Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Favourites of the Year 2011

Each year in December I write a post about the cards that really inspired me, my faves of the year. As usual it's difficult to whittle down the list  but here are some of my favourite creations.

Enjoy these projects made by an amazing group of artists. Yes, all of you are artists that use paper and inks to create works of beauty.

Nicky used such soft colours to make this pretty card.



Love the layered stamping and the soft, wispy grass that Cindy created with this card.


Barb created some wonderful background colours with this beauty.


Jennifer never ceases to amaze me with her creativity. Love her use of fabric on this card.


And I couldn't stop with just one card from Jennifer. This card truly shows her artistic side and why she made it to the final rounds of Gallery Idol. The bicycle created out of wire, the shadow of the bike and the rays of sunshine all combine to make this card fabulous.


Julie makes amazing CAS cards. I just love this simple design.

I love all things leafy and Tina's design with the fern stamp is divine.


Anette's watercolour background and glossy hilights make these flowers magnificent.


Love the vivid colours of this fun design by Lucy. It's a card that is made using digital and traditional elements.


Another card with gorgeous colours! Anna-Karin created a beautiful sunset with this simple design.


Jill has so many amazing cards but I chose this one for it's colourful leaves with a touch of sparkle.


Sarah created a gorgeous background for her quote on this card.



There were a few cards by Trinh that I really liked but I chose this Halloween card because everytime I see it makes me smile big! Such a fun card!


Joy's use of a lot of white space and a few soft colours make this card just lovely.


Kraft never looked better than on this card by Marion.


The stitching, the colours, the scalloped borders, the dragonflies. All make one magnificent card by Heather Maria.


And since we just celebrated Christmas I thought I would end with three holiday cards created by Nona. Her simple design and colourful stamping made these cards a fave.



Thanks to all the artists who have inspired us this year with their creativity! I can't wait to see what projects you come up with in 2012!


Friday, December 16, 2011

Runway Inspired Challenge

I've made a card for the first challenge at Runway Inspired Challenge. The blog is run by Jennifer Rzasa, who makes absolutely fabulous cards, which can be seen on her personal blog here.

Here's our first inspiration.

Love the happy yellow and the eyelet/lace feel to the dress.


The stamp I used is from Magenta. The image has a stitched look to it and I stamped it three times in yellow to make the border and I set it off with a bit of black paper and some white pearls. I wanted to keep it CAS, just for Jennifer!

Wishing you an inky weekend!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Simon Says...

This weeks challenge at Simon Says is a photomontage of various Christmas images.

These photos are so pretty and they have a lovely softness to them.  I was inspired by the three trees in pale blues and pinks, the sheet music and the poinsettia.


Yes, I made another card with the poinsettia from Penny Black. I can't seem to stop! I embossed it in white and coloured it with Distress Inks in Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet.

The background was coloured with Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass and I stamped a music background from Impression Obsession ontop with the same colour.

I stamped the Hero Arts sentiment onto vellum, added some pearls and of course everything was sprayed with Perfect Pearls. 'Tis the season for shimmer!

Wishing you an inky day!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Poinsettia

Just sharing a couple of simple card designs since my mojo is still on vacation.

I love this big poinsettia stamp from Penny Black called Christmas Pride. I embossed it in white, coloured it with Distress Inks and sprayed it with Perfect Pearls. The background was colored with Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass and Broken China and sprayed with Perfect Pearls. Yup, everything is a-shimmering! Finally I added the sentiment on a piece of vellum.


Same look, just different colours. The background was coloured with the seasonal Distress Ink Evergreen Bough. I used Antique Linen and Walnut Stain to colour this flower (inspired by Jill Foster's flower colouring found here) and I covered it with Rock Candy Stickles.

Wishing everyone an inky weekend!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Snowflakes

Hi everyone! My mojo is on vacation (has anyone seen it), so the cards I'm showing today have been CASEd from the Scrapbook Centrale video here.


It's a simple design but with a bit of sparkle. The snowflake pieces were inked with Versamark, covered with Iridescent Peacock embossing powder and heat set. The great thing about this ep is that you get different colours from blue to purple to green to copper depending on how long you heat set it.

Click on the closeup for a better view of the sparkly goodness!

And with a few changes you can have a completely different look!


Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Annabelle Sketch Challenge ABSC044

Well, this is my last project as Guest Designer over at Annabelle Stamps and it happens to be a sketch.

I found this design to be a bit of a challenge but ended up with this card.

I was still feeling inspired to use the non-traditional holiday colours that I used on my Hero Arts projects in the post here. I also covered pretty much everything on the card with a fine mist of Perfect Pearls for a little shimmer. You have to have a bit of sparkle at Christmas, right?

