I am having rather a run of trying out different Christmas card ideas of late, and was excited with a bit of an ‘outside the square’ idea that I tried out the other day, using a very non-Christmas stamp set to make a Christmas card.

Trouble is, when I asked Tim what he thought of it he was less than enthusiastic…  Not that he is ever overly exhuberant when I ask him papercraft related questions, much as I’m not super-enthused when he asks me to “stand like this” so he can try out his latest karate moves, but I wanted some feedback about this card, so I made the mistake of asking for some…..

Me: What do you think, does this look like a Christmas card?
Tim: Hmmmm, not really….
Me: Why not, what’s wrong with it?!
Tim: It’s the leaf….
Me: That’s not a leaf, that’s a tree
Tim: Well I guess there’s your problem

At least he’s honest I guess, but I kinda liked it….!

So help me out people….  Could this pass as Christmassy, or do I change the greeting and just keep it as a standby non-Christmas card…?!

Your honest feedback would be appreciated…!

“Trendy Christmas card”
Stamps: Trendy Trees, Polka Dot, Basic Phrases
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White, Kraft
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Scallop Square Punch, 1-1/4″ Square Punch, 1-3/8″ Square Punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Stampin’ Dimensionals

I have been meaning for the longest time to start taking part in more stamping challenges.   I love seeing what different looks can be achieved based on a single sketch, combination of colours, or whatever challenge guidelines are set.

This week I set my sights on Karen Giron’s Sweet Sunday Sketch #42 and what fun I had!

I thought it was high time I started getting into Christmas mode, so thought I would turn the challenge into an opportunity to make a Christmas card.

Here’s the sketch challenge…

And here’s what I did with it…

I am loving this colour combination of Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red and Kiwi Kiss for Christmas, which I was alerted to the other day by my sis-in-law Janny.  Just the right kind of cheery Christmas look, without being too traditional.

The process of creating this card is fairly self explanatory, but one quick thing I’ll point out is that I stamped off the flower image once on scrap paper before stamping it onto the Whisper White.  The full strength Riding Hood Red was a tad overpowering and the greeting got a bit lost in it.

I encourage you to play along with some challenges – they’re awesome fun, they give you a shove outside of your comfort zone and best of all they get you stamping.

Happy Friday!

“Sweet Sunday #42 Christmas Card”
Stamps: Season of Joy
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White, Washington Apple DSP, Holiday Treasures DSP
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Small Corner Rounder Punch, Chocolate chip wide double stitched grosgrain, Circle Ice Rhinestone brads, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Eight years ago on this very day, I promised, for all the days of my life, to love and honour the man that was to – seconds later – become my husband.

And right here, right now, I am going to honour (and possibly even slightly embarrass….!) this love of my life, this thief of my heart, this architect of the two most precious little girls on earth – the most amazing husband, wonderful father and truly the best life partner I could ever have been blessed with.

Pictures by Rocketown Images

Here are a couple of shots from our wedding day – a casual little Sunday morning affair that took place on Rottnest Island, 18km off the coast of Western Australia.  It pretty much turned into a wedding weekend in fact, with lots of our family and friends taking advantage of the opportunity to stay over and chill out “Rotto” style for a day or two

It’s hard to believe that eight years has gone by since then.

Looking back, it’s also hard to believe that I ever pulled off that hair colour.  Oh to have the guts (and time and money…) to maintain a highlighted strawberry-blondish “do” again.

But I digress…

Here is a little montage of one of the things that I MOST love about my handsome man – the father that he is to our girls

Clockwise from top left: with Hannah at karate, introducing Sophie, watching over teeny Hannah, with Sophie at the beach, squeezes at Adventure World, close up, with Hannah in Freo gear!

He has always played an absolutely equal part in the care and upbringing of our poppets and does THE most amazing job of it.  He is such a loving and positive influence in all of our lives and one of the things that I love about that is that our girls will always have this as an example of what a caring and good man is like and will settle for nothing less in their own lives.

Of course that’s assuming that they will ever be allowed to have boyfriends or go out on dates, which of course they won’t, so scratch that.

Moving on….

