Going Green!

The High Hopes challenge this week is 'Let's Go Green'! Lacey has posted a couple of suggestions on what you could recycle for this challenge - buttons from a shirt, lace from a skirt or do what I did and go outside and find a few things that nature provided to add to your card!

I have been working on this card for a few days now. It is serving two purposes... it is this weeks challenge card and it is also my dad's birthday card for this Wednesday (shhhh). Dad has taken prospecting up in the last year or two so I thought this stamp would be great for his card. You can't really see them but I coloured some of the scattered rocks in gold Twinkling H2O too.

Santa Galore!

If you have seen this month's Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft (Vol 15 No 5), you may have seen Woodland Santa on the cover! There is also a three page spread of the happy little Santa's inside. As you can imaging I was pretty pleased to see Santa made it to the cover. I didn't receive a contributors copy so I hadn't seen the issue and my friend emailed me to say he was famous!

If you are after these Santas, they are back in stock at Stampin' Stuff!

These are my photos of the cards close up:

Twinkling H2O's In Stock!

They have been out of stock in Australia for a while now but they are BACK! My love for H2O's goes above and beyond! I use them on every single
card I make and I don't think my papercrafting life would ever be the same without them!

Are you wondering what you can do with Twinkling H2O's? Wonder no more... check out my watercolouring tutorial!

Twinkling H2O's add a little shimmer to your project. They are a small tub similar to paint only it is completely solid. Just add a drop of water to activate then colour with an aqua brush for rich, vibrant colour!

As the water dries they go solid again and store for next time! These little pots will last forever! A little bit goes a long way!

Click here to see the sets available!

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps!

Kimmie released her very own line of gorgeous rubber stamps today and they are now in stock at Stampin' Stuff! This is the sweet little Charlotte & Doll and I whipped this card up tonight because I really wanted to show her off! If you want to see the rest of Kimmie's Moonlight Whispers range, click here!

I really am hooked on the whole pastel on VersaMark background at the moment and I really like the effect!

Merry Christmas

This weeks High Hopes Challenge is Lotsa Layers! I'm hosting this one and I always need to push myself to put more layers of paper on cards. The stamp is Skiing Santa and I got the idea for the holly from an Australian blog I saw a few weeks ago. If you have seen this blog, let me know I simply just can't find it or remember the name. I do remember leaving a gushing comment on the idea!! I drew some holly leaves, stamped them in En Francais then rubbed some brown pastel over it. The red rhinestone brads were my idea and in person they look really cute!

There are some great Christmas stamps up for grabs for being the random winner in this weeks challenge so visit the High Hopes Challenge Blog for more info!

ANNOUNCING…..

THE STAMPIN' STUFF DESIGN TEAM!

The DT call seemed to run forever but really it was just over a month! I got SO many applications I was so stunned and didn't know where to begin! After hours of pouring through my folder of applications I finally came to the excruciatingly hard decision of two lovely, paper craftin' ladies!

MEET... MICHELLE!

Michelle's blog is called Colour on Cards and she has just become a guest High Hopes Design Diva! I'm pretty excited about that... more High Hopes for us little Aussies... sometimes we seem so far away from the action! Michelle has a talent for colouring and uses different mediums... all so well! So, check out Michelle's blog to see her wonderful creations!


MEET VICKI!

Vicki's blog is called Creative Considerations and she is great at doing what I have trouble with... layering... basically just putting everything together and making it look AWESOME! I am just stunned by the amount of detail she goes into for every piece of art! Vicki's style is just stunning so pop on over to her blog, say 'hi' and check out her fantastic work!

Popcorn the Bear

If you haven't been by Stampin' Stuff lately, hop on over because Popcorn the Bear is in town!! Isn't he the sweetest with the little heart on his ear?? This set is called Bunches of Love. I made this card last weekend. It is a 5 x 5" card so the stamp is HUGE! All of the Popcorn stamps are! I actually got quite a shock.

Anyway, I loved the colouring they showed on Popcorn's packet so much I decided to go with those colours myself and I am rather proud that I broke away from the blender pen and used an aqua painter to colour him. The areas were a bit big for a blender... they are quite dry. My next hurdle was to make the card around the stamped image. It was just 5mm too big for my biggest Nestabilities circle. At the end of the day though, his little face is so cute he doesn't need much fancy stuff around him to make him cuter!

