Colour Inspiration # 26 (#8 if you're me!)

I started this project for my
daughter...shhhh it'll be part of
her stocking stuffers although
I doubt it will fit in her stocking.

It's an altered tin using this week's Colour Inspiration colours...
The idea is that this will be
a blessing box where she can
store memories of blessings,
papers with hopes that's she's praying for, etc.

I'm not sure if I'm quite done with the
tin yet, but I am out of time
for this colour inspiration, so I'm
taking a break from this project,
but will likely come back to it:)

I'm hoping to make a little mini album
inside too to remind her about
some of the blessings that are hers:)

I (heart) Club!

So last night was our monthly club night. I'm really enjoying this year's club... Firstly because the women are awesome - so many new fun people to get to know! And secondly, because we're doing techniques every time, and last night we started our technique cards - so each time we'll do a technique card and then a couple of projects with that technique.

Last night's techniques were: rock'n'roll, kissing and twisted kissing! Here's the two projects we made and then the technique card (on the back are the directions and all 3 techniques were used on it). I'm quite smitten with the orange and red flower card:)

And now for 'dear Georgiana'...

...my daughter thought she needed a gratitude journal as well, so I made this one yesterday, still taking inspiration from P&P, but this time Mr. Darcy's young sister - 'dear Georgiana.'

Mr. Darcy's Journal

...or rather, my hubby's! Les needed a gratitude journal too - so carrying on in the theme...Mr. Darcy's journal was born:)

Cinema Saturday #1

It's actually Sunday not Saturday, but I really wanted to participate in this new challenge... Cinema Saturday is new this week and takes it's inspiration from a film. This week it's Pride & Prejudice, so you know I HAD to participate!

This weekend is also Thanksgiving in Canada, and so because of family get togethers and such I haven't had much time to create, but I did steal away a bit of time this afternoon to make my project. In keeping with Thanksgiving, I chose to make a Gratitude Journal instead of a card this week. I plan to try to write five things I'm grateful for down each day between now and Christmas (...and maybe beyond then too:)

I had the soundtrack from the BBC version of P&P playing while I was making my journal. I was thinking of Elizabeth's address to Mr. Darcy toward the end of the story where she tells him of her gratitude for what he did for her and her family. This is just before he proposes again... and just before he turns to her and says 'dearest & loveliest Elizabeth' (the first time he uses her first name might I add!) So this is where I took inspiration. I also thought about the balls and socials, the rich colours in some of the decor in some of the more stately homes, and the beautiful dresses when I was selecting my colours. I know it was the richer women who were dressed in darker colours in this society as opposed to dear Lizzie, but I felt the rich colours captured my gratitude best for this project and there are a few scene's where Elizabeth is dressed in some reddish and brown hues (see example below).

Happy Thanksgiving all!!

Take the Quiz here!

Colour Inspiration #25 (#8 if you're me:)

This week's inspiration colours from Kristina were perfect for a nursery, so I made a baby card, and I dug out my All in the Family stamps and stamp-a-mi-jig:) I also combined this colour inspiration with this week's tutorial on Splitcoast... It's on using the scallop edge punch to make the scallop frame - too fun!


Recipe:
Cardstock: SU so saffron, certainly celery & blue
Patterned Paper: SU DSP in certainly cellery
Stamp: All-in-the-family
Ribbon: Michael's bargain bin in as close to ruby red as possible:)

How 'Bout a Challenge

Kadee had a challenge on her blog this week to "Make a card using Pink, Green, Ribbon & Buttons." So I made a card using pink and green and ribbon and buttons...







This is what I used:
Cardstock - SU pink piroette & SU Always Artichoke
Designer Paper from Basic Grey
Flower/heart stamp from the set Merci; coloured using pretty in pink and always artichoke
Celebrate It sparkle ribbon in Regal Rose
Button from Making Memories laced with linen thread
Ink - Black stazon and SU always artichoke

Ornamental Christmas

So I never did get back to make another card yesterday, but this morning after my hubby left for work and before my daughter got up, I stole away a few moments to play again! And this was the product. I can't take credit for the idea though... I was inspired by Jenn & Aly for the layout and the colour inspiration came from the new SU DP in the Holiday Mini (which I don't have YET, but soon, soon...) My snowflake stamp isn't as ornate as I would like but there's a new snowflake in a set I'm ordering so if I decide to make more of these, I think I can make them even prettier:)

It's World Cardmaking Day!

Yes, there is a holiday for the paper-crafting heart! I'm not able to make it to my friend Nicole's card-making party this afternoon, but I still had to get in the fun somehow, so this morning I've been playing...

