Birthday Girl

Hi there,

my beautiful daughter, Eleanor, turned four years old a few days ago- and was she excited. Her design brief to me for her birthday card was that it MUST have glittery flowers. So given that starting point this is what I ended up with.

And here is a close up of one of the glittery flowers.



Using the Bali Breeze paper as colour inspiration, I made Rose Red and Pumpkin Pie the main colours, with highlights of Taken with Teal and Old Olive. Using the In the Spotlight stamps and various punches, I layered up little stacks to make flowers, finishing each off with a brad. Needless to say there was glitter all over the kitchen which acts as my stamping space for days. To balance all that vibrant colour I used the Number Collage cuttlebug folder, colouring in the central number four with a Rose Red marker before actually running it through the cuttlebug. A bit of Pumpkin ribbon and little silver hodgepodge finish it off. Finally the inside was stamped with four of the 5-petal flower stamp, in alternating Pumpkin and Rose Red, in a vertical row down the outside edge. Sorry I don't have a good photo of that.

End result she was happy (although in all honesty she was more interested in her presents) and I was happy too :)

Recipe:

Stamps: In the Spotlight

Card stock: Taken with Teal, Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red, Whisper White
Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red, Old Olive, Taken with Teal
Accessories: Cuttlebug Number Collage folder, Rose Red and More Mustard (but honestly you couldn't tell it's not Pumpkin) brads, Dimensionals, Pumpkin Pie narrow grosgrain ribbon, Silver hodgepodge, Bali Breeze DSP

Thank you card for winning a blog competition

Hi there,

I was lucky enough a few weeks ago to win a blog competition set by talented Aussie Linda Higgins. The aim was to guess the stamps sets used in this post. Needless to say I was delighted and very excited to find out that I had won and I waited eagerly for my prize pack to arrive from Linda. As soon as a saw something large and white sticking out of my letter box I was off up the driveway in a flash :) and its a long one! She was very generous, including stacks of lovely SU ribbon, metal edge tags, some chipboard, DSP samples and standard wheel - By the Sea which was lovely surprise. You can see it all below.

To thank Linda I made her a card, which I posted off earlier this week. The design isn't mine but one I CASEd from a very talented UK blogger - Jenny- whose blog I discovered at Christmas. Her card struck me at the time as one of the best I'd seen that used the 2009 Sale-a-bration sets. So with a few little changes here's my version for Linda.



As you can see the card is square - 12 cm x12 cm, I used Regal Rose as the base layer and then stamped that with the Paisley background in Regal Rose. The central feature, a garland of flowers (alternating Rose Red and Regal Rose with half pearl centres) surrounds the sentiment and is mounted on firstly a white cuttlebuged circle, then Rose Red scalloped circle. Both cut for me by another talented blogger and good friend, Sam, using her circle nestabilities - thanks Sam. The circle mattes are up on dimensionals as are the Regal Rose flowers. Then finally there is horizontal matte of Rose Red cuttlebuged with a Frill border pattern that is laid over a white scalloped layer - whewwww. Took a bit of work but I liked how it turned out - so thank you Jenny for the lovely design to follow. Glad you like it Linda !

Oh and I finished off the inside to match as well.



Finally here's a side shot so you can see how the various layers are up on dimensionals.





Recipe:
Stamps:Paisley, Polka Dot Punches, Simple Wishes
Card stock: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Whisper White
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red
Accessories: Circle nestabilites, Swiss dots and Frills border cuttlebug folders, Dimensionals, Scallop border punch, 1 3/8 circle punch, 1 1/4 circle punch, Kaiser half pearls

Kristina Werner Colour Challenge # 38

Hi there,

well this was my first go ever at a Kristina Werner colour challenge, I have been watching everyone all over blogdom doing them and finally I took the plunge and did one. As I hadn't started my blog yet I posted this to the Eastern Blooms gallery on Splitcoaster as well as to my album there. Here are the colours Kristina chose:



Circles and flowers and Eastern Blooms were all still in my head and so I incorporated a bit of all of that into the card and I wanted to get some texture in there as well. So there are lots of little details - rock and rolling of the central flower as well as clear embossing it, cuttlebug embossing of the mount behind it and piercing of the punched circles that make up the scallops on the central element, the brads etc. I wanted it to reflect her inspiration photo as well - so that is why I went with the Petals wheel - it had quite a bit of white space in it and the flowers are actually quite similar to those seem on the notepad. Anyway here is my card and the recipe will follow.

