Monthly Archives: August 2013

Aug 31

Sketchbook Saturday Challenge #104

Hello! I’m running behind with commenting on the previous sketch entries, I’m so sorry guys! There’s too much that I’ve been trying to pull off lately; so much to do and so little time! I’ll get to it ASAP, promise 🙂 Thank you everyone for playing along, I’m truly honoured and I can’t wait to check out your cards. In the meantime, how about this little number??


Traditionally, a fabulously talented friend is helping me by sharing a sample card on her blog - it’s Kimberly from Wiener Honeymooners! I already saw a sneak peek of her cards and I know she ROCKED it, so why not pop in to her blog and see what she cooked up!
As for myself, I decided to go clean… and bulky! I die cut an array of leaves, feathers, blooms and whatnot, and bunched them up underneath the dimensional banner. I haven’t done a card with so many die cuts for a long time, this was definitely a lot of fun 🙂


I took the lovely, vivid colours from cQc#204, graphics below:

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If you would like to play along:

- You’re kindly asked to save the sketch image onto your computer first, and if you make a card based on it, please link back to this post.
- Share the link to your creation via the Inlinkz widget below, so that I can come and check it out!
Perks:
- A new sketch is posted every other Saturday night (8pm Australian EST, 6am American EST, and the link widget is open for two weeks. However, you’re welcome to play any time! Just leave a link in the comments section and I’ll pop in to see it.
- I’ll be inviting one person who uses my sketch, to join me for the next one! I’ll be also highlighting the entries that caught my eye, on my Facebook page.
- Every now and then, I will also invite an inky friend to join me as well, for an extra dose of inspiration.



Aug 30

WMS August Pajama Party

This month’s Pajama Party has just started on the Waltzingmouse blog! For those who missed the news in July, it replaced the old blog party (blog waltz) and it’s an exciting event full of great challenges, prizes and more! Not only there are several different challenges you can join (some of them perfect for breaking out your new WMS stamps), but you also have a chance to become the next Guest Designer and join the Team for the next New Release!

Most of the challenges are open for 24 hours, with the exception of the “bedtime story” sketch, which you can join in for a full week. You can see the sketch below, along with a card that I made with it.


Father’s Day is just around the corner for us Aussies (this Sunday), so I took the opportunity to combine the nautical stamps from the latest release, with the sentiments from the Man Of The Hour set, which has several designs made specifically to honour Father’s Day. Yay! Such a perfect combo for me, this card is going to my dad-in-law who loves all things nautical 🙂

The background was done by inking the Pinstripe Background, I also distressed the edges slightly to add some depth. The rope label and the anchor belong to Ocean Bound, the sentiment to Man Of The Hour, and I embossed them all in white. The inside of the card features another wonderful sentiment, which I think suits dad very well, and I added two stamped helms from Ocean Bound.
If you’d like to learn how to make a sailor’s knot like mine, check out Barbara’s awesome tutorial HERE.

Hop on over to the WMS blog, to check out more inspiring sketch samples! I hope you’ll find the time to play along 🙂



Aug 30

Design infused #3

Hi there! I’m bringing you the first post for today - Waltzingmouse Pajama Party launches also in a couple of hours! I could wait until I have a day free of posting to share this… but then again, I couldn’t. LOL! I’m getting very enthusiastic at times, I’m sure you’ve noticed. D’oh!
It’s been a log time since I shared a Design Infused project. A reminder for those who don’t know what the deal is.

My aim is to take a design piece that inspires me (be it a stationery, clothing, packaging, etc.), and translate it into a graphic and simple design, using mainly stamps. I take great joy in letting what I see around the internet, influence my designs, and I’m on a mission to show you how easy it is once you let your imagination flow. I collect the inspiration in a Pinterest board especially created for this purpose, and I pick a piece from the lot for each installment of this feature.

Today’s project evolves around this amazing poster below. It got a fair number of repins so I assumed that you’d be happy for me to feature it. Why, yes I’d love to! Jaw-dropping, fantastic, solid piece of art. And so easy to be made into a stamped project!

{original source}

First up, the mandalas. Easy enough to recreate with one of the doily stamps available on the market. I have a soft spot on doilies so I spent a fair while trying to choose one from the variety I’ve got 🙂 I settled down on the Filigree stamp set from Mama Elephant, for the similar shape. It’s a dainty little thing so I added some more body to it, by filling in some space with a grey Copic marker.
The mustard spots were created by inking the back of a clear circle stamp. Any stamp will do, as soon as the shape of the piece of photopolymer is an ideal circle. The effect achieved by stamping it this way is uneven, and this is exactly what I was aiming for. Lastly, I flicked some spray mist over the entire thing. Notice how I carried the imperfections and speckles through to my cards?


