Wooo Hooo an award!

I've just been sent an email with an award in it. The award has come from a friend in Canberra the lovely Bron Refshauge at Bron's Creations. Apparently, the Leibster Blog (Love Blog) is awarded to new blogs to bring them into the spotlight, so thank you Bron for your award and your kind comments.

I blame this lady singlehandedly for sparking my interest in stamping and papercraft, I worked with her husband and visited for a social event when I met Bron and saw her studio, (gaping open mouthed and speechless was probably more like what happened)....what an amazingly talented artist this lady is. I stood in awe of her talent thinking I'd love to try it but I didn't think I'd ever be able to match the sort of projects she turned out. It really was about a year or more before I actually got the chance to play with some stamps and ink...the rest as they say is history. I've been blogging now for well over a year however Bron is relatively new to posting her work online. Drop by and have a look at her creations from time to time, you will find inspiration.

I've been accused of pretty much doing the same thing for a number of other friends, inspiring them to bring their creativity out into the light.

The following list are blogs that I visit and often gather inspiration from I'd like to send this award on to each of these talented artists.


Monique at Stamping with Monique

Christine at Happy Heart Cards

Julie at Paper Pleasing Ideas

Donna at Butternut Sage Designs

Andrea at EnchantINK

Please visit these blogs, leave a comment and show recognition for the amazing talent and artistry you see.

Nana's Pajama Princess

I've been a bit mojo-less for a few months now as far as scrapbooking pages go. But I've been taking lots of lovely photos of my beautiful little grand daughter Danielle.

She has a sleep over regularly and this series of pics was taken one morning when she put her dress up princess crown (tuelle and flowers circlet) on with her pajama's, couldn't resist this double page spread, the look on her face when I said I needed the flash on the camera was just priceless, she was trying to smile and avoid the flash at the same time! Hope you can see it in these pics.




I really love the way these pages turned out, maybe my scrapping days will come around more often now....LOL

Red and White

Oh How exciting! Ramdom winner on Southern Girls challenge.

With a post surgery enforced inactive and no work couple of weeks stretching ahead of me, I'm blurfing. What on earth is 'blurfing'? I hear you ask. It's blog surfing! and I'm slowly moving from the computer to the craft room to the couch and back again, still a bit sore and sorry and not able to settle in one spot for long....anyway it's all good, well on the road to recovery.

So while I was blurfing I found an Aussie/NZ site for challenges where this week's challenge is for dry embossing, so I decided to make a card for it, if you've been following my blog, you know I use dry embossing quite a lot in my cards. This sketch from Cute Card Thursday seemed to fit the bill also. When using dry embossing, I like to keep the colours simple and I don't usually use DSP with a lot of patterns or colours either as this seems to be overkill and muddy up the waters.

Here I've used textured cs for the white card and the first large panel of white. I've used SU embossing folders Vintage Wallpaper, Perfect Polker Dots and Square Lattice for the dry embossing, the square lattice can give this tapestry or cross stitch look to an image which adds a lovely touch.



I was playing around with the sentiment and decided to go with oval to match the scallope oval and then looked outside the norm for attaching this and the ribbon. Really happy with this as it is so different and I think it just looks fantastic and adds what we all look for in our creations a unique and unusual element to our designs. Of course no project of mine is complete without butterflies or bling so I added both! LOL

Thanks for stopping by, please take a moment to say Hi and leave a comment, these walls are going to drive me crazy pretty soon. Ok I'll admit, that is one very short drive!


Cute Card Thursday ~ Sketch

Southern Girls ~ Dry Embossing

Celebrate Chinese New Year!

This challenge caught my eye as I have this old SU set Artfully Asian which I just love. So out it came and I had done a card similar to this a few years ago so trotted out the techniques I used then to make this one today for the challenge. This time though, I've stamped the sentiment on the ribbon.



I've taken this photo on an angle so the embossing on the black shows up well. It is dazzling diamonds mixed with clear embossing powder and gives off this lovely shimmer of colour at different angles.


Sentimental Sundays ~ Celebrate Asia

Unscripted Sketches ~ Sketch

Black n White elegance

Just love the elegant look this card took on, I started with the sketch and thought black and white then it just grew from there, there is dry and heat embossing and lots of bling! In the photo above, you can just see a slight glimmer of the dazzling diamonds that I mixed with the clear embossing powder, I never use black embossing powder it's soooo unforgiving, I always stamp my image in black ink then clear emboss. Works a treat!





