Inkspirations 35 - Its a girl

Hi there,

welcome back - it's another week and time for another Inkspirations challenge. This week Keesh posted a truly lovely colour combo and I was really looking to have a play with it. Here's the colour pick.


Having looked forward to working with these colours would you believe I struggled! I changed the layout, I looked at every scrap of light pink DSP I had a hundred times (only a slight exaggeration), fiddled and changed my mind. In the end I decided it was incorporating the chocolate chip that I was struggling with. Finally I found a way and I also settled on a layout - flipping this weeks Sweet Sunday sketch.


Here's the result.


OK the final version ;) started with a Rich Razzleberry base, layered that with Whisper White to lighten the colours, then layered that with some Choc Chip DSP. Having worked out where my butterfly was going to be I could stamp my flourish flight trail. I inked up my leafy flourish in versamark and then choc chip and stamped it then embossed with clear embossing powder. Next having picked some Pretty in Pink dotty DSP I layered the two panels onto Razzleberry. Rounded a few corners and stamped the sentiment at the bottom of the long panel. The final piece is the butterfly feature - I stamped some Razzleberry dots onto Pretty in Pink, then punched out a butterfly. To fancy it up I added a wire body and big curly antennaes (I got this idea from a lovely card a special friend of mine made me for my birthday last year - you can see it here), and lastly added a rhinestone brad to bling it up a bit. The butterfly was mounted on dimensionals above a mat of white and Razzleberry circles. The inside was finished off simply to match.

It's not my favourite card of all time but I think it turned out quite nice in the end - and one I hope is suitable for greeting a baby girl to the world which is good as my beautiful little niece arrived this morning:)Welcome to the family baby girl!

Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly, Turning a New Leaf, Baby Button Bits
Cardstock: Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Pretty in Pink
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Accessories: Loves Me DSP (R), Berry Bliss DSP (R), Butterfly punch, Circle nestabilities, Rhinestone brad, Jewelery wire (local craft shop), Clear embossing powder, Sticky Strip, Dimensionals, Double sided tape, SNAIL adhesive.

Inkspirations 32 - A Wish

Hi all,
well welcome back :) This week Makeesha Byl has a colour challenge - a very yummy colour combo indeed. Here it is.

I'm still on a push to make lots of birthday cards (and just as well as my Miss 5 has three birthday party invitations this weekend !!) so when I saw the combo that Keesh put up I knew that was the way to go. Here is the result.



A card I saw earlier in the week by Dawn McVey in this post caught my eye, and so I decided to try and use that as my sketch starting point. I also pulled out a stamp from my stash that had yet to see ink but is quite cute so I thought it could work - my Miss 5 however was not to happy as she says she doesn't have a face!! Despite the lack of face I went ahead anyway! To stamp the image on watercolour paper I used a little trick I've picked up from DanielleDaws who usually embosses her images onto the watercolour paper - and it works a treat!! - thanks Danielle - as the embossed lines really reduce and any bleed of colour from one area to another. Anyway having embossed the image, I then got out my aquapainter and watercolour wonder crayons - slowly adding depth to the image. I did use a bit of choc chip marker at the end to get extra colour into her hair and then blended it in. Having coloured her in - I then also decided to do some paper piecing - so thats how it ended up a mix of the two but I think it combined the bit of the best of both. The final touch was to add dazzling diamonds to her wings -can't go past a little bling. I used my circle nesties to cut her out, as well as a choc chip frame. The image was laid over some dotty Saffron DSP (from Tall Tales) which I pierced around the edges, then adhered to a Regal Rose mat and then Choc Chip base. Finishing elements for the front are a strip of Regal Rose ribbon, embellished with some buttons and the sentiment tag, using my new Sizlet tags. I had a bit of fun with the inside stamping some fluttering dotty butterflies and adding a pierced flight trail from the "happy birthday".
Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless stated
Stamps: A Little Birthday Cheer, Teeny Tiny Sentiments, Flight of the Butterfly, Pippi (Swiss Pixies)
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, Very Vanilla
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, So Saffron, Versamark
Accessories: Watercolour paper, Watercolour Wonder crayons, Tall Tales DSP, Sweet Always DSP, Sizzlets Lots of Tags, Circle Nestabilites (Spellbinders), Mat pack and piercing tool, wide Regal Rose grosgrain ribbon, Raseberry Fizz and Lemon Tart buttons (PaperTrey Inc), Word Window punch, Boho Blossom punch, So Saffron brad, embroidery thread, Clear embossing powder, Dazzling Diamonds, Two way glue pen, SNAIL adhesive, Double sided tape, Dimensionals

A Little Something

Hi all,

sorry for the absence lately - I've been busy, busy, busy.

Busy at home (almost finished my swaps for convention - two more sleeps till I head off to Sydney - yahooo :), busy at work, and on top of that sick as well. Not alot of fun when your busy :( But feeling much better now....

Since I won't be posting a challenge card again this week, I dug a little something out of my archives. I made some bookmarks to go with family Christmas presents last year, using the template in the SU! demo magazine late last year. They slip over the corner of the page you are up to. My apologies for the crappy photos but I took them late at night just before I was going to wrap up the presents.

The scallop trim you see on all the book marks is actually made by punching out scalloped squares, tucking them into an internal layer, making sure they are level and overlapping.

