Magical birthday

This card is for my youngest daughter who is turning 6 very soon. It’s sad really ……… she’s growing up way too fast!
I used 2 challenges for this card.  SUO challenges has a birthday card challenge and The Paper Players has another great sketch challenge this week.

This is actually my daughter’s stamp set.  She asked for it for Christmas and has played with it quite a bit, making cards for friends and just making pictures to stick on the fridge.  I have not made anything with it before though, this is my first attempt.

The wings in this set are separate. I stamped and watercoloured the horse and coloured and cut the wings out and then tried to position the wings nicely.  You could just stick them onto the horses back (which is what kids would do if they were making a card) and that looks okay but I decided to use a knife and cut just above the horses back and along the mane a little and then slide the wing into the slot and behind the horse.  This worked really well and looked a lot better I think.  I also put dimensionals under the wing at the top so it is very 3D.  I also used the 2 way glue pen and dazzling diamonds to glitter the hooves and the wing and its all done on shimmery white so very sparkly!  The star border is done by using the classic stars wheel with versamark on shimmery white card, embossing with white and then sponging pip, baja and plum over it.

Ingredients :
Stamps : Pony party, classic stars wheel
Card : shimmery white, pink pirouette, pip
Ink : versamark, stazon, baja, pip, regal rose, perfect plum
Other : big shot, perfect polka dots, window punch, modern label punch, dimensionals, rhinestones, white emboss powder, 2way glue, dazzling diamonds, aquapainter

I know this card will not be to everyone’s taste but I am absolutely certain that my little girl will absolutely love it!
Kathy

Cheeky monkeys

 

There is a wonderful challenge at Paper Players this week. 

It’s a clean and simple sketch challenge.

This is how they describe what clean and simple means:

Clean and Simple creations:

• use lots of white space
• use few or no embellishments
• use few layers

 

This is the card I came up with

Those monkeys are so cute aren’t they?  You may be wondering why I have the number 3 on there, but only have 2 monkeys?  Well it’s actually a birthday card for twin boys who are turning 3 and the cute little monkeys are very much them!

Ingredients :

Stamps : fox and friends, so happy for you, party hearty

Card : espresso, white, real red, wasabi, bashful blue

Ink : espresso, real red

Other : big shot, little leaves, timeless type junior alpha

 

I’m not quite sure whether its politically incorrect to give twins a card to share?  But I’m assuming they won’t be that interested in the card anyway and will just want to get into those presents!

Kathy

Olive tree

 

I was a Colour Queen Courtier last week for my giraffe card hurray!!!

I feel very honoured (and excited) when I win a challenge. 

Anyway here is this weeks challenge at ColourQ.

 

Gorgeous colours and again the design team have come up with some really inspirational cards. You should take a look and why not enter the challenge yourself.

Here is my entry:

 

I had to make another male card this week so I thought I would use the challenge for some inspiration.  They’re always hard for me to make, but I’m quite pleased with how this turned out.

I made it sort of like a little book.  I folded the early espresso card on the side, glued an embossed piece of kiwi kiss to the front and then glued a piece of daffodil delight dsp around the “spine” and attached 2 jumbo brads with the crop a dile through all layers. Then I used my bone folder to score the front and back of the card where the dsp ends.

For the tree I inked it up with espresso and then used a baby wipe to get rid of the ink from the leaves and used an old olive marker on them.  I sponged espresso and crumb cake around the edges of the tree piece and sponged espresso on all other pieces. 

The Just for you was stamped in espresso and then the “YOU” is coloured in with an olive marker, but you can’t see it much in the photo unfortunately. Then I sprayed the tree with champagne mist shimmer paint.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Thoughts and prayers, oval all

Card : white, espresso, kiwi kiss, brights stack dsp

Ink : espresso, olive marker, crumb cake

Other : cropadile, jumbo brads, linen thread, dimensionals, oval punch, big shot, square lattice, champagne shimmer mist

 

I was asked to make this card by a friend who said “Do you make male cards?” and I said “Sure!”  (trying to sound confident even though I don’t feel confident at all when I have to make one).  Anyway I hope I succeeded and she is happy with it.

Kathy

Wild giraffe

There is a wonderful challenge at SUO Challenges to use your favourite retired Stampin Up set.  You should go and check out all the wonderful cards there and see which sets people miss.
My favourite is definitely Wild About You.
I also saw a colour challenge at ColourQ and knew I had to combine the two challenges and make a card with my favourite old set.

You know these are actually cookies? Aren’t they gorgeous! 
It is a wonderful colour combination,  I used Tempting Turquoise instead as I don’t have Cool Caribbean.


