INKYART

More Beautiful Butterflies

Are you sick and tired of the new Everyday  Enchantment Sale-a-Bration papers yet?  I whipped this card up at the same time as my Valentine's card from Tuesday - it was so quick and easy to make two cards at the same time.

This one was for a lovely friend Kay, I've become very efficient at making the cards on time, just not so efficient at remembering to post them, so I am hoping it has arrived now, albeit a little late.  If you love fabric and all things quilty you should check out Kay's site - fabulous name Shocking Hocking.

Happy Saturday

Love Nikki

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Every Day Enchantment DSP

If you haven't already noticed there is a new DSP being offered for Sale-a-Bration this year and it is B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. It is my most favouritist (yes I am having that as a real word today) of allllllll time.

This is the card I made for my bestest friend's birthday - her birthday is at the begining of January and we only just managed to catch up last week so I had to wait ages and ages before I could show you.

The stamp set is another Sale-a-Bration set - Outlined Occasions.  I love the colours together - Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and Very Vanilla - perfect combination. The butterflies are die cuts from the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die and the brad in the middle is another Sale-a-Bration set - the Everyday Enchantment Ribbon and Brad set.

Did you know you can get a free Sale-a-Bration goodie with every $100 you spend until 31 March?  If you'd like the paper and the embellishments I have a few ladies who are placing orders and sharing the packs - let me know if you want me to team you up with someone - you'll receive 6 sheets of 12 x 12 DSP (one of each piece) and 9.14m of ribbon (4.6m of each of the two colours) and15 matching brads.

Back with more later this week.

Nikki

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Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's day everyone - I hope you are having a lovely day.

I have to confess that I am not 'big' on the whole Valentine's day thing but it does give me an opportunity to make a card for my lovely husband.

I've used the Sale-a-Bration DSP Everyday Enchantment and punched hearts using the Heart to Heart and Small Heart punches (I keep meaning to buy the Full Heart punch - I often reach for it thinking I do actually own it but I don't LOL).  To emphasise their shape I have 'daubed' around the edges of the hearts with Soft Suede ink.

Once I had attached all the little hearts to the Very Vanilla Top Note die cut, I then 'squished' it using the Square Lattice embossing folder.  I then cut around the score lines and added a Cherry Cobbler Top Note die cut to frame it.   A Cherry Cobbler Tulips Frame and some Very Vanilla Seam binding finished it off with a sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set.

Its very girly but is there such a thing as a male valentine's card?  

Happy Valentine's day to you where-ever you are - and yes Sads that includes you mwah

Nikki

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We Love Heart

Another page for Twelve, this time under the heading of Family Story.  My husband has always loved soccer and my son has followed in his footsteps.  

I was meaning to enter this into a challenge but I ran out of time.  The challenge was a valentine theme and I thought it would be good to document our family's love for the Melbourne Heart soccer team.  Olivia and I have been going to AAMI Park to watch the matches with Kieran whilst Paul is away and we've been having fun.  I'm sure Kieran would rather be with his dad but for now he is embracing having a supportive sister and mum very well.

I've used the Big Top Birthday DSP from Stampin' Up! as the red and white stripes were perfect.  I created the title by painting some retired chipboard letters with white craft paint and then I've used the Itty Bitty Bits and Real Red ink to create the little hearts.  I've used a few of these letters before and so had to mix up the capitals and the lowercase, and the 'e' is the number 3 - I love the end result and the fact that I have used up something from my retired stash.

The Twelve colour for Family Stories is another purple - Perfect Plum and I've managed to sneak a little brad onto the layout with the date on it to signify this important part of the course.

I've also used one of the Sale-a-bration stamp sets for the word Love - its Outline Occasions - and the word 'WE' is a rub on from my stash.  

Happy scrapping - pop back in a day or two for a One Little Word update.

Nikki

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Sale-A-Bration Begins - FREE Stamps Anyone?