Finally I want to finish by posting some blog awards I received recently. First the Sunshine award from the lovely Susan Hogan - thanks for your kind words Susan :)

The beautiful blogger comes from the lovely and talented Gardenia Pepworth - thanks so much :)



For the award I have to tell you 10 things about me
1. I love dark chocolate
2. I was really proud of myself yesterday for hemming two pairs of pants, since I've been using my sewing machine recently on cards I figure I should also use it for its intended purpose ;)
3.I have a chocolate Burmese cat who snuggles into bed with me every night.
4.My favourite colours are blue and green
5. I love reading fantasy/sci fi and will read the same book again and again. I've just started on my Terry Pratchetts again.
6. I started going to the gym this year, and despite regular chocolate intake ;) have lost 5-6 kilos so far - very happy about this!
7. I'm going to my first SU! convention in 3 days and am very excited about meeting so many of the creative people I've met through my blog.
8. I've almost finished knitting a jumper for my wonderful Miss 5, that was another project put on hold while I was making swaps.
9. I had to get my first pair of glasses this year
10. Lastly but most important I have wondeful family and home - my handsome hubby, a gorgeous Mr 2 and beautiful Miss 5 and my wonderful parents as well. Dad is even picking me up from the bus when I arrive in Sydney for convention!

Wheww that was hard. Ok there are some really talented lovely people I would like to pass the awards on to.

Sam Post

Makeesha Byl

Kate Lewis
Liam Pucher
Since Gardenia Pepworth sent me the Beautiful Blogger I can't pass it back but I can send on the Sunshine Award with thanks!

Thanks ladies for the inspiration and thanks to all my visitors I'll look forward to getting back to the regular programing ;) so to speak once Convention is over.

Bye...

Kim

Birthday Butterfly

Hi there,

When I saw the picture that Makeesha Byl had selected for her weekly challenge this week – I was initially stumped – no really I was. Here is her inspiration picture. (I'll edit Keesh's link in once its up).

The colour part was easy – I was figuring on Regal Rose, Rose Red and Tempting Turquoise and to use a butterfly or lots of butterflies. I would have liked to make a butterfly shaped card, or a stained glass butterfly but gave up both ideas as too hard for the limited time I have to hand (Monday night once the kids are in bed and what ever nap time Mr 2 has – unfortunately he is not a long sleeper). So this is what I came up with in the end.

A close up of the layered butterfly

I had a couple of inspiration sources, this sketch from Karen Giron Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge, as well as how she balanced her light and dark layers in her card for this sketch. Also I watched a video tutorial by Sarah Klass for covering and embellishing a head band. She made a ribbon rosette/flower and when I watched it was a case of – oh is that how you do that!! So I just had to incorporate that in too. I still need girl’s birthday cards so this challenge was a perfect fit for that.

Ok as briefly as possible I started with a Regal Rose base (4”6’ sq), cut a Rose Red layer to go on that. Found some dotty Turquoise DSP, and cut that into four squares, that were layered onto the Rose Red. Then a smaller panel of Regal Rose, with some Rose Red DSP (from 2008/2009?), then cut a large scalloped circle in Regal Rose and a white mat for it. Made a ribbon rosette from Rose Red double stitched grosgrain ribbon, layered that with a scallop circle of turquoise DSP, then (almost there…) layered that with a butterfly (Regal Rose base with Rose Red flowers), then added an acetate butterfly (stamped with white stazon, with the same flowers, wings bent up – and adhered with a medium sized clear rhinestone (whewww). Final touches – some turquoise satin ribbon and a white happy birthday rub-on.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out in the end. Although posting it might be a bit tricky – ah well you can’t have everything ;)

The inside was finished off to match the front, and the butterfly inside has three little rhinestones as its body to glam it up a bit.

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly
Cardstock: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Whisper White
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red, White Stazon
Accessories: Petals and Paisley DSP (R), Rose Red DSP (R), Standard and Scalloped circle nestabilities (Spellbinder), Butterfly punch, Scallop circle punch,Acetate, 1” Rose Red double stitched grosgrain ribbon, Clear Rhinestone brad, Chit Chat rubon, rhinestones (Kaiser), turquoise ribbon (local craft store), Glue dots, dimensionals, Double sided tape, SNAIL adhesive.

Flight of Desperation

Ok, may’be not that bad. But I honestly nearly chucked the towel in with this weeks challenge set by Makeesha. I got 50% of the way through with my first card idea and then went urgh – THIS IS NOT WORKING!!! It was nearly 9:30 pm (close to my bedtime). But a cup of hot milo made by my hubby restored some energy, enough anyway to still have a go. So after that preamble here is the inspiration pic.


And here is my card.

I found a piece of Urban Garden DSP that I felt had echoes of the inspiration pic, in colour, and the long vertical flower stalks reminded me of the stripes on the bedspread. I just needed to add some colour – the turquoise from the bedspread. So I grabbed my Pocket Silhouettes and stamped it twice on the DSP, I lengthened the stems on one with my Turquoise marker and a ruler. I layered this altered DSP over a matte of Tempting Turquoise and then over a card base of Basic Gray. Given the flowers on the DSP I decided to girly it up a bit more and so I also scalloped the bottom of the Turquoise layer. To finish the card front I added some narrow Turquoise ribbon threaded with a pewter ribbon slide, a little Turquoise butterfly to fly over the flowers trailing “friendship”. The body of the butterfly was anchored with a glue dot so its wings could lift above the card. To stamp the friendship trail, I used my Basic Gray marker and inked up part of the friendship stamp from Think Happy Thoughts and used my stamp-ma-jig to stamp it twice, once inverted. Finally to balance out the white in the butterfly I added a little layer of white behind the holey scalloped border.

In the end a result that wasn’t too bad for “late” night stamping dramas.

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly, Pocket Silhouettes, Think Happy Thoughts
Cardstock: Basic Gray, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Basic Gray
Accessories: Urban Garden DSP, Fiskars Threading Water border punch, narrow Tempting Turquoise grosgrain ribbon, Pewter hodgepodge ribbon slide, Corner rounder punch, Stamp-ma-jig, Glue Dot, SNAIL adhesive.