Signing off for another year

It has been QUITE the year!! A year full of making, creating, designing, paired with good times, tragedies around our nation and our world, time spent with family, friends, and time making new friends! It's also been a time of poor health for me, and finding a way to juggle the struggles I have and how to continue a normal life with the information I now have. 

 But one thing that has kept me sane, happy and raring to continue in life is ACP! I love to create and it is something that brings so much fun into my life. A creative life is a messy, beautiful and exciting life because it's full of new ideas, fresh products and I love working alongside my equally talented and visionary customers. 

I have BIG plans for 2015. There will be a WEBSITE! Gasp!! There is so much work involved in making this happen but I am SO EXCITED this is happening. It's been a long time in the planning, as in, me deciding what I wanted haha!! I think that is the hardest part! But it's happening, and I've been really busy creating beautiful new products that will be launched on my own little place on the internet. 

I am so so so so so grateful for all the support I've received over the past year. It's incredibly awesome being in the handmade community. You make friends with so many clever people. I am constantly in awe of how brilliant some people are in this world. It blows my mind almost daily the things people think of, and the skill, oh my the skills! It's such an honour to know these people and to draw inspiration from their commitment and experience. 

And last but not least, my customers. How awful my life would be without you! You make my world go round and I wouldn't and couldn't do this without you. Thank you for choosing ME. Thank you for trusting me with all your needs and desires. You're the BEST. 

Here's to 2015!! Woohoo!! xo

Turkey & Chorizo Bolognaise

Last week I was looking in my freezer and saw the turkey mince sitting there, gathering icicles. I had to stop avoiding it and figure out how to use it. I decided the easiest way to use it was to just add it into a bolognaise sauce along with my beef mince - which of course would be a very big meaty bolognaise. But I'm ok with that. Meaty is GOOD. Then I discovered the chorizo in the fridge, and I was on my way to the most amazing bolognaise I've ever tasted in my life. Here's how I made it so you can try it yourself. It's super easy, and remember super meaty.

Ingredients:

2 onions

2 cloves garlic

2 jalapeños (optional)

Olive oil

6 tomatoes

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato paste

500g beef mince

500g turkey mince

2 chorizo sausages

Water

Generous handful fresh basil

8 sprigs fresh thyme 

1 tbsp oregano 

Handful baby spinach

Salt & Pepper

Method:

1. Chop up your onions, garlic and jalapeños and fry up in a big saucepan on med-high heat, with some olive oil until softened. 

2. Add your tomatoes which you have conveniently chopped into small chunks in with your canned tomatoes and tomato paste. Let it simmer away until your fresh tomatoes start to break down. I kind of squished them with my spatula to "help" the process along. 

3. Add both minces and your chopped chorizo with a bit of water - enough so that it can continue to simmer away. I let mine simmer for a good 15-20 mins and added water when necessary so my sauce didn't get too thick.

4. Once it was cooked through and I was happy with the consistency of the bolognaise I added all my herbs, baby spinach and s&p to taste. 

I served ours with delicious spinach and ricotta tortellini as a treat, cause lets be honest, tortellini is way too fancy for every day life. Good old $1 spaghetti from Aldi will do the job just nicely. Oh, and chuck some fresh parmesan on top! Can't do bolognaise without parmie! 

Enjoy! I know I'll be making it again soon! 

Bow ties are COOL!

I have very much been in showcase mode lately as this party pack design came about because I took part in a Doctor Who showcase recently. I find showcases fun and challenging all at the same time. It really pushes me to come up with something new to fit into the theme. To make something I haven't made before! 

I do have a confession to make though. I have never watched Doctor Who before. So when I found out about the showcase I ummed and ahhed about whether I would be able to come up with something for it. I figured I'd just go for it and I went straight to my friend Lindsey who was my helper for this party pack design. I asked her ONE MILLION questions about the show, the characters, the colours, the sayings, the quirks.... and she was oh so helpful and patient with me. Thanks Zee! 

If you'd like to purchase a Doctor Who party pack for yourself pop over to my Etsy store as I've got a set available for purchase in there!