Happy Birthday To Ye!

Happy Birthday High Hopes Challenge Blog! It has already been one whole year since we started our weekly challenges. Gee it has gone so FAST! This week we are celebrating with birthday cards. There is also some great rubber to give away a random winner so head on over and link your entry to the comments section!

So, to my card. This is Oberto and his treasure chest! I stamped the treasure map on the base of the card and used my pastels to make the VersaMark darker. I liked the look so much I can see it becoming a bit of a must-do for me until I move on to my next phase!!

That's Amore!

This weeks High Hopes Challenge is 'Playing Favourites' hosted by the lovely Jeanne. I haven't made many cards using the chef but he is one of my many favouites. He makes me smile every time. My other favouite thing to do is create a little scene. I haven't been doing that much lately and I really think I should get back into it. The background is done using post it notes to mask off the different areas and a lot of brayering and sponging! The sentiment is white Heidi Swapp rubons and the stars are made using white acrylic ink.

Pop on over to the High Hopes Challenge blog for more info and don't forget to link your card there if you play along. You could be the random winner of some High Hopes Rubber!

Wrap It Up

Happy Sunday! I'm not overly impressed with today. I had a week off work last week and I enjoyed it so much that I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. I have sulked most of the day about it! Well, its High Hopes Challenge time and Inge would like us to Wrap It Up! That means andthing that isn't a card. I chose to do a tag today and I used Brayden's Backside and 'No ifs, ands or... well you know...' Brayden is mounted on foam tape so he sits up higher than the tag.

If you want to play along with Inge's challenge, make sure you pop by the HH blog and leave a link to your project. That way you will go into the draw to win some rubber from Tina!

Blog CANDY!

Woohoo! Who doesn't love a freebie, right? I am offering some cute candy with a stash of goodies and it could be yours!

In this bundle I have:

High Hopes Rubber Stamps - Andreas Kitties
A whole bunch of brads - Bullet, Tin Man & Pearl Brads
Pink Eyelets
2 Studio G Clear Stamps
A big clippie
Green Tara Flowers
Olive Satin Leaf Garland

All you need to do enter is take my little hyper bee below and put him on your blog with a link to my blog or store - www.stampinstuff.com.au! Links to my store in your sidebar will get you two entries into the draw!

GOOD LUCK! I can't wait to see who gets these goodies!

Entries close Thursday 24 September 2009!

UPDATED - The winner is Leah - My Life Journey!!

Thank you everyone to played along!

Oh, I just can't wait to be king!

I almost forgot to post my pic of this months issue of Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft! This is Leo Lion and he is the star of the card! For this challenge we were asked to use song lyrics as the sentiment for a card. There were some great cards made for this! I did "I just can't wait to be king". My sister and I had a brainstorm; I had picked a few stamps and I was trying to match them to lyrics... I was thinking "in the jungle" which is rather boring and she came up with the genius idea of The Lion King! Every time I look at the card I get the song stuck in my head!

I'm gonna be a mighty king, so enemies beware!
I've never seen a king of beasts
With quite so little hair
I'm gonna be the mane event
Like no king was before
I'm brushing up on looking down
I'm working on my roar
Thus far a rather uninspiring thing
Oh, I just can't wait to be king!

Fall into Autumn

The High Hopes Challenges are back on! We had a nice break and now its back in full swing! This week the challenge is Fall into Autumn hosted by Michelle. Remember if you want to join in the High Hopes fun, swing by the challenge blog for the details and be sure to put a link there in the comments section of your card... you never know, you could be the one that wins the weekly prize from Tina!

It was really fun colouring Lenny's Love Me Nots in a different colour. I don't know why I once got stuck in that rut of green dragons! I put some glue on the ground under Lenny and sprinkled a bit of Autumn Flower Soft on it to make him look like he is laying in autumn leaves.

Ace!

Here's Ace! You know what? I really like this card. It is so plain... it doesn't have any embellies at all apart from a bit of sewing but for some reason the colours just do it for me. I like it plain. I sewed on this card too!! I actually got the courage to sew, I did the first few rough lines in the top left corner, pulled it out of the machine went to look at what it looked like on the inside.... then worked out I had sewed with the card closed! That is why it is now layered on brown!! Ahh.... the lessons of trying new things!

