Christmas Coffee Catch Up.....

Keeping it simple is the key when I haven't stamped awhile.  I dug out this coffee cup stamp

from Stampin' Up!.  I think it is retired though cannot be sure.  I stamped two images and cut out the coffee cup band from the second image.

I ran the coffee cup band through a corrugated embossing folder, then used gathered twigs distress ink, and a water bottle to ink up the raised corrugated lines.

I cut the holly out on the cameo silhouette, highlighted with a white gel pen, added a twine bow and coloured the cup with copic markers.

I used a piece of designer paper from lemoncraft 6 x6 paper pad.

A merry winter....

I made a card,  its been sooo long, but was feeling inspired by all the gorgeous stamps coming to market now.  How could you not.  Scroll to the second picture to see just how awesome this gorgeous tree is.

I took some inspiration from the Just Add Ink challenge this week.  Hop on over and have a look.

I had to google how to use my blog, it has literally been that long, I forgot how to find the dashboard, very amusing!

How stunning is this stamp and die, all the little leaves pop up - happy sigh.  I added some sparkles to the tree that came with the Hero Art October kit for some bling.

Stamp Set:  Hero Arts October Kit.  

Inks: distress ink Tim Holtz

cardstock:  Neenah white

Getting inky once more

Wow!  I have not picked up an ink pad in well over 6 months, but then so much has happened in that time.  In January we moved home, fully renovating the new home, that took us a crazy 6 weeks, walls came down, bathroom, toilet and kitchen were gutted and re done, tiled floors and carpets pulled up and replaced with floorboards throughout and a fresh coat of paint after that. It was just plain crazy.

Prior to that move though I was struggling with lots of things.  I needed to make some serious life changes, One major change I really wanted to was to downsize our home,  I felt it far too big for 3 of us, it was making me mad to have to spend all our free time and money looking after it.  So here I am today in my smaller home and am quite content.  It is all easy maintenance and takes me next to no time to look after.

Amongst this I was deciding whether to stamp again or not, I really was too tired and too bored to care.  So last October, when we put the house on the market, I packed all my stuff up and left it there until this past Sunday.  What changed? This month we took a trip to the USA.  It was my first 4 week holiday ever, and it was magnificent, but mostly it was needed, for me as a person, for me as a mum, and for me as a wife, to reconnect with my family and try and find what I felt my life was missing. We saved and saved like crazy, the idea for this trip came about a long, long 4 years ago,  and this trip was definitely going to be paid for in cash lol, so thats what we did.  We cut everything back, didn't go out much if at all, and saved saved saved saved.  While I was away, for the first time I actually felt like getting a little creative, and by the time we got home I was itching to, so hubby set me up a small space in our garage to use for now and today I thought I would get a start on my project life album of our California trip.

So I am rusty, I mean really rusty but I gave it a whirl,  I used the design over at Just Add Ink this week, coz seriously after 6 months where the hell does one start?  I guess the majority of my next posts will be about our trip, scrapbook pages, project life pages or inserts that sort of thing, but I want to use up a heap of stuff I have here already. Heres the sketch.

Well enough talk ha ha, thanks for taking the time to have a look.

We arrived in LA on the 21st April, wow what a massive and I mean massive airport, and we had our first sighting of a star, waiting outside was Jessie J looking all sorts of normal lol, almost blended in with the rest but not quite lol.

Items Used:

Tim Holtz : stencil, story stamp, fired brick distress ink
Stampin' Up: Back to basics alphabet and a rotary stamp, 13/4 circle punch
Avery Elle: Count on it number dies
Divine twine,
MME: 6x6 paper pad - wood
stonehenge watercolour paper

Happy birthday Harry

Wow....

My son Harry turns 10 today, I can't believe he is in double digits, wherever did that time go.

Before me is a young man now, and we are so very proud of the person he is turning into, he is kind and helpful, applies himself fully at school, and is a gentleman - for that I give credit to my hubby, he has taught Harry this by demonstrating it himself daily.

My Harry loves Harry Potter as we all do in my family, so when a friend made a card recently with Harry Potter style digi stamps,  I had to have them ha ha ha.

So I have very limited copic markers it seems (sigh) so don't mind my colouring too much, I now have another list of colours to buy lol.  I am sure my son won't know the difference.

I wanted the card to look like Harry Potter was making a '10' spell in the forest!

Scissors Paper Card Link is here

Bugaboo Digi Stamps is here

A Christmassy fancy fold....