This card was actually inspired by this one that I saw on the World Card making Day site. It looks completely different than mine, I know~! I made the tree on this card using two swirl diecuts I cut a while back at my LSS. The patterned paper is from K&Company. The cardstock is SU Regal Rose. I stamped the hearts using the heart from the SU Merci set and then I clear embossed them and cut them out. Who says you can't use pink and hearts on a Christmas card?!!

Hopefully I'll have a chance to make something else yet this morning, but I thought I would provide you with a couple of links for the day:
- Papercraft Magazine has a World Cardmaking Day site!
- Homespun with Heart has instructions on this cute trifold card!
- Thinking Inking has some other great links to sites celebrating World Cardmaking Day - along with some giveaways!

Colour Inspiration #24 (#7 if you're me!)

So after a long day in training, I had to fit in a few minutes to do this week's colour inspiration from Kristina since she's using such great fall colours this week! So here's my take on this week's colours! (It was after dark by the time I got around to doing it it so I apologize that the lighting in the pictures isn't the best.)




Recipe:
DP - Brenda Walton K&Company
Cardstock - all SU - choc chip, tangerine & very vanilla
Ribbon - bargain bin from Michaels
Embossing - clear powder from SU

No time to craft?!

...can you believe it? I've had no time to craft this week! ...and with being in a training course for work today and tomorrow, I don't think there is much crafting in the immediate horizon either.

So I know I've shared this project before - the idea came from Kristina on Two Peas, but here's another one of the Christmas gift card holders that I made...

One Sweet Blog Award

I *love* the word 'sweet'...and I just found out that I received this 'sweet' blog award from Deb at Sharing My Obsession! Deb is pretty sweet herself... When I had just discovered Bellas, it was Deb who sent me a RAK full of them! And it was by admiring her creations that I learned to colour images with shading and dimension. She's definitely a sweet lady, a sweet paper-crafter, a sweet wife & mom and a sweet friend! So everybody, please go and visit her blog and leave her some sweet comments too! Thank you Deb for thinking of me like that! You always make my day with your sweet comments!!

I'm going to pass this award along to a few other sweet bloggers too... I especially like the projects each of these people post and for their responsiveness to questions and their sweet comments too!
- Lyndsay at Stamping with Linz - darling projects!
- Jenn at Stamp Your Heart Out - she posts a new card everyday and sometimes even a tutorial!
- Sarah at Thinking Stamps Again - sweet style!

Simply BLESSED

I made this card for Beate's weekend sketch challenge. I've never participated before so I thought I'd give it a go - plus I wanted to make a Thanksgiving card for my inlaws. The problem though is that I don't have any thanksgiving stamps/greetings.... So I made this one very simply and decided to let the papers speak for themselves:)

Pop up Card

So this week's tutorial at Splitcoast was how to make those pop-up cards that I seem to be seeing everywhere - so you know I was game to give it a try...

Composition Notebook

I've been "told" that it's been too long since my last post?!! :) So, I'm posting this project before I'm totally done. It's a composition notebook, and I'm trying to figure out how to make pockets for the inside. If you have any ideas, please let me know! Thx!!

Here's a link to Angie's tutorial on this one! I love her videos and her friendly southern drawl!!

Edited to add... I think I figured out the pocket thing - I basically cut them a half an inch larger on each side that I'd use to attach them with and then scored them a half an inch from the edges, mitered the edges and folded them in and attached them with sticky strip to the inside flaps of the notebook. I'll try to remember to post a photo later:)

A couple pages of a mini album I'm working on...

..


...it's tiny, but it's coming along... and I just *love* the bella rose paper:)

I've been Tagged

Charith at 'Life's Hard Get a Helmut' tagged me today. Don't you just love the name of her blog?!!

Here are the rules:
1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are my facts:
1. I was born on Father's Day.
2. I love Starbucks!
3. Papercrafts are my creative outlet, my time for me.
4. I want to get more into making altered items.
5. I also want to make my first acrylic album soon.
6. One day I will visit Paris with my hunny!
7. I'm thinking about getting a Big Shot (should I or shouldn't I - I need your advice...)

The Blogger's I've tagged, but only play if you want to:
1. April's Scrappiness
2. Deb - who is 'Sharing her Obsession
3. Kadee
4. Nicole
5. Julie at 'Paper Pleasing Ideas'
6. Shawna
7. Jen at 'Stamp Your Heart Out'

A little something I'm learning...

