Maja Design Round Card

In my previous post I mentioned I was also making a 90th birthday card so I just popped back to share it with you.

The papers were from Maja Designs Vintage Summer Collection - just love the soft delicate colour palette and the floral papers in this collection.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Colour Q Challenge - Anniversary Card

Been playing with some new papers and some of my favourite dies today making a card for a 50th Wedding Anniversary and a 90th Birthday.

I always love to play along with the Retro Girls and I have discovered that Ariel from the Retro Team also heads up and designs for Colour Q - a fabulous colour focused challenge blog.  So I decided to paly along with them for my anniversary card.

It just so happened that their challenge this week was focused on valentine/love and some gorgeous pink, kraft and white inspiration - perfect for a wedding anniversary card.

So here is their inspiration:

And this is the card I created:

I love the bold colours in the Colour Q challenge and think they give you a vibrant modern palette to create with.  However, when creating my card I decided to use the most softest of hints of each of the Colour Q colours as I wanted my card to have a shabby chic feel so I picked out a paper selection that contained hints of kraft, pink and white and teamed it up with ivory cardstock and embellishments.  I also inked parts of the card with TH distress ink to bring our more of the kraft colour.  I also added some stitching in ivory thread around the edge of the main circle element and the horizontal banner.

AlsoI have had to change my photography booth around during our house renovations soapologies if my photography and the colouring of the images is a little off. 

The papers were from Maja Designs Vintage Summer Basics - I just love this collection!

The embellished sections were created with some MFT die-namics, kaisercraft flowers, MS frond punch, pearls and some tiny stickers which I trimmed down to size. To highlight the 50 I got out my Gel Roll glitter pen and coloured them in.

Thanks for stopping by!

Retro Sketch 99 - You are my Sunshine

Just dropping by to share a card I made for this weeks Retro Sketch No 99 Challenge.

So firstly here is the sketch from the Retro Girls -

And this is the card I created:

For my card I have made a few changes to the sketch - I have created a regular 4"x 6" card rather than the square, moved the sentiment and added a tab.

I used one of my new favourite paper pads for this project - Kaisercraft Confetti and my latest absolute favourite die from MFT - their Feathers and Arrows die. 

Most of the embellished pieces were made from the paper pad embellishments or from trimming something down from the patterned paper in the pad.  The button was tied with two strands of thread to provide a different look too.  There is a little edge distressing and foam mounting on some elements to add some texture and dimension.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Retro Sketch Shout Out!

Very excited to wake up this morning to discover that the girls over at Retro Sketches have given me a shout out for one of my cards that I uploaded to their RS97 challenge.

Thank you all so much for the honour!  Just love playing along with the challenges they post and to get a shout out is an added bonus!

Here is the card:

Click here to see the shout out
Click here to see my original post

DS135 and TCC #2

Spent a little time over the last two days playing in the craft studio again!  I just love this weeks sketch from Jen over at The Deconstructed Sketch Challenge and I have also drawn inspiration this week from a new challenge blog that I am excited to be playing along with - The Card Concept. 

The Card Concept is a really cool challenge blog as it encourages you to define what style of card you have made.  This is a bi-weekly challenge where 12 talented designers showcase their creations based on the inspiration challenge posted and the design styles.  They also give you an insight into what inspired them.

The styles are divided into 6 style themes:

• Clean & Simple (CAS)

• Clean & Layered

• Clean & Graphic

• Freestyle Collage

• Shabby Chic

• Classy & Elegant

So here we go with the inspiration:

And this is the card I created:

After reading The Card Concepts style descriptions I decided my card would probably best fit in their Shabby Chic and Vintage style.

Here is how they define the style:

•the use of used, worn or inexpensive components to make stylish goods

•distressed or sponged edges

•old feel-antiqued

•lots of embellishments

•ribbons or lace

•lots of layers

The layering was taken care of by the amazing sketch.  I love my edge distressor and tea dye ink pad so that got a tick too.    Embellishments, ribbons and lace were all left overs or quickly made from fabric, co-ordinating paper etc. So I hope I have made a wise choice here.



The little heart buttons were made with fabric and paper, I tore sections of the paper and inserted lace behind which I had inked and recycled a button from an old piece of clothing.

To give the card a bit of an older feel (as I had picked papers that were a little more modern) I printed the image onto textured cardstock.  I also drew inspiration from TCC pic as I loved the green grass in front of the cottage and could just imagine back in the day,  the mother and daughter in my card out the front picking flowers.

Thanks so much for taking a look!

Jillibean Joy and RS98

I arrived home from work yesterday to my first bi-monthly delivery of card making kits from The Card Kitchen Kit Club at Jillibean Soup.  I decided to treat myself to a kit subscription for 2014!  I absolutely love their products and designs and I am really looking forward to sharing the cards I create.

My addiction to MFT die-namics and to Jillibean Soup is a little extra special as I was lucky enough to work with one of their talented designers when I lived in the US - Laina Lamb. So I love seeing what she creates and designs and then I get to play with them too!  She is so talented so stop by her blog and take a look! Click here!

So for my first card I stopped by one of my favourite sketch challenge blogs - Retro Sketches.  So here is their sketch:

And here is the card I created:

 

I decided to flip the sketch upside down and move the embellishment a little while still trying to keep true to the overall sketch.

