Inquisitive minds...

I had to show everyone this picture. My daughter has just perfected the art of pulling herself up to standing and will do it whenever the opportunity presents itself. She has recently realized that if she pulls herself up on my crafty bag there are goodies inside with which she can play. In this shot she got my Sweet Stems set and sat down to examine it. She has, on other occasions, found that if she throws a stamp pad on the floor it will open and also that the bag of sponges is a great thing to chew. I just thought this was the cutest and that everyone should see it.

Define Your Life

I got the Define your Life stamp set when I signed up to be a demonstrator because of the promotion at the time where you got a free set (same promotion on now too). I had coveted this set for some time but because of the price had never gotten it. But now that I have it I have yet to really use it. So sad really.

I decided to get some inspiration from my favourite source. I found this card and loved the simplicity of it, and the fact that it used embossing too. The flower and definition are embossed and then I used my blender pen and Pretty in Pink and Rose Red inks along with a little Kiwi Kiss to colour in the flower. I finished it off with a little Kiwi Kiss satin ribbon and a scallop edge. I absolutely love the way it turned out.

Upsy Daisy

I was playing around with the Upsy Daisy stamp set and I made this card. I found the inspiration from Splitcoast (surprised?) and changed the colours a bit. I used Chocolate chip and Bordering Blue.

The bordering blue gives it a bit of a sophisticated look since it isn't a bright as some of the other blues. I didn't have any wide ribbon so I used a strip of Bella Rose DSP and the dots are actually Pirouette Pink, but they are so light that you can't tell. As for the flowers I stamped them in Whisper White and embossed in clear.

I have just recently gotten my heat gun and I love it. It is so much easier than trying to emboss large areas on the stove or with an iron. It is one of my best purchases so far. You will be seeing a lot of embossing in the cards to come as I play with it.

February Club/Class card

The last club meeting went really well, there were a few more ladies there this time and we had a blast again. Aside from the fact I can't make coffee everything went really well. Here is one of the cards we made using this months technique - bleaching.

It really isn't a messy technique at all and the bleach doesn't get everywhere. To do it just get a folded up paper towel on a plastic lid or paper plate and carefully pour some bleach on it and you've made your own bleach pad. Just like with stamping in general make sure your fingers are clean, if there is bleach OR ink on them your project won't turn out quite like you had hoped :)

I would love to be able to take credit for coming up with the idea for this card but I can't, I found it on the demonstrator portion of the SU! website then tweaked it a little and thought it would be perfect for this months club. We used the Upsy Daisy set and stamped first in Chocolate Chip ink on the Baja Breeze cardstock. Then we stamped in bleach overtop of the image. There is no need to line the images up because you want them to be off a little to get a shadow effect. This one ended up a bit sploched but the ladies cards were more bleached, the way I had intended. The difference was that I didn't have as much bleach on my papertowel as they did. We finished the card off with a strip of So Saffron cs, Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon and a ticket corner punch for the top corners.

Scrapbook page #1

I have jumped on the scrapbook bandwagon with both feet now. I have completed my first page and I am quite happy with the results. This page is what really sparked my scrapbooking desire. We got these cute ultrasound pictures and I knew I needed to keep them forever but couldn't think of anything else to do with them than scrapbook them.

I matted them with red and blue paper that matched the flowers in the paper I found. Then I added some scallop circles and the title. For interests sake the scallop border around the title I did with my scallop edge punch, a little tricky but I had all sorts of time to perfect it.

I think I may be an addict now but oh well. I can't wait to get the next page done!

Baby Card and onesie

Here is a Welcome baby card that I just love making and giving. I have a friend who had a baby a few weeks ago so I made this card with a matching onesie and wrapping paper to boot.

I found a onesie card awhile back on Splitcoast and couldn't resist making one myself. The template that I used can be found here but there are lots to choose from if you do a little searching. I have made a few of these cards in the past but this time I decided to take it one step further and make the whole emsemble.

For the card I used retired soft sky paper and then sponged the edges with Baja Breeze and added faux stitching with the white gel pen. I stamped the birds in black and coloured them with regular markers (I don't have the SU! ones yet). I found a few white buttons in my stash of stuff and glued them to the bottom of the onesie and called it done. If I had textured cardstock I would have used that for a more cloth-like look, but you have to use what you have, right?

The wrapping paper is just the stuffing paper SU! uses in their packages and coloured with regular markers.

The onesie took a bit if research on how to do. I first washed and dried the onesie, then stamped in black craft ink which takes awhile to dry. I then heat set the ink with my iron but I read you can also do it with the heat tool. Next I coloured the birds in with fabric markers and then I think I had to heat set it again, whatever the markers said to do is what I did. Then I washed it and dried it again, so it is super clean now.

I think it is super cute and can't wait for another friend to have a baby so I can make another set. Did you hear that guys, get on it!

Scrapbooking

So I've finally decided to venture into the world of scrapbooking. It is something I said I'd never do because I thought you needed lots of supplies and I just wasn't into spending that much. I changed my mind when my daughter was born and I had all these hospital bracelets that were just asking to be scrapbooked. I now know that you don't need to spend a lot to make a nice scrapbook, you just need to have pictures and treasures that mean a lot to you and a scrapbook will just come together.

I have started a lot of pages started but none are quite finished yet. It turns out I really like to start them which involves picking out colours and embellies but not finishing them which involves cutting the pictures. I don't know why I have a problem with this, they only cost 29 cents at the store and I can always get another printed but still, it makes me hesitate.

I wanted to share where I've been getting most of my inspiration for my pages that I am starting (but not finishing yet). I have been checking out a friends blog for ideas. Sandra has the best scrapbook pages and I love how simple they are, these are the kinds of pages that make me think that I can do that too! I will be posting some of my finished pages just as soon as I manage to finish them. I have given myself a goal of at least 1 per month so keep your eyes open for February's :)