Dynamic Duos #50

Here are the colours for this week’s Dynamic Duos challenge……

This week all the cards from the Design Team are birthday cards, a special celebration for Design Team member Vicki Burdick, whose birthday was a few days ago.  So, Happy Birthday Vicki, I hope you had a fabulous day!

My card uses the Elements of Style stamp set, firstly the swirl is stamped tone on tone onto the base layer.  The beautiful flower image has been stamped using black Stazon ink, and then I have coloured inside the black outline with markers directly onto the Very Vanilla cardstock.  I coloured the leaves in Sahara Sand, the flowers were coloured with Blushing Bride first and then with Calypso Coral over the top to add some depth and shading.  The image and the the Crumb Cake layer have both been cut using the Ovals Collection Framelits Dies, and of course I had to add some paper piercing! The sentiment is an individual stamp called Beautiful Birthday (Page 44 of the Annual Catalogue).

Sadly, this is my last challenge with Dynamic Duos Design Team, it has been a fantastic six months and I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I have spent working with this amazing group of ladies.  They are all so incredibly talented, creative and inspirational.  I am sure I will be playing along with the next lot of colour challenges and the new Design Team, so keep an eye out for the announcement of who will be taking over for the next round.
And I hope you will continue to check in here and see what I have been doing, it has been wonderful to get all of the lovely comments and I do enjoy sharing my creations with you.
Happy stamping.
Chris

Dynamic Duos #49

More fun again this week from Dynamic Duos, with an unusual colour combination and the option of making a masculine card with Basic Black and Basic Grey.

I enjoyed this challenge, but then I also enjoy making masculine cards!
Nothing too exciting about my card, I have used the Woodgrain Embossing folder for the black background, the Serene Silhouettes stamp set, lots of paper piercing (of course!) and the the patterned paper comes from the Twitterpated DSP.
Lots of gorgeous inspiration from the Design Team can be seen here.
Hope you are having a crafty weekend. Happy Stamping!
Chris

More Triple Time Stamping!

I thought I would show you the cards we made last week in the Triple Time Stamping classes, I really enjoyed making these as did those who attended.  So pay attention if you missed out, you could have come along and made these too!! 🙂

We started off making a Christmas card……  yes, Christmas… it’s never too early to start your collection of lovely handmade Christmas cards.

This one uses the stamp set Lovely as a Tree, and the sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Sentiments.  It could, of course be a masculine birthday card rather than a Christmas card, but in any case the idea was to introduce the Triple Stamping technique with just two layers of stamped cardstock to see how it all goes together.

The second card uses the gorgeous Swallowtail stamp, combined with Papillon Potpourri, and the colours Pool Party and Island Indigo. 

And last but not least, a masculine card which uses The Open Sea stamp set, and in the background some patterned paper from the Sunshine and Sprinkles Designer Series Papers, and the Cloudy Day embossing folder.

This is such a great technique and creates gorgeous and unusual cards.  I have a couple more that I have made as samples that I will share with you soon.
Happy stamping!
Chris

 

Dynamic Duos # 48

Ok I will admit, I struggled with this week’s Dynamic Duos colours…. a lot!

The first card I made started with some ideas and then didn’t turn out anything like I had intended it to.  The lovely ladies on the Design Team told me they liked it, but I am really unhappy with how it turned out.  However… I promised them I would post it here so that you can see both the cards I made with these colours.  So without further ado……..

I have used some of the Delicate Details Lace tape over strips of Pumpkin Pie cardstock, along with a doily, and the circle image is from Serene Silhouettes stamp set.  There are also layers of the Creped Filter Papers which have been punched out and then sponged with Bashful Blue ink.

The second card using these colours is a masculine one.  I have seen this idea on Pinterest, but unfortunately the card didn’t have a persons name attached to it so I can’t credit them with the idea.  As per usual though, I have changed it and added a few my own favourite techniques and ideas to it.

Firstly, I have stamped the sentiment from Wacky Wishes, then added the strips of coloured cardstock to the base (I have used some Crumb Cake along with the Bashful Blue and Pumpkin Pie).  I have then stamped in Versamark ink, the seaweed image from By The Tide stamp set, over the cardstock strips.  It is a little harder to see it in the photo than in real life.  The shell image, also from By The Tide, is stamped in Crumb Cake and then cut out by hand. And of course, I had to add some faux stitching!

Please feel free to leave a message and let me know which one you like best, and make sure to check out lots of inspiration from the Design Team.
Happy Stamping!
Chris

A New Challenge!

I love it when I find a new challenge, especially when it is one that really opens up the possibilities and gets the creative juices flowing.  Well done to Lesley and Jackie for coming up with this idea, and thanks for all the inspiration.

And here is my first Fusion card.

I have added my own challenge to this as well, I really want to get good at making Clean and Simple cards.  I do find it difficult leaving lots of white space and not using heaps of embellishments, ribbons, lace etc but it will be good for me to learn something new!
It just so happens that this week’s CAS-ual Fridays challenge is to use Chevron and Flowers, so I will enter my card in that challenge as well.


