Music From The Heart

Hi!

When I was lucky enough to be asked to present Beautiful Moments at OnStage in Sydney last November, I also received a few extra stamp sets in my presenter pack. One of them was the fabulous Music From The Heart stamp set. I was soooo excited to see it, as I am a musician. It's a set that will definitely find a place in my 'keep forever' shelf!

Today's card was made for a mate of Alex's who was turning 18. He's a quiet lad, but is passionate about music, and so it was a perfect set to use for his card.

I used lots of bright colours to stamp the images on the card - Blueberry Bushel, Call Me Clover, Pineapple Punch and Real Red. The keyboard image was stamped on a Whisper White scrap, fussy cut and then trimmed into two pieces to allow it to stretch across the width of the card.

Here's a trick for making sure you stamp the notes and guitars in the correct place: lay the Stitched Circle die on the card where the die cut circle will end up, and trace around the inside of the die lightly in pencil. This saves you having to guess where you need to stamp the images.

I used the same colours to stamp across the bottom of the inside. The sentiment also comes from the set. There's a few cute pun stamps, and a few more for different occasions. the hand-written font is lovely.

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #262 Week 1: CASE The Koala Card Sketch

Hi!

After two weeks of CASEing the Sale-A-Bration catalogue, the CASEing The Catty Crew have a new challenge for you. This fortnight we are CASEing the layout of this cute Birthday Bonanza card from page 34 of the January-July Mini Catalogue. Did you buzz on over from Peta's blog? Keep on buzzing through my post!

To make things nice and easy for you, the lovely Siobhan has simplified the card into this sketch.

I decided to flip the sketch onto it's side, and use my Nested Stitched Dies instead of the rectangles in the sketch.

The hexalong shapes made me think of bees, so it was a natural jump to pull out my Golden Honey DSP. The bees were fussy cut from one of the sheets and then popped up on each of the hexalongs.

I used my retired (sob!) Golden Glitz Delicata ink to stamp the birthday sentiment from Label Me Bold. A few black sequins filled in the empty space on the hexalongs. It's s nice, subtle way to fill the space.

I couldn't bear to waste this large bee that was on the edge of the DSP, and therefore not a whole bee. Now he can fly again on the inside of my card, LOL.

Don't forget that this week is Week One of the new challenge, which means you have two weeks to make your card and get it posted into our Facebook Group.

Michelle was feeling a bit tropical this week - it must have been the heat! Anyway, pop on over to her blog next to see her fab card.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #490: Just Add An Easel

Hi!

Thanks for popping back to check out what the Just Add Ink team are doing for our new challenge. This week Lou has challenged us to add an Easel to our creations.

There are *lots* of different types of Easel Cards out there, but I decided to do something a little different and actually use an easel image on my card. I don't have any stamps or dies, so I googled free easel clip art, and when I found one I liked I cut the shape on my Scan 'n' Cut.

I really loved this vintage woman. Check out the hairstyle! I'm sure it was very fashionable over 100 years ago. This image set the tone for the card - I went for vintage colours and papers. The newsprint behind the image is from the Come Sail Away DSP pack. I tried to cut a piece that wasn't obviously sailing related, and then inked the edges to age it further.

Perennial Essence DSP was the perfect choice for the artwork, don't you think? I used another piece from the pack to cut the oval background. This sentiment from It Starts With Art was also perfect for the card. The metal flower underneath is from the retired Share What You Love Embellishment kit. I aged the silver flower by colouring over it with my Bronze Stamping' Blend.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll use this card for - I guess it could be anything, depending on what I write on the inside!

I hope you have a lot of fun thinking of easel ideas for our challenge at Just Add Ink. I can't wait to see what you make!

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #261 Week 2: Sale-A-Bration

Hi!

Happy Australia Day! I hope you've had a lovely day doing fun things. I was up early to play in my concert band at an Australia Day breakfast, and then played later in the afternoon at a Citizenship Ceremony. I could do without the speeches, but it's always fun seeing the range of new citizens welcomed to our city.

Australia Day or not, it's time for our weekly CASEing the Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. As it's Week 2 of the challenge, we are still CASEing anything from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue. Flicking through, this Lily card with the die cut ombre background caught my eye. I love blue, so I think it was natural that I was drawn to it.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I love a good sponge brayered ombre background, so that's how I chose to CASE this card. It was tempting to use the blues, but I decided in the end to use purples - Purple Posy, Highland Heather and Gorgeous Grape.

It's interesting how this process shows up some of the undertones in the colours. For example, Purple Posy has a grey undertone, and you can see this at the top of the card where the purple fades out. Once I'd rolled on the three colours, I flicked some water over the top. Such a fun, cool effect!

I die cut the starry swirl from Black Glimmer paper and adhered it to the ombre background. I forgot to peel off the coating on the back of the paper, so popping out all of the little bits was a pain, but I think it was worth it! I used the stars, plus a few extra in Whisper White and Gorgeous Grape that I had floating around on my desk, to finish off the front. The sentiment comes from Label Me Bold, a stamp set I am really loving.

It's soooo hard to see, because it's very thin border, but I used the offcuts from the ombre background as a border for the Whisper White panel on the inside. When I rolled the front panel, I did a full card front sized piece for this very reason. It's a great time saver!

I'm all done, so I'm off to kick back for the rest of the Australia Day long weekend. I think I might do some sewing tomorrow. I have a quilt on the go that needs a little more work. It's for Alex's 17th birthday in April, so in theory I have plenty of time, but we all know how time can run away on us! Check out our Facebook Group for lots of inspiration, and upload your card for our Sale-A-Bration challenge.

