Sketch Layout Challenge #11

Legs eleven!! We had a fun geometric challenge this time. I love using my Triangle punch so thought I'd incorporate it into a challenge! We didn't have as many ladies participate this time round due to busy schedules but I still have some beautiful designs to show you! If you'd like to join in next time, join up to this group. We'd love to have you! And here we go....

First up we have this gorgeous red design by Angie from Angie's Craft Fusion.  Angie used 3 new Stampin' Up! stamp sets and Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities. These are all brand new products which will be released in the new Stampin' Up! catalogue in July!

Kymberly from grubbee came up with this fun bright birthday card for a little one. I really like the triangles!! I guess Kymberly has one of those triangle punches too! :)

Tristan from Tinstar Designs made this delicate girly butterfly creation. I love the colours and the banner framelits are one of my favourite new Stampin' Up! products! 

Here is my first design! I enjoyed this layout so much that I decided to make up two cards. This first card I kept to the brief fairly spot on. I had some fun using some DSP and ribbon that is retiring at the end of this month (check out the retirement list here). The fans on my FB page LOVED it. Do you love it too? 

For my second card I had fun using the same colours as they were already out on my desk but I played around with the design and shapes a little more. I used my Hexagon Hives framelit die for this one. I'm loving it!

If you'd like to join in next time please pop over and join our group here. 

Sketch Layout Challenge #10

I can't believe we have already complete 10 challenges. I am really grateful to have an increasing group of talented ladies who are enthusiastically creating beautiful pieces for each challenge. This time round our sketch was designed by Stacey from Rustic Squirrel Handmade (thanks Stacey!). So here we go again! 

Sally made this really stunning sympathy card using lots of layering and bling! 

Next up is this stunning crisp cantaloupe creation by Adele from Adelisa Designs. Adele has just started dabbling in card making again after the birth of her 5th child. She's kind of amazing!

This card was made by a friend who joins our challenge group for the first time. Beverley is a hobbyist and I'm so glad she's joined in because she makes beautiful things!

Kymberly from grubbee made this sweet new baby card. I love the little fox! Kymberly has just released some new baby products so pop over and check them out. 

Stacey from Rustic Squirrel Handmade always comes up with fresh and fun ideas for these challenges. She is a stellar Stampin' Up! demonstrator and if you live in SA and need a demo, then look no further. She runs workshops ALL the time and is always sharing fun ideas and techniques on her blog. 

Julia from Handmade by Julia Quinn made this beautiful postcard birthday card. I particularly love the colour combination she has used. 

Angie from Angie's Craft Fusion has made this sweet poppy card in grey white and mustard. It's such a popular colour combination and always looks so good. 

Jan joined our group just recently and did this challenge with a twist using slightly different supplies for her design. It is absolutely full of delightful pieces! 

Tristan from Tinstar Designs was one of the first to complete this challenge. She used a fabulous denim pocket stamp in her design which I have never seen before and adore!

And last but not least is my design! I really love Stampin' Up's This & That DSP and with it retiring in a month's time want to use as much of it as I can before my time runs out! I actually had lots of hurdles with my design, ensuring it was balanced, not too busy, and figuring out the right way to embellish. But I got there in the end and all the frustration is long forgotten and I'm left with this fabulous card! 

And that wraps up another challenge. If you'd like to join in on our next challenge just pop over to this group and join up. We'd love to have you. 

Sketch Layout Challenge #9

I can't believe we are already at #9 in this challenge series. It has gone by really quickly. I've enjoyed the challenge thus far and love how it is expanding. The more participants we have, the more talent we can showcase. If you'd like to join in with our sketch challenges, just join this group and the rest is easy.

So here we go, layout #9.

Tristan from Tinstar Designs had a bit of fun with her design. She moved the elements around to come up with her own version and I'm really liking it. I really like that background too. Like a lot! Tristan's FB page is just starting out, so pop over and show some love here OK! 

Next is this beauty made by Stacey from Rustic Squirrel Handmade. Stacey is one of my talented downlines and she had fun using some of the new Stampin' Up polymer stamps for her design. I love how fresh and bright and crisp her design is! Oh, and she blogged about how she made it here.

Angie from Angie's Craft Fusion had birthday on her mind when she came up with her design. Her sketch design is on the left and she also made up a design with the negative floral offcut on the right. I love the colour combo she has used which she pulled from her awesome birthday candle DSP! 

Leigh-Anne was the first to come with her design for this challenge. The beginning of our time frame was of course before Mother's Day which is why she made this lovely Mother's Day card. I love her idea with the ribbon! Love love love it! 

