2012 Year in Reveiw - The Final Chapter

Hi again and thanks for coming back to the final post of my 2012 creations in review.  This post will cover September through to December.

January to April can be found here and May through to August can be seen here

September 2012 - First DT Post with iSpy Sketch Challenge

September was a hugely rewarding month for me.  I was invited to join not one but two design teams (iSpy sketch challenge and Aussie Scrap Source) this year and September saw my first post with iSpy as a DT member go up.  It has been an honour to say the least to be approached by the DT co-ordinators and invited onto the DT's - thank you so much!  This was the card I created.  The original post cam be found here

 

October 2012 - First Aussie Scrap Source DT post

My feelings of excitement, appreciation and joy continued into October with my first ASS DT post going up. I had the most amazing time playing with Prima for my first ASS post.  I love being part of this DT.  The team is filled with amazingly talented papercrafters who I have followed for years and now I was asked to join them - how truly lucky am I! You can see the original post on the ASS blog here 

 

November 2012 - Classes at Scrappy Hollow

My year has really been fun filled with not only having challenges to play along with, DT's to create for but I also had the most amazing time creating and teaching classes at Scrappy Hollow.  November saw the end of my classes for the year and we made a cute Christmas Tree together.  I am really looking forward to teaching again in 2013 and look forward to seeing all my regular class ladies and meeting some new card makers throughout 2013.

 

December 2012 - Creating for Christmas

One thing  that I absolutely look forward to is whenever I create something is the look that the recipient gives when they open one of my hand made gifts. I made a few Christmas Trees, washi tape baubles, decorated stars and hearts but I think the gift I had most fun creating was my jingling bauble.  Originally bright silver and very modern I took to it with crackle paint, distress ink, sand paper, embellishments and seam binding and this was what I created

 

You can see more of my gifts here

 

Well that's 2012 in a nutshell.  I am incredibly lucky to be working in an industry that I love, meet and get inspired by creative men and women around the world and share the things I do along the way with my blog visitors.  Thank you for your support in 2012 and I look forward to sharing more with you in 2013.  2013 is shaping up to be busy as I will continue to work and teach at Scrappy Hollow, create and play with the ASS on their DT using their amazing products and there will be a few guest DT spots for me too!!!!

 

I would also like to thank my lovely husband and daughter who are my most loyal supporters - from dealing with a neglected house, questionable meals through to  being asked to provide design feedback/opinions and creating photo booths the two of you are amazingly patient and understanding and I am so lucky to have you in my life - LOVE you both xxx xxx

 

Happy New Year!!!!

 

 

ISSC - Farewell

It is with much sadness I write this post.  Some of you will be looking for the next iSpy sketch challenge.  Unfortunately the founder and guiding light at iSpy, lovely Kim, has made the decision not to continue on running the challenge blog.  Life at time just gets too busy and decisions have to be made to ensure family, life and work commitments are met.

Thank you so much to Kim and the rest of the DT at iSpy for inviting me to join the team and also for the support and friendship they so openly gave me.  I will miss our weekly posts and chats along the way.  Hope fully we will cross paths again on another DT or blog challenge forum.

Thank you also to all the lovely and creative card makers who inspired us over the weeks and to all of the people who participated in the challenges each week.

I spent some time looking back through the challenges I completed both as a DT member and as an avid challenge participant and here are a few of my favourites!

As a challenge participant:

ISSC 1

ISSC 4

 

ISSC 6

 As a DT Memeber:

 ISSC 36

ISSC 38

 

ISSC 40

 

 

But my all time favourite sketch and week to play along was ISSC 18.  It was one of the weeks I was part of the top 2 so that made it even more special!  You can visit my original post here

 

 



So it's a sad farewell and a huge thank you to the iSpy team. Now as they say when one door closes another opens so 2013 will hopefully bring some new challenges to play along with and DT opportunities so stay tuned!

ISSC44 - Happy Birthday

Hello, it's Friday again and that means it's time for another challenge at iSpy! 

This weeks challenge was inspired by Christine Okken  ( ChristineCreations at SCS) and is based on this card.

So here is the sketch challenge for this week -

This time of year I am usually madly getting my Christmas cards finished in time to post on December 1st however, I also have a few birthdays in the family and amongst our friends so I decided to break up my Christmas card making with a birthday card.

