Christmas Handbag

This is a little handbag that, again, we were shown how to make at Stampin’ Up!’s Regional Training in September.  Derrek from Stampin’ Up! (USA) gave us all the template … which is so simple!  It is made from a 12″x12″ piece of cardstock and some cardstock and ribbon to embellish.

The handbag below is my creation from Derrek’s template.  I’ve used Dashing DSP … which is only available to purchase until the end of the month.  The stamp sets I’ve used are Season of Joy and Short & Sweet …  the colours are simply awesome Christmas colours (don’t you think??!) … Real Red and Old Olive.  With the dash of Dazzling Diamonds (as always!!).  This is a close up below:

I love paper piercing the swirl from Season of Joy!

This is a picture of the whole handbag.  Apologies again for my camera.

And this is a picture of the bag that I made based pretty much 95% on the bag Derrek had on display at Regional Training.  Thanks Derrek!

Thanks for looking 🙂

5th birthday

This was a card I made for a special boy in our family who turned 5 last week. The birthday presents were stamped by Jo with Birthday Whimsey – retired (part of candy I received from one of Jo’s launch parties, thanks Jo!). The tempting turquoise card was stamped with the star from Fun & Fast Notes. And the number ‘5’ is from Best Friends Numbers. I really like this colour combo of Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive and Real Red … I’m rediscovering Tempting Turquoise at the moment! I forgot how great it is!!

Thanks for looking!

Guest Artist

My guest artist this week is one of the lovely girls I work with, Brie.

How would you like to receive an invitation for High Afternoon Tea and for the rest of a Hen’s night/weekend looking like this?  It’s pretty special, isn’t it?  Brie is a bridesmaid in August and for her bride she made these lovely invitations for the bride’s Hen’s weekend.  I’m sure you will all agree, Brie has done a fantastic job!

If you are wondering  about how to recreate an invitation like this, well Brie used Pretty in Pink and Old Olive cardstock with the matching Old Olive wide grosgrain ribbon.  She stamped the images using Boho Backgrounds and “Party Time” from a Sale-a-Bration stamp set.

There were also a lot of punches used and lots of punching, wasn’t there Brie!?  Brie started with the corner rounder punch and used it to create the edge at the top of the invite … and for a short while had her boyfriend convinced she had used the corner rounder punch to create the scalloped circle around “Party Time” … until he noticed the scallop circle punch !! LOL!!

My apologies for the below photo, it’s a bit blurry.  I had to share though how Brie used the All Year Fun stamp set on the bottom inside of the invites … very clever!

Well done, Brie, it was a great achievement to make all these invitations … and it was Brie’s first time at cardmaking!

Kristina Werner’s Colour Challenge #11

I’ve completed my second Kristina Werner Colour Challenge this weekend.  It was perfect timing to make a card because I had to make my sister-in-law’s birthday card and we’re seeing her today!  It’s always great to have some direction when making a card for someone, that’s why I love challenges!  And this was a great inspiration and challenge 🙂

The picture above was Kristina’s challenge, and this is the card I made …

I love the stripes from Stampin’ Up!’s Designer Series Paper.  Even though I have it under layers in this card, I made sure I lined the stripes up the same direction!  I also used Glossy White cardstock which gives a really crisp card.  I love it!  I embossed with versamark, Old Olive ink and clear embossing powder on the glossy white for the green “stem” and I cut my Rose Red flowers from Priceless with extra Dazzling Diamonds.  Then I coloured a flower from the Pretties Kit with my So Saffron marker pen.  A bit of grey ribbon here and some circle punches layered with Think Happy Thoughts, a half pearl from the Pretties Kit and some paper piercing with my mat pack and there you have it!

Here are a couple of close ups …

Love that half pearl!

Love the rhinestone brad in the flower’s centre too!  I hope my sister-in-law likes it 🙂

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Fun & Fast Get Well Wishes

I’m very slack … I have been meaning to make this card for a while. It is for a lovely friend who has had an operation recently. Except she’ll be well on the mend by the time she receives the card!

Anyway, a long while ago during a training session I had the chance to use someone else’s Paisley background stamp. Finally, I decided to use it! The rest of the card just grew from the old olive Paisley stamp on Whisper White card stock and the need for a Get Well card. Of course, Fun & Fast Notes provided me with all I needed then. I had fun with my new aqua painter, water colour paper and, naturally, I couldn’t help but use my crop-a-dile!

I really like Old Olive and Regal Rose together … and the ribbons are just fabulous in the new catalogue! Enjoy your day and thanks for looking!

Kristina Werner’s Colour Challenge #9

Wow! I have just completed my first ever Kristina Werner colour challenge! Every week Kristina puts up a colour challenge and this week’s challenge was based upon the picture above. I love Kristina’s blog, she does the best videos! You really must visit Kristina here.

The colours we had to use for our colour challenge were real red, pumpkin pie, so saffron, old olive and tempting turquoise (have you ever noticed how Stampin’ Up! Colours always begin their colour name with the same letter?!!?)

This is the card I came up with … and it was a challenge! Although it was great to have a driving challenge behind a birthday card for a special friend living in London … now I have to get this card in the mail!

This is a close up of my Boho Backgrounds stamp … it is layered with dimensionals and looks lovely with the square red rhinestone centre. I really love the colour combo I’ve used on this part of my card – real red, pumpkin pie and old olive – they look great together, don’t you think?

I also used our our So Saffron DSP that you can only purchase until 31 May 2008 (in Australia, from me in Parklea!) with Stampin’ Up!’s Palette o’ Prints promotion. I love the spots!

Have a great day and thanks for looking 🙂

ATC – Artist Trading Cards “Little One”

I recently did an Artist Trading Card (ATC) swap with other Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators. This is the card I have submitted. The only condition for the swap was that we use the embossing technique.

So how did I do it? I have embossed the prams from Simple Somethings with gold embossing powder and heated with my heat tool. I have also embossed in gold the edge of my Very Vanilla cardstock square. For the rest of the card I have used my Floral background stamp to stamp the Bashful Blue card strip. The ‘little one’ is from Nice & Narrow. The stripy paper is Four Seasons Designer Series Paper (DSP) and I have also used Old Olive and Pale Plum cardstock. The prams are coloured using my blender pens and SU chalks with the colours Bashful Blue, Old Olive and Pale Plum. And there are dimensionals everywhere! Finally, I have bordered the different cardstock with Chocolate Chip and three SU gold brads finish off my very first ATC. It is only tiny … 3.5 x 2.5 inches!

This is the first one I had a go at, but I wasn’t as happy with it as the top ATC card 😦

What do you think? Leave a comment! If I made this card again, I would not stamp ‘little one’ inside the pram …

I’m looking forward to seeing what I will get back. I’ll soon have 8 different ATC all using embossing to show off at my workshops and inspire me to create a full sized card!!