All the stamps I used are from this Ornamental Christmas set.
I'd like to thank Andrea for giving me the opportunity to play along with the "Belles" this month, it has been very fun! And thanks to all the "Belles" for their wonderful inspiration!

Make sure to stop by the blog to check out all the marvelous projects by the Design Team and I hope you're inspired to play along with this sketch.











About our challenges:

•We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
•Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Thursday 5.00pm so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
•Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a special little something. Our last challenge for the month will be a sketch challenge which will attract our main prize of a $15.00 gift voucher for that weeks winner.

How To Play Along :
•Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the AnnaBelle Stamps blog blog in your post.
•Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
•Please don’t link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
•A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
•You may enter any challenge several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
•We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Say It With...Buttons & Bows

Todays challenge at Annabelle Stamps is to make a card using buttons and bows. I must admit that I have a hard time incorporating these two embellishments on my cards. I so envy crafters who seem to use them with ease.

I used the little bloom from Annabelles All Squared stamp set.


I embossed the card front with the Square Lattice folder from Stampin Up. I punched some circles for little windows and clear embossed the flowers in some happy colours on the inside of the card and each flower got a button centre. I finished off with a sentiment and a double bow.


Stop by the Annabelle Stamps blog to see the projects made by the designers and don't forget to play along and create a card using buttons and bows!

About our challenges:

•We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
•Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Thursday 5.00pm so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
•Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a special little something. Our last challenge for the month will be a sketch challenge which will attract our main prize of a $15.00 gift voucher for that weeks winner.

How To Play Along :
•Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the AnnaBelle Stamps blog blog in your post.
•Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
•Please don’t link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
•A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
•You may enter any challenge several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
•We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Annabelle Stamps Blog Hop

Welcome to another blog hop hosted by Annabelle Stamps. Todays hop is all about Holly, the Holly Branch stamp set which you can find here.

For my card I combined two of the holly images and stamped a mistletoe.

I used Distress Ink to colour my cardstock and sprayed it with Perfect Pearls for a soft shimmer. I embossed the holly images, colored the leaves with a Spica Glitter Pen and added some pearls. I really like the larger size of the sentiments (which was stamped on vellum), they cover a card front nicely.

Now your next stop on the hop is Andrea.

To keep our hop as fun and simple as possible, click through each of the DT blogs to see what they’ve created using this set. You can comment if you like, and leave your name using the Inlinkz on any of the DT blogs, or on the AnnaBelle Stamps blog.


You don’t have to comment on all of our blogs, just remember to add your name for your chance to win the Blog Hop prize which is the Ornamental Christmas stamp set. The hop will run for 1 week and the winner will be announced next Tuesday!


Friday, November 11, 2011

Hero Arts Monthly Challenge

I made a couple of Christmas projects for this months challenge at Hero Arts. For both of them I used the colour combo they provided.
Very pretty and untraditional holiday colours.

This card is a mix of traditional stamping and digi. I resized a digital christmas tree image found here (see below), printed it on paper coloured with Spun Sugar Distress Ink sprayed with Perfect Pearls and cut out the ornament shape with my nesties. The background was coloured with Hero Arts Soft Pool ink mixed with water and the image was stamped ontop using Distress Embossing Ink. The Embossing Ink bleaches out and creates a bit of a raised surface.

You can see a video here of this technique by Scrapbooking Made Simple.

My second project is a gift tag.
This tag has two layers. The top one is acetate with the digi tree image printed on it. My snow is mica flakes and the star is glittered in fun pink. The second layer is cardstock coloured with HA Soft Pook Ink and stamped with snowflakes using white pigment ink.

I really enjoyed playing with these non-holiday colours!

Have a great inky weekend!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Say It In Lime, Black and White

I'm back with another challenge from Annabelle Stamps and this one is all about colours.

I love the lime colour, it's so fresh and it makes me think of spring.
I coloured some white cardstock with Rangers Sea Brights in Citrus and stamped on it with the wee flowers from Annabelle's All Squared stamp set and die cut the butterfly.
 I added some gems, antennae and a pipe cleaner body to finish off the butterfly.

Please stop by the Annabelle blog and see what the other designers created and join in the challenge!

About our challenges:
•We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
•Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Thursday 5.00pm so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
•Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a special little something. Our last challenge for the month will be a sketch challenge which will attract our main prize of a $15.00 gift voucher for that weeks winner.

How To Play Along :
•Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the AnnaBelle Stamps blog blog in your post.
•Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
•Please don’t link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
•A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
•You may enter any challenge several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
•We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas.