Sketch Layout Challenge #5

Here is our latest Sketch Layout Challenge, this time chosen by Rochelle of Lille Parti. I think this was my favourite sketch layout that has been chosen thus far. 

Sorry it's a bit blurry!

We only had a couple of ladies who had time to take part in this challenge, but the quality of the cards made, as always, was exceptional! 

First up was this funky floral number made by my sister Alicia. She took advantage of lots of SAB goodies in her design. My favourite part is the contrast the black backing gives to the details of the card. I hate to sound artsy fartsy, but this is one sexy card! 

This design was made by the wonderfully talented Deb. She is such a busy lady and doesn't have as much free time as she used to have to craft. But when she does have a moment, she creates beautiful pieces just like this, every time. Deb has a wonderful eye for colour and balance. 

Next up is Ingrid from Inky Ingrid. I have a little secret to tell you about Ingrid. She LOVES summer starfruit paired with this gorgeous flower print DSP from the Water Colour DSP pack. You need to check out her FB page to see what I am talking about. I love the softness of the white clay flowers and the criss cross ribbon with this design. 

Here is the first design from me! First up I wanted to replicate the sketch as well as I could. I loved the layout and mix of layers and placement so thought why not do an exact copy to start off with. I haven't had a chance to use my Soho Subway DSP very much, so it was my first choice when I was looking at DSP to make this card. I'm pleased with how it turned out! 

Here is my second design! I am in LOVE with this card. It turned out WAY better than I ever imagined it would. I hand stitched the crosses using a large needle and some linen thread and I made the green square clay button free hand using my moulding clay. I don't think I'll be able to part with this card for a while. I almost want to frame it! 

I'm really excited to be expanding this challenge a little bit further. I have expanded the group of ladies to take part in these fortnightly sketch layout challenges. I have started a Facebook group where I post the sketch challenge each fortnight, and where those taking part of the challenges can interact with each other. If you would like to join in on the fun and have your card featured on my blog please feel free to join in. I'd love to have you! 

New Green Glass!!

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from an absolutely lovely reader of my blog. Her name is Lea and she has two wonderful blogs called Life, Love and Making Stuff & Little Bits of Pretty. If you are a keen follower of Lea's blogs you will know of her love of op shopping. She had found some GREEN GLASS on one of her op shopping adventures and thought of me! Little old me!! She remembered how much I love green glass from a blog post I wrote about my collection a little while ago. 

Here is the picture of my green glass collection in the beginning... 

I almost laughed when I revisited this photo actually. I didn't realise it had been SO long since I shared with you how much this collection has grown over the past few months. I have had help growing the collection from a few friends and family who keep a keen eye out for green glass on their shopping & thrifting adventures for me. They're absolute treasures! I have found a few pieces along the way too, and let me show you JUST how far it has come. 

So back to my story. Lea sent me this beautiful green glass piece in the mail that she had found for me. It arrived around a week later and I am just in love with it. It's the sweetest pale green short sundae style glass I've ever seen! 

It fits in PERFECTLY with the collection and helps to create a beautiful balance of shapes and widths of the pieces. 

I am happy to say that my collection is COMPLETE! It is the perfect size. I think if it got any bigger it would become too overwhelming, so unless I am absolutely blown away by an amazingly incredible piece in my travels, this is how big my collection will remain. 

So a big super dooper thank you to the amazing Lea for her clever finding, and super generous gift which has perfectly completed my collection. Make sure you drop by her blogs and say hi!

Handmade Card Eye Candy

Today I have uploaded a whole bunch of new beautiful cards into my {For Sale} Handmade Greeting Cards Album on my Facebook page.  Each card is handmade by little old me. You may recognise them as they were the display cards at my Mini Catalogue & Sale-a-bration Launch Party a couple of weeks ago. Prices & card details can be found through the link above. But of course, I'll share the pics with you below :) 

Enjoy! 

Introducing: The Hallmark Challenge #1

I am SO EXCITED to be launching this new challenge series. It is something I have had in the works for a couple of months now. I've been collecting ideas, and figuring out just how would go about it, and then the fun part - designing & creating! Here is the run down of how it works: 

Once a month I will feature an over priced store bought card. Oh wait, let me rephrase that. I will feature an over priced card in the store, because it is far to over priced for me to purchase it for the challenge! Yes, I go into the store and take pictures of the card on the shelves! Then comes the fun part. Using what I have in my personal stash, I recreate the card and share it with you. The card will then be available for purchase after each challenge. 

But here is where you come in! I will be extending each of the Hallmark Challenges to you too! I will provide a Linkup Party below for you to add your blog links to once you have made your version of the Challenge card. 

So let me kick off this first challenge and present to you our very first Hallmark Challenge!! 

And here is my version of this card!! 

I had some fun with some beautiful DSP, baker's twine & of course some rhinestones! I decided to drop the "Cake" sentiment because I thought it looked a little unusual. The Hallmark card I felt wasn't co-ordinated very well. There was a mix of patterns and flourishes that didn't work together, so I wanted to make sure my version of the card worked well together in that way. I'm loving how it turned out and think it could so easily be a beautiful wedding card, because that cake looks more like a wedding cake than a birthday cake!