(*kidding* of course, but Tim always says that the first time a boy comes knocking at the door to take out one of his daughters, he will answer the door naked except for his black belt.  So in all likelihood, the minute that little snippet of news gets out, chances are they will never be asked out anyway…)

Last night while Tim was at work and the girls were asleep, I sat down to create what I hoped would be a fitting anniversary card for this fella who has added so much to my life.

Then I got up again as I had no single idea of where to start!

What I ended up with started out as the tiniest seed of an idea that I got increasingly excited about as I managed to make my vision an unexpected reality!

Here is the end result of my labour of love and stamp-a-ma-jigging…

I first decided on a colour scheme, then pulled out all of the occasion-appropriate wording stamps that I own to create my own Designer Series Paper.

I used no less than 11 stamp sets here and the trickiest part once all of the stamping was over was figuring out which boxes they all needed to go back into…

It’s a large statement, but this may just be my favourite card ever, based partly on the person it’s for and partly because I just LOVE it when something that starts as a tiny possibility turns into a reality that far exceeds any initial expectations!

The card itself is double the size of a regular one – simply a base of an A4 sheet folded in half and then all the layers, well, layered on top!  There is quite a bit of sponging and distressing in my attempt to bloke-ify it a little.  Possibly I could have bloke-ified it a bit more by omitting the Pink Pirouette, but I wanted a bit of contrast for the hearts…

So I mentioned that I used 11 stamp sets…  I thought it would be fun to offer a little prize to the first person that correctly names them all.  Actually just ten of them, as the small heart is from Cheep Talk but shown incorrectly in the catalogue as belonging to Good Friend, so that would be a bit unfair!

So ten stamp sets that the wording stamps are taken from….  Who’s up for the challenge?!  Here’s a little clue – nine of them are current and just one is retired (last year)

The prize will be… something from my craft room here.

Can you tell this is an impromptu little giveaway…?  I promise it will be something worthwhile

Oh and anybody that infers that it’s because I don’t have the inclination to write out the names and include all the images of the stamp sets that I have used is disqualified (…and correct…. )

Happy Anniversary Baby!

ETA:  I should have known this would happen – I missed one!  There are actually 11 sets you’re looking for peeps (there are 12 used in total).  Ready, set, GO!!!

“Happy 8th Anniversary to Us!”
Stamps: You tell me!
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Whisper White, Parisian Breeze DSP
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette
Accessories: Vintage Brads, Chocolate Chip wide stitched grosgrain ribbon, Stampin’ Spongers, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Button Bouquet, Linen Thread, 1″ Circle Punch, Horizontal Slot Punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig

Wow, from not blogging for yonks to three posts in a day – you guys must be wondering whether you’re Arthur or Martha!  I’ve always been tickled by that saying and am delighted to have an opportunity to use it here….

Just wanted to pop in quickly to say a HUGE….

..to the many of you who voted online for this photo – my entry into the 2009 Centro Smile Photography Contest.

I am beside myself to report that I received a phone call late this afternoon to say that my picture was the winner of the Viewers’ Choice award, along with which goes a brand new Nikon S710 digital camera!

Holy Moly!  To say I’m excited is the understatement of the millennium!  It’s a great little camera too – we fired it up as soon as the battery was charged It will be the perfect small companion to our recently acquired Canon 500D digital SLR that has been a lot of fun to learn about.

Thanks again folks!

The very first time I saw the Jumbo Stampin’ Around wheel Neighbourhood, I just had to own it!

It was one of those things that, although I didn’t have an immediate pressing need for it (because as we all well know, so many stamping things DO fall into the category of immediate pressing need ), I knew that it would be perfect for so many things.

Nevermind that I could just tell it would be super fun to watercolour.  And at $15.95 for the wheel, it was a bargain to boot!

Here is a card that I made a couple of months back for the family of one of the little girls in my big girl’s school class that had just built and moved into their new house….

The process of watercolouring the image took forever, but if I recall, I combined it with a spot of mindless TV – one of my favourite combinations of activities – so thoroughly enjoyed the time!