 

The papers were from the Jillibean Card Kitchen December Kit which featured their Cold Avocado Soup collection.  I also used some of their Pea Pod Parts, my MFT Blueprints 3 and a Carl leaf punch.

 

 

The flower was cut from MFT's gorgeous felt (love working with it!) and I added some stitching too!

 

 

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look at my card!



Retro Sketches 97

The heatwave continues and so does the card making!  This time I decided to play along with the lovely girls over at Retro Sketches.  I just love the sketches they put up each week - they are the perfect springboard to get me started.

Here is the sketch from the girls:

And this is the card I created:

The papers for this card were from Carta Bella - Rough and Tumble.  I love the mix of the papers in this collection as they lend themselves to masculine and little boy cards so well.

As usual I grabbed out my MFT dies. I broke open one my brand new January release favourites - the Distressed Hearts Frame and teamed it up with one of my all time favourite go to dies for male cards - the stacking stars.

The stamp I used was from MFT as well and I used the Weathered Wood Tim Holtz distress pad to shabby up the sentiment. I also used a bit of his tea dye ink around the other elements  on the card as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Simon Says - Emboss It & DS134

After a busy couple of weeks I am back in the craft studio today playing with paper as the weather is 44 degrees C and it's way too hot for housework, cooking and cleaning (well that's my excuse anyway!).

The lovely Jen Schuls from The Deconstructed Sketch challenge blog previewed the next sketch on facebook today and I absolutely love it!  I also popped back to the newly found (for me) and fun Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog and loved the challege they have posted so I am playing along with both today.

Here are the challenges:

The Deconstructed Sketch:

Thanks for the awesome sketch inspiration Jen!

Simon Says Stamp:



This week the challenge is EMBOSS IT 

Dry Emboss, Heat Emboss or use Embossing Paste :-)

I love this challenge as it has got me playing with my embossing folders again!

So here is the card I created:

The papers were from Echo Parks Sweet Girl collection. I also used my favourite mini swiss dots embossing folder and I grabbed out some of my MFT die namics to play with - Blue Prints 3, Large Numbers and LLD Insert - It 3x4 notepad.  I also used their gorgeous felt for the flowers.

I used some foam mounting tape to give the elements some dimension.

The embossed elements were embossed in two different ways.  The scrap of yellow and the pink insert-it piece were embossed with the dots coming upward and I sanded them to enhance the pattern.  The large yellow piece was embossed in reverse so the dots sank back into the card. 

I also incorporated some edge distressing, ribbon and two Maya Road butterfly pins.

This card is for my Great Niece who will be turning two very soon - hope she likes it!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

HB2U with Mojo Monday and Simon Says Stamp

What better way is there to start the New Year's card making than by getting some inspiration from my favourite sketch blog - Mojo Monday???

How about also combining it with a new challenge blog that is featuring MFT products in one of their challenge- Simon Says Stamp!! Wahooo!!!!  So much fun!!!

Now no one has to twist my arm to get our my MFT die-namics but this challenge also got me rummaging through my MFT stamps and button collection as well. 

So here are the inspiration challenges I used:

Mojo 326

Simon Says Stamp

This week the challenge is SOMETHING NEW ,,, New Year, New Job, New Baby, New Crafty Stash, New Home, Wedding ( new life) Retirement ( new life) ,, etc ,,,, 

We are showcasing My Favorite Things Products this week. You don’t have to use them to join in but if you have some we would love to see them used :-)

And here is the card I created:

I loved the sketch that Julee came up with - I am a round card addict thanks to this talented ladies monthly "round or square" sketch challenges and I love this NEW one.  I have however, replaced the fishtail banner section with a bow.

My something NEW for this card comprised of three things, MFT buttons, MFT stamps and a paper pad from my stash that I have never used before. 

The papers are from Echo Parks Times and Season's 2 collection and the colour palette is a NEW challenge for me as I often opt for the soft pastel florally pinks.  This collection got me playing with stronger colours such as deep red and navy.

Whilst the MFT Dainty Bows die is not all that new to my collection on this card I decided to layer up the two different sized bows in the set and this was something NEW for me to try - and I love the effect!

The buttons on the bottom of the tag were from my NEWly acquired MFT button packs - just love them as you get so many different styles of buttons in each set.

The other MFT dies on the card were some of my favs as well - mini doily and a butterfly which I layered up.

MFT products used:

Button colours are Kraft and Nightshift blue

Thank so much for stopping by!  Please leave a comment if you have time - I'd love to hear from you!

2013 in Review

Just wanted to pop in and share some of the highlights of my 2013 creative year.  I was incredibly blessed to be part of some AWESOME design teams in 2013, have a fabulous group of ladies support my card making endeavours by attending my cards classes and making them all sell out classes and I have enjoyed seeing the sales of my cards through retail stores and through supportive family and friends.  To each and every person who has supported my creative endeavours - THANK YOU!

Here is a few of my favourite creations from 2013.

From classes at Scrappy Hollow:

 

Design Team assignments with Aussie Scrap Source:

 

 

Gifts for special occasions:

Challenges I played along with:

 

 

Guest Design Team creations for Scrapmatts:

 

 

Special request cards:

 

 

Now as 2014 unfolds I am so excited to be continuing my paper crafting journey by continuing my teaching at Scrappy Hollow, joining in on a few new challenge blogs and even have some new design ventures in the pipe works.  Look forward to sharing more with you throughout the year!

Thanks for stopping by!