? Just one or two times I think!!

This was actually the first card I made using the Dotty stamp from Dotty Angles.  I have seen a heap of similar cards around, where the image is stamped once and then again in a slightly different place without reinking again.  I love the effect it gives!

I used some Baked Brown Sugar sequins to add a touch of bling to the card.  I love the way they hide in amongst the dots.

I stamped in the same way on the inside and discovered that instead of moving the stamp up for the second stamping, I need to move it down to avoid the line through the image.  Hopefully the recipient will forgive/not notice the oops!

Bye for now,

Tina

Draw The Line

Hi!

Where do you draw the line?  It's so much easier to draw the line with Stampin' Up!'s new photopolymer stamp set called Draw The Line! I recently ran a class on border stamps and this was one of the cards we made using the new stamp set.

I really love how easy photopolymer stamps are to line up!  We stamped the lines across the bottom in Smoky Slate and then again a second time without reinking.  As you can see through the stamps it was easy peasy to make sure that the spacing was even and the lines were straight.

The arrows are also a stamp in the set.  I thought they were a great way to add a little feature to the card, and they also tie in nicely with the new What's Up punched arrow. That punch is one of the current Weekly Deals, by the way!  I scribbled over the punchie with my Real Red marker to match the punchie to the stamped arrows.

I used the arrows again on the inside to add a border to the card.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 69 and 70

Hi!

Just squeaking in for my weekend scrapbooking post!  Very close to the end of my Paris layouts now.

I had researched before we left and found out that there was a Titanic Exhibition on in Singapore while we were there.  I'd missed it when it was on in Australia, so I was determined to go to this one.  When we arrived we were given a passenger card each that was based on a real passenger on Titanic.  At the end we got to find out the fate of our passenger.

 

Sadly, Rob's passenger didn't survive, being a 'lower class' male.  I got a First Class female passenger, so I was pretty sure I was going to survive.

It was an amazing exhibition that included real artifacts recovered from the ship and the wreck site.  There were lots of recreated rooms, including the magnificent staircase, where we had a very dodgy tourist photo taken!

I didn't take any photos of our arrival home to Adelaide.  I remember that at the airport Hudson ignored both Rob and I, like he was upset we'd left him for nearly 2 weeks.  It didn't take long for him to warm to us again though!  I loved the pictures that Alex and Ada had drawn for us, especially as they had "missed our faces".  Funny!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #231: Just Add Colour!

Hi!

This week we have a colour combination challenge for you at Just Add Ink.  I love doing colour challenges as often the hardest part of a card is choosing the colour combo, but in a challenge the colours are chosen for you.  Easy!

This week Mae has chosen these bold colours for us to work with.  Usually my first step in doing a colour challenge is to look at the DSP I have to see if I can use any of it.  In this case I went straight for the Flowerpot DSP and the bold Crushed Curry Polka Dot paper to use as the base of my card.

Next step is the accessories that I can use.  I'd been Project Life-ing the night before and remembered that the Everyday Adventure kit also features Crushed Curry and Basic black.  The card I used works well on the card and really ties in to the sentiment I used!

I had to trim the card in half to stretch it for my card.  The 'missing bit' is behind the main panel, so no one would ever know it wasn't a whole piece.  I created the notecard paper using the Draw The Line photopolymer stamp set and my Spiral Border punch - a great combination!

I really love this little cluster of stars from the Project Life Point & Click stamp set - I've been using them on heaps of cards lately!

What will you do with the colours this week?  Can't wait to find out, so make sure you join in with the fun at Just Add Ink this week.

Bye for now,

Tina

I Like You Circle Flip Card

Hi!

I quite like the Circle Card Thinlits, but I often forget to use it!  I thought the flower images from the Hostess set I Like You would work beautifully with the shaped card, and I think I was right!

I stamped the Left side of the base card with one of the smaller floral images from I Like You, and then used the happily coordinating Gold Soiree SDSP on the left side.  Have I said before how much I love that Stampin' Up! make it so easy to make things match?

The focal floral image was coloured with my Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive Blendabilities Markers. The sentiment comes from Tap Tap Tap and was the perfect size to fill the space left after the flower was stamped.

After I made (and photographed) the back of the card I decided that it would look better with another flower stamped on there.  I shifted the sentiment a little and stamped the same flower that I stamped on the left of the card.  It looked much better, but silly me forgot to photograph the new back.  Oh well!

Bye for now,

Tina

Dotty Angles With Sequins

Hi!

Today's card uses a new stamp set that we were shown at Convention, way back in May.  The name of the stamp set "Dotty Angles" stuck in my head, because Brian Pilling, who demonstrated the set, commented that he thought they stamp set was called "Dotty Angels" and couldn't work out why because there was nothing angelic about it!

I used the Dotty stamp in the set for this card.  I really love the confetti look of the dots.  They were stamped three times in Pistachio Pudding, Crisp Cantaloupe and So Saffron.

I added some Crisp Cantaloupe and Pistachio Pudding round sequins to the front for a little bling interest to the card.

As you know, I like to do the insides of my cards and match them to the fronts.  More dots, this time down the side to leave plenty of room for writing a message to the recipient.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 67 and 68

Hi!

I'm nearing the end of my Paris trip layouts - only 2 more weeks to go after this week!  I hope you're not sick of them yet.

As exhausted as we were when we flew into Singapore on our way home, we decided that we wanted to get out and see a bit of the city while we were there.  It was really tempting to stay at the airport and try to sleep a little more,  but I didn't want to regret not going into the city, so off we went!

After discussions with the lady on the help desk we decided to splurge on taxis rather than to attempt the public transport system on the amount of sleep we'd had!  In the end it wasn't much of a splurge, as the taxis were quite cheap.  Our destination was the Marina Sands Resort and the Art Science Museum as there was a Titanic Exhibition there that we were both keen to see. We wandered around the Resort for a little while and saw the amazing Casino, which looks like it has a boat on top of 3 pillars!  We also saw people getting a fish pedicure (yuck!) and some costumes from Wicked!, which was showing there.  Sadly, we didn't have enough time to catch the show.

The Museum is an incredible building that is in the shape of a lotus flower.  So pretty!  There are several ponds surrounding the building that are full of lotus plants.  There weren't many flowers in bloom, but the ones that were blooming were beautiful.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #230: Just Add Dad

Hi!

This week at Just Add Ink we have a bit of an obvious, but still very fun, theme for our challenge this wee.  We want you to Just Add Dad!  Yes, with Father's Day in a couple of days we want you to show us what you've made.  If you don't celebrate Father's Day a male card would be fine too.

I made this card for Rob for Father's Day.  His favourite colours are red, white and black because his favourite footy team is the St George Dragons.  I went for a few retired items on the card too, including the Real Red Coredinations cardstock and the For My Family stamp set.

I've also used a lot of new stuff, like the Typeset SDSP and the Point & Click photopolymer stamp set.  Rob loves maps, so I deliberately chose the map page from the Typeset SDSP pack.

I love this little star cluster and the way it highlights the inside sentiment.  The sentiment is from the Just Sayin' stamp set, but I chose to use a different word bubble that the one it was in.  I used my Real Red marker to selectively colour the stamp to just use the words and then used the speech bubble from Point & Click to frame it.  Love the photopolymer stamps for easy placement!

Can't wait to see what you've all come up with for the males in your life! See you over at Just Add Ink.

Bye for now,

Tina