kind words…

Hi all,

 I am so in love with the new butterfly punch…did anyone notice??? lol lol I was given some gorgeous shabby chic papers a while ago and just wouldn’t use them cos they were too pretty!!! Does anyone else do that? Anyhows  I decided to pull one of the sheets out and make a shabby chic card. The base of the card is Pink Pirouette with an Old Olive matting. The butterflies were first punched out in pink pirouette for the bottom of them and then out of the scraps of the rose paper I punched out another 3, then I glued them together down their backs. I put some tiny pink rhinestones down the back of each butterfly stamped their antennae onto the paper where I wanted them to float, and held them in place with Stampin’ Dimensionals so they were all lifted off the page, sort of like they are hovering over the roses looking for a sweet spot to land on the petals. Pretty in Pink ribbon is threaded through a tiny silver ribbon slide from the Hodgepodge Hardware tin and I placed a  small cream half pearl, from the Pretties Kit, in the centre of that slide for a vintage-y type of look. The sentiment is from a level 2 Hostess Gift called Echoes of Kindness, it is stamped in Old Olive ink on to Pink Pirouette card stock and matted on to Old Olive card stock. I loved making this card, and I am super happy with the way it turned out. It really looks very very pretty in real life, I am afraid my photography skills are  limited with my little camera.

That’s all for today, I have  little Miss 3 here, Akiah (aka Lily), she had a sleepover last night, so I have lots of tea parties to attend today, and lots of colouring in and story readings in between. It is way too hot for playing outside today so it’s an inside day!! ahhhh life is good!!

Have a great day yourselves, take care,

love Sally x

 

Love is like a butterfly…

Hi everyone,

Keesh has given us a beautiful sketch to play along with for this week’s challenge. I sorta challenged myself to this one too! I wanted to make a card with no stamped image!! A girlfriend was over for a visit on Thursday evening (waving to you Leonie!!!) and she brought with her some of the most beautiful cards, a very pretty scrapbook page, boxes and invitations I have ever seen, that she had made recently, all done in gorgeous papers. There was not one stamped image anywhere and they were amazing, I was so inspired!! 

So above is my attempt…I used a stamp for the tag and for the butterfly antennae, but that was all, so I was nearly there!! lol lol!  These ‘kaleidoscope’  papers are from the new summer mini, aren’t they pretty? I love them. I also loooooove the butterfly punch, I think it is probably my fav punch at the moment, I punched out the 3 butterflies from paper left overs from the rectangular piece  and used the reverse side. I cut the circular piece out using my circle scissors and glass mat. The glass mat is magic when using the circle scissors, the blade doesn’t have to struggle like it does against rubber mats. It glides and gives a much sharper finish. I actually bought mine just before last Christmas and I love using them, so I was very excited to see that Stampin’ Up will have them available from December 1.  I have also used some cream half pearls from the Pretties Kit and some Dazzling Diamonds glitter on the butterflies and some little dots of glitter over the rest of the base matting, the actual card is Certain Celery and these are the only things used that are not out of the new Summer Mini, due for release Tuesday December 1st.  And there you have it…my entry for Makeesha’s Inkspirations Sketch Challenge #16. Pop over to Keesh’s blog and check out her stunning creation and see what everyone else has made. Thanks Keesh for a great play with this challenge.

Cheers,

Sally

Caree… we hope you dance!

This is a cute card I made for my eldest daughter, Caree, to celebrate her life and the joy she is in our lives. I love this little ballerina stamp, she is from my stash of stamps and has been coloured in with a blender pen and water-colour crayons (both S U). I especially love the flower with the Dazzling Diamonds sprinkled over it after it has been softly coloured with ink from the Pink Pirouette refill bottle, then I added a white half pearl to the centre, both from the Pretties Kit. The word ‘dance’ has been made up with die cut letters and the Heart to Heart punch has been used to make the heart embellishments.  A couple of stripes of Bashful Blue taffeta  ribbon to finish it up and there you have it, a really pretty girly card, for a daughter we love so much. 

Darling Caree if you have the chance…we hope you dance!

Thanks for dropping by,

Sally x

Happy Birthday Sharon….

Hi all, it was a friend’s 40th birthday recently and this is the card I made for her, she is an awesome lady, a real angel herself.  The flowers are from Sweet Stems and are coloured in with markers to give a bright cheery look. Did you spot those 2 darling little ladybirds making their way up one of the stems? Cute aren’t they? T hey are out of the Garden Whimsy set of stamps, and  I placed them with the Stamp-a-ma-jig so they sat just where I wanted them to be. The tag is from A Happy Heart but I only inked up the words and not the image that is also on this gorgeous stamp. The little angel is a stamp from my own stash and she is also coloured in with markers. I have added some green bling also from my stash and then I have added  3 little pieces of folded 1.27 cms striped grosgrain ribbon in Real Red down the side of the card before I matted it onto Real Red card stock for the base of the card. So there you have it….Happy Birthday Sharon!!!

