Caseing The Catty Blog Hop Guest Designer

Hi!


I was asked recently if I'd like to be a Guest Designer for CASEing The Catty challenge blog. Of course I said yes! The regular DT do a Blog Hop every Sunday evening, with a challenge to CASE a card from a particular section of the Catalogue.

This week the CTC DT are CASEing from the Christmas section. I hadn't looked at this section much yet, as in July Christmas seems to be so far away, but if you're anything like me it sneaks up on you rapidly after that and you're wondering where the time went!

Anyway, I decided to CASE this card on page 29 of the Annual Catalogue. I really liked the CAS look of it.

I don't actually own the Peaceful Pines stamp set and framelits though, so I decided to substitute for the Embellished Ornaments stamps and framelits.

I went for a classic Christmas colour combo of Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White and Gold.

The original card had a few clear sequins scattered on the front, so I added some to my card too. They add a nice little something, but are discrete enough that they don't distract from the main elements.

I always finish the insides of my cards too, so I cut a second bauble from the Red Glimmer Paper to use on the inside.

Thanks so much to the CTC team for having me as a Guest Designer this week, it was lots of fun. Click on the Previous Blog button to go to the CTC Blog and the Next Blog button to go to the next blog in the Blog Hop, which is the lovely Rachel Palmieri.

Click on the badge below to play along with the challenge!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #322: Just Add Colour

Hi!


Gosh, this Friday really snuck up on me! First week back at school after the holidays always has that effect on me.

This week at Just Add Ink we have a colour challenge. It's such a soft, pretty combination, suggested by Rochelle.

I'm a really big fan of pink/brown combos, so this was right up my alley. I decided to get out my brand new Moroccan Nights stamp set to use with the combo.

I really love how this card turned out. Most people would automatically go for the Regals colours when stamping with this set, but I think it looks just as good with the softer colours. What do you think?

Hopefully you can see in this picture that I added some Wink Of Stella to the lanterns. I love the subtle glitter the clear pen adds.

The rest of the Design Team have made some absolutely gorgeous cards using this combo. You can see their cards on the Just Add Ink blog.


Bye for now,


Tina

Unexpectedly Grungy

Hi!


Today's card 2was one that was a bit of a surprise for me. Let me explain! My granny upline, Claire Daly, occasionally sets challenges in our team forum - I've probably mentioned this before. This time she gave us a pic of a bed with a geometric style doona and challenged us to use the colours. I loved the colours, but was also inspired by the geometric patterns in the doona. However, when I sat down to create, this is what I came up with.

I think grungy must be nearly the complete opposite in style to geometric! When the mojo's flowing, you just have to go along for the ride. The colours I used are Island Indigo, Pool Party, Blushing Bride and Crumb Cake. The retired Expressions "Thanks" was pushed into my Island Indigo inkpad to colour it, even though it looks nearly black in the pic.

After I'd assembled the card front it looked a little blank, so I ended up adhering a scattering of Gold Metallic Sequins.

So there you have it, my unexpectedly grungy challenge card!


Bye for now,


Tina

JAI #321: Just Add Paper Piecing

Hi!


Here we go again! It's Friday, which means it's time for the new Just Add Ink challenge. I'm pretty excited about this post for another reason though - it's my 1000th Blog post! I started blogging way back in February 2010, and would you believe that my first real post on my blog was my entry for JAI #2, which was to Just Add Hearts? I sure have learned a lot about card making, photography and blogging since then!

Today we are up to JAI #321 (wow!), which is to Just Add Paper Piecing, suggested by Patrice. Make sure you paper piece, and not paper pierce! Paper piecing is where you stamp an image multiple times on different papers or cardstocks, then cut out the different parts of the image and then piece all of those smaller bits back together to recreate the image. I hope your Paper Snips are sharp!

As it's still school holidays here, I had left my card to the last minute and then got in a bit of a flap about which stamp set to choose. In the end I went for the retired Beautiful Ride, because I wanted to try a multi-coloured Bug. I stamped the image three times - on my base, Whisper White cardstock, on Smokey Slate and again on Real Red. I would have loved to have used Basic Black instead of Smokey Slate, but even in daylight I think my eyes would have struggled snipping the black pieces of the Bug!

After I'd pieced all my pieces together I went over the top with my Clear Wink Of Stella pen because, let's face it, who wouldn't choose a metallic finish paint job on a car? You can see I cheated a little on the tyres and used a Candy Dot on each - it was just too fiddly to cut the tiny circles!

Whoops, I just realised that the inside pic is blurry - maybe just squint a bit and it will look OK!


