Happy Birthday Ellie

Australian Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft - Vol. 14 No. 06 on sale 26 December 2008.

One of the great things about High Hopes Rubber Stamps is they are so GENEROUS! They always throw in a couple extra stamps attached to your other ones so its a great little surprise to pick up a stamp and find a freebie attached to it on the corner! Attached to my jungle animals was a little grass stamp which is just adorable when it is repeated and this balloon stamp! I spent an hour watercoloring the grass and then cutting it out then when I went to stick down the elephant, I realised that I only had to watercolour and cut the little bits on the side!! Well I know that for next time! I really need a gray ink pad now but I don't want to put in a whole SU order to get one... that's why he is a Cameo Coral elephant!

Lumpy the Camel

I can't get enough of these jungle animal stamps!! Technically Lumpy isn't a jungle animal but he came in my jungle animal order so I have been grouping him in with them! Watercolouring is so much fun!! This card looks really cool in real life, I put foam tape under the palm tree leaves so they pop up! Thanks Sophia for your fab inspiration... your card was the reason I got these stamps... I loved it so much!!

Stretch!

Isn't he CUTE?! This is Stretch... he is from High Hopes Rubber Stamps and I am HOOKED! I love watercolouring so these stamps are perfect! It's quite hard to work out where to start when watercoloring them for the first time! I had to go look at the SCS gallery to decide on where to begin... thanks to Katharina I had a jumping off point!

Stamping Room Makeover

For my birthday this year I wanted some new shelves in my stamping room. I really needed some space to tidy things up and organise it all a bit better.

We started the reno the day after my birthday and three days later I had a completely different room! We had only planned to take down the old shelves and swap them for different ones but it wasn't that easy! When we took down the other shelves it damaged the wall so badly that we needed to patch them.... then once we did that we realised that we needed to paint them then.... WELLL.... I HATE painting but it was worth it! My room is the second to last to get its makeover and match the rest of the house so now it blends in with the rest of the house.... one room to go!

HERE IT IS! All organised! The only problem is, the shelf that was perfectly positioned under the light to take good photos of my cards has gone and MAN am I struggling to get a good photo now! So, what do you think???

What's Moo?

YAY for High Hopes Rubber Stamps! Man I love their animals! I just can't get enough of them! This is Clarabel & Riley... they are so sweet aren't they? I made this card on the weekend and yesterday I got my order of jungle animals! I will post some more tomorrow.

So Kind

I really couldn't get a good photo of this card today to bring the colours out so you will have to take my word that these colours are just so much nicer in real life! I cased this card from SCEmily from Splitcoast Stampers. Mine is a bit more simple but most of all I just really liked the layout and colours.

Stamps: Priceless & So Swirly
Ink: Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi & VersaMark
Cardstock: Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery & Whisper White
Accessories: Jumbo Wheel & Wheel Guide

Blog Award

Thanks Kim for awarding me a blog award! I am pretty impressed! I should probably give this to someone else now hey!

Jean - Her work is great! I just love it! I met Jean at Convention so it was lovely to put a face to the name!
Susan - because she is oh so far away now!
Kimberley - because she has actually started using her blog now and I can't wait to see more of her work!

Friend

ROAR! How cute is the punch art lion!! I saw the idea by someone on SCS but I can't find them again now... the lion just popped up when I was looking at other cards so I can't remember which category it was under. Man it was fun and I am so happy with the outcome!

Here are the punches I used:

Mane: Scallop Punch
Head: 1" Circle Punch
Face: 3/4" Circles & Large Crop-o-dile Punch
Body: 1 3/8" Circle Punch
Legs: Small Oval Punch
Tail: 1 3/4" Circle Punch & Boho Punch

Stamps: Canvas & One of a Kind
Ink: More Mustard & VersaMark
Cardstock: More Mustard, Close to Cocoa, Wild Wasabi & Whisper White
Accessories: Scallop Punch, Sml Oval Punch, 1" Circle, 1 3/4" Circle, Boho Punch, 3/4" Circle, Large circle from my Crop-o-Dile & Stampin' Write Markers

Sweet

Here is a card using a new set from the Spring Mini Catalgoue (on sale 1 August). The set is called Tart & Tangy and it's so simple but so cute!

Stamps: Tart & Tangy & Polka Dot
Ink: VersaMark & Real Red
Cardstock: Real Red, Garden Green & Whisper White
Accessories: Stampin' Write Markers, Sponge Dauber, Scallop Punch, 1 3/8" Circle Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch and Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon

Mr & Mrs

I just found a photo of this card that I made weeks ago... I think I need to try and remember to blog them straight away! I made this one quickly because we were going to a wedding and I completely forgot we needed a card. I am really happy with it... it was almost a shame I had to give it away. As always though the photo doesn't really do it justice. I sponged over the Tres Chic background with Stampin' Pastels so in real life it varied in shades from pink to purple.

Stamps: Tres Chic, Baroque Motifs & Occassional Greetings

Ink: Perfect Plum & VersaMark

Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Perfect Plum & Pale Plum

Accessories: Vintage Brads, Stampin' Pastels, Oval Punch & Choc Chip Ribbon

Here's my card!

I have been meaning to post a photo of my card in this months Stamping & Papercraft magazine but I just keep forgetting... I remembered this morning so here it is!