Sketch Layout Challenge #15

Another challenge has wrapped up! With flu season in full swing and with me down for the count this challenge is a week late! So many of the lovely creative ladies in our group have also been sick with the flu so we didn't have many participants. But you know what, that is ok! The ladies who were able to participate didn't disappoint and made some really stunning designs... and here they are! 

Julia was our first to submit her design and she was able to include two card challenges into her one beautiful design. It is such a cheerful card, well done Julia! My favourite feature is the chevron ribbon cut into one of the bunting flags! You can read about Julia's design on her blog over here.

Tristan from Tinstar Designs was feeling a little bit nautical when she designed her card. I think it's FANTASTIC! I love the nautical details with the burlap ribbon behind the bunting flags. It's a fun masculine card - perfect for Father's Day which is just around the corner. 

And that takes us to my card! I kept mine nice and clean and fresh. I wanted to use my new Moonlight DSP Stack as the colours are just divine (as you can see). They co-ordinate together so naturally so I didn't want to take the focus off the work that paper was doing by over complicating my design. So super simple it was! Plus I am almost fresh out of thank you cards in the ole card box so I'll be making a few more of these to stock the box up again. 

Well as I said, we only had a few entries for this challenge but they were great quality and as always I'm super grateful to the ladies for taking part and sharing their incredible talents. If you'd like to join into our next challenge which I launched this afternoon, pop over to this group and join! All the details can be found there! Until next time...

Eeeee eeee aaaa aaaa ROAR!

I recently took part in a jungle themed showcase. I have made monkey face punch art in the past (below) for a custom order, and couldn't resist giving it a go again. It really is such a cute face!! 

For the Monkey part pack I made "Birthday Monkey" cake bunting and 12 monkey face food picks. The food picks are perfect to go into cupcakes, sandwiches, or really any food item on your party table to help tie everything into the theme. 

My second lion design was a little harder to decide on. I wanted my second submission to the showcase to have the fun vibe like monkey's and be an animal most small children would be able to recognise. So off to Pinterest I went for inspiration and I stumbled across a fun lion punch art idea using the scallop circle punch. This is what I came up with! I chose to make it a friendly lion, of course! We don't wanna alarm the kiddies!! Haha :) 

If you would like to see close up shots of these party packs pop over to my Etsy store as I've listed some packs in there too! 

Sketch Layout Challenge #14

This blog post is coming a whole week late. I have had an absolutely horrid flu like I've never had before in my life. I'm on day 10 and only just starting to feel human again. But enough about me and onto the fun stuff. We had a more challenging layout matched with a colour scheme PLUS a wedding theme this time round. Challenge was set by me and in retrospect I might have been a little too demanding haha :P But those who did participate, didn't disappoint, as usual! 

This first dainty water colour floral card was created by Handmade by Julia Quinn. Julia used one of the new Stampin' Up! stamp sets to create this lovely look.

Our next two cards were designed by Mary Shapley. Isn't the lace tape lovely on the second one? It always adds such a lovely touch to a project.

My favourite creation this challenge was made by my sister Alicia. She used the spiral flowers die and crushed them a little so they didn't sit up so high. Such an awesome idea!

Our next card was made by Tristan of Tinstar Designs. Tristan tripled stamped her flowers to get the layered colours in her floral image. Looks fabulous doesn't it? 

Then there's me! As always I like to make an accurate interpretation of the sketch which is what I did with my first card. I kept it really simple while using the colours specified. 

And then had fun with my second design of course! The budget has been a bit tight lately so I haven't been able to buy many of the new products from the new Stampin' Up! catalogue. I have only been able to buy one stamp set so far - Hello Darling (pg 124).

I'm so glad I bought it though, how awesome is it? I love the floral images and the sequins!

If you'd like to join into our next challenge, we are already underway! Pop over and join this group!

Mickey Mouse Cake Smash

Recently I had a lovely customer contact me in hopes I'd be able to help her with her son's upcoming 1st birthday party. The party theme was Mickey Mouse and she had seen some of my previous Mickey Mouse punch art and loved how it looked (you can read about it here). I was of course happy to help her out and off to work we went on planning and co-ordinating everything she needed. The main item she was after was a Mickey "Happy Birthday" wall bunting set so that she could use it for the cake smash photo shoot as well as the party. And here it is in action! 

