November Stamp Club

The challenge for this month is Christmas. Having thought about it for a bit I liked the idea of using silver embossing to create decorations and teamed it up with purple for something a bit different to the usual Christmas colours. I even used my sewing machine for the stitching! Have also been wanting to use the new in colour ribbon Looking forward to catching up with the girls tomorrow night and seeing what they have come up with.

Colours: elegant eggplant, silver
Stamps: snow swirled (SU)
Finishing touches: silver embossing powder and concord crush stitched ribbon (SU), peel craft borders, stitching, rhinestones.

Feeling better organised

With all my fab finds of late I have been feeling the need to do some more organising of my supplies. Being able to access what I have easily is such a benefit as I can focus on being creative rather than where I put that embellishment that I am wanting. I love checking out scrapping spaces on line and would love to have that room but there are ways around it when you have a small space.



So I started with my A4 cardstock. I am building up my stamp pads and therefore colours so I went for a sturdy file box. And I am loving it. I have sorted them into colours and each file has a bag for my scraps. The best thing is when I go out to scrap I can take the whole thing with me!


Now for my ribbons. Up till now I have been keeping my ribbons in click clack containers. As my stash has grown they started to overflow and were getting rather squished. I came across this idea in a magazine that I read to have them hanging on the wall. We were given the wall hanging and it worked really well. Now I have all my ribbons where I can see them.


And my best sort yet getting out my sewing machine on my desk. My awesome husband found this book - Sewing on Paper by Catherine Matthews-Scanlon at the library for me on stitching on your projects. If you look here you will see how much I love stitching but have been reduced to faux stitching due to the effort required to get the machine out and I just cant get the same effect with my little one. Looking forward to using it.

A card for sale

I often get asked how do I come up with the cards that I make. Usually it starts with a bit of inspiration. This one is for a lady at my husbands work who is leaving. As his social club buys them from me I like to make sure they are well thought out. It started with wanting to use my new spellbinder nestie Labels 1 and using one of the flower patterns that we made at stamp club. I came up with the idea of a quilted look with the squares and the DSP fitted well. It was then a case of fitting other colours and going through my stash to pull out stamps and embellishments to match. Voila! A bit here and a find there.

Colours: chocolate chip, very vanilla, certainly celery
Stamps: natural beauty (SU), impressions (bella!), grid (Kaiser)
Finishing touches: scallop posy flower, , pearls (kaiser), spellbinder labels 1, pear pizzazz stitched-poly ribbon and vintage brad (SU), faux stitching

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 89

I always love the chance to have a play with the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge at The Sweetest Thing. This one is number 89 which you will find here. So I pulled out the gorgeous papers that I picked up at Spotlights recent 50% off sale. I love these colours and variations of the same at the moment. Patterned papers are great to put together. Because they match you get to play around with the extras a bit more as I did here using my i top tool from Imaginisce to make a matching brad to embellish.

Colours: baja breeze, very vanilla, chocolate chip
Stamps: praire lane (Kaiser), vinatge labels (SU)
Finishing touches: baja breeze striped ribbon (SU), daisy punch, prarie lane papers (kaiser), buttons (basic grey), i top brad maker (imaginisce), faux stitching

October Stamp Club

With the holidays, stamp club crept up a little too quickly. The challenge was to create a card using a stamp that you haven't inked before. I intended to go through my stampn up collection and sort it but it didn't quite happen. This is a birthday card that I made for a super stamper and awesome friend, and as it is a new stamp I guess it kinda counts. It is from the collection that I got recently from Elzybells closing down sale. And now that my second order has arrived and is sorted ready to go I now have many more new stamps to play with.

I got my inspiration from the colours in a house and garden mag that I picked up from the 24 hour booksale in New Plymouth. Great to get you started

Colours: rich razzleberry, crumb cake, whisper white, pretty in pink, almost amethyst
Stamps: stamp n scrap and sentiments (elzybells) and bud basics (SU)
Finishing touches: spellbinders labels 2, upper crest border punch (fiskars), faux stitching, rich razzleberry polka dot ribbon (SU), button, linen thread

A chance to play

While I haven't been scrapping much of late I have been finding lots of great buys that I have been playing with. These pages came together really well once I got into it. I love this paper from Cosmo Cricket. It worked really well with my new typewriter alpha die from Cuttlebug that I got for a bargain as they are retiring. I just love putting together different elements and using the tools that I have. Freestyler, thats me.

I have been checking out Cathy Zielskes work. She has such great design ideas. These layouts were inspired by a page I found in her design archives. Love her work well worth a look.

My new find

My focus of late has been on card making. Seems to be a common thing that I hear. Cards are smaller projects they just seem easier than getting out all the bits to complete pages. So wanting to get back into it I took they chance while away visiting with family to get some done thanks to my fab husband who took the kids out for the day so I could scrap with Mum and my sister. It was a chance to have a go at using the page dividers by We R Memory Keepers that I have discovered that are being used in all sorts of ways. I got mine from Scrappin Patch. When I started scrapbooking it was all about getting my photos out of their box and telling the stories that went with them. Despite all my organising my photos are still in a box on my shelf and and now with digital multiplying rapidly on my computer. So I am in the process of developing a way to remedy this in conjunction with what I have already put together. Stay tuned for more.