Here’s a close-up of the Copic work. I like how it makes the doilies stand out.

I hope you enjoyed my Design Infused project! See you again soon enough, for a fun, nautical Father’s Day card!


Aug 29

CASE Study Challenge #155

Can you believe it’s our last CASE Study challenge with Jennifer McGuire? Sigh. Not a happy chicken… I wish we had another month! I enjoyed this one so much, even though I was short on time and couldn’t give my CASEs enough attention. Here’s the last inspiration piece:

Chevron-tastic, no? I can’t say enough good things about this layout, I think it rocks. However, CASE’ing it as it is would be redundant so I opted for a more creative approach. I translated the diagonal elements into the scored lines, and the chevron made its way into the speech bubble, which I cut with my silhouette from an old My Mind’s Eye patterned paper (Alphabet Soup collection) and backed with a piece of fuchsia cardstock.


The wood veneer elements are further inspired by Muse challenge #32 (which is Lori Tecler’s card below), you can see that I took a bite from both our challenge and the card below, and made it work for me.

Check out the blogs below for the Design Team’s takes on the challenge, or visit CASE Study to see it all happening in one place. It’s sadly our last challenge with Maureen Plut and Teneale, both need more time to pursue their dreams and I wish them all the best in whatever they do. I’m missing them already! 🙁

Jennifer McGuire - August Muse
Kimberly Wiener - August Guest Designer
Amy Wanford
Andrea Ewen
Clare Buswell
Debby Hughes
Jean Martin
Jeanne Jachna
Maureen Merritt
Maureen Plut
Silke Ledlow
Tasnim Ahmed
Teneale Williams

I also wanted to give you a heads up, that I’m on the Paper Crafter’s Library again today! I’m showing you how to make the most of a stamp set with matching dies, such as Papertrey Ink’s Lovely Layers which I used on my cards. Hop on over to the Paper Crafter’s Library, to see the full article. See you there! 🙂


Aug 27

Monday Mood Board #19

Hi there! I’m popping in with a quick card, inspired by Monday Mood Board #19 combined with Fusion #16. Totally YUMMY colours on both which got me all excited to ink up stuff, with a super cute sketch to boot. Add some rocking stamps and there’s your recipe for a fun evening 🙂


Aug 25

PTI August Blog Hop & Stamp-A-Faire

OK, so this evening has extended WAY too far, and the PTI gals are to blame, for they concocted both Stamp-A-Faire and the August Blog Hop at the same time… Heck, I wasn’t even planning to join but one curious look at Nichole’s website and I was lost to the world 🙂 It’s crazy late and I’ve still this post to write, so I better hurry before it dawns, lol

The opening “breakfast bake & take” was my primary target as I seriously dig those colour combos and sketches. I chose two 🙂 The card below, utilizes this sketch + colour duo:


I didn’t stop at that, and made another card based on the following:


I thought it would be fun to “sugar coat” the roses and enter the Sweet Sugar Coated Embellishments challenge as well. Once I stamped the blooms, I used a glue pad to stamp the mid layer again, exactly in the same place, and applied ultra fine glitter over it. Btw, I’m not ashamed that every second card with PTI stamps that I churn out these days, would feature the Life Is Sweet set… lol, this stuff is absolutely fantastic!! Although tonight more than ever, I was sad that the high postage costs prevent me from acquiring more PTI loveliness… I’m getting ultra jealous when I see folks enjoying them 😀

After I was finished with these two, I decided to quickly make a card with one of the Blog Hop combos. I came up with this quickie in a matter of minutes:

Sadly, I just could not pass this one as well…. eeep! So gorgeous. Sadly, because I decided to play crazy artsy and experimented a lot with it.
The result? A teal sunflower with Flower Soft cenSo there you have it, folks. I really wanted to elaborate on my designs a bit more, but you’ve got to excuse meter and a garnish of maidenhair ferns. This would NOT work in real life, lol! What do you think, does it look funny?

So there you have it, folks! I had in plans to elaborate a bit more on these cards but you’ve got to forgive me, I should try and catch some sleep as well 🙂 In case of any questions, feel free to leave them in a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Cheers!

No one like you card


Life is sweet card


Dare to be fabulous card


Time card


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