To continue the hop, next up is the fabulous Siobhan.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #489: Just Add Colour

Hi!

Its time for the new week of Just Add Ink. Yay! This week we have a little bit of a different Colour Challenge for you. Rachael has given us these five colours, and we are to choose any three.

Hmm, which ones appeal to you? Confession: I struggled for the longest time with these. I just couldn't find a combo of three that I liked! Then I picked up 'The Gang's All Meer' and inspiration struck. I went with the bottom line: Blueberry Bushel, Daffodil Delight and Call Me Clover.

I started by stamping the cacti and the lizard (iguana?) in my new Saddle Brown Stazon on Watercolour paper. I then used my selected colours (and a little touch of Sahara Sand) to watercolour my scene. I diluted the Blueberry a lot so that it worked better as a sky colour. The sun is stamped from Waterfront, as I really suck at getting a round shape freehand.

I stamped the Clover card base with the cactus and lizard in coordinating ink. The sentiment panel was finished with a mini paper clip and some white thread from the retired Share What You Love Embellishment kit. Why do I hoard these kits, only to use them once it's retired?

I finished off the inside with another cactus. I tried to add in the lizard too, but I just couldn't make him work. Next time!

Time now to pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you can find the rest of this week's Design Team cards. You can also link your card up for the challenge. Which three of our colours appeal to you?

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH January Blog Hop: Sale-A-Bration

Hi!

Welcome to the first Art With Heart Blog Hop for 2020. This month we are featuring cards using the amazing products you can earn for free during our Sale-A-Bration promotion. Until the 31^st of March, for every $90 you spend on Stampin’ Up! products, you will earn free products from our Sale-A-Bration brochure. Just ask me if you'd like to know more!

I recently earned the gorgeous Golden Honey Specialty DSP, and so that's what I'm using on tonight's card. I'm not big on bees, but there are enough non-bee papers to make it worth getting for me. The DSP is specialty paper because one side of each sheet contains gold foil elements.

As much as I'm not into bees, I couldn't resist adding a couple of the gold foil bees to the front of my card. They were very easy to fussy cut from the DSP. I popped them up (using Black Dimensionals - yay!) over a piece of black and gold DSP. It's meant to be a honeycomb look, but I'm already trying to work out if I can get it to look like a circuit board on a future card. LOL.

The SDSP features black, gold and white, but I wanted to add some colour. After experimenting with Blends and Stampin' Write Markers, I ended up using my Watercolour Pencils. The bottom third of each flower/petal was coloured with Rich Razzleberry, and the top third with Flirty Flamingo. I then used my Wink Of Stella (what else!?!) to blend the colours into the middle third. The pop of colour is quite nice, I think!

I used a Sale-A-Bration stamp set, Happy Birthday To You, for the sentiments on my card. I also used a left over strip of my coloured flower DSP to finish the inside of the card. There wasn't a flower at the left of the strip, which looked a little boring, so I fussy cut a tiny gold bee and glued him over the leaves.

That's all from me tonight, so now you're off to visit my lovely friend, Rachel Palmieri to see what wonderful creation she's made using her SAB goodies. I can't wait!

If you have a broken link or have come to this blog hop midway, you can view all the participants below:

Rebecca Jacovou

Vicki Boucher

Tina Gillespie

Rachel Palmieri

Kimberly Hern

Kate Morgan

Sharon Davern

Rachel Woollard

Ros Davidson

Christina Barnes

Sujatha Harding

Andrea Sargent

Catherine Proctor

Michelle Taylor

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #261 Week 1: Sale-A-Bration

Hi!

Wow, this week went fast! It's Sunday, which means it's time for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. After two weeks of CASEing the new JJ Mini Catalogue, we are now CASEing the SAB Catalogue. Did you arrive here from Rachel's blog? Wasn't her card pretty?

It's a smaller catalogue, but there's still a tonne of inspiration to be found. My eye was caught by this card on page 7. I loved how they've used strips of Bermuda Bay cardstock over a Bermuda Bay base to create an interesting background for the card.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I decided to step it up even more! I used Grapefruit Grove, a colour that I haven't used much of lately. It's retiring in July, so I thought I better use it a bit more before it goes!

I started by cutting a heap of 1cm x 15cm strips of Grapefruit Grove. I then used a 1cm x 1cm piece in the exact centre to help me line up the first four strips, laid out around the square. I then used one piece as a spacer to lay out the rest of the strips. I did five strips in one direction before changing. I was so pleased with how it turned out!

After all that effort, I didn't want to hide too much under other layers, so I kept the rest of the front very simple. I like that the die cut from the Painted Labels dies looks a lot like a nest under the bird, which was fussy cut from the Bird Ballad DSP. The sentiment label was from the new Stitched So Sweetly dies. A few Grapefruit Grove Faceted Gems finished the front.

I also kept the inside very simple, just a sentiment from the SAB set, Happy Birthday To You, and a small flower, fussy cut from the DSP.

Our new schedule of challenges means that you now have two weeks in which to get your challenge card made and posted to the group. This is Week 1 of the new challenge, so you have plenty of time. Just head to our Facebook group and upload your photo there. Don't forget to let us know which card you've CASEd.

Time for me to go for this week, but you're now off to see what my lovely friend, Judy, has created.

Bye for now,

Tina