Happy Birthday Double Scrap Book Layout

Here is a double scrap layout from last year (!) that featured chipboard embellishments. It's a very clean layout without too many fussy bits as it was more to showcase the photographs than anything else.

It used a lot of die cutting - the letters, borders, flowers and scalloped photo mounts. As you can see the chipboard we layered to form embellishment pieces and used brads or basic rhinestones in the centres of them or in the case below we stamped then covered the pieces in Crystal Effects to give a lovely shiny finish to them before sprinkling with glitter. The blue circles were chipboard covered in card stock and the edges inked and the same with the vanilla scallop squares.

Stamps: Party This Way, Afterthoughts (hostess retired)
Ink: Basic Black
Card Stock: Not Quite Navy, Crumb Cake, Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla, White Stazon Ink
Accessories: Blossom Party, Tasteful Trim, Scallop Square Duo, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet, Crystal Effects, Circles #2, Perfect Pennants, Basic Rhinestones, Tombow, chunky glitter (retired), multi-purpose adhesive sheets, sponge dauber, sponges.

Peek-a-Boo Monkey Box

In May I participated in a number of challenges on a demonstrator website whilst others were at our annual Stampin' Up! national convention and one was to make a really cute little gift box called a peek-a-boo box, which at the time I did in pink and green and decorated with a water colour flower. I re-made mine recently to match the card I made last week.

How cute is this monkey??? I made the box to hold chocolates, but it could also be a gorgeous gift box for hair clips, jewellery or some other small treasure! 

Stamps: Fox and Friends, Eat Chocolate, Afterthoughts (level 1 hostess set)

Ink: Real Red, Chocolate Chip

Card Stock: Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Real Red

Accessories: Stamping Sponges, paper snips, Dimensionals, Early Expresso 1/8" grosgrain ribbon, thin window sheet, corner rounder punch, 1 3/8" circle punch. 

Dog Thanks

This is the thank you card that I made for the wonderfully generous donors and people who placed orders at the RSPCA fundraising afternoon in April. I love how fast roller wheels make gorgeous custom backgrounds and how the paper piercer and mat pack really add extra dimension to a card without any bulk!

Stamps: D is for Dog, Afterthoughts, P is for Paw (roller)
Ink: More Mustard & Early Expresso.
Card stock: More Mustard, Whisper White & Early Expresso.
Accessories: 1" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, stamping sponges, mat pack & paper piercer, roller wheel handle, Dimensionals.

Some May swaps............

Here are some of the swaps I received back from our demonstrator swap last month - the theme was anything from the new Autumn-Winter mini catalogue.

This first gorgeous card was made by Charmaine, using the new Motorbike stamp, the sentiment is from Word Play and the textured background is the carry over textured impressions folder square lattice. The accessories are the awesomely versatile basic rhinestones, a clip from the clip assortment and linen thread.

A very different motorbike by Maryanne, stunning isn't it? I have always loved this technique - simple using white and black embossing powders and also efficient as you automatically make two cards not one. The sentiment is from the hostess level 1 set, Afterthoughts. 

This card made me very happy - why? Because I demonstrated lots of Big Shot tips and ideas at our April demonstrator meeting and Tracie used one of the things I demonstrated for her swap card the following month. She has extended the tulip border embossing folder to make a square rather than the standard rectangle. The stamps are from a really nice set called Morning Cup.

Check back later in the week and I will share some more swaps from our May meeting......of course if you would like to join our team and be part of our monthly meetings which include swaps, training, business ideas and social chat, then contact me and of course you also get lots of other benefits like a permanent discount of your stamping and papercrafting supplies, incentives and other terrific benefits!

Growing Green - JAI Challenge

I saw a cool challenge this week over on the Just Add Ink website and thought I'd join in the fun! I am loving the water colour crayons being back in stock and have been playing with the gorgeous stamp set Growing Green of late so everything sort of got combined into this........the photography isn't the best as it's night time so no natural light and my husband normally watermarks stuff for me, but he's away so the creating side of this card was a lot of fun - the technical bits to get it onto the web are all a bit challenging!

You can't quite tell from the photo, but each flower is water coloured and cut as are all the leaves and then everything was repositioned and glued into place with Tombow or Dimensionals. The centre white circle is cut with the Circle Scissors Plus, sponged along the edges and layered onto the Baja Breeze scallop circle, before being added to the card using Dimensionals. The white backing piece has the tulip embossing folder frame added to it - irregular shape, but with a bit of patience and a Big Shot machine, it can be made to fit any rectangle or square shape - pretty versatile hey! 

The main sentiment came from the stamp set Afterthoughts which is a level one hostess set. I also had to embellish the envelope to match with a little masking just to make the postal workers day!

Stamps: Growing Green, Afterthoughts (hostess level 1)
Ink: Baja Breeze, Stazon Black,
Card Stock: Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Water Colour paper
Accessories: Aquapainter, Water Colour Crayons, paper snips, Dimensionals, Tombow, Big Shot, Circle Scissors, Scallop Circle Die, Tulip Textured Impressions Folder, stamping sponge.