Christmas in July

Hi everyone, I hope you are enjoying the school holidays, only two days left for my kids then back to school. My computer has been down for the last week so I've had more time to play with my stamps. It's so awful not having a computer, I didn't realize how much I use it until now.

I promised my Aunt who lives in Darwin that I would do Christmas in July, so I hope she like these.

These are all using the Christmas Tree from the Fun & Fast Notes stamp set. The second two cards have the Dashing Designer Series Paper, which is great for a bright, fun Christmas. Ive coloured the trees in a bit with a blender pen and added ribbon and brads. The second card I've placed red eyelets for the baubles using the Crop-A-Dile. (Any excuse to use it.) And the third card I have inked around the edgers. The colours are very vanilla, real red, and old olive.

Enjoy the holidays.

Leah

Pick a Peal

I've been playing with the Pick a Petal stamp set. I love this set , you can do so many things with it. In this card I've stamped the petal and flower centre onto patterned paper and cut out. I've used a button to highlight the flower centre. The words "for you" are from the Happy everything set. The DSP is Spring Flowers, I'm so glad this is back in the Catalogue, It's one of my favorites.




Recipe
Stamp Set : Pick a Petal, Happy Everything
Ink : Chocolate Chip
Card : Chocolate Chip, So Saffron
Punches : 1" circle
Accessories : DSP Spring Flowers,Hemp Twine, button very vanilla, mini glue dots, dimensionals

It's school holidays here in Queensland and I am enjoying sleeping in and lazing around all morning.

Happy Holidays

Leah

Poppin' Pastels

My friend Julie, who's in the swap group, made this card using the poppin' pastels technique. I really like it. She used the Wanted stamp set, which is on my wish list. Funny how my wish list keeps getting longer, not shorter. Anyway, nice work Julie. Can't wait to see what you come up with for next months swap.

Poppin' Pastels

This is the card I made for a swap group I'm in. A swap group is a group of people who swap cards with each other on a regular basis, with the same theme or technique. I swap every month with seven other people. So I make the same card seven times and send it out to everyone in the group and I received seven cards in the mail, one from each person in the group. So I end up with eight cards of the same theme or technique but all completely different. It's great receiving such lovely mail from all over Australia and seeing the great cards the others have made.

This months swap rules were to use the Poppin' Pastels technique and at least one eyelet. I hadn't done this technique for a while so it was great to do it again. For those that don't know, the Poppin' Pastels technique is stamping with Versa mark then using the sponge daubers with chalks (Stampin' Pastels) to colour the image. The chalk will stick to the Versa mark making the stamped image pop out from the card. It's very effective. I love it.





Recipe
Stamp Sets : Garden Whimsy
Ink : Versa mark
Card : Whisper White, Rose Red, Pretty in Pink
Accessories : Stampin' Pastels, sponge daubers, Crop a dile, metallic eyelets silver, Gingham ribbon light pink


For my card I've gone for the soft feminine look. What do you think?
I hope the other members of the group like it.


Leah

Salted Background

I entered a challenge. The other day I was looking at Mellisa's Stamping Blog (who is a lovely person I meet at convention) and she had set a challenge using the salted background technique. Now I had never seen or heard of this technique before so I decided to have a go. This was quite fun to do and involved salt (I used sea salt), gloss card, spritzing water and ink. There is a great tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers showing how it's done. My attempt isn't great but you can imagine the different looks you can get by using different colours. It works better if you use ink refills. You can't see it in the photo but the salt leaves an interesting texture on the card.



Recipe
Stamp Sets : Oh, so lovely, Circle of friendship
Ink : Old Olive, Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, Choc Chip
Card : Old Olive, Ruby Red, Gloss White, Whisper White
Punches : circles 1", 1 1/4", 1 3/8", scallop
Accessories : Grosgrain ribbon Always Artichoke, Dimensionals

Why not give it a try?

Leah

Seeing Spots

While I was surfing last night I came across a card on Debbie's blog, Hubbys Headache, ( I love the name of her blog) and I had to make it. Debbie's card is a pop up card that I didn't have the patience to try yet, maybe on the holidays I'll give it a go. But I kept the card front and the colours the same. I love the colour combination she used, Chocolate Chip and Old Olive and Very Vanilla. I've used a different stamp set, Seeing Spots. It was quite quick to make. I think making the pop up card will take a bit longer.






Recipe
Stamp Set : Seeing Spots
Card : Old Olive, Choc Chip, Very Vanilla
Ink: Choc Chip
Accessories: crop a dile, jumbo eyelet pewter, crafters tool kit, grosgrain ribbon 5/8" choc chip
Punches : scallop circle, 1 1/4", 1 3/8" circle

Thanks for the inspiration Debbie.

I'm off to sports day at school today, I hope it warms up a bit.
Have a great day.
Leah

Stamp A Stack

The Stamp A Stack I held on the weekend was a great success and lots of fun. I've had some really good feedback. So I'll definitely be holding more. I'm already thinking of and planning the next one. I'll let you know the theme soon.

For those who missed out, these are the other cards we made.


Sending you my love : This one is much the same as the So Swirly card in a previous post. Except I've used the Circle of Friendship Stamp Set. The colours are Kraft, Blush Blossom and Whisper White.

Time spent with Friends: We did a bit of water colouring on this card. We used the Stampin' Pastels and Aqua Painter with the Time spent with Friends Stamp Set. And used the Sanded background Stamp with Versamark on the base card. It's a bit hard to see in this photo but it looks really good. The words and butterfly are stamped in Certainly Celery on Certainly Celery card stock. With a bit of Gingham ribbon, light pink.

Always on my mind : This design I found on the demonstrator website and I only changed it a little bit. The stamp set is Pick a Petal and Stem Sayings. The colours are Blue Bayou, Confetti White, Soft Sky, Purely Pomegranate, Groovy Guava and Kraft.

Tip : Stamp the Stem Saying first, then place the petals around it. That way you won't stamp the saying on the petal, like I did.

I really hope those that came had a great afternoon ( please leave a comment) and don't forget to send the cards to someone special.

Happy Stampin'

Leah

So Swirly

This card was made for a special friend, for her birthday. We had a great time at her party with lots of laughs. And it was really good to catch up with friends I hadn't seen for a while. For her card I used Kraft card stock. I love the natural colour and it combines well with almost any other colour. I've combined it here with Blush Blossom. I always use the wheel guide when I use a wheel, so I can get a straight line. The So Swirly wheel has some dots in the pattern, so on this card I punched them out with the 1/4" circle handheld punch for a lacy look. I used the corner rounder punch to make the scallop edge. The lovely bird is from the Spring Solitude stamp set and the words from the Happy Everything set.




Recipe
Stamp Sets : Spring Solitude (level 2 hostess set), Happy Everything, So Swirly wheel
Ink : Blush Blossom, Creamy Caramel
Card : Kraft, Blush Blossom, Whisper White
Punches : handheld 1/4" circle, 1" & 1 1/4" circle, scallop circle, corner rounder
Accessories : cutter kit, grosgrain ribbon white, wheel guide, stamp a ma jig, dimensionals, snail

If your celebrating a birthday this month, Happy Birthday to you.