You can sort of tell in the picture, but in real life the colours were amazingly vibrant, which is one of the things that I love about using watercolour paper – the ability to layer and shade and add depth of colour without the paper going all soggy and pilly (not sure if that’s a word but I’m sure you know what I mean…) in the process!

I have made at least two other cards with the Neighbourhood wheel, but have made the irritating discovery this afternoon that a bunch of pictures that I took back in late September have somehow gone missing – one of which was a picture of a card using this wheel that I gave to some new neighbours that moved in across the street and another that was a gift I made for a prac teacher in my daughter’s class at the end of Term 3.  That one didn’t use the Neighbourhood wheel, but was a project I was very much looking forward to sharing here as it used the Parisian Breeze DSP from the Spring Mini that finishes up at the end of the month…

I am trying not to think too hard about what other pictures I took around that time that I have also lost, so let’s change the subject shall we….?

Alrighty, who else loves the Neighbourhood wheel??!!  You can own one yourself for the bargain price of $15.95 that I mentioned earlier (plus $10.50 for the Stampin’ Around handle if you don’t already have one).  Not bad for hours of colouring fun and the cutest little houses you ever did see!

Contact me today to get yours….!

“Housewarming Card”
Stamps: Neighbourhood Stampin’ Around Wheel, Sanded, Short & Sweet
Paper: Old Olive, More Mustard, Ruby Red, Watercolour Paper
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Old Olive, a variety of inks for watercolouring, not all of which I can recall with 100% clarity, but inclusive of Baja Breeze, Going Grey, More Mustard, Ruby Red, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip…..
Accessories: Aquapainter, Choc Chip wide grosgrain ribbon, Stampin’ Sponges

The silly season is fast approaching, but there is nothing silly about the newest promotion from Stampin’ Up!

All through November and right up until December 14th, purchase $85 worth of products from the Gift Giving Guide and you will receive a Scallop Square Punch for FREE!

The Gift Giving Guide contains some fabulous suggestions of stampin’ gifts for all the folk in your life, so contact me today to take advantage of this great offer!

The most difficult cards to make are always the ones conveying sympathy for the loss of a loved one, and I had reason to make one of these this week for a dear friend of mine who lost a long-time friend of hers in the most tragic and terribly sad of circumstances.

This is card that I took around to my friend today.

The soft look of the flowers in the Upsy Daisy stamp set is achieved by colouring directly to the rubber with Watercolour Wonder crayons, spritzing the stamp with water and stamping onto watercolour paper.  It was exactly the soft, muted look I was hoping for.

Thinking of you Deen…

“Just Because I Care”
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Sanded, Best Yet
Paper: Always Artichoke, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Mellow Moss, Watercolour Paper
Ink: Always Artichoke, Regal Rose
Accessories: Watercolour Wonder Crayons (Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke), Eyelet Border Punch, Rose Red wide stitched grosgrain, Button Latte Designer Buttons, Linen Thread, Stampin’ Sponges

As promised, here are the whole cards that I gave you a brief sampling of yesterday.  I know that one of the cards has been received due to the very sweet and enthusiastic comment left earlier (*waving* SJ!) and I’m going to take a chance that the other two will have been found before the recipients check in here….

So here we go….

This card was sent to my lovely Aunty Mary, sister of my mum, frequent blog commenter, enthusiastic cheerleader and a wonderful influence in my life.  I wanted her to know just how much I love and appreciate her.

For the card itself, I stamped the birdie using Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder.  Then I used markers in the colours of the cardstock I had chosen and coloured in the little “carved out” bits through to the cardstock below.

“A card for Aunty Mair”
Stamps: Always, Best Yet, Sanded
Paper: Old Olive, Cameo Coral, Pink Pirouette
Ink: Versamark, Old Olive
Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Old Olive wide grosgrain, Old Olive & Cameo Coral Markers, Stampin’ Sponges

Here’s the next one…

This one landed in the mailbox of my dear friend and fellow demonstrator, Sarah Jane Kalé, one of many friends I have made due to my association with Stampin’ Up! and one of the reasons I am thankful that I became a demonstrator at all.

