Button Buddies Pig

This was a fun card I made recently for a class focused on the stamp set Button Buddies and designer paper, this month is the best time to get designer paper as for every 3 packs, you get one free!

Stamps: Button Buddies, On Your Birthday, Pennant Parade 

Ink: Regal Rose, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight

Card Stock: Big Top DSP, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise, Regal Rose

Accessories: Big Shit, Tasteful Trim die, Perfect Pennants, 2.5" circle punch, Petite Pennants Punch, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, Dimensionals, Crystal Effects, stamping sponge, Basic rhinestones, subtles designer buttons. 

Live, laugh & Love Scrapbook Pennants

I CASEd the layout from somewhere on the web (apologies I couldn't find the link back when I went to look for it), but I changed the papers, stamps, colours & modified the layout a bit too........I have to make a matching page for this as this was just a single scrapbook page I made a few weeks ago and just haven't made time to make it a mate yet (I have a personal aversion to single scrapbook pages unless they are the title or end pages in my album). I love the al a carte stamps and in particular the Triple Treat Flower - not the least for which there are three handy punches to make layering it effortless, but in the Summer mini catalogue there is also matching designer paper - how cool is that?? Like many projects, I took the card stock and ink colours directly from the designer paper that I chose to use, Bring on the Cake. The page is designed to have only a single photograph on it - on the Poppy Parade section, which is hopefully large enough to leave a nice coloured boarder around the photograph to frame it nicely.

The pennants are all popped up on Dimensionals and threaded onto Early Expresso Bakers Twine, also from the Summer mini catalogue. The centre of each little flower on the pennants is highlighted with a small Basic Pearl and the scallop strips along the bottom were all cut with the Tasteful Trim die and the Big Shot. 

Stamps: Triple Treat Flower, Field Flowers, On Your Birthday, Pennant Parade

Card Stock: Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Eat Cake DSP, So Saffron, Poppy Parade.

Ink: Poppy Parade, Baja Breeze

Accessories: Basic Pearls, Big Shot, Five Petal Flower Punch, Petite Pennants Builder Punch, Fancy Flower Punch, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, 1/2" circle punch, Antique Brads, Tasteful Trim die, Big Shot, SNAIL, Dimensionals, Early Expresso Bakers Twine, 1/16" handheld punch, 

Monochrome Green

I recently participated in a challenge to make a card using only one colour.........easer said than done as I was really stumped, then I started flicking through the Ideas Book & Catalogue and a card on page 9 caught my eye!  Here is my CASE of it done in nothing but greens (well except for the basic rhinestones and vanilla stripes on the ribbon!)

Stamps: On Your Birthday

Ink: Always Artichoke

Card Stock: Woodland Walk DSP, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery, Garden Green

Accessories: Curly label punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, Bitty punch, Scallop Trim Border  punch, Blossom Party Die, Big SHot, Basic Rhinestones, Dimensionals, Certainly Celery Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Linen Thread, Subtles Designer Buttons. 

Ostrich Punch Art

I finally got to finish another of the zoo animal punch animals from the tutorial I bought nearly a year ago from Kim I punched out lots of pieces and took them all away with me at Easter, so I should be able to post the finished products of all of them soon! 

Stamps: On Your Birthday

Ink: Basic Black, Basic Gray, Pretty in Pink, 

Card Stock: Whisper White, Basic Black, Basic Gray, Blush Blossom (retired, but you could use Blushing Bride), Pumpkin Pie, Elegant Soiree DSP

Accessories: more punches than I care to remember using - check Kim's tutorial for directions, White gel pen, basic black Stampin' write marker, paper snips.

Frog on a Log!

I made this card months ago when I saw a similar card on Jackie's blog when the heart treat cups were on a special offer I bought enough to do a swap with. I made a frog on a log and if you pull the tab you can access the treats from behind, so you don't have to ruin the card. It didn't show up very well on the card, but the log was stamped with Woodgrain before I hand cut the logs and sponged all the edges. The grasses in the background were made by stamping off several images of the stamp without re-inking.

Stamps: On Your Birthday, Inspired by Nature, Woodgrain.
Ink: Soft Suede, Basic Black
Card Stock: Whisper White, Old Olive, Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Big Shot, Beautiful Wings die, small oval punch, medium oval punch, Boho Blossom punch, paper snips, stamping sponge, 2-way glue pen, Owl punch (eyes), paper snips, SNAIL, wide oval punch.

Crazy For Birthday Cupcakes!

We bucked the trend recently and did a birthday card class - it was very pink - although we did do the centre flip/swing card in bashful blue as well as pink just for something different! The DSP is retired (sorry), but I was cleaning up and found half a pack and thought that the colours matched what I was planning to do perfectly. I do love the Crazy For Cupcakes stamp set - very versatile and just plain good fun!