So there you have it. Hallmark's version for just shy of $10, and my card which is now up for sale for just $4 and comes with a free co-ordinating envelope. 

If you'd like to join in on the Hallmark Challenge fun, please go ahead and create your own version of this card, and add it to our Linkup Party below! 

An InLinkz Link-up

A Box of Cards for Christmas!

For the past two Christmases I have made my grand mother's a box of cards as their gift. They LOVE getting this as a gift as they are both the awesomely old fashioned type of grand mother's who like to send cards to friends and family for birthdays, thank you's and or to cheer someone up and let them know they are thinking of them.

Grand mother's are so difficult to buy a gift for aren't they? I would definitely put them in the same category as the men when it comes to gift shopping. They don't need anything, and what they might need is out of the budget, they can be a little fussy on what they like because they're set in their ways, and all that FUN stuff! 

So when I stumbled upon this idea two years ago for Christmas and gave them their boxes of cards for Christmas, and after hearing they were happy with the cards, I thought that this could become the gift I give them each year.

So this year I spent a day in December whipping up some beautiful, elegant card designs. I came up with 6 different designs, and made 2 of each design so there would be 12 cards all up for each grand mother. 

I would have liked to have made more for them, but I did run out of time a little! I had a nice mix of greetings including birthdays, thank you, thinking of you and a couple of blank cards to be used for whatever purpose necessary. 

I packaged them up with a co-ordinating envelope and they were placed inside a cupcake kit box which is covered in brown wrapping paper! You wouldn't know it would you? A little bit of recycling fun :)

I got the exact same reaction and comments from each grand mother when they opened their gifts as I saw them on different days around Christmas. Here is what I heard:

"Oh is this another box of cards?"

"Perfect timing, I just sent my last card to a friend last week"

"These are my special cards and I only give them to special people"

"Whenever I give out one of these cards I always tell them that my grand daughter Christy made this card"

And just for fun, one of my grand mother's jumped up in excitement when she opened the gift. I was laughing so hard I almost cried.

If you would like to order a box of cards for your "hard-to-buy-for" grand mother, let me know! 

Sketch Layout "Love" Challenge #4

This challenge wasn't so much of a layout challenge, but more so a themed challenge. Kristy (my upline) selected this challenge with Valentine's Day approaching us in mind. So here they are!

These first two projects were made by Inky Ingrid. The first just being a simple but really effective & pretty card, and the second a fun decorated heart shaped lolly pop. 

This LOVEly card was made by Kristy Coromandel. I really like the use of the small heart embossing folder as the background. It is so cute! 

These two cards were made by one of the newest members in our group Kymberly. She is making some REALLY beautiful things and these two cards are no exception. I really love the first one with the love bunting!

And last but not least is my creation! I wanted my card to be suitable to give to a male or female so I purposely avoided pink with my design! I used the label card thinlit dies which creates a trifold design. I love how it turned out. 

If you would love to join into our next sketch layout challenge (which we just got today and it is amazing) just send me a quick email and I can send it through to you. Your design will be featured on my blog with a link to your crafy business page (if you have one). I would love for this challenge group to grow! 

Catalogue Launch Party Part 3 - the display projects!

To read about Part 1 - the setup, click here. 

To read about Part 2 - the food table, click here.

As part of our main display area I had lots of beautiful projects I made using the new products. I tried to use as many of the new products as I could so that everyone could see how versatile & gorgeous they looked in action. I won't go into every single detail of what I used to make each project, but I will point you in the direction of which catalogue they are from and the page number under each photo so you can have a little looksie yourself. Online catalogues can be viewed here if you don't have a paper copy.  

NOTE: The Mini Occasions Catalogue is the orange one which says "Celebrate the everyday".

Mini Catalogue. Pages 26 & 27.

Mini Catalogue. Page 27.

Mini Catalogue. Pages 26 & 27.

Mini Catalogue. Pages 26 & 27.

Mini Catalogue. Pages 26 & 27.

These 5 projects I made using the Kaleidoscope Suite. It is my favourite suite in the new Mini Catalogue. There are 2 stamp sets, 3 Big Shot accessories, a punch, some embellishments & a set of DSP in the suite that all co-ordinate beautifully together. When you don't have much to spend sometimes going with a suite is a great way to go because everything was designed to go together well.

Mini Catalogue. Page 19.

Mini Catalogue. Pages 18, 19, 26 & 36. 

These last two cards are also made using products from a suite. This suite is called Retro Fresh and there are again stamp sets, embellishments and DSP included.

Mini Catalogue. Page 36. 

Mini Catalogue. Page 22.

Mini Catalogue. Page 23.
SAB Catalogue. Page 13.

How cute is the new mini bunting punch?  

Mini Catalogue. Page 26.
SAB Catalogue. Page 11.

Mini Catalogue. Page 35.
SAB Catalogue. Pages 11 & 12.

SAB Catalogue. Page 11.

I hope you like all these projects. Most of them will make their way into the album of cards I have for sale on my Facebook page here. If you have any questions about how I made any of the designs, send me a message and I'd be glad to help you out!