Sally x

…with heartfelt sympathy…

Hi everyone, sadly one of hubby’s work colleagues lost her Dad this week and I was asked to make a card for the staff to sign, so this is it. I used the new butterfly punch and the butterfly stamps from the new summer mini, this time I used the ‘houndstooth’ print on the top of the butterfly and I glued the ’swirly’ print underneath so when it’s wings are lifted there is some unexpected added interest…cute idea hey? The large red/pink rose from Fifth Avenue Floral has been coloured with a blend of reds and pinks from the Water Colour Wonder Crayons, I have actually coloured in 2 of them and layered them on top of each other with Stampin’ Dimensionals. Just around the edges I have used some Stampin’ Glitter in Dazzling Diamonds. The tag has been made up of 2 different stamp sets (which I love to do and it’s so easy!!), the secret is you must have a Stamp-a-ma-jig (available for $22.95 from the 2009-2010 idea book and catalogue, page155)!! It allows you to line up perfectly where you need to place the stamp, no stuff-ups, no errors, you get it right every time, isn’t that cool? I love mine and it gets a very good workout with the projects its needed in. I had always wondered how these people, who have gorgeous jaw dropping creations, made such awesome perfect alignments look so easy, I assumed that they must have wasted a lot of paper and time and I admired them for their determination to finish what they started out making!!! But at the very first Stampin’ Up party I went too their secret was out!!!! I think everyone at that party thought the same as me, and yes! … every one of us purchased that magic tool and now we too can align perfectly!!!! Ahh yes, back to the card,( ooops, those who know me well, know how I like to side-track at times.. lol lol lol) I have used the ‘heartfelt’ stamp from Heartfelt Thanks and the ‘with sympathy’ is from Kindred Spirits. I had to make this a large card for the many signatures so I used a 12×12 textured sheet of Baja Breeze, folded it in half and cut one side down by 7 cms. I used Urban Oasis designer series paper and chose the theme of Fifth Avenue Floral, the red spotty piece is from Riding Hood Red patterns designer series paper. The ribbon is the luscious satin Kiwi Kiss/Very Vanilla. I was pretty happy with the final result of this card and I was pleased to hear that hubby’s work mates also liked it and were very appreciative, its nice to know your work touches the hearts of others no matter what the circumstance.

 Thanks for dropping by this arve.

Sally x

for samantha, only 20….’forever young’

Hi all, Well some of this card is a little sneak peek of what is to come in our new summer mini catalogue to be released December 1st. There are lots of great things on offer again! So!!…. what’s new on this card you ask? Well the butterflies are new, aren’t they sooooo cute and we also have a butterfly punch that co-ordinates with this stamp set, coming out in the same catalogue. WoooHooo!!!! As you can see on my card, after you have stamped the image onto your card stock and punched it out, you will have a tiny border right around the butterfly, isn’t that just neat!!!! All other products used are Stampin’ Up and are available to purchase from the 2009 – 2010 Stampin’ Up Idea Book and Catalogue. The whimsical swirl stamp beneath the butterflies is from Scribble This (page 84) , the ~heartfelt~ tag is from Heartfelt Thanks (page 83) , Tempting Turquoise ink and card stock have been used, and so has Chocolate Chip ink and card stock, and some Designer Series Paper also in Chocolate Chip (page 135), has been selected for the matting.

I have made this sympathy card for my daughter, Caree, and her fiance, Adrian.  Adrian’s little sister passed away after a long battle with cancer on Saturday morning. Samantha was way too young, and she fought with so much courage that she has been an inspiration to her closest family and friends. She will be sadly missed by all that knew her and loved her. It has been a difficult time for Adrian and Caree, their hearts are sad and heavy, and as their family it is so hard to watch them hurt so deep inside, but they know that they are loved and that we are with them as we carry them in thought and prayer.

~for Samantha, only 20…. ’forever young’~

Love Sally x

just a quick pic of Ahria…

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep pretty darling, do not cry, and I will sing you a lullaby. ~Thomas Dekker

You only live once,

Hi again, WOWSERS!!!!  2 posts in one afternoon!!!! I had a really busy week last week and didn’t play along in Makeesha’s last challenge. But this week…now, that, is a different story. I must admit these were hard colours for me to work with, but that is what a challenge is, and I enjoy playing along with them because they do make me think outside the square. Plus I love to check out what everyone else has done with the same challenge, that always fascinates me!