Isn't Oliver the cutest little guy? His massively talented mum Kelly, of Ollie & Me made the cake smash set. And the beautiful shot taken by the super clever Kate Wiggins Photography. 

It was a fun order to make and I can't wait to show you the photos of the rest of the items I  made for the birthday party! 

Sketch Layout Challenge #13

Our sketch this fortnight was designed by Tristan of Tinstar Designs. She is loving banners right now so naturally wanted to make sure her sketch featured them. Enjoy everyone's creations and don't forget you can easily Pin the images if they take your fancy by hovering over the image and then the "P" button will appear! :) 

First up is Tristan's design (Tinstar Designs). She has 65 Christmas cards to make each year as she likes to send cards to all her family and friends all over the world and thought this month was a good time to get started. 1 down, 64 to go!

My sister made these cards! My favourite of the two is the top one because of the gorgeous vintage floral stamped banner, but they are both beautiful aren't they?

These two were made by a friend of mine. She is generally a scrapbooker and has recently joined our card challenges. I looove her designer paper choices. I have a sneaking suspicion that her DSP stash is better than mine!

My favourite card of the challenge, made by Stacey from Rustic Squirrel Handmade. The Bermuda banners along side the white and the Natural Composition DSP... to die for!! Stacey has blogged about her card here and you can read about what she used and how she made it.

This lovely design was made by Eliza Childs. Instead of using large banners she opted to do smaller and using a floral ribbon, which is was a lovely idea.

These two stunning cards were made by Mary Shapley who is a downline of my downline! I am really loving her black flower in the top card! 

Michaela has joined our challenge group and this is her first creation. It is pretty awesome isn't it? I love the new chunky baker's twine that she's used. And of course the green!

Now for my cards. I was feeling a little lazy for my first card design. It was late at night and I was getting tired, but I really wanted to try to make at least one card for the challenge before I went to bed. I remembered I had a baggie full of unused gift tags and embossed cardstocks from projects that I didn't finish in the past. And this is where I found a set of 3 matching gift tags that I made for a display for my catalogue launch last year! They work perfectly as a slightly different interpretation of the sketch! 

Then my second card design. I was feeling indecisive. So I turned to my colour coach and randomly chose a colour. The colour I chose was Basic Gray. I turned over to the back of the card for some colour combination ideas. 

I chose the top colour combo! It was a combo I had never seen before so thought I'd give it a whirl and this is what I came up with. 

I think it is actually quite an awesome combo. I especially love the green and grey together and am hoping to try and use it again soon on another project. 

And that wraps up yet another Sketch Layout Challenge. If you're a card maker yourself and you'd like to take part in our challenges in the future just pop over and join our group here. We'd love to have you.

Sketch Layout Challenge #12

This past fortnight we had a nice and simple layout which I designed. We had lots of participants and so I have lots of fun and varied ideas to show you. As always, anyone is welcome to join us for challenges in the future. All you need to do is join this group!

I wanted to start off this challenge with my FAVOURITE design this time round. This Frozen inspired card was created by my talented downline Stacey from Rustic Squirrel Handmade. If you live in SA Stacey runs monthly workshops and she is so super talented. Check out her page for event details.

This fun and bright card was designed by Tristan from Tinstar Designs. 

These two cards were made by the talented Julia Quinn of Handmade by Julia Quinn. 

I love how fresh and bright and cheerful these cards are made by Kymberly from grubbee. She also does sews beautiful clothes and toys, check out her page!

These two cards were created by the clever Mary Shapley. She is new to Stampin' Up! products and is making some really pretty things!

Eliza made this card and it was her first challenge in our group. I think she did a marvellous job.

One of my friends Dianne has also just joined our challenge group and these two cards are her first challenge cards. I really miss that floral DSP! 

Angie from Angie's Craft Fusion made this really sweet sympathy card.

And then my cards! My first card I followed the sketch layout pretty closely. I really love using green as you know so found this DSP in my stash and had to use it. 

And my second design I had a  little more fun with. I used 4 different washi tapes. The coastal cabana (aqua) pattern in the background is actually washi tape! Looks pretty awesome huh!?!? 

If you'd like to join in next time please pop over to our group and ask to join. We'd love to have you. Thanks for another great challenge ladies!