Handbag

I finally covered this little wooden handbag today (Kaisercraft) I unwrapped it months ago and then decided it was just too hard! I am really happy with how it turned out... it took me a while to decide on how to decorate it! I don't really have a use for it so I thought I might take it to work and put it in front of the whiteboard to hold the markers... then its something pretty I can look at when I am day-dreaming! What? I didn't say I day-dream at work! NEVER!

Birthday Invitations

It is Matt's birthday on Wednesday and my birthday on Thursday this week so I decided to make some invitations to send to my family to come out for dinner. I got the idea for these from this months Stamping & Papercraft magazine, I used canvas paper to watercolour some flowers and leaves. It is a really nice texture and really easy to watercolour on so it was quite fun!

Anyway, YAY for Hogsbreath! Thats where we are going by the way... we got our free steak vouchers for our birthdays in the mail last week so it wasn't difficult to think of a venue! I am not looking forward to hitting the down-hill run to 30 but it is always fun to have cake! I am sure 25 wont seem too scary once its here... Matt is just focusing on the fact that he will get cheaper insurance... whatever eases the pain I suppose!

The Boys

Meet...THE BOYS! These two are joined at the hip! Bingo (the ringleader) and Herman. Bingo is my dad's dog and Herman was mine. Then I moved out of home and couldn't split them up. They are so human somewhere along the line we stopped calling them their names when referring to the two of them and just called them 'The Boys'. Bingo is about 16 now, he is just a cranky old man... happy old man but extremely judgemental and such a lecturer! Thankfully its just barking so you don't have to actually take in everything he is yelling at you but we know him so well now we can tell exactly what he is complaining about!

Herman is a stresser... he is about 8 or 9 now and he has been gray since he was 1! He worries a lot! He is extremely intelligent and he actively listens to every single thing that's said around him. Where other dogs would go sleep when there are people standing around talking, Herman sits in the circle at attention and watches the face of the talker from person to person listening to everything... he can keep it up for hours! That comes from the fact that when he was young and did something wrong I would lecture him... make him sit at attention in front of me and I would lecture! If he broke concentration I would make him focus and I would start all over again... I kept that up for 10 - 15 minutes then let him go... it doesn't hurt to have a good listener in the family and listening to me talk that long is punishment enough!!

Butterfly

I got the idea for the background of this one from SCS... I stamped it with VersaMark and then rubbed Stampin' Pastels all over it. You can't really see it in the photo but the colours vary from So Saffron to darker pinks. I also did the Rock 'n Roll technique on the butterfly.

Stamps: Garden Whimsy & Tres Chic
Ink: Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate & VersaMark
Cardstock: Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate, Apricot Appeal & Whisper White
Accessories: Stampin' Pastels, Pink Wire & Very Vanilla Grosgrain Ribbon

Love Notes

More love notes! It's really because they are just so darn easy to make! You don't have to think so hard about what you are going to do with the rest of the card! Plus they are just a perfect size for Fast & Fun Notes!

Stamps: Fast & Fun Notes & Boho Backgrounds
Ink: Elegant Eggplant, More Mustard, Old Olive, Purely Pomegranate, Stazon & VersaMark
Cardstock: Elegant Eggplant, More Mustard, Old Olive & Watercolour Paper
Accessories: Blender Pen & Sponge Dauber

Fire Friends

Well, I got back from Brisbane late last night after my flight was delayed (WASN'T IMPRESSED!) and today I am exhausted! We have to do a roast for lunch today for friends, go to a wedding at 3 and then tomorrow we have a BBQ for lunch to go to... when does this happen?! I can have nothing on for months.... not a single outing planned then all of a sudden they all pop up in two days after I have just had to spend a couple days defending for myself out in the real world! I really couldn't be bothered!

Well, this card is cute right? I made it last weekend... it took me about 2 hours to watercolour but it was worth it! I love that the beaver, moose and bear are all huddled up one end trying to get away from the skunk! This is a High Hopes Stamp!

Friends for the long haul

At the moment I am trying to use stamps that I haven't used in a while or at all and this is one of them. I got it in my Stampin' Up! starter kit and I have only ever used it a couple times. Until now I have never been able to watercolour it to my standards of what I think a ute should look like... this time I am happy! I am pretty pleased with it this time and as always, it looks much better in person!

Stamps: Loads of Love & Weathered
Ink: Brocade Blue, Tempting Turquoise, Blue Bayou, Stazon & VersaMark
Cardstock: Brocade Blue, River Rock & Watercolour paper
Accessories: Stamp-a-ma-jig, Stampin' Write Markers, Designer Label Punch, Whisper White Grosgrain (sponged with River Rock Classic Ink)

Gardener Bunny

This is the Gardener Bunny from High Hopes Rubber Stamps... MAN I love those animals! I want to order some more soon! They are so fun to watercolour! It is a very plain card but I didn't want to take too much of the focus off the bunny seeing as there is still quite a bit in the picture.

Flower Box

I made this Flower Box on the weekend to hold my many, many bags of little flowers. It is almost full! The box is a Kaisercraft Ribbon storage box but I didn't buy the dividers and after I covered it with paper I also covered the edges of the wood with Mellow Moss Grosgrain ribbon to hide the slots for the ribbon holders a bit. I didn't worry about decorating it too much because this box is going to get a bit of a workout being moved all over my desk and being put on and off the shelf so I didn't want any little bits getting tatty. It is a cute little box... I think it will serve my purpose well!