So for this week’s challenge, Inkspirations Colour Challenge #15, Keesh has given us some warm colours to play with- Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Really Rust and Very Vanilla. I decided on a Chocolate Chip card stock base with a Really Rust card stock matting. For my inks, I chose the 3 darker colours, using them with a flower stamp from the Fifth Avenue Floral stamp set, I randomly stamped over the Very Vanilla card stock and overlapped the flowers. In the centre of the Really Rust outlined flowers only, I used some of that gorgeous, gorgeous Fine Supernova glitter in ‘orange’ (it looks like Really Rust) to give the card some bling. I have also just roughly sponged some Really Rust from the Stampin’ Pastels onto the same flowers, being careful not to go outside the outlines, plus I didn’t want to colour those flowers in fully, I wanted it to look a bit sort of hit-and-miss…lol lol, does that make sense? It makes them more of a feature and they sort of jump off the front of the card. I don’t have one of those u-beaut cameras that take great photos like I see on other blogs,  just my little-one-that-I-take-everywhere type of camera, so sometimes my cards look way much more striking in real life, and this is one of them, so sorry! I think I may have to put a new camera on my wish list for next year. I punched out the title on Very Vanilla with the Wide Oval punch and mounted it twice, once on Really Rust card stock and once on Chocolate Chip card stock that have been punched out with the Designer Label punch and I cut them both in half and placed them underneath the Very Vanilla oval piece at each end. I finished the tag off with a Chocolate Chip button on the side, with a tiny bow of some Linen Thread that I dyed with some Chocolate Chip ink from the ink refill bottle.

I had so much fun doing this challenge, I was so determined to do it, because it would be soooo soooo easy for me to back out and stay in my comfort zone. Thank you Keesh for a wonderful chance to play along and broaden my colour palette. I hope you all like my card, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Don’t forget to pop over to Makeesha’s blog and check out her gorgeous card and her Design Teams’ gorgeous creations too. One cannot help but be inspired, go have a look!

‘Never miss a rainbow because you are looking down’ -unknown

…love Sally xx 

meet my Xanthi…

Just take a peek at this gorgeous kid will you? This is my darling granddaughter Xanthi-Anne. Every Wednesday is our play date, how lucky am I? Xanth is just as cute as this picture shows. She loves to make things in Granny’s craft room, so last Wednesday we sat down and played, like we do every time she is here, and she made this special card for her Mummy. She was so into making it as pretty as she could and I think she has done an awesome job for a 5 and a half (not allowed to forget the ‘and a half  bit!!!) year old, her colouring in is pretty good, she has the concept of staying in the lines, unless she is in a bit of a hurry, then it is a different story…lol lol!! Her Mummy, Caree, was so excited to get this lovely card when she came out to pick Xanth up after a long hectic day at her work. I loved the look in Xanth’s face, her eyes were dancing and that cheeky little smile took over the whole moment, as she gave this card of love to Mummy…and of course Mummy loved it! Good job Dancee-Pants!

…thanks for dropping by this arve,

Sally XX

for my man….

happy birthday to my honey!!

Today is my darling hubby’s birthday, so I thought I would use Makeesha’s Inkspiration Inspiration challenge #14 and make him a card! Please hop over to Keesh’s site to check out the great ‘inspiration’ pic she has for us this week. Those colours  really reminded me of all the good times I use to have on the beach at Surfers Paradise as a child looking for shells  in the sand with my darling Gramps. I don’t know exactly why it reminded me of those times but that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the picture so I went with it! Maybe it was the big shell in the bottom corner, or the gorgeous bedroom linen that is so coasty, or maybe it was that I could see the water through the bedroom window that sealed the deal, but I loved making this card for the man I have loved since I was 15!!!! So Happy Birthday Honey, I love you to the moon and back and twice around the stars.

Everything that I have used is Stampin’ Up product. It is the first time I have used the large Jumbo Eyelets and I think they look pretty spiffy sitting up there on the edge of the card. Thanks again Keesh for another great challenge, I have so much fun playing along every week, and I love to check out what everyone else does with the challenge and am alway impressed with how we all do something so different with the same guidelines.

Thanks for dropping by tonight,

Sally X

ps The red bit behind my card is just a piece of material I have used as a background…umm no,  it’s not a part of the challenge! (smiling at you Kirsty, you are too too funny! hehe!!)