There is lots of texture in this card, I punched out 1 inch circles from embossed and shimmered whisper white and made the scalloped edge, then layered black which had been embossed and shimmered too, then why not add more bling wiht the square lattice embossed white on top! But wait, there's more.......bling for the accents on the butterflies and the bottom design element of the sketch.

Hope you like it as much as I do.

Crafty Creations ~ Heat embossing

Easy Craft Projects ~ Black and White (entry number 2)

Fussy and Fancy ~ Valentine - No red or pink (entry number 2)

Sweet Stampin ~ Sketch

Shabby Chic

Thank you to Stampin 411 for selecting this entry among the winners in Stampers Showcase #188 PLUS

This card also won at 4 Crafty Chicks in challenge #22

I did up this crumb cake embossed piece a few weeks ago and lost what I was going to do with it, so it's been sitting on my desk amongst the pile of UFOs (unfinished objects) and in looking at the challenges this week, I found the inspiration to use it.


I did have a little bit of a Oh No moment when trying to fit the green into the design as part of the colour challenge from 4 Crafty Chicks....lol I have just a tiny teenie bit peeking out from under the sentiment. whew! What I like most about this card is the Shabby Chic look.

This card seems to qualify for a number of challenges so here is the list...

4 Crafty Chicks ~ Colour Challenge

Crazy 4 Challenges ~ Shabby Chic

Paper Pal Arts ~ Bows

Pile It On ~ Love is in the Air

Some Odd Girl ~ Scallops Galore

Stampin 411 ~ Sketch

Bright and Sunny

Yay, a top pick on Just Add Ink challenge, thank you ladies, thrilled to be there again.

It's been a while since I've participated in a Just Add Ink challenge but this bright sunflower reminded me of a card I had made (you will have to scroll down a bit) using the wing from the two step bird punch, so I decided to do it again with a slightly different treatment and used Circle Circus and Embrace Life stamp sets. This time I sponged the edges of each petal with More Mustard for a softer look.

I've used Daffodil Delight, More Mustard and Whisper White.


Just Add Ink ~ Bright Burst of Colour

Back to blogging

Well it's only been a few days and I'm not sure how much I'll get done in the next two weeks, recouperating from surgery so I'm in the craft room for a short time, then on the couch then back to the craft room then bed. Just taking it easy really, as I feel better I'm sure I'll be creating and posting more.

This effort is for a few challenges.
Inkspirations Challenge ~ Sketch

Fussy and Fancy ~ Valentine with no red or pink

Play Date Cafe ~ Black White and Lilac or Purple (naturally I used both)

All a Flutter

This card is a case of a case! Leonie Schroder from ESAD did it in stunning Razzleberry and Orange all water coloured beautifully, she cased it from Ilina Crouse.

I've changed the stamps used and added the butterfly from Natural Beauty, a retired set, All A Flutter butterfly and then the Embosslit butterfly layered on the Bigz Die Beautiful Butterflies.




As you would know I'm a huge fan of using Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint on just about anything. I spritzed it on the Basic Gray and it looks stunning, of course the photo doesn't do it justice! I also used it on the Basic Gray butterfly center of the card, the shimmer is just beautiful. I took a close up under my craft light so you could see the lovely metallic shimmery effect.

You can also see the dazzling diamonds in the clear embossing powder that I used for the En Francais in this photo as well. Lots of shimmer! LOVE IT!




I was going to post this one on Stampin' Royalty but as usual my timing is just a tad off as the collection is closed. LOL better luck next time.

Three Little Words...

OMG! Such a wonderful surprise! Grand Creations Winner at Picture Perfect Creations #46. I'm so proud of this card and so pleased others loved it too. THANK YOU to the lovelies over at PPC.

Oh third place again at SU Only challenges! Yay, I love how this card turned out!

I'm on a roll with Valentine cards today...LOL pity there is no valentine to give them all to! But of course, this kind of card doesn't have to be limited to valentines it can be given to anyone that you love.



Features on this card are

Home made Brads---- little hearts punched from cardstock, glued in place then coated with Crystal Effects.

Woven Papers background----On Very Vanilla cs I stamped Bella Toile in Marina Mist and French Filagree in Bashful Blue, I also used the Designer Papers in Marina Mist and Bashful Blue and cut strips from all of these, I then wove the background mat and trimed the ends.