You can see the rest of the paper pieced (not pierced!) cards that the Design Team have created on the Just Add Ink blog. There's some beauties there this week, just like every week.


Bye for now,


Tina

JAI #320: Just Add A Sketch

Hi!


I'm so glad to be back card making for the Just Add Ink challenges. I only missed a week, but sometimes a week feels like forever!

This week it's a sketch challenge week, and it just happen to be one of my sketches. I really like this sketch, if I do say so myself!

I've been wanting to have a play with the new Places You'll Go stamp set, and the round element in this sketch seemed perfect for it.

It's Rob's birthday in a few weeks, and he's mad on anything to do with maps and globes, so this set was perfect to use on his card. I went with the colours in the Moroccan DSP, which were Dapper Denim and Emerald Envy with Very Vanilla.

I couldn't find a suitable sentiment amongst all of my stamps, so I needed to make my own. I went with the 'you are my' from Sunshine Sayings and then used Labeler Alphabet to create 'world'. Too easy! I used the new Classic Label punch to crop them, and then just hand trimmed the ends with my paper snips.

LOL, I did worry that adding the hearts to the inside of the card made it a bit too smoochy, but it is a card for my hubby for his birthday, so I guess it can be forgiven just this once!


Does the sketch capture your imagination? I really hope so! Pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have made - they've done a great job, as usual.


Bye for now,


Tina

It's Been A Little While...

Hi!


It's been a little while since I've blogged.


Just after my last post I had a phone call to say that my beautiful nana had had a fall and was not in a good way. I had another call the next day to say she'd been placed in Palliative Care. So I jumped on a plane and went home to see her. It was a mad dash and I got there in time to spend her last 20 hours with her. My mum, sisters, niece and cousin were all with her, and we all stayed with her until the end. There was so much love in that room, and as sad as it was, it was also incredibly beautiful. A memory I will certainly cherish forever.


The next week was spent supporting my mum, helping to organise the funeral and being with family. It was also time to start healing the heart. I did a little stamping with my nieces, well, they stamped while I sorted out all of the kits they have accumulated! It really is amazing how soothing some cardstock, rubber and ink can be to me.

I'm home now, and even though it's school holidays for us I have managed to get in some stamping time so I will resume blogging again soon.


Thank you for all of the lovely messages I have received. I may not have been able to respond to them all, but I was very grateful to receive them.


Bye for now,


Tina

Let's Get Away to Matilda

Hi!


Do you like Project Life scrapbooking? I'm sure you know by now that I love it! I also love making mini albums, and now I've combined the two.


I used a retired kit for these, as it suited the theme of the album. The kit is Let's Get Away, and the purpose of the album was to spring a surprise trip to Melbourne on my daughter and her bestie.

I made the album to act as a Flip Book. On each page I wrote a little bit of information about the trip, and they needed to flip through each page to get the whole story. We took the girls to a café and got them to read the book out loud while I took photos and the other mum filmed them. It was very cute to see their reactions as they read each page of the book. You can see my layout about that here.

I made the girls a book each - thankfully there were enough cards in the kit to be able to make similar books.

I will take more cards from the kit on the trip so that the girls can write anything they'd like about the trip while it's still fresh. When we get home I will print off some of their photos to add to the book and they will have a mini album each to remember the trip. It's so easy!


Bye for now,


Tina

JAI #318: Just Add S

Hi!


TGIF! Do you feel like that some weeks? I certainly do! We have one more week to go before school holidays and we can't wait. No school runs in wet, miserable weather for two whole weeks!

But enough of that, you're here for the new Just Add Ink challenge, so let's get to it! This week it's my challenge and I'm challenging you to Just Add 'S' to your cards. As usual, it can be anything to with the letter S - let your imagination run wild!

This time I decided to go with the stamp set and Thinlits as my 'S' features - Sunshine Sayings stamp set, and Sunshine Wishes Thinlits.


I'm a little bit obsessed with watercolour washes lately - they seem to be popping up quite frequently on my cards! This time I used Daffodil Delight and Emerald Envy on Shimmery White cardstock. It's a fabulous cardstock for watercolouring as it doesn't pill like other cardstock.

I think used the flower Thinlit to cut both the watercoloured cardstock and a piece of Whisper White. It was a little tricky, but I switched the coloured flower with the WW flower and left all of the inside pieces in place. I really love the look it gives.

I can see myself having a lot of fun with the Sunshine bundle! I'm really loving the scribbly look right now.


You can see what the rest of the Design Team made using the 'S' theme of this week's challenge over at the Just Add Ink blog.


Bye for now,


Tina