...and here's a project I made for the someone who's been teaching me:)

Here's a link to a previous project I made with the tutorial.

Christmas Gift Card Holders

I was completely inspired when I saw Kristina's gift card holders, so I had to make a couple and play with my Christmas paper stash. This is definitely a project where the paper can be enough, you know?! Kristina has complete instructions on Two Peas today! Oh, if only I had more time, the things I could play with on Two Peas!! (Sorry, the colours don't coordinate between these two gift cardholders, I was going for a different look with each of them:)

Pacific Point Christmas...

Someone recently said that they didn't really like this blue, so I had to play with it some more to decide. I really liked the liked blue, green & pink card I posted the other day, and here are a couple of Christmas cards I made yesterday when I was white embossing to my heart's content...

Riding Hood Red & Kiwi Kiss Christmas Card

The white embossing powder I ordered came in!! So did my in colors and bella rose paper! So I've been playing with more Christmas card ideas this morning. At this rate, everyone is going to get a different card because I just keep doing different things. I am trying to use simple designs though, so if I decide to make a lot of one I can easily replicate it.

Club #1 - Embossing!

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So Wish List Wednesday started last night. It's the SU club I go to once a month, and this year it's going to be a technique club, and this month's technique was -- wet embossing! We did regular white embossing, we did irredescent background embossing, and we learned two really neat new techniques with embossing...emboss resist (that's how the flower on the blue card was done - the flower was clear embossed and then it was sponged with a darker pink ink to create the lines...) and faux metal (that's how the flower embellishment on the cherish card was made - you emboss the paper twice with silver then stamp the stamp in versamark, emboss the paper once more with silver and then stamp it while it's warm with the stamp and voila!) All in all a fun night - and I learned how to do two things I hadn't done before!!

Also I'm thrilled for Nicole as this is the first year that she has been doing this and she already has 10 people in club! Isn't she awesome!! We drew from a basket to see what month we are each hosting and I picked July - I sure hope everyone isn't gone on vacation then?! lol:)

Colour Inspiration #23 (#6 if you're me)

This week's Colour Inspiration from Kristina was a challenge! Several of the colours weren't colours I work with often so I had much less supply-wise to work with. That being said...I love the little tree stamp I used - it's from Heidi Grace and the picture doesn't do it justice for how cute and folky it looks with its leaves all coloured for fall. I don't think the picture captures the dimension of the card well...someday I'll learn to take a better pic!

Recipe:
Cardstock: SU choc chip & burgundy
DP: Basic Grey & SU
Stamps: Heidi Grace
Flowers: Prima

Prayer Basket

I made this prayer basket tonight as we were getting ready for the fall start-up of our small group. This year it's really on our hearts to add more worship to our group, and learning and fellowship continue to be important, but sometimes we find that in that fellowship we end up spending more time talking about our prayer requests than actually praying for them, so that's where the prayer basket comes in. As we're gathering and sharing about our week's, everyone is encouraged to write any prayer requests down so that when we pray as a group later on nothing gets missed. I plan to change the basket up a bit by season, and I also made this little clipboard so people would have something firm to write their requests on.

Another Scripture box...

This is a scripture box that I made for a friend. I love making these boxes...you get to do something creative with something that means the world to you! This box is quite a bit different than the one I made for myself a few months ago, yet it uses the same formula. The paper is from Basic Grey and I used a lot of hodgepodge hardware on this one too! (Oh, and that's the swirls from Baroque Motifs that I used to stamp on the patterned paper...)

Close to My Heart

I met April at a Happy Hour at JSI, and now I've learned that she's participating in a Fall Kickoff Trade Show Saturday at the Lawson Civic Centre. See here for details and go and check out April's table. April sells Close to my Heart which I didn't know existed until I came upon her blog.

Colour Inspiration #22 (#5 if you're me:)

...say it's only some paper flowers...sailing over a cardstock screen...but it wouldn't be make believe if you believed in me...

I've got the tune to Paper Moon in my head today, can you tell?!

So Kristina's colour inspiration this week was a bit of a challenge for me. I wasn't sure at all about putting the burgundy together with the rose red & regal rose. The bravo burgundy is a browny-red toned burgundy and the rose red and regal rose are very pink-y to me. So I stared at my paper for a while before I actually started creating.

Recipe:
- cardstock - bravo burgundy, whisper white, rose red, regal rose, soft sky
- stamps - SU short & sweet and SU one of a kind
- ink - versamark & bravo burgundy
- boho blossom punch

I also made this little gift bag/box with some K&Co paper that matched the inspiration colours well.