Ingredients :
Stamps :  Wild about you
Card : white, black, turquoise, daffodil delight, pumpkin,
Ink : pumpkin pie
Other : button (retired), pumpkin ribbon, turquoise ribbon (ret.), big shot, circle punches, timeless type junior alpha, square lattice

As well as loving this set because you can make a great card for anyone with it, it makes me smile every time I look at these stamps.
I started as a Stampin’ Up demo in August 2008.  I got a few stamps with my kit but I wanted more of course.  So I asked my sisters if they would buy me some things from the catalogue for my birthday in September. I wrote them a little wish list of different ones I really needed to have and one of my sisters bought me this one.  So when I got it I was very excited but was good and put it on my stamp shelf, unmounted, to be saved and not used till my actual birthday.
Well my birthday arrived and my husband and daughters gave me a birthday card they made with this set! They had put so much time and love into it, it was sweet.  I then remembered though that I hadn’t even mounted it! And this was back when the stamps weren’t cut for you already!
This is how it looks now:
 
The way he had mounted it was by cutting the rubber into rectangles the size of the blocks, stamped them onto the wood with choc chip and then stuck the rectangle of rubber onto the block.
When I laughed he just said “well that’s how you do it isn’t it?”
Umm…. NO.
I had to pull all the rubber off the block and try to cut it when it was very sticky. Put it back on the block and hope it still stuck and then put the stickers over his stamped images.
There’s no way I’ll ever part with this set.  (And probably no one would want it looking the way it does anyway!)

Kathy

Easter bunny case

 

I decided to make a cute little Easter card for the weekly challenge at Just Add Ink.  The challenge was to case a card from one of their founders.  Although both Amanda and Danielle have gorgeous cards, I decided to case Danielle.

It’s not an exact copy but it is definitely in her style.  I had the card fold at the top (which I rarely do, but she does quite a lot) and corner rounded the card at the bottom (another element that features strongly in her cards).  Other similar elements to hers are the clear embossing on the top third of the card and having a pretty bow.  I really like Danielle’s style – Clean and Simple and Gorgeous.

Ingredients :

Stamps : nicest things, teeny tiny sentiments

Card : river rock, watercolour, old olive

Ink : versamark, stazon

Other : watercolour crayons, aquapainter, ribbon (retired), clear embossing powder, wide oval punch, big shot, lots of tags, dimensionals

Making this card gives me the feeling of being really organised and ready for Easter, but Phew! I only just got this done in time for the challenge!  So I’m not really that organised!

Kathy

Ribbon Flower Class

 

Would you like to come to a class where I’ll teach you how to make the gorgeous ribbon flowers I’ve shown on my blog?

We will be making this card :

and another card which is top secret.

 

This class also includes a ribbon share. 

You will receive 1 metre each of the following Stampin’ Up! satin ribbons

Daffodil Delight

Real Red

Marina Mist

Pretty in Pink

Rich Razzleberry

Very Vanilla

That’s 6 metres of ribbon, a little of which we’ll use in the class and the rest you will take home with you so that you can make more beautiful flowers in lots of gorgeous colours.

A light lunch will also be provided.

When : Friday April 1

Time : 11 till 2ish

Cost : $30 ($25 for stamp club members)

You must RSVP by Friday March 25th to reserve your spot.

Please bring along a good pair of scissors (that will cut ribbon) and your choice of adhesive. Thanks.

Please email me for more information (such as where to come ha ha! As a rough guide I’m in Hobart!)

If you can’t make it but are interested in the class, please let me know and I will try to arrange to do the class again at another time.

Kathy

Awards

 

I received a stylish blogger award this week.  It was from Judy Marshall who is a Stampin’ Up demo from Canada.  I was very honoured that she likes my cards and my blog enough to give me this award.  You should definitely check out her blog, she has some wonderful cards and tutorials on there (and even more importantly she’s a lovely lady too!)  It’s so wonderful making new blogging buddies!  Thanks so much Judy.

I now have to nominate 8 bloggers that I admire.

There are a lot of blogs that I regularly visit, so this was a bit tricky but these are some of my favourites, in no particular order.  Please check them out. 

The last one is not actually a stamping blog (it’s my daughter’s blog) and I definitely admire her, (and she’s very stylish!) so I’ve added it too. Her blog is full of gorgeous photography and paintings.

Brenda Quintana

Bronwyn Eastley

Jan Tink

Mel Barkwith

Michelle Zindorf

Brandi Wiggins

Kerin Sylvester

Kirsten

Now the real catch to getting this award is that you have to write 8 things about yourself that others might not know. Hard!

1. I love to play WII Just Dance with my girls.

2. I get so badly hooked on some games such as Tetris that I have to ban myself from playing them.  I even had to tell my husband to hide my DS from me.  So it has been missing for a couple of years now! There are so many games like that on the computer now that I know I would get HOOKED on, so I haven’t even looked at them because I know I’m a mindless game ADDICT!

3. I love reading my girls bedtime stories.

4. I am bad at making decisions.  It can take me a whole day to make 1 card because I can’t decide which colours work best together, which embellishment to use, which ribbon looks best, whether to pop the sentiment up on a dimensional, etc, etc, etc.

5. All my kids (4) play musical instruments (2 guitar, 2 violin). I don’t. But I love music and love listening to them play.

6. Everyone’s name in my family starts with a “K sound”.  Everyone starts with K except for Christopher.  I should have just spelled his with a K too! 

7. I used to love cooking.  But now that I have to do it every night and day, it has lost its appeal!!!!

8. I’m afraid of worms.

Phew! All done!

I also got an award last week from Paper Players for my 50th birthday card. Yay!  I love entering challenges and winning occasionally. (Oh, that’s 9 things about me that you might not know!)

Kathy