During the recent school holidays, SJ and I were meant to catch up with our little ones but on the morning in question I woke up with a raging migraine and had to cancel to spend the day on the couch with an ice-pack on my head.  Sarah offered to have the girls for me so that I could ice my thumping head in peace – just one example of the sweetness that is Sarah, not to mention that she is one of the most talented stampers I know!  Love ya SJ!

The sentiment on this card is perfect and I wanted to use a bunch of vibrant colours, so I chose a combination of markers that I liked based on the colours in my small girl’s current favourite dress and coloured the words all differently.  The Baroque background stamp is embossed with clear embossing powder.

“A card for Sarah Jane”
Stamps: Occasional Greetings, Baroque
Paper: Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Pink Passion, Whisper White
Ink: Versamark
Accessories: Clear Embossing Powder, Certainly Celery wide grosgrain, Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Pink Passion, Pixie Pink & Apricot Appeal Markers, Eyelet Border Punch, Button Bouquet Designer Buttons, Linen Thread, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Now for the last one…

This one went to Makeesha, another demonstrator and gorgeous friend who endlessly shares her boundless stamping talents.  I was looking forward to catching up with her at the Perth Regionals last weekend, but this time the migraine monster came visiting her and she wasn’t able to attend.

I wasn’t the only disappointed one, as I know many Perth stampers were busting for the opportunity to breathe the same air and maybe even exchange a word or two with Keesh, stamp-star that she is, and I’m sure she was also saddened to have to miss out on such a fun day of stamping.

For this card I inked up Garden Whimsy, which I haven’t done for quite some time, and was happy with how it turned out.  You might notice that the layout is pretty much the same as Aunty Mary’s birdie card, just different stamps and colours

“A card for Keesh”
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, Best Yet, Sanded
Paper: Bashful Blue, Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White
Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Kiwi Kiss, Bashful Blue
Accessories: Pumpkin Pie striped ribbon, Pumpkin Pie Marker, Eyelet Border Punch, Stampin’ Sponges, Stampin’ Dimensionals

I hope you enjoyed checking out my cards as much as I enjoyed making them   If you’d like further information about any of the techniques or products involved in the creation of these cards, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Let’s pretend for a moment that it hasn’t been over a month since I last posted. We could make believe that I’ve been popping in here frequently with fun stampin’ stuff to show you and more aimless rambling that is absolutely necessary.

Everybody ok with that….?!

In truth, I can’t really explain how a whole month has passed in between posts, but I have had a few things going on of late and something simply had to give.

Which is not to say that I haven’t been stamping. No, my “to blog” picture folder is veritably overflowing with stamping projects, one in particular dating back to around June. I know this because it was a gift for a prac teacher in my big girl’s classroom, and there have been two prac teachers since then……

Today I wanted to show you some sneaky peeks of three special cards that I have made for three special folk in my life.  I will show you the whole cards tomorrow after the post will have arrived at the residences of the folk in question.  I want the cards to be a bit of a surprise as some of them may read this before the cards arrive, that is if they haven’t given up on me and my blog entirely by now…!

So here they are…

My mum (aka Nanny) said to me recently that one of the things she likes best about making cards is that you think about the person that you’re making it for during the process of creating the card.  I hadn’t thought about it in a great deal of detail before, but it’s definitely true and was certainly the case as I was making these cards.

Perhaps that’s why I’m not a huge fan of mass producing cards for “just in case” as it takes away that certain personal factor about making a card especially for somebody.

Or perhaps I’m never organised enough to mass produce cards, as it certainly makes sense from a practicality point of view, but I prefer my excuse as it makes me look like less of a slacker

Full details for these cards, as well as pictures tomorrow!

See you then…

Many of you will no doubt remember the jaw-droppingly amazing cake that I had made for my bestie’s baby shower.

Here it is again…

The creator of this sugary masterpiece – Julie – now has her very own website – Queen of Cakes – where you can see a vast gallery of her talents.

Prepare to be amazed friends.   Seriously amazed….

Then prepare to make a list of all of your upcoming celebratory occasions so you too can indulge in a truly wonderful cake that tastes every bit as good as it looks!