Saturday 30 April 2011

Apple Blossom Continued!

This is a tiny thankyou card made from the Apple Blossom Hostess Gift set.  I wasn't sure what to make using this particular stamp, so I stamped using Real Red Ink onto Very Vanilla cardstock.  I then coloured in one of the dots using a Real Red marker.  I then discovered I was not as good at colouring in as I once thought.  So I covered up my mistake with a tiny butterfly.  I think I like my mistake.  My main motivation for making mini cards, is the dead-cute little matching Very Vanilla tiny envelopes you can buy.  It is also a great way of using your scrap cardstock.


I am very partial to Old Olive cardstock and think it goes nicely with pink.  I stamped Old Olive Ink onto Old Olive cardstock to get a nice tonal effect.  I folded the butterflies adhered them with clear glue dots which gave it a 3-dimensional look, with the butterflies appearing to 'land' on the page.

Ness

Apple Blossom Hostess Gift

I absolutely love the Apple Blossom Hostess Gift.  Hostesses achieve this (for free) when they hold a workshop, and achieve $600 in sales.  This is easily achieved, as at a workshop, your guests get to try all of Stamin'Up!'s great products before they buy.  As well as receiving the set, the hostess gets $60 to spend too!

I have used three main colours here:  Real Red, Crumbcake and Old Olive.  I love this colour combination.  I think this set is suitable for a somewhat masculine card as the flowers are clean and simple.  You can see from the picture, I have made a Father's Day card (totally getting in early!)

Ness

Sunday 24 April 2011

Good Luck Card using Clearly for You and Nature Walk



I was inspired for this card after visiting an American lady's site called Dawn Griffith.  I love the colours of Elegant Soiree paper set.  They are the same colours of the cushions of my couch at home.

I used my 2 favourite sets- Clearly for you and Nature Walk (both from the Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue) and just stamped them on Very Vanilla cardstock using Crumbcake ink.  I then just fooled around with some small punches and filled up each little square.  I then added some cream pearls to finish it off.  I am really happy with the end results.  My favourite image is the bee in the Nature walk set.  I have made lots of cards using this image.  I will post some soon.

Ness

Saturday 23 April 2011

Getting Started with the whole blogging thing...

Happy Easter!  I have just sat down to write my first entry and it got me thinking to another place, another time...  About 11 years ago, I started seeing this guy who used to write all about himself and what he got up to and he then posted it on the Internet.  I remember thinking at the time:  Is this guy serious?  WHO would be interested in his everyday goings on?  I had to stop seeing him as I just thought the whole thing was ridiculously self centred.  I am just smiling to myself now, as here I am, 11 years later, writing about my goings on, hoping that someone might read my blog!  Who knew he would be such a trail-blazer?  So, Darren, wherever you are- thanks!

My first entry is talking about an album I made for a work colleague.  This was challenging as, being a work colleague, there were no photos of her.  What I decided to do, was to send out an email to 40 of her workmates and got them to fill out a questionnaire about her.  The questions/sentence starters were:  I met Kerry... My first impressions of her were...Three words to describe Kerry:  Favourite memory:  My wish for her...

This format worked really well, as it added structure and uniformity to the album.  I purchased a 6x6 album and then copied and pasted their answers.  Each person had a page which I then decorated.  My boss' favourite colour is red, so I went for a black white and red theme, inspired by Stampin'Up!'s  'Love letter' collection of papers.  I alternated to pages with Real Red and Basic Black cardstock.  I then used my favourite stamp set of the moment: Clearly for You (from the Stampin'Up! Autumn/Winter catalogue).  I then got some Whisper White Card Stock and stamped images from the set in Real Red and Basic Black ink.  My favourite effect was printing the background set stamp in black then cutting out an image I had stamped in real red and sticking a Stamin' Dimensional on the back.  My boss is going to love it....