Adele from Adelisa Designs is brand new to our challenge group. I'm glad to have her in the group but at the same time she is so good that it makes me look bad, so I'm thinking of kicking her out.. kidding! I will have to lift my game instead! Adele whipped this card up earlier today just in time for me to share with you. The glue under her button is even still wet!! I love it. I love it. I love it. This woman has an eye people, watch out. 

Kymbo, sorry, I mean Kymberly from grubee handmade came up with this beauty of a card. See how she used scalloped DSP circles to make her background shape? How cool is that idea!!! Looove! She just layered them around evenly for the effect. She did admit afterwards that is was a pain to do though haha! 

This time round my 5 year old niece took part in the challenge!!! She came over yesterday and insisted on making a card for her mum for Mother's Day (even though Mother's Day is past, she could not be convinced otherwise). She told me what she wanted me to write inside for her and she signed off her name at the bottom. She's a sweet little thing. 

And last but not least, my card. I will admit that I almost missed my own deadline for this challenge. I literally finished this card 2 mins before the deadline. It's been a bit busy lately and it got put on the back burner. So my card was a rush job that actually worked out haha. We all know how disastrous the rush jobs can turn out sometimes.... don't we? I'm just glad this time I got lucky. Loving that colour combo too. I had already pulled out the Pear Pizzazz and was staring up at my cardstock trying to pick a second colour and couldn't decide. So I resorted to my little drawer of ribbon offcuts. That slither of Bermuda Taffeta was just sitting there wanting to be used. I love how it turned out! :) 

Don't forget anyone can take part in these Sketch Layout Challenges, just join this group to get all the info. Our #10 challenge has been designed by one of our clever participants, so I look forward to giving it a crack and sharing with you in 2 weeks time! Happy paper crafting! 

The Hallmark Challenge #3

This challenge kicked off earlier in the year and I have been so busy with everyone's wonderful orders to be able to get regular challenge posts up. Sorry about that! I won't make any huge promises other than I'll continue to try and get these up as often as I can.

Ok, a quick recap for those who don't know what The Hallmark Challenge is. I feature an over priced store bought card, which I have photographed IN the store, because it is far too over priced for me to purchase for the challenge. Then comes the fun part. Using the supplies I have in my stash, I recreate the card and share it here with you. The card will then be available for purchase after the challenge. 

If you'd like to recap on previous challenges you can find them here and here.

Ok and here we go with Challenge #3.....

Our victim this time round is this overpriced (at $6.99, what a joke) wedding card. I have been looking forward to recreating this one. For $7 I thought it was QUITE basic. A card doesn't need to be overly embellished or over the top to be beautiful. It can be simple and still be beautiful and elegant. I'm sure it appeals to many, but not to me! :) Off to work I went. 

First thing, I wasn't interested in the gold touches. I know that gold is very "in" at the moment but I've been doing a lot of work with gold lately and wanted to change it up a little, so pulled out my silver supplies instead. Here is what I came up with.

I kept the simple and elegant feel but jazzed it up a little (of course). We have a doily edge silver foil heart with rhinestone embellishments, and a sparkly silver glimmer heart. 

I used my Dictionary (#130351) background stamp behind the hearts and put vellum over the top to give it a blurred effect. Then I just popped a sweet sentiment at the bottom and I was done! 

I dunno about you, but I like mine HEAPS better! It will be put up for sale over here really soon! If you want to have a go at recreating this Hallmark Card, please go ahead and add your weblink into the linky tool below! 

Till next time...

An InLinkz Link-up

Journey Journal - for Premmie Parents

I was recently made aware of a small group on Facebook made by a lady here Australia. She had a premmie baby a few years ago and now that her little one was a little older and she had a little more time on her hands she wanted to start a small group that would be able to help supply premmie parents with items that would be of help to them and their little ones. The group is called "Sew for the Prem babies" and you can join it here.

The main purpose of the group is to SEW for the prem babies as the name suggest. I am not huge on sewing and only really know how to quilt, but I was eager to learn how I could help out. I learnt that often prem parents keep a "Journey Journal". Somewhere where they can record different things on charts, do photo collage pages, and of course do journal entries on how they are going. 

This is the journal that I made. I only had time to make one but hope to make a few more in the future. It's a hardcover journal with the spiral binding. I hope that whoever receives it finds great use in it! 

If you are a sewer and would like to sew some items for the group they are in need of all sorts of different things. Check out the group and you might be able to find something to make to contribute towards the cause. Above is a picture of some gowns that my friend from Mary Bobbin has sewn! She is one talented and generous lady.