I love this super cute stamp set - Its a hero arts set and it comes with 3 little elves and a die cut for them, very cute. I also spent some more time colouring with my copics for this card, added some cute little Christmas bells to add some festive detail.

How cute is this sentiment too?  It is a set from recollections.

Cardstock was Stampin' Up! real red, whisper white

Ink: Real Red, memento black, Old olive

Copics: various

Other:  Nuvo Gold, twine, mini bells

Nice until proven Naughty.......

Its been a long while since I created a card.  A friend put me onto Bugaboo Digital stamps, and I love them, they are fun and a little sassy, and completely wonderful to colour.   My colouring sucks a lot, I haven't coloured for years, so I have a lot of work to do to get it up to scratch but I know you won't really care lol.

I did use spellbinders nestabilitites dies in this card.

It was fun, I got to colour, and hopefully I will get to colour again, will be back with another card really soon, as I have another Christmas one to share with you.

Cheers

Melissa.

An exciting new addition to the.....

BIG SHOT!

Bet you thought I was going to say a baby!   I am so past those days ha ha, but I did receive my sizzix big shot tool caddy by courier today (yes on a Saturday)

I Love it.  It is perfect for me.

This is how it comes out of the box. I have added the front sizzix plate holder.

The plate holder is extendable

There is a tape dispenser which I keep my 3m micropore tape in now.

See the extension on the front to hold all those plates etc - LOVE IT.

It also holds my scissors, pick, roller for those fiddly dies, pens, fine precision glue and still have space left on the right side next to the tape dispenser.

Side view with how it looks, Have added the little foam mat for rolling over the dies, and the magnetic platform, precision base plate, and ca still fit in two spare clear plates if I wish.

So thats it from me for today, I have some exciting products just come in that I have stumbled across lately so hopefully will be back to share some of them really soon.

Have a wonderful day.

A missed challenge.

Hi there, well this post is quite late, I made a card for the last challenge for JUST ADD INK, the deadline was Thursday, I just had no time to sit and edit and upload but I will share anyway.  I received a new stamp set in the mail from Altenew.  I love the quality of this stamp set and most especially I love the quality of their dies.  They seem thicker and more sturdier than others I have purchased over the years.  Anyway, less talk ha ha ha, here is my card.

Well thats it for me this week, its late I know, but its up so I at least got that far lol.

Have a great weekend eveyone.

Nailed It...

I have a few friends turning 40,  so I dug through my stamps and found this new set (to me) from Technique Tuesday and it had the words "nailed it" 

I loved the sentiment and it is so perfect for how I felt turning 40 and the celebrations that went with it!

I needed a starting point so I headed on over to Mojo Monday and got a design inspiration, and then went to Just Add Ink and checked out their inspiration piece.  While I couldn't do anything with the fruit, the pink tones were perfect.

The bottom layer of the shaker is a project life card from the love notes kit by we r memory keepers.  I used a stencil and some texture paste to create the raised "coffee splatter"background and stamped a happy birthday sentiment.  I wasn't happy with the raised textured part being white so ended up colouring it before assembling it all, with a bit of pink ink to make it stand out more.

I layered another die cut project life card on top of a clear piece of acetate, then onto  dimensional strips to raise it for the shaker.

I added a silver metallic doily and a clear faceted button and twine.

Thanks for looking.

An artsy style Birthday

I love this super cute easel board/clipboard die from reverse confetti, its super cute and I can't wait to do more with it.  The stamped image is from Technique Tuesday as are the happy birthday dies.

So I started with a rough wash of distress inks.  I then stamped dots over the ink wash.

Die cut and added the dies over the wash section, added the happy birthday diecuts and was nearly finished.

SOme cute little additions to this card were using crystal effects on the water section of the water in the vase, white gel pen to highlight the easel board, and finally, the little black dot over the "i" in birthday was made using ranger black enamel (I love this product)

Cute isn't it?  I just coloured the flowers in roughly with distress markers, it didn't need to be perfect as that wasn't the look I was going for.

Thats it for now

A baby card congrats....

I love the colour mint, so much I have incorporated a sea foam colour throughout my home now.  It calms me.  I find myself reaching for this colour a lot now.

Here is my latest card in full :

Dies: Spellbinders nesties scallop and plain circles

Embossing Folder: Stampin up

Stamps: Hero arts Congrats stamp and die set, Something for baby (Stampin' Up!)

