Whiff of Joy and Cards

Well it's here. Katharina's store 'Whiff of Joy' is open for business and taking pre-orders on her charlotte and charlie stamps. The stamps are due for release on August 11th but if you order in advance the shipping is free. I have already placed my order. I wish I could have ordered them all but for now I have ordered my favorites. If you want to check it out just click the link on my side bar it will take you straight to the store. Just take a look at a couple of these awesome images.






Here is a card I made the other night. You might notice it bares a striking resemblance to my entry into Katharina's guest designer quest. Well in truth it kind of is. I tweaked it to fit a 4.2 x 5.5 card. I just love making the square one's these days but due to the fact that they cost 20c more to mail than the regular shape and most of my cards go oversea's I have had to change it up a little.



Just look at the difference in size between the two cards.

Blog Candy Alert

I am here to give you the heads up on some awesome blogs with some really cool blog candy on offer on them.

Jaqui has hit 10,000 hits and is celebrating http://jacqui47.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-10000-hits-blog-candy.html

Bev is on the verge of 20,000 hits and is also having blog candy http://bevscrafts.blogspot.com/

Camilla has magnolia stamps amongst other things http://pysselsidan.blogspot.com/2008/07/nytt-dt-kort-och-blogcandy-new-dt-card.html

With Hearfelt Sympathy

This is not a card I enjoyed making. Don't get me wrong. The card, I think turned out really well. I just don't like having to make sympathy cards. I feel upset for their loss and the turmoil of emotions that comes from losing someone important in your life. It's just really hard for me to detatch from that. At the weekend we lost a long time family friend on my husbands side of the family. She lost her battle with breast cancer. I made this card for her partner. She will be missed.xxx



The cardstock is regal rose and black. I actually rose romance instead of regal rose and old olive inks to water color the image. It would appear my set of rich regals is older than I thought. The stamp is 'riot of petals' from stampin up. To achieve the sentiment I used 2 different stamps and my key tag punch. I then mounted it on a piece of regal rose and used my corner punch to make the corners match the key tag. Regal rose ribbon and brads finish the card.

Hugs
Nic

You Hoo! Thankyou

One more try for Katharina's Guest Designer call. I have a backlog of chores building up so I might not get the chance to do another one before the deadline. My hubby has been asking me to make him Thank you cards for him to use in work. I figured since he funds my crafting habit it's the least I could do.



Cardstock colors are wild wasabi (my current favorite) and bashful blue. The DP is from the Blossoms & Butterflies stack from DCWV. I used Frances Owl from High Hopes for my main image. For his background and the butterfly I used SU set Essence of Love. The sentiment is a mixture of SU seeing spots and a little Hero Arts set I bought recently. I used my cuttlebug and circle punches. The ribbon is one I got from Michael's on sale.

Thanks for looking

Hugs
Nic

Katharina's Guest Designer Quest

Katharina is doing something wonderful. She is taking the plunge and opening her own stamp business. I am so happy for her, she is very talented. The sneak peaks on her blog have got me very excited. As have her list of design team members. Such a talented group of ladies. She is also looking for a guest designer. For this she has posted a sketch on her blog and asked for us to make a card using it that she will then choose her guest designer from those entries. Well this would be a dream come true for me so I thought 'what the heck, lets give it a try'. You can find the post about this here http://katharina1704.blogspot.com/2008/07/whiff-of-joy-guest-designer-call.html although if you click on her link under 'Inspiration Central' you will see all her news including all the sneak peaks. Here is my entry for Katharina's quest.



Hopefully I will get a couple more done using this sketch before the end of the deadline. Watch this space.

*(added) Almost forgot to give you the low-down on the card. Cardstock is Wild Wasabi, Pretty in Pink and Soft Sky. Stamp set is SU Always. DP is Marcella by K. Ribbon is Soft Sky. My cuttlebug and scallop punches were used and other embellishments include a random flower and silver metal dot from colorbok.

Hugs
Nic

Ila's Awesome Blog Candy

You can win yourself some awesome blog candy over on Ila's Blog this week. She is giving away some Magnolia stamps. They are the cutest thing and my new love.

http://artfullyila.blogspot.com/

Go on over and see of you can win some... I know I am.

Hugs
Nic

Kimmie's Blog Candy Entry

I have been blog hopping and came across a very talented lady. I have been admiring her stuff for a while now but keep forgetting to put her on my inspiration list. Anyway she is there now and she is having an awesome blog candy right now where you can win yourself some Magnolia stamps. Again another thing I have been admiring and have on my ever increasing wish list. She has a challenge attached to her blog candy and you have to use her sketch from her recently made date book.

http://kraftinkimmieskorner.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-new-datebookand-magnolia-blog-candy.html

I needed a card for a friend's daughters first birthday so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. Here is my entry for Kimmie's challenge:



The cardstock is River Rock and Pretty in Pink I also used Pretty in Pink DP from my hostess prints pack. The scalloped oval is a Sizzix die I put through my cuttlebug. The stamp set used is 'A new little someone'. I used River Rock Ribbon and put a flower with a button brad in the corner. I am very happy with the finished card. I hope it's candy worthy.