Yes the most exciting time is here - Sale-A-Bration.  Click on the logo above to see the exclusive stamps, papers and embellishments being offered this year.

My personal favourite (so far LOL) are the lovely papers, I've used them to make a few cards and a couple of scrapbooking pages - the colours are gorgeous.

So how do you get your hands on some freebies?

CUSTOMERS - Spend $100 and choose one of the 6 Sale-A-Bration items for free.  Spend $200 and receive two Sale-A-Bration items - you receive a free item for every $100 spent.

HOSTESSES - host a workshop and earn lots of free goodies. 

JOIN - become a demonstrator.  The kits is on special $249 plus you get to add another stamp from the main catalogue onto your order for free (any value).

Call or email if you'd like to place an order, host a workshop or are thinking about joining up as a demonstrator - 0428 254 952.

Happy Australia Day.

Nikki

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Festive Friday Challenge # 1

There's a new weekly challenge site created by Nicole Darendorf called Festive Challenges.  Its the unorganised card maker's dream challenge site ... make a festive card every week of the year.  How cool is that!  Usually these are Christmas cards and occasionally other festivities will be included too .... and this being January of course the first festivity is Valentines Day in February.

Now two of the ladies on the team are great interstate Stampin' Up! buddies - the brilliant Tina Gillespie (she's just won two challenges this past few weeks go and check out her creations) and the lovely and very talented Kathryn Mangledorf - who is celebrating an important birthday this month.  These girls are lovely and although we only get to meet up at Convention we get to chat to each other through a stamping forum.

I loved the little hearts on Madonna Dunn and Tina Gillespie's cards and I have been dying to use the new Saleabration papers and ribbons so although I haven't used the traditional colours for Valentines I still love it.

Here's a close up of those cute little hearts.  The stamp set is also a Saleabration set - Outlined Occasions.

Thanks girls for the inspiration, and I wish you all the best with your new challenge site - I hope to be playing along every week.

Saleabration starts next week - I'll be posting brochures to whet your appetite - let me know if you want one.

Happy Stampin'

Nikki

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Blog Hopping with a Sketch!

Another blog hop, this time a group of us have got together and we each have the same sketch .... wonder what we will all come up with?

You may have arrived from the wonderful Amy Buchanan's site or you may be starting here - you know the drill .... its a hop so grab a cuppa and jump on board to be inspired by one very talent bunch of lovely ladies .... a reminder of the sketch:

And my contribution to the hop - a scrapbooking page of my lovely mother-in-law.  We 'think' Pauline is about 18 years old,(she's in her late 70s now and I can tell you that because she doesn't read my blog so I am safe LOL),  she looks so lovely, almost majestic, it is my most favourite photo of her.

I've used the soon to be gone Sale-a-bration set Bliss - the colours I chose were Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Cake Crumb and Cherry Cobbler.

I created the background by stamping the flourish in Cake Crumb, then the butterfly in Cherry Cobbler.  To get the faded image I stamped off onto scrap paper five times before I stamped the images onto my cardstock.  I then used the Spritzer tool with a Soft Suede marker to  add more texture and some sponging around the edges.

The patterned paper is from the neutrals paper pack - this I have wet a little with water and rolled the edges around a kebab skewer ... just wanted to roll the edges a little.  This paper was also lightly sponged and spritzed here and there.  

The paper in the middle is a piece of the soon to retire Speciality cardstock - love this stuff and haven't used or shown nearly enough of it .... its so cool, here I have again sponged and spritzed.

Another retiring product (sniff sniff) is the lovely lace which I have embellished with little adhesive pearls and a floral fusion flower.  I cut these using the Big Shot, and then scrunched them up so that I could separate the layers of cardstock to make some vintage-y embellishments.

Finally a close up of the photo - this is a photo of the original which hangs in Paul's mother's hallway - everytime we visit she reminds me that a long time ago some of her son's friends thought it was a picture of the queen - I love the story and I hope one day to hear it again ... and once I have the dates I'll document it to go with this page so that my children and their children can see what a beautiful grandmother / great grandmother they have.