DSP and cardstock: Stampin' Up!

Ribbons: Stampin' Up!

I am going to link this up to the  Just Add Ink challenge this week which is to add "B" - so mine will be "baby"

Today I made a card...

My mojo has most definitely taken a long holiday of late, since leaving Stampin' up! last December I really have just felt like not doing anything much at all.  Every now and then I get the urge to ink up a stamp, I have even purchased a set from Penny Black which I used  on todays card, and a couple of dies, but really haven't been motivated to use them.

So this card is a really really simple card, with only the sentiment stamped, but I do intend to give it to my wonderful hubby, he puts up with a lot lol.

I hope wherever you are in the world your day today is a good one!

I followed the sketch over at mojo monday for this card, its a sketch i have used before and really liked so worked perfectly for a quick card today.

Cardstock, papers, ribbon and candy dots are Stampin' Up!

Circle dies are spellbinders nesties

hearts dies are reverse confetti

sentiment stamps are Penny Black - check out these they are amazing, and the best thing is favourite is spelled with a "u" in it - yay!!!  I really love these stamps so I just had to share.

have a wonderful day!

Happy Mothers Day...

Black embossing on clear acetate sheeting to create the "mason jar"

Just stopping in to wish all the mums including furbaby mums a very happy mothers day.

Being a mum to Harry is my most rewarding role, I love being his mum, he is a beautiful kid, so thoughtful, loving and generally an all round fantastic kid!  I am so very lucky!

I do have a card or two to share with you to celebrate the occasion

White embossed flower on vellum, watercoloured

 the jar is from the retired preserves stamp set and matching framelits.

Sentiment is from teeny tiny sentiments.

and this next one I CASED from here using stamps and stuff I had on hand, none of which were the same as the original gorgeous card

 Have a wonderful day everyone

Happy 50th...

A friends 50th Birthday was recently so a card was needed, in fact I think I may be doing a lot more of these sorts of cards over the next few years lol.

This card needed a motorcycle, not just any motorcycle - but a Harley!

These bikes are just gorgeous to ride on, I haven't been on one too often but I love it when I have had the opportunity.

Love this glimmery designer papers, its from a DCWV insta stack, they are such cute paper stacks in a variety of colours.

TIP: I used a silver sharpie that you can pick up from an art/craft store, I Used that

to colour in the motorcycle then highlighted the metal with the white signo gel pen.

Stamp:  Motorcycle (retired Stampin' Up!)

Papers: DCWV insta stack

Cardstock: Whisper white and Basic Black (Stampin' Up!)

Ink: Black Stazon

Pen: Silver (sharpie), white gel pen

Dies: Technique Tuesday Happy Birthday, Numbers (SU)

Other: enamel dots (SU)

L's and P's

In my part of the world being South Australia, we have "L" plates in yellow and black, and "P" plates in red and white.

I have a niece who is a couple of weeks shy of getting her learners permit (eek) so thought this weeks mojo challenge sketch was super perfect for a card idea for in readiness for her getting her license.

I love how they turned out and that they are a sort of matching pair for her to keep.

Now to just get over the fact that she will be old enough to drive :(  and I should be right lol.

Have a great week everyone.

Christening...

I was asked recently to make a special Christening card for a soon to be Godmother.

Something special, so pink was definitely in order for the little girl being Christened.

and a close up of all the pretty details:

I don't make too many of these cards so was a novelty to create one.

The stamp set is one from Stampin' Up!

The papers, embossing folders and ribbon is also Stampin' Up!

The fancy die cut shapes are nestabilities.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Birthday celebrations....

Ive had this card made for a couple of months but my class was only this week so now I can share it

This stamp set used is from the Stampin' Up! mini - its a really cool set as are the papers.

How cute are those balloons? 

Happy tenth birthday Georgia

Its just a few hours before my niece turns 10, and no card to be seen.  My mojo has taken a long long walk, so I turned to a card I had seen recently from Teneale Williams HERE 

Teneales card is amazing, and I started with the intention to CASE it entirely, but went to my cupboard and it was almost bare lol,

No silver glimmer paper, no little floral stamps, BUT I did have the blushing bride glimmer paper untouched as well as the stamp set and butterfly die she had used so I set about recreating it as best I could with what I had lol

and the inside.

So pop on over and visit the ever so talented Teneale, you wont be disappointed in her work she is amazing!