Often when I am stuck for ideas for a simple but cheerful card, I will turn to the Stampin' Up! Ideas Book & Catalogue and see if a particular card jumps out at me.  Then I will usually take some design elements from the layout, select my own stamp set and colours and create away.

This month, my sister said she wanted to make the cute Easter card on page 29 for one of her classes, but what else could she do in the class?

I thought this was a great card to team with a 6"x 6" layout for a lovely gift, and if you don't own Easter stamps, who cares?  There are so many other special occasion stamps you could select!

I love the Petite Pockets in Wisteria Wonder on the same page of the catalogue too, so I had a look around for a stamp set, and then decided to create away - pretty much re-creating the card as shown, with a different stamp set, putting together a co-ordinating layout, and making the Petite Pocket. Lots of fun and quite simple when you don't have to spend days thinking of how to put it all together.

My stamping friends who saw the elements of the card in real life, before I assembled it, think I am totally insane, for inking up that tiny stamp with markers! LOL that's one of my favourite techniques for multi-coloured stamping.

Now, as for that rosette, lovely touch, but that IS madness!

Now it happens that two of my lovely Stampin' buddies have just been promoted to the design team at Just Add Ink which is VERY exciting for them! Just Add Ink is a great challenge site, and this month their Scrapbook Challenge is Holidays!

So, even though this layout could be any old day out at the beach, a little tab added to the top of the photo reminds us that it was a) school holidays and b) I was on holiday visiting my gorgeous nieces & nephew.

A close up of the embellishments & DSP -see, really simple, with lovely cheerful colours :

Here's a close up of the Petite Pocket, as once again, I have inked up the stamp with markers - I really do love the effect of it, even if it is fiddly!

Thanks for having a look at what I've been doing - and be sure to check out Just Add Ink, and leave some love for Christine Blain & Tina Gillespie, my talented stampin' friends!

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday with some of my favourite stamping friends coming over for a Sale-a-bration Party. Despite how hot it was, we had a very creative time and got to try a couple of newish techniques for the group.

One of these techniques had a few steps to it, and rather than making a finished card, we just concentrated on getting the technique done.  With 9 people squeezed into a small space and trying to juggle the heat gun, embossing powder and only 6 blender pens, it was an awesome effort by everyone to at least get that far.  Now I know the girls are dying to know what to do with their sample, so here's what I came up with this morning :

Now, credit where credit is due!  My lovely team member Elaine Hannam in St Helens, Tasmania is the star behind this technique.  She showed me her sample cards using the Open Sea stamp set and told me how to do the technique when I visited her earlier this month. I couldn't wait to rush home and use up my rubber scraps to make my own mosaic block!

One thing I have really been finding this year that suits me perfectly is that in lots of cases, LESS is MORE!  I have been been adding less and less to my cards and liking them much better!  Of course I love a card or layout that has lots of delicious layers and looks like someone has put hours of LOVE into it, I love a project like that too. But when there are a dozen birthday's a month, thank you cards to be made, invitations to make, all the other occasion cards on top of that, it really feels good to create something that looks great but only took a short while and you know you can make a stack in one sitting if you need to!

And if it's for someone really special, just add some lace and a few pearls!

So what have I used?

Elements of Style & Thank You Kindly Stamp Sets,

Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper

Always Artichoke, Bravo Burgundy, River Rock & Sahara Sand cardstock

Blender Pens for colouring the Elements of Style old roses image

Versamark Ink pad & clear embossing powder, set with a heat gun.

and the Top Note Die

If you are interested in attending some techniques classes to learn how to do different things with your stamping supplies, then please ask me for more details. I will be running techniques classes one Thursday night a month in Croydon North.

See you again soon!

In recent weeks the projects I have been showing on here have been more complicated - lots of steps and quite a bit of time spent and you could be thinking, "Yes lovely, but I just want to be able to whip up a few birthday cards to get me through the next month or two . . . "

Perfect! Today I have two really simple, quick and easy cards to show you, one for boys and one for girls!

This card is SO simple!  It consist of the Cajun Craze card base, one piece of striped paper from the Frightful Sight Designer Series Paper and one stamped greeting on a co-ordinating scrap of card.  The very cute spider on this card is actually part of the patterned paper.

I've chosen Cajun Craze for the background layer for the greeting, but you could use black, grey or Old Olive to co-ordinate with the DSP too.

My card for girls uses the same very simple supplies and sketch,with an added layer, a butterfly, and a pretty edge on the inside.

This double sided patterned paper comes from the hostess set Cheerful Treat - I love those stripes and the pretty floral pattern!

The great thing about these bright cheery, simple cards is that you can churn out quite a few in a short time.  I think they're terrific!  What do you think?

Welcome to another little hop around stampin' land, to see the inspiring work of my lovely creative friends. All our projects today feature products from the Summer Mini Catalogue which are available to purchase right now, and all orders over $100 can receive free Sale-a-bration goodies.

There are seven ladies involved in today's blog hop - a nice little journey. You may have just come from my lovely friend Alisha Watson's blog, or you may be starting here, welcome! It's easy to join in the blog hop, just follow the link at the bottom of each post, to take you to the next one.

Anyway, what have I been making?  I have fallen in love with the gorgeous designer series paper Spice Cake which is on page 10 of the Summer Mini, and have created a 12" x 12" layout and a mini tag book with these gorgeous prints and the amazingly large co-ordinating Spice Cake buttons which are also in the mini.

The tags are cut from Very Vanilla Textured card stock, punched with the corner rounder punch.  The round tab punch was used to cut Spice Cake DSP scraps for the tag tops, and Stampin' Up! Seam Binding Ribbon added as a final touch to each one.

My 12" x 12" layout is my second creation for my journey in the on-line scrapbooking class "Twelve" which consists of 12 colours, 12 categories, and 12 months of layouts for 2012.  This layout falls into the category "Personalities" where I had listed this very cute little boy.  He has so much personality right now, although the photos I have used are a couple of years old, but they certainly add to the story.

This layout is very much inspired by the sample in the Mini Catalogue. I love all the texture that is created by weaving the strips of DSP and it's a great way to show off both sides of the gorgeous patterned papers.

The buttons are fantabulous!  At first I was shocked at the size, but I love them for their simple, uncluttered look - and how you can rustic them up with a bit of linen thread.

The shiny chipboard letters came out of my stash from about 5 years ago - I knew they'd come in use one day! And I am glad I remembered them for this layout.  In TWELVE, the online class I am doing, I have matched "personalities" with the colour Rich Razzleberry, and there is a requirement to put a splash of this awesome bold colour onto every layout you complete for this category. 

When I was putting the finishing touches to this layout, I suddenly remembered this and rolled my eyes in horror at the thought of Rich Razzleberry trying to blend with River Rock, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party, Soft Suede and More Mustard.  Then I spotted a scrap of Rich Razzleberry Seam Binding Ribbon and noticed how closely it matched with some of the shades in the old non-Stampin' Up! chip board letters!  Pheww! Not such a clash as I had expected after all!

Well, that's an awful lot of photos and hopefully a good bit of inspiration for you!  So now I must send you on your way to the next blogger in our blog hop.  But before I do, please, please, please leave a comment for each of the ladies - there's usually a comments tab right at the bottom of the post - we SO love to hear what you think of our creations, or of the products themselves!  Thanks so much.

Now off you pop to visit Di Dunk, who never ceases to amaze us with how much amazing work she always puts into these projects! Enjoy the journey and have a nice day!