Right time to hop along to the lovely Di Dunk - she is sure to have something that will inspire all of us.

Pop back next week for the final examples using the fabulous free Sale-a-bration sets together with the final few days of the Summer Mini goodies.

Til then

Happy Stampin!

Nikki

x

MIA and Faux Silk

Sorry - yes it is true there is a lot of dust settled in here .... been MIA for over a week .... where have I been?  Nowhere special ... just here .... but now that Paul is away it is taking some time to adjust to the new routine - oh and I've broken the washing machine so I have washer woman duties to add to my list of tasks ... but it will be fixed soon!

I've managed to make a few things (in between the normal day job, being a mum and now a stand in dad ... I even cut the grass this week, pruned the roses and helped my neighbour by mowing her nature strip too) .... so posting will return to the usual frequency I promise ....  I am sure that I will soon get into the new routines and be back to normal :)

So what have I made?  Well an old and trusted technique - a real workshop wow ... Faux Silk.  The lovely Sue Madex reminded me of this lovely card and here is my version.

With Sale-a-bration almost over I am giving my favourite stamp set Bliss a good work out this week.

Here's a close up - its so easy ... just stamp your images onto white tissue paper, screw it up into a ball, unravel and adhere to a piece of white cardstock. Easy and looks good every time.

Back in a day or two with a special person's birthday card, and a team blog hop on Saturday.  But for now I will leave you with a snapshot of our daily chats on Skype .... that's my husband who is currently in Orchard Hills in New South Wales on the big screen and the kids and I huddled around the computer in our kitchen on the little insert screen - its so cool being able to Skype, means even the dogs get to say hi every day :)

Happy stampin and see you Friday!

Nikki

x

It's A Sale-A-Bration Blog Hop

Yes Sale-A-Bration time is here and a few of us have got together to celebrate with a little blog hop.

You may have arrived here from the lovely Ros Davidson's site or you may just be starting here ... but however you have found this page it's okay - you can follow the links and see all of the creations.

I make no apologies for using my most favourite technique - I love brayering.  Here I have used three of the four sets that are available FREE if you spend $100 or more or host a workshop with more than $600 in sales .... can you guess which ones?

The colours are Poppy Parade, So Saffron, Very Vanilla and Basic Black and this is a card we made at a recent workshop for a make and take.

The lovely lace is of course from the Summer Mini - sadly this will end on 31 March - no more lace after that :(

And here is a  'stepped up' version of the same card.  This time I have used a sponge to emphasise the sun's rays as well as a brayer and some lovely pearls for the butterflies.  This card is heading its way to a lovely friend and fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator who celebrate's her birthday on Monday.

So if you'd like to make the same card at your workshop give me a call now to book (0428 254 952) and I am offering a little blog candy today too .... 

Name all three Sale-a-Bration sets used to make these cards and I'll pick a name out of the hat to receive the 'thanks' card - I'll send it with an envelope for you to use next time you want to say thank you to someone special.

So off you hop to a lovely friend of mine Christine Blain - she is sure to have something lovely to show you.

Thanks for hopping and see you next week for more inspiration.

Happy stampin!

Nikki

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Inkspirations Colour Challenge #56

Another challenge, I like challenges!  This time the Inkspirations Colour Challenge.

My new male stamp set - Extreme Surf with Extreme Elements.  I punched the stars and used the Tombow glue to stick them into place before I ran the cardstock through the Bigshot Waffle folder - seems to squish (that's a technical crafty term LOL) the stars into the background .... works well I think.

The sentiment is from the new Sale-a-brations set ... yes the one that 'should be used' with the scallop square punch ... I stamped the image, punched out the sentiment using the star punch and then 'filled in' the unstamped bits by touching them up with the ink which was left on the stamp ... now I wonder ... did I explain that okay - does that makes sense?

Hope you like the card and that you will find time to take part in a challenge or two this week.

Happy stamping.

Nikki

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