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