The flip/swing card template is one I got via Google and adapted it for our paper measurements, but basically it is 16.8cm x 14.8cm in total size. The cutting is 3.5cm in from the edges and the two centre score lines are 6.8cm from each side - if it doesn't make sense I can draw out a sketch of the template. The centre chocolate chip pieces are 9.2cm x 7.3cm in size and the whisper white pieces are 8.6cm x 6.7cm. One side looks like this, although the glitter didn't turn out very well on the photograph that is on the balloon.

This is the other side (not finished, but photographed for blog purposes as I still need to add the pink party whistle stamps to the pink surround base piece). Once you have the base sorted out it really is a quick card to make up and flipping it really is very therapeutic! 

Stamps: On Your Birthday, Crazy For Cupcakes

Ink: Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip

Card stock: Whisper White, Regal Rose & Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Dazzling Diamonds glitter, 2-way glue pen, Aqua painter brush, stamping sponges, SNAIL.

Strawberry Ants & Colour schemes

I added a new blinky link to my blog recently called the "Colour Lab" it's so much fun - click on it and it takes you to a colour lab where you can figure out what colours go with what, you can choose from the new colours, retired, in-colours and even add your own or rate other peoples colour combinations. There is also a "surprise me" button for when you are up for a challenge or out of mojo. Anyway I've been using it a bit of late and have been happy with the results so thought I would share it with you.

Some of my favourite stamp sets are the simple ones - I love Tart & Tangy, it's really versatile, timeless and at AUD$21.95 is great value for money. I've done a few different things with the different fruits from the set, but had a lot of fun combining it with ant from Bugs & Kisses (for some strange reason the ant image from this set was missed out of the 2009-10 catalogue and in my opinion he was the cutest bit! Anyway here's a quick, clean and simple card made with them, change the greeting and it'd be suitable for any occasion really. The middle strawberry I popped up on dimensionals and all of the strawberries I covered with a thin film of crystal effects to give the card a bit more dimension.

Stamps: On Your Birthday, Tart & Tangy, Bugs & Kisses

Card stock: Real Red, Basic Black & Whisper White

Ink: Old Olive marker, Real Red marker & Basic Black

Accessories: 1/4" grosgrain black ribbon, stamp-a-ma-jig, paper snips, crystal effects, Stampin' Dimensionals,

Another Crazy For Cupcakes card!

Well I have seen SO many awning shop type cards on the blogs of late - I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and make one of my own! I loved this one here on fellow Australian  demonstrators site Andrea and as I had the Crazy For Cupcakes stamp set and Sweet Always DSP out for the Crazy For Cupcakes class I had teaching those were what I used - ohh plus lots of glitter - that class uses LOTS of Dazzling Diamond glitter, we all came away quite sparkley that afternoon! I made two versions of this card - one with the Dazzling Diamonds glitter and then a second with the light pink chunky sprinkles glitter (that was in the inventory clearance sale back in January). I preferred the one with the chunky glitter as it gave it more dimension, I'm also trying to decide if I like the happy birthday shop sign above the awning or if it needs to be layered up again - I really can't wait to see if we get the SU XL modern label punch in the new catalogue as that would be perfect to layer up the window word punch (my wish list is VERY long by the way)......ohh and it's not the card that was made crooked - that's my photography!

The awning was sponged along the edge and underneath held up with Stampin' Dimensionals to give a more 3D appearance to the shop front, the happy birthday was raised up again to give more dimension as well. The chunky glitter I stuck on with Crystal Effects - I figured as the size of the glitter was so much bigger than the Dazzling Diamonds, it would hold on better and give a more cupcake frosted 3D appearance if I used the Crystal Effects.

Stamps: Crazy For Cupcakes, On Your Birthday

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Sweet Always DSP, Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette.
Ink: Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Scallop edge punch, window word punch, Light Pink Chunky Sprinkles glitter, Stampin' sponge, Stampin' Dimensionals, SNAIL, Crystal Effects, Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Chalk Technique

Chalks or Stampin' Pastels are a really versatile thing to have in your crafting kit - you can apply them directly to the card stock to give a soft look, or make the pastels "pop" by stamping an image in Versamark or White craft ink and then dabbing the pastels over the top with a cotton tip or sponge dauber.

I ran a class in how to create 3 very different effects with the Stampin' Pastels a couple of months ago and here is one of the cards from that class (the scallop oval punch is a carry over item from the 2009 Spring mini catalogue and can still be ordered), hard to tell with my photography, but the greeting was raised up on Dimensionals.

Stamps: Tart & Tangy, On Your Birthday
Paper: Elegant Eggplant, Basic Black, Old Olive, More Mustard
Ink: Whisper White Craft Ink
Accessories: Stampin' Pastels, large oval punch, scallop oval punch, 1 1/4" square punch, gold brads, paper piecer, old olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, SNAIL, Stampin' Dimensionals, sponge daubers.