Here is the card I created -

 

 

I love the bright colours of this range of MME papers and picked up on the star theme and added some extra die cut stars to the front panel. 

 

 

I used a few pieces of double sided foam to raise the sentiment panel, solid stars, ribbon strip and the central panel on the card.

 

Materials Used:

Paper - MME Lime Twist

Dies - Marianne Design Happy Birthday/Congrats, MFT Stacking Stars

Punches - Marvy 2 inch scallop circle, EK success 1 3/4 inch circle

Other - Grosgrain ribbon by Birch, button and bakers twine.

 

 

So thank you to Christine for the inspiration!  It's so much fun to play along with our weekly challenge so why not join in this week.  Head over to our blog here and see how easy it is!

 

 

 





ISSC43 - Doodlebug Wintery Christmas

Hello and welcome back for another installment of iSpy sketch challenge fun!

This week our sketch was inspired by Jean Martin  and is inspired by this card. 

Now this week I wanted to use some very cute Doodlebug papers and embellishments that my lovely hubby bought for me when he returned to Cleveland, OH in the US on business in October.  He is so wonderful - he popped in to the store where I used to work, Archivers, and got me a little surprise treat.  So in order to use these my new goodies I decided to flip the sketch upside down.  So here is my creation:

 



 

This was such a quick creation as the adorable snow men were pre-made embellishments and i just added their Santa hats which I free hand cut.  I also had some little snow flakes in my stash so I added them as well.

 

 

The main embellishment label was created with another pre-made snow man and I created a little banner of snow flakes for him to hold.

 

 

Materials Used:

 

Paper - Doodlebug North Pole 6x6 paper pad and matching snow buddies cardstock stickers (mini doodle pops!)

Dies - MFT die namics Oval Stax 1 and Designer Label Stax 4

Other - Martha Stewart Christmas ribbon, snowflakes, MFT white felt and white crochet twine

 

 

Now why not come and join in the fun at iSpy too - head over to our blog and see how here.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 



ISSC42 - Be Merry

Another week has flown by and it's once again time for a new challenge over at iSpy.

This week we have been inspired by the creative Anya Schrier and the sketch is based on this card.

I love this sketch's simplicity as it allows you to make each element your own.  So ofter some punching, distressing, pleating and fussy cutting this is the card I created:

To start off the card I decided to add a decorative punched edge before I added the patterned paper pieces. The central panel of the card was with a combination of paper pleating, ribbon and lace. I began with three 1 1/2 inch x 6 inch ( 4cm x 15cm) strips of paper which I scored at 1/2inch intervals then pleated and held them in place with some quick machine stitching. 

 

The sentiment panel was die cut and then finished off with a rub on and some hand cut Christmas trees.

 

I added some dimension to the tree with foam tape.

Materials used:
Paper - MME Be Merry
Dies - MFT Well Worn Greetings
Other - Stampin Up antique button, ribbon by birch, Darice hemp twine, lace, MS eyelet lace around the page punch (border punch only) and a rub on from Pebbles Inc.

You can join in the fun too by heading over to the blog here

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog!

 

 

 

ISSC41 - Jingle all the Way

 

 

Hello and welcome to another weekly challenge post for the iSpy Sketch Challenge blog.  I love being on the iSpy DT as not only does the lovely Kim provide us with some awesome weekly sketches to play with but we meet some really talented card makers as we spotlight their cards that inspire our sketches.  I do hope you can join in the fun this week.  Just head over to the blog to learn more - here.

 

 

Now this weeks challenge was inspired by the creative and talented Chris Franco (allamericanstampers at SCS) and is based on this card. 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a great way to use up scraps of paper and cardstock, which is what I did with a left over paper pad from a class I ran at Scrappy Hollow back in September using the Kaisercraft Mint Twist range.  I love the Kaisercraft 6 1/2" paper pads as not only do they have miniaturised patterned paper but they also come with pre-made embellishments and borders which are just perfect for quick card making projects (you can see what I made with the ladies in class here).

