Anything goes....

That's the theme at The Kraft Journal this week. Here's my card:

I've been meaning to try kraft with navy blue ink, and this week I saw my friend Kerry playing around with the colours, and thought it would be perfect for this week's challenge.

The stamps are from Darkroom Door -  the Montmarte set and the Star Background.  Each and every time I stamp with my Darkroom Door stamps, I'm amazed at the detail in them.

I finished the card off with some ecru lace, a scrap of navy twill tape and a pearly thingy whachamacallit.

Just for fun I thought I'd do something with the inside of the card:

Loving this colour combination! Thanks for stopping by.

 

AnnaBelle Sketch #34

Here's the sketch:

and here's my card:

I used the new All Things Grow set of stamps with a couple of green and pink dye inks. Here's a close up:

You can see the two-toned leaves better in that shot. I used some Blossom Sprinkles, and the papers are Basic Grey.

Pop around to the blogs of the rest of the design team:

Belles
Andrea
Sue W
Kylie
Chupa
Ida
Jerusha
Rene'
Lisa
Sue K


Bellas
Liz
Kerry


This will be my last card as a design team member for AnnaBelle Stamps, as I have decided to step down. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with AnnaBelle Stamps. Andrea is a lovely, warm and generous person to work for, the rest of the team is very supportive and encouraging, and oh my goodness - the girls she has just appointed to the team are so talented. They will do a fabulous job I'm sure.

Thank you for following my AnnaBelle Stamps work - there are some awesome stamp sets in the pipeline, so I do hope you'll keep track of them all on the AnnaBelle Stamps blog.

....

A card for little Mia

Our great niece turned 2 last week. God that makes me sound old, I'll rephrase:

Our niece's daughter turned 2 last week (yep - that sounds better), and I made her a little card:

I used Prima paper on white cardstock, but it looked a little stark, so I stamped a very grungey background stamp from Glitz with some Distress Ink, and then sprayed a little Blue Lustre Colour Spray on the white and it all blended much better.

The chipboard pieces are from Twiddleybitz - the Fairy is a new piece, and I used some of my favourite Fern leaves too. The fern leaves have been sprayed with Mintiliscious Colour Spray.

The alpha is from American Crafts, and the flower is Prima tizzied up a bit with some pink bling.

Here's a close up so you can see the sparkle of the glitter and the Mintilicious colour spray:

The best bit was when our niece Amanda picked up the card and said "This is going straight to her room," where to my surprise, it matched really well with the white/pink/red decor.  It wasn't until I was in the car on the way home that I got the giggles about Amanda's comment - just like Darryl Kerrigan in The Castle - "This is going straight to the pool room."

Apparently, it was just me that found this funny.


 

Gail's tiles

This is the set of chipboard tiles I made for my friend Gail for her birthday (ahem, cough cough - her birthday was in August, but better late than never, right?):

A few friends formed a group and the idea was that on our birthday we would receive 16 tiles from 6 or 7 other people.  The year started enthusiastically, with some people even receiving their tiles early. Life got in the way, however, and here's poor Gail waiting months for tiles from me. I was determined to get them done, and a huuuge purge of craft supplies and a good room tidy later, here they are in her chosen colour scheme of cream, black and gold.

Here's a close up of some of my favourites:

Most of the products used here are by Collections Elements. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenge and Wedding Card done!

Here's the card I made for the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger Challenge:

This was the trigger:

I loved the rolled roses on it - I'm always making those from paper both hand-cut and when I need them to look roughly similar, I use my Die-namics rolled rose die from My Favorite Things. I interpreted the colour as silver, and stuck a little bit of tulle fabric underneath the roses. It looked sort of wedding-y, so I stuck a pearl in each flower and stamped 'Congratulations' with a Hero Arts stamp. I used the white Stampin' Up ink - it's brilliant.

Card for the wedding in March we've been invited to attend: done!

Here's a close up because I love close ups:

Thanks for stopping by!


 

Yeehaaaaa!

Click on this button:

My little card was chosen for Feature Me Friday. What an honour!

 

we are family...

This is the layout I did for The Kraft Journal's current challenge - family:

I used kraft cardstock, with some October Afternoon papers , Twiddleybitz chipboard flourish and alpha, Walnut colour spray, adhesive pearls and some machine stitching (all of my favourite supplies, in other words). All of the patterned paper has been distressed along the edges and inked with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. The scallops at the top were cut with a Die-namics die. The lines at the top right hand corner are from the calendar stamp set from Darkroom Door.  Here are some close ups:

The scalloped border at the top right hand corner with a little strip of the frame from around the alpha on it. You can see the stitching, the stamped lines and the journaling done with a white gel pen:

 The delicious Twiddleybitz flourish decorated with pearls:

 The alpha - the 'a' is an upside down 'g', the 'L' is a capital T with an arm cut off, and the Y is a capital. It all helps to create a higglety-pigglety look:

I love this photo of us. In the whole time we've been a family of five, we've only had a handful of photos taken, and some of them are just not publishable! This photo however, taken at Elouise's third birthday I like - even if Lou is looking at something else. Marching to the beat of her own drum, that's our Lou.

Thanks for stopping by for a look.

 

Say it with....