Hearts----Bella Toile stamped in Marina Mist and Cherry Cobbler, usning the large heart punch, I punched out two blue and one red heart I then sponged the edges. Using the embosslits heart I ran this through the big shot twice in Cherry Cobbler and once in Marina Mist. I then layerd the punched out heart shapes over the embosslit shapes and layered the three on top of each other topped three rhinestones on graduated from small to large.

Hand Stamped Sentiments ~ I {Heart} Hearts

Picture Perfect Creations ~ Colour Combo #46

SU Only Challenges ~ Valentine

Valentine

Happy 'Australia Day' everyone!

This is my twist on a valentine card and is being entered into FIVE challenges! I thought this masculine colour combo would work quite nicely for a valentine card.

The base is Crumb Cake, layers are Cajun Craze and Peach Parfit DSP from the level 1 hostess pack. Then Rich Razzleberry and the Rich Razzleberry DSP, next layer is Cajun Craze and Crumb Cake stamped with the swirl from Baroque Motifs in Cajun Craze ink. Then the Circle is backed with Rich Razzleberry and topped with Whisper White. Hearts are in Peach Parfit, Cajun Craze and Crumb Cake with a rich razzleberry brad in the middle. The stamp comes from Word Play and was inked up with Stampin' Write Markers.



Paper Take Weekly ~ Sketch

Hand Stamped Sentiments ~ I {Heart} Hearts

Colour Q - Colour Challenge

4 Crafty Chicks ~ Ribbon, Brads, Patterned Paper

SU Only Challenges ~ Valentine

Bright and Bubbly

The last few offerings while nice were very dark and murky in colour so I decided to brighten things up abit with this card.

Not much to it, just a whole lot of pink, shimmer mist and circle punches!

Hope it puts a smile on your face and inspires you to go create something out of the ordinary with your punches.

I know my friend Penny down in Canberra will just love this, not only for the simplicity of the idea but because it's PINK!


This card wasn't done for a challenge, nor for any particular purpose other than for the pure joy of creating!

Cheers,

Kasey

Princess Tilda

Copic colouring is new to me and I haven't had much inspiration lately, however the sketch over at Friday Sketches inspired this creation.



I've used Perfect Plum and Elegant Eggplant with the Presto speciality papers from SU! for the first two background layers then the smaller circle was done with En Francios background stamp clear embossed on white. I've sponged perfect plum over it for the writing to stand out.

I promise the next tilda will not be wearing a green dress! The only soft trio of colours that I have is green....the pinks I have are way too 'in your face' bright for a dress. I think some copic colouring classes are in order, I can find tutorials online to show me how to colour hair and skin, but to get the soft faded look on her dress...mine still seem to come out quite dark..so I'm either not using the right colours or technique! If you have tips then I'd love to hear them.


Friday Sketches ~ Sketch challenge


Thank you.

Kasey

Another Masculine effort

Another challenge that I found was titled Clear as Mud, which was for combining brown with any other colour. I've taken a little bit creative liberty here and used two browns.

I was heading down the road of pretty, until I started to sponge the Presto paper (white check) it didn't sponge as nicely as the other patterns so I used Early Expresso, Soft Suede and Sahara Sand inks to give it a mottled appearance then I got out the Grunge Rock stamp set and Extreme Elements and stamped a few images over the sponging, layering images roughly.

I think this grungy look contrasted beautifully with the shimmery soft suede scalloped mat and then I went looking for a sentiment.....I was going to break the rules and go for gold embossing powder but at the last minute decided on white, with a really messy look. Then I scrunched and tore the card to get this look and off set the matting behind it. It's not my normal style but I had fun trying it out.


Sweet Stampin ~ Clear As Mud

Totally Stampalicious - Masculine

Masculine

The theme of Masculine is not that much of a stretch, because while I tend to have a romantic feminine style I do quite like to do textures and monochrome on my cards. I am combining three challenges for this card.

The black card has been spritzed with Champagne Mist Shimmer paint which gives a rich sparkle without being to prissy for a 'boy person' card. Then I've layered textures added a bit of paper piercing and a double ribbon, taffeta over grosgrain to make it wide enough for the little buckle to fit, this also highlighted the white edges on the taffeta ribbon.



Totally Stampalicious ~ Masculine

Easy Craft Projects ~ Black and White

Unscripted Sketches ~ Sketch with a piggyback of Masculine

Thanks for stopping to view my art. Feel free to leave a comment.

Happy Crafting

Kasey