 

 

So here is the card I created:

 

 

 

To begin with I cut a card front measuring 4 inches x 5 3/4 inches or 10cm x 14.5cm and used this as the base for constructing the star burst.  To create the star burst pieces I started with strips of paper measuring 4 inches x 1 1/2 inches or 10cm x 4cm and cut these diagonally in half.  I then decided where I wanted the star burst to be centred and how far down on the card I wanted it to go.  I then laid my first two pieces across the card.  From here I then kept adding pieces until the top section was full.  I then turned it over and trimmed the overhanging pieces off.  I then added all the other pieces and then stuck the whole thing to my folded card base at the end.

 

The "Jingle all the Way" embellishment centre was a pre made one from the paper pad.  I added some glitter with a gelly roll pen and some Kaiser bling. I also added glitter pen to the white spots an the red and white spotted paper.  I mounted the border, doily and circles embellishment with foam tape.

 

 

 

 

I had the bells and tinsel style trim in my stash and thought they worked well.  As you move the card it actually jingles which is kind of fun for the recipient too.  The border was cut with an MFT die-namics die.

 

 

 

 

A while back I had also made a similar card using the star burst design however the left hand section of piecing is different - here it is:

 

 

 

Materials Used:







 

Paper - Kaisercraft Mint Twist

Dies - MFT die-namics Triple Scallop border and Decorative Doily Duo

Other - Bells, tinsel trim, Kaisercraft red rhinestones, gelly roll pen and white twine

 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Please leave a comment as I would so love to hear from you!

 

 





ISSC40 - Merry Christmas

WOW!  I cannot believe it's November already!  This year is just disappearing.  As it's Friday it's iSpy sketch challenge day and here is this weeks lovely sketch:

The sketch this week was inspired by the talented Julie H. (Juble at SCS) and is based on  this card.

When you take a look at Julie's card you will see the beautiful woven background she has created using paper and ribbon - just stunning and such a cool idea.  I too wanted to create a woven element on my card but opted for a different style of weaving to Julie's.  So here is the card I created:

 

 

As you can see my weaving is a little more spaced out and I used cut strips of patterned paper which I then stuck to the back of a Tattered Angels frame.  I inked both the frame and the strips. 

Originally I had wanted to put the Christmas Tree over to the right and use that as the second embellishment but I just couldn't get it to work - so it's now part of the main embellishment and I used my stash of seam binding, stickers and twine to create the second element.

Throughout the cards construction I wanted to add some dimension and make sure each layer stood out so out came the foam tape again!

 

 

 

 

 

Materials Used:

 

Paper - Authentique Wonder

 

Dies - Taylored Expressions - Trim the Tree

 

Other - Craft Queen red seam binding and Darice hemp twine , TH Tea Dye distress ink, Tattered Angels frame, Jolee's snowflake sticker, Starform stickers Merry Christmas sticker, distress tool.

 

Now why not join in the fun and create a project based on this weeks iSpy sketch!  Head over to the blog here and let the fun begin!

 



Thanks for stopping by!!!

 

 

ISSC39 - Peace and Joy

It's Friday again and another iSpy challenge is up!  This week the challenge is inspired by Maureen Plut and is based on this card.  Thanks so much for the fabulous inspiration Maureen!!!!!

And this is the sketch put together by Kim over at iSpy:

 

I love this sketch as it is so simple yet allows you to play around a little with each component.  So here is the card I created:

 

I am so in love with the versatility and colours in this years Simple Stories Handmade Holiday collection.  Initially I made the card quite simply with the gorgeous patchwork style background.  For a quick Christmas card I could have  just stopped there.................. but then I decided to add some additional detail to the background so I cut some of the patchwork element out of an additional piece of paper and foam mounted them over the design to give the background some dimension.

The sentiment was also taken from the range and I added some glitter with a Gel Roll Pen to finish it off.  This was also foam mounted.  I also added some hand pleated co-ordinating paper to the front before finishing off with a seam binding and hemp bow.

Materials:

Paper - Simple Stories, Handmade Holiday 6x6 paper pad
Other - cream seam binding, Darice hemp twine, button, Gel Roll pen, TH Tea Dye distress ink and Heidi Swapp edge distressor.



 
Want to join in the fun with us at iSpy???  Head over to the blog and see how here.

Thanks for stopping by - can't wait to see what you create!!!!