Just Add Ink 86 - Sketch Challenge

Over at Just Add Ink they have a sketch for this weeks challenge. I must admit I struggled with this one, I looked at it from all different angles and nothing 'poped'. So, I decided to keep it as is and came up with this:

I'm still not too sure about it. I'm not one to use much bling and as you can see, there's a lot! I actually had a rhinestone flourish in my stash, and just cut it up and tucked it behind my circle until I was happy. The circle originally had no hearts around it, but it was looking a little bland, so I added the hearts from the owl builder and glued 2 mm rhinestones on every second heart. The cakes are coloured using my blender pen and I used my staz on for the sentiment, as I think it gives it a richer black. My main colours are marina mist, so saffron, certainly celery and rose red.

Heres the sketch:

Thanks for looking and have a great rest of the weekend!

Top pick

Wow... I was chosen again, along with Louise, as this week top pick at Just add ink! Thanks for all the lovely comments that you've left for me :)

And my card:

Thanks for visiting.

Card Kit Contest

Hi! A few months ago, my Stampin' Up demonstrator Nicole sent me one of her 'Card kits'. It's a competition where she sends out left over cards from her workshops to some of her customers. The rules were that I had to use everything in the kit - I could add to the kit, but not take anything away. I was sent two kits and this is what I came up with:

This kit had early expresso base, daffodil delight, whisper white and early expresso ribbon. I added rose red, old olive and an antique brad. I made the flowers with the wing from the two step bird punch and the leaves are the body of the bird just cut down to size.

This next card gave me grief. I had baja breeze base, riding hood red, old olive, so saffron and very vanilla. I added soft suede for the owls and some riding hood red dsp and some 'chino' pearls from Kaiser Craft. It took me quite a while to come up with this card. I tried to sketch many different things, but nothing worked till I threw my hands in the air and walked away. I came back a little later and came up with this in about an hour - love how that works sometimes :)

Not sure if you can see, but I've inked my square lattice embossing folder in so saffron and then ran it through my big shot -  I love this subtle effect. The so saffron frame was created with the decorative label punch. I was really happy with how it turned out and so did Nicole, as I won second prize!

Thanks for looking.

Just Add Ink 85 - Just add baby

 Hi again! This week at Just Add Ink the challenge is to "Just add baby". I loved this colour combo of pink and brown that I've seen on a few blogs (I'm not really a 'brown' person, so I don't normally use it) and I still am in love with easel cards. Heres what I came up with:

I've used soft suede, pink pirouette and certainly celery and I've add a lot of pearls! I sponged all the pink pirouette dsp in soft suede and added just a little bit of colour to the main image. 

Hmmm, now I just need someone to have a baby girl - any takers? 

Thanks for looking.

Wow I won again!

Hi all! I once again was quite surprised when I jumped on line today and found that I had been this weeks 'Ray of sunshine' over at Sunny Challenges.

 Heres the card I won it with:

Go and pop past to join in on the fun!
Thanks for looking.

I am a Winner!

Wow, I had a really nice surprise when I jumped online today. 

I won this weeks challenge at Just Add Ink!

This is the card I won it with:

Thanks for the lovely comments you left me and thanks for looking!

Christmas Cards #2

 Hi again! Here's a few more of my Christmas cards from my pile.

This card was a complete case from Teneale Williams. I think all of Teneale's cards are amazing and why mess with perfection. I did however change the base colour to old olive and the greeting.

 This card started as a entry for a challenge, but I missed out a required element, and when I tried to add it, it didn't look right. So I stuck with what I had.

I was flicking through the 2010-2011 Stampin Up idea book and used the card on page 28, as my inspiration. I kept it a little bit cleaner, and made it square, but still like the overall effect.

Sunny Challenges - SC 007/11

Hi! I found this cute challenge site a while ago now, and finally had a chance to enter a card. The challenge this week at Sunny Challenges & Creations was to use the sketch and the only stamping on the card is the sentiment. This did stump me at first, but then I've been meaning to try the pin wheels, so I grabbed some bright DSP and this is what I came up with.

I was happy with how this card turned out - I wanted something bright and fun. I used perfect plum, rose red and daffodil delight for my pin wheels and old olive to tie everything together. The sentiment is from pendant park. I used a small old olive brad to secure my pin wheels and I also punched out a small circle from the owl builder in old olive DSP to give it a nice center. The old olive ribbon is a retired ribbon that I had tucked away in my stash.
Thanks for looking!

Christmas Cards #1

I thought I'd share a few of my Christmas cards that I've been working on these past months (yes I started making Christmas cards in June)

 This was actually a card that I made last Christmas, but I love it and thought I'd share it. It uses Mojo Monday Sketch # 165

 I used Stampin Up's "Lovely as a tree"and I stamped off the image in old olive so it wasn't too bold, then added some 2 mm rhinestones from my stash. The flower rhinestone was also from my stash.

 I really like this one. I found out the hard way last year that if you have lots of dimension on your cards, that it cost double to post. So I plan to make a few of these on different colours for those friends and family I wont be able to hand deliver to. I also wanted to have some non-traditional cards (as I tend to only have green and red for Christmas!)
Thanks for looking!

Just Add Ink 84 - Colour Challenge

This week at Just Add Ink they have a colour challenge: "White plus one".

When I first sat down I thought I would use rose red, but no matter how hard I tried and after many attempts, I couldn't get anything to look 'right'. So I completely changed my course and picked up tempting turquoise. I must admit I was a lot happier with the look of this card.

I love how fresh this card feels. I originally had the flowers with no colouring but I felt it needed a bit more depth. So I used my blender pen to add a bit of colour and not make them seem so 'white'. I also added some 2 mm rhinestones from my stash to the middles of the flowers. As you can see I did add a fair bit of dimension.
Thanks for looking!

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 133

Hi! I'm pretty impressed with myself - I have actually been able to create! It's been nice to play along with a few challenges this week, I finally feel like my mojo is slowly coming back.

I always love the sketches that Karen has for us at Sweet Sunday each week and I thought I'd give this weeks a go.

Heres my take on it:

The paper is from a stack called "The Green Stack". I picked it up at Big W and it's great for guy cards. The dinosaur stamp's were a free set I got from a magazine. I've stamped the images onto watercolour paper and water coloured them just using my ink pads and water brush - nothing remotely fancy :) The birthday greeting is from Stampin Ups "Hedgehog Happiness". Once again I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

Thanks for looking.

Fathers Day

Good morning! Yesterday was Father's day here in Oz and this is the card I made for my kids to give to their Daddy.

I have wanted to create the textured background for ages and finally got round to giving it a shot. The wings on the owl were created using Stampin Ups scallop oval and just cutting them down to how I wanted them. I must admit this was a card that turn out exactly how I wanted it and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Thanks for looking!

Just Add Ink 83 - Sketch Challenge

 Hi! Recently I made a heap of these flowers and I thought that I'd pull one out for the sketch challenge at Just Add Ink.

The flower is made from scrunching and layering different sized scalloped circles. I found this great idea for adding a bit of bling to a silver brad from Connie Collins. All I did was cover a silver brad with some rhinestones, for an instant wow factor. 

Heres the sketch we had to work with:

Thanks for looking!