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I have been looking for a reason to buy these Kaisercraft papers for ages now and I got one of those little free Kaiser booklets they bring out and it has some great ideas on how to use their paper ranges. This one is quite similar to one of them but I am so happy with it anyway! I am having technical difficulties with Photoshop CS3 (I just upgraded from 5.0) so the colour isn't fantastic but I will work it out... I have mastered brushes now! Well, I'm off to do more!!

Natural Beauty

I made this little card tonight using Natural Beauty... a set I have had my eye on since I first discovered Stampin' Up! but never actually purchased until last week!

Stamps: Natural Beauty & Weathered
Ink: Elegant Eggplant, Creamy Caramel, Always Artichoke, Certainly Celery & Stazon
Cardstock: Creamy Caramel, Elegant Eggplant, Always Artichoke & Certainly Celery
Accessories: Celery Grosgrain Ribbon

Once Upon A Time....

There was a cute, little.... actually..... rather large Dotweiler who sprouted wings!


This is my girl Rouge... as I have mentioned before, she is our Dotweiler (Dalmatian x Rottweiler) and she is getting bigger by the day! She is full grown but she is gaining weight faster than she can blink... 8kg in 5 months! Even on her diet I think I am still feeding her too much... I just like to feed her... it makes her happy!! This photo makes me laugh... not because I spent HOURS and HOURS and HOURS playing with Photoshop to give her wings but because she has a cute little belly roll hanging off the side of her leg... she is so cute and I love the fact that she either doesn't care that she is 38kg and more than half my body weight or she never lets it show that she cares! Whatever way she looks at it... its something I want to learn from her. Hmm... thats weird... I want to learn something from my dog!!

Anyway.... back to the layout.... I found this paper on the weekend at my LSS and loved it... I didn't know what I could do with it though. I showed Matt and said that I will probably just keep it and never use it... then I joked that I should put a princess hat on Rouge and do a funny layout. That lit the lightbulb and I figured that it was time to work out Photoshop! The lady at the photo store lauged when I picked up my prints the other day and I got quite a few "oh that poor dog!" comments from the people at work but I love it and thats the main thing! I actually don't think I could be happier with this layout now its finished!!

All Boy

Caleb. What can I say... he is a boy... he is cheeky and I doubt he will ever change... it seems to be too much about who he is! I love this photo... my sister Kelly got this snap when he was pelting towards her out of the kitchen months and months back. Just looking at it makes me laugh every time! He is growing so fast and it almost seems he doesn't look anything like this anymore but he is just as crazy and unpredictable.... the only way to sum him up... he's a boy!

I had a great time doing this layout. I am rather proud of my attempt to layer paper (something I am trying to learn) and I am pleased with how it turned out in the end. The photo goes well and the Kaisercraft Rough and Tough range just sums him up really well! I also had a bit of fun doodling too and loved the fact that I didn't have to get it neat!

BTW, I am on a ROLL today! Three layouts in one day... thats pretty good for me... I don't even remember the last time I did three layouts in one month!!

Kitty

This is the first layout and probably the last I have done of our cat, Kitty. She sat very nicely for this photo last night and I realised that she is actually much easier to get a photo of than Rouge, our dog! The only issue was, I was laying on my stomach to get to her level!

This is the cat layout from the class I did at Crafting In Style a month or so back. Now I have a dog and cat layout to match!

At the Beach

I can't take credit for this layout because NONE of it was my idea but Jo's (NMP)! I know Jo from the INKredibles forum and she is (with good reason!) a DT member of All Craftz. I saw this layout AGES ago and I just LOVED it so much that I made Matt and Rouge go to the beach just so I had a photo I could use on it!

Jo, your layout is amazing... its been quite a while since I have seen a layout so unique and different from everything I have seen... I just hope that you don't mind that I cased it so closely! I tried my hardest to make it my own but it just wasn't happening... yours was just too good!!! :(

Anyway, go have a look at Jo's gallery in the link above... its worth it! You will also see her original idea of the layout I cased here (it's way better though!) and thanks Jo if you read this, you have made me look so totally different at paint and a great way to use it... bubble wrap!

Your Stuffeth, You Puffeth

You Stuffeth, You Puffeth…. OH THE TRUTH HURTS! Goodness knows what I will do with the card but I couldn’t resist buying the stuffeth stamp to go along with PMS Bella! I am going to try and use more pattern paper on my cards.... maybe I will try and stop layering everything too... one baby step at a time though!

I had a truely Stuffeth weekend a couple weeks ago... Matt and I had Friday off and the closest thing we ate to a meal until Monday was bacon and eggs on Sunday! We ate chips, chocolate and cheese and herb shapes the entire weekend! The reason for the binge was that we signed up for two new mobile phones and got a free Playstation 3 so we spent the whole weekend eating rubbish, glued to the telly! I have to say, its nice to do that once in a while though.

Valentines Card

I gave this card to Matt for Valentines Day this year. I didn't know where to begin... I am just not that good at male cards! Last year I gave him one with a cute little Stamp It bear on it and he still has it displayed in his office. Every now and then it finds its way back in the letter stand but I pull it out and put it back on the top of the computer! I can't remember the brand of the clear alpha stamps I used but I have to say I LOVE THEM even though this is the first and only time I have used them! The heart is from this years Stampin' Up! Level 3 Hostess set, Time Well Spent.

Just Chicken In

I pulled out Just Chicken In again tonight for something to do. I have to say, I love making these little square cards (10.5cm x 10.5cm) They don't take so much effort to fill... especially when the images you are stamping on them are just little.