Recipe:
Stamps: Eastern Blooms, Petals wheel, So Many Sayings
Card stock: Whisper white, Ruby Red, Pretty in Pink
Ink: Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: Mat pack and piercing tool, Large oval punch, Word window punch, 3/4" inch circle punch, Fiskars circle template and cutter, Dimensionals, Ruby Red brads, Crimper, 1/4"inch Pretty in pink grosgrain ribbon, Swiss dots cuttlebug folder

Kristina Werner Colour Challenge # 39

Hi there,

when I first saw the colours for the latest colour challenge - I was gobsmacked - it certainly wasn't a combo that I thought came to me naturally. First I had an idea of trying to combine the last Mojo Monday sketch with the challenge and I also also had a simpler idea. I decided to go with the simpler idea first - just as well because my almost one year baby boy started to throw up at 9 pm last night and didn't stop for a couple of hours. So it was a late night - of NOT card making. However I did manage to finish my simple version this morning. I still have Pick-a-petal in my head, so I mulled over the colured petals matted on black, blacked stamped petals matted on colour but in the end the version I liked best was black stamped onto coloured card. So here it is - very simple - but I kind of like it.

Card recipe:
Stamps: Pick a petal, Short and sweet
Card stock: Whispher White, So Saffron, Green Galore, Real Red, Black
Ink: Basic Black, Real Red
Accessories: Wide Real red grosgrain ribbon, Real red and black brads, Mat pack and piercing tool, Dimensionals, Snail adhesive

See you soon.

Kim

Makeesha's First Sketch Challenge for 2009

Hi there,

well I am going slightly backwards today and will post the card I made for Makeesha Byl's first sketch challenge for 2009. I had floral cirles on my mind so I wanted to incorporate that into the card. Oh and I wanted lots of texture - hence the cuttlebugging, brads and embossing. ( I just love embossing - especially the clear - I find it hard to resist embossing everything! Although the first time I embossed with the gold it was like magic watching the colour come alive).

The colour combo of Pumpkin Pie and Rose Red was another thing I wanted to try out as I had seen some really lovely cards, by Sam Post and Karen Thomas. In the end I was probably 90 plus percent happy with it. It did feel a bit over floral to me - to many elements competing? Anyway here it is - see what you think.






Recipe:
Card stock: Rose Red, Whisper White
Inks: Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red
Accessories: Bali Breeze DSP, Rose Red DSP, Scallop edge punch, Word window punch, circle punches, Dimensionals, Snail adhesive, Clear embossing powder, Heat Gun, Silver hodgepodge brads, Pumpkin Pie narrow grosgrain ribbon, Swiss dots cuttlebug folder

Makeesha's Colour Challenge #3

Hi there,

well this was a challenge - chocolate chip, ruby red , blue bayou and very vanilla. The colours seemed very masculine but Makeesha, who does some awesome work, proved they can be "girly". So I decided to take the tough road and do a girl card with lots of chocolate chip. I must admit I was really pleased with the result especially as its a bit different from the cards I've made before. Here it is:

I decided to make the background chocolate chip but I wanted the brighter colours to really stand out, so I stamped the polka dot petal in Ruby Red on Very Vanilla and then cut the petals out with a large rim of vanilla. The centre of the flower I stamped with blue bayou to tie in the the blue top and bottom. The petals and centre are all up on dimensionals, the centre a double layer. I scalloped the blue bayou at the botton, used the word window punch to cut out a window for the sentiment, added some blue bayou ribbon, then paper pierced all around the edge, a double row down the chocolate chip sides. Oh and added two pewter in the top corners.

Card recipe (all SU):
Card stock: Chocolate chip, ruby red, blue bayou and very vanilla
Ink: Chocolate chip, ruby red and blue bayou
Stamps: Pick a petal, and Short and sweet
Accessories: Dimensionals, Pewter brads, Word window punch ( can't live without this - thanks for letting me borrow it Sam), Blue bayou double stitched ribbon, mat pack and piercing tool, glue dot, scallop edge punch.

Thanks for looking,

Kim

Welcome

Welcome,

well where to start. Firstly I think I needed to say a special hello to a good friend who started me on this journey two years ago- hi Sam. I know Sam is watching - in fact she's the only one who knows about this blog so far. Well after two years of reading other people's blogs I have decided to be more participative and join the blogging crafting community. I won't be able to post everyday but I have an archive of old images so I should be able to pop things up regularly and I am trying to post for some sketch and colour challenges - so stay "posted" and I will be back soon with an actually card for a colour challenge.

Kim