Monica's birthday card and gift!

My scraps are getting a workout lately! I decided to make a joyfold card with this one. For my followers who are Kaszazz consultants, check out the instructions to that on my workshop- 2H248. I once again used the CB butterfly and double layered it. I really like this effect, so it takes a lot for me to move on. I'll try for the next item. I used My girl papers and sticky bling flourish to outline the square. On the blue square, I stamped the dainty flourish stamp with watermark to create a subtle image. The purple CB piece has had acrylic paint wiped over it to give it a relief look.

The tin I picked up recently at the Picture to page show in Geelong. They had also decorated it with that paper, so naturally I had to have it too! I filled it with choccies and then tied an organdy ribbon around. Voila! Instant gift.

I"ve decided I need to make up some spare gifts, because these sorts of things are what I'm giving out to friends this year for their birthdays. Now if I could just get organized to make cards for family members and actually remember to post them- then perfection would be mine!!!! ( I think that's where the wicked laugh fits in.) Anyway, enjoy and I hope I've inspired you to create today.

Karen's birthday card and gift.

During the week it was Karen's birthday. As usual, I wasn't quite on time with giving her her card and pressie!! With the card, I literally opened up my scrap drawers and pulled out possible colours. She likes green, so that was easy. The card just evolved! I used the cuttlebug to create the texture of the green SB paper (Kaszazz Merry Christmas range), as well as making the butterfly. With that, I just did the green butterfly and then created the white butterfly without the texture and cut it up to create highlights on the wings and body. The piece of white SB essentials card has been bordered using a fiskars punch. Dark brown chalk ink was used for the words and edging and a cute small daisy punch from Kaszazz for the white daisy highlights. I finished it off with some bling from the sticky bling that we sell and some ice stickles.
After having this much fun on the card, I simply had to make the milk cartons!! I know you're all nodding and saying" obviously" ! I'm more than happy to email the templates to you if you drop me a line - they are so cute to make and really easy.
There is a tip when you are working from a template: Cut the template out roughly, use temporary tape to stick it to the paper you want, then cut out , score the lines and remove the template. Easy.
The other way to do it, is to print the template directly onto your paper, wrong side, and then proceed! Too easy.
Anyway, I'm not so skilled on putting the template on my blog, so I'll have to rely on you to email me and I'll send it. I will in the meantime, work on getting my hubby to show me how to do that!! Happy Creating!

My Fur Babies..

I've never done a layout with my pets before, so I was quite happy with this one! My challenge to myself was to use papers from different ranges in Kaszazz. So for this one, working from right to left, in good old arabic fashion, the papers are: merry christmas, ebony and ivory, bella and enchanted. Then I put them onto fawn bazzill. I stamped the Damask image in warm red chalk ink and then inked up our latest flourish stamp with frost white colorbox ink and embossed it in white to make it really stand out.
For the letters, I smooched them in Siren and gold and then sealed them with glossy accents. On the top right side, I used a design adhesive called "french swirl" and then sprinkled the beautiful

ruby slippers glitter over.

The 3 Butterflies were created from CB embossed card that had been spritz with blue. They were then punched out.

I hope you enjoy this layout. Please remember to leave some comments - I really enjoy them!!

Alana's scrapbooking page!!

Alana, my daughter is only 8 years old and she created this by herself! I was so impressed that I asked her if I could share it on my blog - naturally I had to do it immediately! So, after just finishing it, here it is. She used Ooh la la papers for the background and mounted her photos onto Bella papers. She used many different coloured gems (thanks to Sheona!) and did the wording with some discontinued metal letters. I hope this inspires you to let your children create with your scraps- they can be so creative. Well done Alana.

Workshop- A Day in the Park.....

This workshop is created by the talented Jan Barletta from Kaszazz. I , as usual, felt the need to experiement with a different style. I chose to run this workshop at home with a few customers. Once we had completed this, we all agreed , you had to do this one, to really appreciate the fun of it.It opens up your mind to the possiblities of whimsy in your scrapbooking!! Apologies for parts of the stands seen on the pages. If you'd like to try a little whimsy in your scrapbooking, be sure to give me a call and try these pages!!

Nestabilities scallop card

I haven't focused on card making for a while, so here's one!! I decided that I wanted to make use of some of my collection of nestabilities that my sister bought for me. For this card, all, except the button are from Kaszazz. The cardstock is castaway. I used vintage distress ink to shade. I made an embossed image from cuttlebug and then inked it for a distress look. I punched out a daisy and cut a strip from the card. I punched out another daisy from the same cardstock, I just didn't ink it. I love the technique where you create a border around the nestabilities - not sure who to thank for that one! What you do, is , once you've cut your image out, you leave the stencil in, turn it over and using a sponge, ink along the edge of the stencil onto the card stock. Once inked, remove the stencil, and you have a nice border around it. Pretty cool. Once I did this card, I realized that you could do so much with this layout - I"ll have to experiment and see what I else I come up with.

My Soulmate

I made this page a while ago. I think the base paper is from Kaisercraft. I used rubons and ribbon from Kaszazz, vellum words from CM and alphabet stickers from Kaszazz. I love using the proof sheets from photos in a layout. I really love the distressed look of the paper. Of course , if you're wanting to create that look yourself, you can use sandpaper, but a more effective look is using acrylic paint in random dabs and then roughing it up with some scrunched paper. Please note, that I didn't do that here, but it's always fun to create your own backgrounds!

Memories

This was using similar papers to the post before, also at the crop. It is also waiting for some journalling! I enjoyed making a patchwork design, and using my permaball marker to create stitching around the journal box and of course on the quilting blocks. I used our new scallop border punch along the bottom and a sticker from CM. I'm really enjoying putting different patterns together. For that, I'd like to thank Nicole for being an inspiration to me, teaching me to be brave about patterns and colour!

A page with no name!

I went to a crop last night and managed to do some of my own album for a change - about me. The album that I"m working on is my story, my likes and dislikes, my growing years and what I remember (yep, I know what you're thinking, it's gonna be a short album!). The interesting thing about doing this, is memories suddenly pop out of nowhere and it helps you to see just how far you've come.
With this page, I used CM papers. I distressed the edges with a distress tool, I edged with vintage photo distress ink. I punched flowers and used white paint dabber to highlight.I used antique gold embelllishments and a CM word Sticker. I also stamped the journal box, which has yet to be completed!
I'm experimenting with putting various papers together for an eclectic look. Hope you like it.

Birthday Butterfly card

Another one of my make and take cards. For this one, I scored the background piece with even lines and then used Dusty concord distress ink and Broken china distress ink with a blender tool. I then stamped the 'grasses' stamp in Black soot distress ink along the bottom. I stuck down some white grosgrain ribbon along the bottom of the background. On a separate piece of card, I rubbed the blender with the same colours. I then stamped the script stamp with black over it. Out of this card, I punched 3 butterflies and inked the edges in Black soot. I mounted them onto the ribbon and added a rhinestone. I stamped the Happy birthday, cut it out and inked the edges with dusty concord. The Happy Birthday was then mounted on the background piece and the piece was then stuck down onto a base white card.
These Make and take ideas are budget ones , using very little material, and so costing only a small amount for those of you on a budget.