Stamps: Just Chicken In, Canvas Print
Ink: Elegant Eggplant, Garden Green, More Mustard, Really Rust, VersaMark & Stazon
Cardstock: Close to Cocoa, Really Rust, More Mustard, Elegant Eggplant & Watercolour Paper
Accessories: Linen Thread, 1 1/4" Circle Punch & 1 3/4" Circle Punch

Merci

I was trying something different when I started this card. It looked like it was going to be pretty dodgy for a while there but in the end it turned out really nice. This is the first time I have made a big long card... it's the size of a business sized envie. You can't really see but there is a bit of Pumpkin Pie in the layers and in person it looks really cool! (if you click on the pic you can see it bigger) I don't know why I decided on sticking orange in the mix but I think it worked.... I'd like to know everyone else's opinions though!

Stamps: Bodacious Bouquet & Merci (Sale-A-Bration)
Ink: Cameo Coral, Rose Red, Old Olive & VersaMark
Cardstock: Old Olive, Rose Red, Cameo Coral, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White
Accessories: Kindy Glitz

Because

I am pretty impressed with this card. There were quite a few steps! I stamped the tree in Staz-on on Gloss cardstock, masked a circle around the tree then masked individual parts of the tree. I started daubing the sky with Bashful Blue then Brocade Blue and Night of Navy then masked off the sky to do the tree and grass. Thankfully I got a phone call just after I finished the daubing so I was able to let go but for a while there I was getting new ink pads and opening them with my mouth because I couldn't let go or the circle mask would move!!

Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Canvas Print & 'Because' from Expressive Flexible Phrases
Cardstock: Ivory, Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Certainly Celery and Gloss
Ink: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, Mellow Moss, Close to Cocoa & Jet Black Stazon
Accessories: Sponge Daubers & Linen Thread

Blogging Award

Haha I think this is cool! Thanks Karen for the E for Excellent Blog Award! I have found out (by offering blog candy) this weekend that there are quite a few more people coming through my blog than I first realised so I am going to make a better effort now to make sure I keep posting on it! I made a card yesterday so I just need to take a photo now and I will put it up!

Apparently I need to nominate some other people for the blogging award now so here they are....

Susan
Teina
Rach
These are new people that found me... I looked at their blogs last night and they are great!
A Place for Ink
Steph's Stampin' Stuff

Friends for Heifer

This is probably one of my favourite High Hopes images so far… its so cute! The name is Clarabelle and Riley and goes with some of the sweetest sentiment stamps! Friends for Heifer, Cow ya doin’?, What’s Moo? Have you Herd the News? There are quite a few of them but these are the ones I have. I have one cow stamp and heaps of cow sentiments so I now I will have to put in an order for some more actual cow stamps now!

I will be making some more cards using my High Hopes stamps this weekend so make sure you let me know what you think!

Thanks a Bunch!

I have been waiting a couple weeks (not long in real time but a lifetime in 'waiting for stamps' time) for my High Hopes Stamps to arrive and MAN were they worth the wait!! I got the stamps unmounted so they were really cheap and didn't cost much to ship to Australia, PLUS they gave me a heap of freebies! I was stunned... I got 12 free stamps! They are great stamps and some of the ones I ordered are HUGE and really great value... be careful though, they are not for the faint watercolour hearted! The two I made last night took me about an hour to watercolour each one!

This card is 5 1/4" square so the image is pretty big.... still WAY smaller than some of the others that I ordered... I can't wait until the weekend to have a play with them!

Fishabella

How cute is Fishabella?! I think she makes fishing look pretty glam! In real life (or mine anyway) fishing is a pretty messy job! I have taken up using 'Riveting' again with the Bella's... mainly because most of the sentiment stamps I have look too big next to them. I used my Stampin' Write Markers to omit the 'W' in 'Wishing You The Best' then my ever so fabulous Stamp-a-ma-jig to put an 'F' in there instead.

Flowahbella

Another Bella... I have a few left still to use and a couple Fella's too.

Winobella

This is card number two from my little pile of Bella's I have here! I just LOOOOVE watercolouring them! It's more of a challenge doing little people so its great fun! This one has kindy glits on the wine glasses and the wine and her necklace so in person it looks quite cute!

Veggiebella

Hooray! My Bella stamps arrived from overseas today! These are the first Bella stamps I have ever had. This is Veggie Bella and I tell ya what.... I am going to need to keep a stash of new blender pens handy! They are so fine and the detail is amazing so 95% of the tips on my blenders are going to be too 'used'.

They are the prettiest stamps.... what do you think??

Lethal Weapon - Movie World!

This is one of my Movie World layouts I did with photos from my first trip to Brisbane last Christmas. This Christmas I said that I would finally finish scrapping them all (I still have a couple Australia Zoo ones to go and then Mt Cootha.... the list just keeps going!) As I mentioned in a post a while back, I tend to do these ones pretty plain because I always have so many photos I squeeze on them I don't want to go overboard.

In the main pic there, Matt is the one doing the thumbs up to the camera and I am in the red next to him holding on for dear life! I am still stunned at how he managed to actually let go! If my feet had something they could grip to, I would have been white knuckled on those too... this was the second time we went on it and it was still as terrifying as the first time! I had never been on a rollercoaster before this day so it was pretty freaky!

Rocket Man Tour

I did this layout a few weeks ago but forgot I did it and also forgot to take a photo. I got a bit of a surprise when I opened my album tonight and saw it. I can't say I have ever forgotten a layout before!

Obviously, this is Elton John. I went to see him in Townsville in December with my sister. It was a fantastic show! It takes someone pretty special to entertain 20,000 people with only a microphone and a piano. The Townsville show was the biggest one he did while he was touring in Australia going to wineries and doing small concerts. I am just amazed that we were actually able to see him!