Thanks for looking

Hugs
Nic

Playing with Shrinky Dinks

Ok, I know you all are probably old hands at this but this literally was the first time I have ever played with them. I got some for the kids after they played with them at my friend Lucy's house. They had so much fun with them they have been asking for them ever since. Well I gave in and bought some.





Jake asked for me to stamp my loads of love truck for him. I can't believe how much it shrank. Now we have some I can see us having a lot more fun with these. I may even use them on my crafts.

Hugs
Nic

Scrapbooking At Sarah's

Sunday I went over to Sarah's house to play. She was having a scrapbooking weekend at her house because her hubby was away on business and the kids were at her parents. I just went for a few hours Sunday afternoon. I took the kids School Scrapbooks with me in an effort to get caught up before the next school year begins. I got Megan's kindergarten page done. Which made me very happy.



I also managed to do Jake's first and second grade pages done. All I have left to finish now is his third grade page and I am all ready for this year and hopefully some non-school pages.





Sarah is also my Stampin up Demo and quite the enabler.LOL. I sat there and watched her and 2 friends use exactly the same scrapbooking kit and create 3 totally different looks. I'm hooked!!! She let me know where she got her kits from and I of course signed up. My first kit is due next month. I shall let you know how I get on.

Hugs
Nic

Gorilla Time

I have been wanting to use this stamp ever since I bought it. I joined a swap on Joani's MSN group called 'multi stamp' swap. The main image of your card had to be done using more than one stamp. In total I think I used 4. I haven't used the masking technique for some time so it was a lot of fun to do.



When I was done stamping I colored my image in using my watercolor pencils. Not 100% happy with these. I am considering getting watercolor crayons instead. The main cardstock is an espresso color from Archivers. The ribbon is real red. DP is from a provo craft super slab. I stamped the present a second time on a piece of real red, cut it out and mounted it on a dimensional. The leaves are stamped on garden green. The sentiment was stamped then torn around and I brushed a chestnut brown colorbox chalk inkpad over the edges. My hubby asked if I would make a similar thankyou card for him so I changed the sentiment and left off the gift for his.



The bananas, gift, leaf and thanks sentiment are from acrylic changito sets and the gorilla, background and gorilla sentiment are all from High Hopes.

I entered this card into a blog challenge over on Cute Card Thursday. http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/ Challenge 19.

Thanks for looking

More Notes and Fixed Mistakes

I got around to making another set of notes the other day. This time I used Groovy Guava cardstock and ink. They turned out really well. I am hoping to make a lot more of these in various colors but for now I have run out of notes and have to wait on the new catalogue to order more.

When I was making the Pomegranate ones I accidentally dropped the stamp and got a faint image on the edge of a couple of the cards which meant I could not use them to make a third set as I had hoped. So instead I made a 4 x 4 card from colored cardstock and with my originals I stamped the image and cut off all around and mounted it on the colored card instead. I also embossed the sentiment along the bottom of the card. I'm not sure but I think I like this way better.LOL

Thanks for looking.

Nic

Blog Candy Ahoy!!!

You've heard me raving about how cute High Hopes Stamps are? Want some of your own? Well Ila has some from the latest new releases up for grabs. These are some of the cutest stamps I have ever seen. She's drawing the winner on Friday so hurry, hurry, hurry.

http://artfullyila.blogspot.com/2008/07/high-hopes-new-release-blog-candy.html

I am so happy to announce this blog candy. I love these stamps and the cards Ila makes with them.

Hugs
Nic

Fresh Cuts Box for Notes

Well here it is the box to hold my notes. I'm pretty pleased at how it turned out. Now I just need to figure out how many I need to make between now and Christmas. I had a little help on how to keep the box closed. I got the idea for the slip off belly band from here http://www.barbstamps.com/my_weblog/2008/06/tutorial---love-notes-and-pouch.html I thought about doing the pouch the way she had but did not have the 12 x 12 card so I went with a simpler box style instead.

I used a piece of cardstock measuring 7 1/2 X 11 inches. Scored lengthwise at (4), (4 1/2), (9) & (9 1/2) and across at (1), (1 1/2), (6) & (6 1/2). then I trimmed off what I didn't need leaving me with the above picture.

I turned it over and stamped an image in each corner from the stamp set and also on the corner of the envelopes that go with the notes. I then used sticky strip to stick the long end to the 2 short sides.

The belly band was made using both tag punches to make the label and 12 inches of white grosgrain ribbon. I thread both ends threw a punched hole and tied a knot. When you need to open the box the band just slips off.

I hope this makes sense. If you want I can attempt a diagram of the scoring and what you need to trim if this will help. Let me know.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Nic

Fresh Cuts Notes

I am a big fan of these new pre-cut notes from Stampin Up. I have decided to make little packets of these for Christmas presents for family and friends. The packet is still a work in progress as I am still ironing out my measurements to ensure I can fit at least 4, hopefully 5 of these to a packet/box.

The first color I picked to play with was Purely Pomegranate. I am going to have to stock up on the in-colors cardstock as they are due to change in August when the new one comes out. These notes however are going to be in the new idea book which I am very excited about. I coordinated the notes with the stamp set of the same name. The notes are 4 x 4 and I backed it with a piece of purely pomegranate cut slightly smaller. In the middle I cut out a smaller stamped image and stuck a sticker gem in the middle. So many possibilities with these . I love them.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Nic