The colours are just gorgeous, aren’t they?  Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango and Melon Mambo.  The yellow Chevron paper is from the Parker’s Patterns DSP, and the greeting from the gorgeous Kindness Matters stamp set.  The flowers look like they have dark blobs in the middle of them, but actually it is just a dob of silver Dazzling Details – the shiny stuff just didn’t show up in the photo.  Have to have a little bit of bling!
Hope your day is bright and sunny!
Happy stamping!
Chris

Dynamic Duos #47

A gorgeous colour combination again this week, Pool Party and Cherry Cobbler.

What can I say… other than, yum, yum, yum! 🙂  Love these colours!

The photo doesn’t really do justice to the card, the embellishment consists of one of the Soda Pop Tops, which has been flattened by running it through the Big Shot, and then I have layered it with one of the Vintage Faceted Buttons. I have also used the Cloudy Day Embossing Folder, some of the gorgeous More Amore Specialty papers, the Hearts a Flutter stamp set and matching Framelits Dies and the Papillon Potpourri stamp set and matching punch.
Check out what the rest of the Design Team have come up with for these colours here, and I look forward to seeing what you have made too.
Happy stamping!
Chris

Triple Time Stamping

Just a quick post to let you know that there are still a few seats available for the Triple Time Stamping Class which is happening next week.  So if you live in the Canberra area and would like to come along, please let me know asap.  Here is one of the cards we will be making:

You can contact me via email or phone, but please let me know asap as these cards require quite a lot of preparation.  More details can be found on my Classes page.
Looking forward to stamping with you soon 🙂
Happy Stamping!
Chris

Dynamic Duos # 46

This week’s Dynamic Duos challenge is to use the colour Primrose Petals and combine it with a colour of your choice.  Well, now that just leaves it too open for me, too many possibilities and ideas……
I decided on combining my favourite colours of all, pink and purple….. so I have added Elegant Eggplant to the Primrose Petals.

My card uses two techniques that I haven’t played with for a long time.  Firstly, the Stained Glass technique, combined with the Tissue Paper technique.


To do this, I have embossed the Swallowtail in white embossing powder onto the smooth side of the Crepe Filter Paper (page 6 Seasonal Catalogue) – if you feel the paper really carefully you will notice that one side is slightly smoother and the other side a little more rough. The Stained Glass technique is usually done onto Vellum, which is much stronger than the crepe paper, so I wasn’t sure how this would turn out.
Then on the back, behind the butterfly image, I have coloured using inks and a blender pen, in the two colours, blending them together.
I embossed an extra butterfly to experiment with, and gave this one to my son.  He coloured the back of the butterfly directly with brightly coloured markers, and that worked really well too, so you could do either of these.  However, it does work best if the colouring is on the back of the embossed image.
I have then wrapped the crepe paper over a piece of Shimmer White cardstock, and stuck it behind the cardstock using glue to keep it in place.  If you are using standard tissue paper for this technique, it is nice to scrunch up the paper to give it more texture, and then smooth it out again, but this crepe paper is a little heavier and I thought it would detract from the image, so I left it flat.
While you can’t see it in the photo, the shimmer of the cardstock does show through the crepe paper.
The lace, seam binding ribbon and gorgeous resin rose, are all from the Artisan Embellishment Kit (page 10 Seasonal Catalogue).

As always, heaps of inspiration from the rest of the Design Team at Dynamic Duos, all using different colours for their creations.

Happy Easter everyone, I do hope you are having a crafty Easter, and spending time with loved ones.
Happy stamping!
Chris

MDS Pages

Yes I have been playing with My Digital Studio, and here is my first scrapbook project.

 

I have kept it fairly simple, and just been experimenting with different elements of MDS.  In reality, I think these pages have only taken about 30 minutes to complete, even with playing around and figuring out how things work.  This program is just fantastic and I can’t wait to learn more about it.
I still love being able to create with real cardstock and ink, however I think MDS will become a great way of journalling more of the day to day things that we do in our lives.

Heaps of other fantastic opportunities happening at the moment with Stampin’ Up!, including this one:
For the next 4 days you can grab the Stampin’ Up! demonstrator starter kit for just $169 and get $294 worth of products! Contact me for more information. Hobby Demonstrators are welcome! 🙂  Make the most of it, and contact me asap.

Happy Stamping!
Chris

MDS is here!!

An exciting day here in Australia, with the official release of MDS – My Digital Studio, in Australia.  And not just that, we also now have online Ordering, which just means you can place your order any time, any day!

My Digital Studio is a fantastic way to create scrapbook pages, cards and so much more, and the best thing about it is the price! Actually, there are a lot of amazing things about this software, it really is brilliant, but you would need to see that for yourself.  And just so that you can do that, you can try it out for 30 days, completely free of charge – just click here and you will be taken straight to the order page.
I have been waiting soooooo long for MDS to arrive here in Australia, and I am really excited about the opportunities it brings.  And yep, I plan to have some samples to show you real soon!

So Online Ordering too…. wow!  So you can now place an order with me, simply by going here, and selecting the products you wish to order.  You can, of course, still order by phoning or emailing me with the details if you prefer to do things the old fashioned way 🙂

So, for now, happy stamping!  But stay tuned for more, coming real soon……
Chris