Sketch Layout Challenge #8

I gave designing a layout challenge a crack this time round! I also thought it would be fun to include a little colour challenge too. And as always, all the creative ladies in our Challenge Group impressed me with their ideas & skills! 

Our first design was made by Debra Speijers from A Time To Stamp. I love the way Debra interpreted the design and mixed it up a little using the butterflies. Just lovely! 

Next up is Stacey's design from Rustic Squirrel Handmade. Stacey is one of my downlines and I always love what she creates. She has done a masculine twist on this design for her dad's birthday. 

For something a little different and fun, Sarah Caboolture created her design using MDS as she didn't have time to make a cardstock copy. I really like the background design, don't you? 

Next is this hexagon design by Kristy Coromandel - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. Kristy is my upline and likes to put a spin on her challenge designs. She has blogged about how to make this design (click on the link above). 

Another interpretation of the design, this time by Angie from Angie's Craft Fusion. Angie flipped her design around and changed the position of the sentiment - but still kept all the elements of the card present, which I love. I love a different interpretation! 

This floral concept was designed by Leigh-Anne Robinson. How awesome are those yellow rhinestones?? I will have to ask Leigh-Anne where she got them from. Or maybe she made them? 

This is our second last design for this challenge and was made by a fellow demonstrator Kymberley. I MUST point out that Kymberley made this card on the first day that the issue was challenged, which happened to be just a couple of days after she gave birth. Talk about awesome!! I love love love the silver metal buttons and balloons... oh and the pom pom trim!!! 

And last but not least is my design!! I loved the spot concept so went a bit troppo with them! :) And if you know me you will know how much I love using the term freakin', so this sentiment suits me just freakin' fine! My card design will be put up for sale here if you are interested in purchasing it. 

And that is another Sketch Layout Challenge wrapped up! If you'd like to join in on the fun in the future, you can check out this group, where we co-ordinate each challenge together! 

Sketch Layout Challenge #7

We had a fun challenge this fortnight. A nice simple layout with a splash of colour thrown in the mix to make it a little more interesting. As always I loved the interpretation of the design from those who joined in this time round. I also am so excited to introduce some new challenge participants and I'm sure you'll love their creations.  Make sure you click on the links below each card design to check out their blogs & businesses as they are all such talented ladies. Here are the lovely designs!

This first design was made by Cards On The Table With Vicki. Vicki is new to our group and I'm so glad she has joined us because she is one talented lady. If you click on her link she gives instructions on what she used to make this card so that you can recreate it yourself. I love the layered doily look the best. I collect doilies because I love them so much, and so as soon as I see a doily on a project, I'm in love! Beautiful job Vicki! 

This design was made by my upline Kristy Coromandel Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. Such a clean, pretty and cheerful design. Kristy has also done a blog post about her card and how you can recreate it at home (click on her link). The Papillon Potpourri Stamp Set (butterflies) is surprisingly the stamp set I use the most. It is so versatile and adds such a beautiful finishing touch sometimes. 

This card was made by Angie's Craft Fusion. Angie is also a new comer to the group and I'm also really happy to have her play along with us. She is also a very talented lady (as you can see) and I love that she has used the French Foliage Stamp Set! French Foliage has been retired and I miss it terribly. It used to be one of my favourite sets!

Made by Stacey from Rustic Squirrel Handmade who is one of my downlines. And a clever one at that. Stacey has blogged about her card and she itemises out all that she has used to make it on the post (just click on the link). I love the Happy Watercolour Stamp Set she has used (splotches & flowers). It's a set that has been on my wishlist for a while yet and Stacey has been making so much with it lately that it's making it hard to resist for too much longer! 

Made by Inky Ingrid. Ingrid whipped together this lovely design for her hubby for his upcoming birthday. She even managed to sneak in the pink (the arrows) and it still has a great masculine feel about it. Now that takes talent people! I love the Off the Grid Stamp Set that she's used for some of her squares. It's such a great background stamp. And burlap ribbon, no one can ever go wrong with burlap ribbon! That stuff is gold!    

And last up is my design! I have been hanging out to use my Postage Collection Stamp Set because it is one of my new favourites. It basically has all these cute as images and words, then a bunch of stamp styles borders, and you build your own stamp designs! And I love the colour combo. Such a beautiful soft colour palette! And just for a little fun, below I added a picture of the mess I created while making this card! This is unfortunately not uncommon for me to make such a sty when designing a project!!! 

Check out my Facebook page to see everything else I've been up to lately!  If you'd like to join in on our fortnightly challenges and have your card design featured on my blog, all you need to do is join this Facebook group. This is where the challenges are set and everyone shares what they have made, along with some questions and fun. We would love for you to join us!