...emboss resist! That's the challenge at the AnnaBelle Stamps blog this week.  Here's my card:

I used stamps from  the set called Santa's Star.  I embossed them onto white cardstock with clear embossing powder, then I sponged three different colours of ink over the top. Once the ink was on, I sprinkled droplets of water on top to create a subtle background pattern.  I loved this technique!  The word came from the set called Teresa's Numbers (yes - MY numbers LOL!). The word was embossed and sponged the same way the background was, but then I used my aquash brush to clear the letters out a little and help them stand out.  A couple of eyelets and some blue/white stripey twine finished off the card.


Pop around to see what the rest of the AnnaBelle Stamps design team did with the challenge:

Belles
Andrea
Sue W
Kylie
Chupa
Ida
Jerusha
Rene'
Lisa
Sue K
Tiffany


Bellas
Liz
Kerry



and remember that if you play along, you'll put yourself in the running to win our monthly prize of a voucher to spend in store. The more challenges you enter, the more chances you'll have of winning!


 

Now this doesn't happen every day!

A copy of Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft landed on my doorstep, and there on page 62 was this:

Wahoo! Even Sammy sat down to read it :)

Here's the cover:

Thanks for letting me toot!


 

Bright spot

This week's Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab World is this picture here:

 

I loved the colourful little circles on the bunting; they really stand out against the expanse of white background. I decided to do something like that on a card.  Here's what I came up with:

  

I used three different butterfly punches on papers from my Cosmo Cricket Material Girls 6x6 pad.  I then used my sewing machine to stitch the butterflies into a long garland, leaving a few stitches between each one. Here's a close up:

 Thanks for stopping by!

 

these are a few of My Favorite Things....

My Favorite Things - the stamp company, not the warm winter kittens, tied up with string song. Or whatever.

Anyway, I love love love their dies, and have a little collection started of those. And their stamps - well, I just didn't know where to start, so I picked this set here:

Little Loveosaurus. Cute, huh?

Anyway, MFT running weekly sketches at Splitcoast, and I thought I'd join in the first week with this card:

but I was a little late LOL!  Damn that time difference - I always think I've got longer than I actually have. Here's a close up of the colouring anyway:

Oh well, I missed the first week, but here's the second week's card:

and here's a close up:

I used Copics and paper piecing for the image. I could use this image over and over (and I will, until I get some more MFT stamps LOL).

Thanks for looking in!

 

Inspired.

The day in the magical studio of felter Elizabeth Armstrong has inspired me to display more work in my own studio.

I've got a box full of work that isn't out on display, so when I was spring cleaning the other day I pulled it out and found a set of Thrinchies (three inch squares) from a swap last year. We had to use Collections products for this swap. I decided to put them on a canvas and hang them up.  Here's what it looks like:

From the top left, the thrinchies were made by : Susan Buckwell, Greta Young, Audrey Underwood, Natalie Wolfe, me and Micky Choo.

It's so deliciously dimensional.  Here's a side view:

I used texture paste and acrylics to decorate the canvas (it was almost too nice to cover up LOL), and then I stuck the thrinchies onto some stained muslin before adhering them to the canvas.

It now sits above my desk - a collaborative work that will provide inspiration for a long time to come!

Thanks for visiting!

 

For our brothers and sisters in Queensland...

The amazing Sherry Mendoza has organised a tonne of silent auctions, with all proceeds going to help all the people affected by the flood disaster in Queensland.

You can do your part (and perhaps pick yourself up something wonderfully arty) by clicking here. Some very well-known artist have contributed items, so it's well worth a look.

I wish everyone in Queensland the strength to make it through this terrible time.

 

AnnaBelle Stamps new release - All Things Grow

Wahoo! It's the 15th, and time for a new release set!  Here's the set called All Things Grow:

 

Something for everyone in this set.  Here is my fist card:

 

I've taken some of the grasses and turned them on their sides for a bit of a swag look. The green doily was die cut with my new Nestabilities set, and I added some Sprinkles for a bit of sparkle. I used a couple of different inks - a light green dye ink and a darker green StazOn, so I could stamp the butterfly under the words. The light green dye ink has shown up a little more yellow in the photo than it is in real life, but trust me, it all matches nicely.

Here's my second card:

 

I made the background with alcohol inks on glossy white cardstock. I love doing these backgrounds! This stamp set was perfect for stamping over the top.

This stamp set is available for purchase NOW at the AnnaBelle Stamps store, and if you purchase within the next 24 hours (you have until midday 16th January, Melbourne time) you score yourself free postage!

As usual with any AnnaBelle Stamps release, we have a bit of a blog hop. Your next stop is Sue. If you've arrived here at my blog directly and would like to start at the beginning, you can click here to be taken to the AnnaBelle Stamps blog.

Thanks for stopping by and for any comments you leave me.

 

Kraft with a flourish

I found an online store that I'm a little bit in love with - it's called the Kraft Outlet, and I think we all know how much I love kraft cardstock!

They have challenges on their blog, and the challenge word for this week is 'flourish.'  Here's my card:

A long tall card, in kraft, black and white. Love that colour combo! I used my favourite Stampin' Up script stamp, a Twiddleybitz nero flourish, some scrunched seam binding and a pearl in the centre.  Here's a close up:

Thanks for stopping by!