Ace is a completely different colour to what I usually do dragons. I got stuck in a green rut! This time I coloured him in Baja Breeze, then did a bit of Brocade Blue in the dark areas, then Old Olive over the dark areas again and then Stargazer Twinkling H2O's... I went a bit overboard but he is a pretty cool colour now!

High Hopes Rubber Stamp Are HERE!

WOOHOO! Can you guess I am excited?! High Hopes Rubber Stamps are now in stock at Stampin' Stuff! Click here to see the range. Numbers are limited so don't miss out!!

Now to my card! I made this one tonight. It has been a few weeks now since I have used a HH stamp and I realised as I was chuckling at Turkey Getaway that I really have missed this little guys! I finally received my design team stamps just yesterday. Someone, somewhere in the world has my first little yellow packet of rubber! *sniff sniff* It's ok though because I have these ones now! YAY!

This card was inspired by Nikki's Nutshells sketch from a while ago. I tried to find it on Nikki's blog but she is such a good blogger I ran out of time looking! Sorry Nikki!

So here's one for you... next time someone says to you, you run around like a chook with it's head cut off... you can just say "its poultry in motion!".

Peas on Earth

Check out these cute peas! I have had my eye on this stamp from Stamp-It since I first started stamping a couple of years ago. I LOVED it. It is surprising I have only just got it now! I started this card a couple of weeks ago but then everything else got in the way. I had a few slack days and then I spent a few days working on an upcoming Stampers Challenge for Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft magazine and then the other days just seem to have disappeared!

I stamped the image twice and cut out the earth and the peas and popped them up on foam tape. They look so adorable in real life! I just wish a camera would catch it!

Anyway, the fun is over for me... time to share... these little peas are now on sale in the pre-loved section of Stampin' Stuff if you like them!

Memo.... thingies....

My sister, Kelly and my niece, Caitlin came to visit this weekend and stayed over. We did a bunch of shopping on Saturday (I was exhausted... I think they were keen for more!) and then Saturday afternoon we did some craftin'! We each covered a Kaisercraft memo thingy... I still don't know their name. I have been holding on to this pattern paper and the matching butterflies for so long I have forgotten it's name too. I am pretty pleased with the outcome but I still have no clue as to where I am going to hang it! Oh, and it also has a matching pen on a silver cord so it doesn't go walkies.

Kelly covered the purple one. We did pretty well considering we only had one craft knife blade and it was broken at the tip. Every time I tried to cut it just ripped the paper up. It all went rather smoothly after we got past that and my tipping the house upside down for the sandpaper that was stored nicely in the draw directly next to me the whole time. Right under the paint brushes that I had been rumaging through all day.

My first tag!

This is my very first Tim Holtz inspired tag! I have been wanting to try some new techniques for ages and I finally did it. Don't worry, I haven't thrown away High Hopes... I'm just trying a few new things for a change!

So... this tag is rather plain when compared to Tim's work but it was still really quite a challenge! I worked on it for hours... just getting the rough inky background was hard but the truth is... it was FUN! Distress ink ROCKS! I love doing the background with the ink and water... just so happens I'm not that good at it. Everything takes practice though! The reason I find it hard is because I like everything to look perfect. I can't see a bit of paper with not enough ink and just leave it like it is... I have to fix it... that's when I usually wreck it!

I tried my best to do this all like Tim does but with some substitutions. I did the Distress Ink background (here's a link to Tim's video), used my new Ink Blending Tool to sponge on some colour around the place (that tool ROCKS too!). I used my Darkroom Door Christmas set from last year for the reindeer. Then stamped a few stars in VersaMark and put Perfect Pearls on them to make a pretty shimmer and rubbed a little bit of gold metallic rub-ons on the reindeer! It's funny how I just summed a few hours work up into just a few sentences... if it was that quick and easy in real life it would get boring.

Medicine Man in Print

I am a bit late posting this because Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft Vol 15 No 2 has been on sale for a little while now but I thought I would let you know anyway. Medicine Man is in it! I made these cards about this time last year and they were the second set of cards that I ever had accepted for publication! I think they just took a while choosing an issue to put them in!

These are my three cards:

Fairy Friends!

Fairy Friends is the brand new release stamp set from Pink Cat Studio and it is being released today! There is a whopping 15 stamps in this set and what's more, I can post up to four of these sets for only $1.65!

This stamp set is so adorably cute so jump on over to Stampin' Stuff to pick one up!