Bloom with Hope Bookmarks

I really enjoy making Bookmarks as a quick and easy gift, most people find them useful, even if it is only to use in your Stampin’ Up! catalogue!! 🙂

Yes, of course I have used Blendabilities to colour these flowers from the Bloom with Hope stamp set, and I am finding the more I used them, the quicker I get at the blending and colouring technique.  These bookmarks also use the Scallop Tag Topper punch at the top, which is a little hard to see in the photo.
Here is a closer look at the colouring:

 

I also promised to share some photos of some of our recent adventures.  We spent a day recently at Yarrongabilly Caves, which was a fantastic experience, and we all learnt a heap about caves and how they are formed.  Well worth the trip if you end up in our area.

I took nearly 100 photos that day, so I won’t show you all of them!!

The scenery in the area is also quite spectacular!

 

Following our look through two of the caves, we decided to have a dip in the local thermal pool.  Yes, it is the middle of winter here, and was around 2 degrees at the time (that’s Celcius, of course).  However, the pool is thermal and maintains a temperature of somewhere around 27.  We didn’t stay in for all that long, but it was heaps of fun.

Time for me to do some stamping.  Hope you have a crafty weekend!
Happy stamping!
Chris

Blooom with Hope

I have had such a busy week or so, and I promise that I will share some of what we have been doing, and not just stamping and crafting!  We are just loving our new home and having heaps of fun exploring the area. Some photos will follow soon. 🙂

I made this set of cards as a thank you to a lovely hostess for all her work in getting a group of ladies organised for a morning of stamping recently, and have used the gorgeous new hostess set (available 1st July with the new catalogue) called Bloom with Hope.  And of course I had to have another play with my Blendabilities!
The colours are not great as I was taking the photos at night. The cards are actually made with Whisper White Cardstock!

There are six cards in all, using different images from the stamp set and different colours of Blendabilities.

I have also used some pieces of a new stack of patterned papers called Moonlight DSP – gorgeous combination of colours!

 

We are having a bit of a joke at our house at the moment, my response to doing anything other than stamping involves me speaking like a petulant child and saying “but I want to colour in!”  🙂
Blendabilities are so much fun!  Can’t take life too seriously. 🙂
And last but definitely not least…. Mr Pumpkin Head!  Now, I know it is not Halloween, but it is winter here in Australia and we decided to have fun with a pumpkin and make a Jack o Lantern.  Not bad for our first try. He looks fabulous all lit up at night.

If you live in Cooma, NSW or the surrounding area and would like to find out more about my stamping classes and parties, please feel free to contact me.  Leave a comment, or send me an email and I’ll get back to you.  And yes, I am still doing parties and classes in Canberra as well.

Hope you are having a crafty day!
Happy stamping!
Chris

Hardwood Stamp-a-Stack

Just one of the many things that I love about being a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, is seeing just how much chaos a group of ladies can make with cardboard, ink and punches!  Seeing them starting with pieces of cardstock that make no sense at all, and then seeing it all come together.  It always makes me smile!
So I want to thank all the ladies from the Time Out on Tuesdays group, who definitely made me smile this morning!
This set of cards was a little more difficult that I would usually design for a Stamp-a-Stack, however this particular group of ladies had all done some stamping and cardmaking before, so I thought a bit of a challenge wouldn’t hurt.  I think they all enjoyed themselves.
Anyway, here are the cards they made, all featuring the Hardwood background stamp.  This is a really versatile stamp, and I will definitely being showing you some more cute things to do with this stamp.

They made some pretty girly cards in different colours……..

As you can see, these ones also feature the Petite Petals and Papillon Potpourri stamp sets with their matching punches.

The sentiments come from the Wetlands stamp set…….
which we also used to do some cards with a more masculine flavour.

 

Thanks to all of the lovely ladies in the group, and a special thanks to Heather for organising everything.  I had heaps of fun!
Happy stamping!
Chris

Maritime Birthday

Here is the card I made for a lovely young friend of ours who recently turned 9.  And of course, I wanted to use some of my new goodies, and show you another sneak peek.  Who can resist new Stampin’ Up! goodies….. I know I can’t 🙂

 

 

Isn’t the paper just gorgeous?  I adore this colour combination, it’s wonderful for masculine cards, so bright and cheery.  And the only stamping this one has, is for the sentiment, which is from the Label Love stamp set and matching punch.  The DSP is called Maritime.
Hope you are having a crafty weekend.  And for those of you in Australia, a crafty long weekend! 🙂
Happy stamping!
Chris

Life’s Adventure

Another sneak peek for you today, more new goodies from the new catalogue!
Just couldn’t resist this cute stamp set, called Life’s Adventure, it is a hostess set which contains some gorgeous images that can be coloured.
I wanted to use the sketch from this week’s Mojo Monday challenge, and I have used some of the Moonlight Designer Series Paper Pack as a background, along with the cute little fox image from Life’s Adventure.

I have again used the Blendabilities, this time I have also used them to colour the button.

These products are from the new catalogue, so not available yet (unless you are a demonstrator), so you will have to be patient and wait until the 1st July to get yours! 🙂

Here’s the sketch that the card is based on:

Happy stamping!
Chris

Blendabilities are beautiful!

Blendabilities are the newest and hottest product to arrive from Stampin’ Up!  I love the fact that, as a demonstrator, I get to pre-order lots of goodies from the new catalogue.
Blendabilities are an alcohol based marker, a little like Copics (only better!) and I was so excited when I heard that Stampin’ Up! were bringing these out.
I have had a quick play with a set, and just wanted to share with you my first attempt.  So, here is a bit of sneak peek of some new products that will be available to you soon.

 

The stamp is called Blended Bloom, isn’t it gorgeous?  And it’s fantastic for learning to use the Blendabilities.
Not sure if you would consider this to be Watercolouring, it is like watercolouring only with alcohol based ink.  So I am going to add my card to this week’s challenge with the girls at Just Add Ink.  Hope they don’t mind that I did Alcohol Colouring!
Well, I am off to play with my new toys! 🙂
Happy Stamping!
Chris

 

 

 

Petite Petals

I have a few new goodies to play with and share with you, from the current Occasions catalogue, and my card today uses some of them.  I have used the Petite Petals stamp set and matching punch.

 

The card was inspired by this week’s sketch from Lesley at Always Playing with Paper.
The colour combination is Rich Razzleberry, Pistachio Pudding and Smoky Slate, and I have used some of that gorgeous Silver Baker’s Twine. There is a little bit of background splattering which is from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set, and the sentiment from the Four You stamp set.

Happy stamping!
Chris

I’m back…again….

It is such a long time since I posted, and in between, we moved!  Yep, we have moved from Canberra to a lovely country town in New South Wales called Cooma, in the Snowy Mountains area.  It is just gorgeous here, although a little chilly.  I suspect it may get a whole lot chillier over the coming months 🙂

I haven’t done a lot of crafting over the last month or so, but thought I would share some cards we made a class just before I had to pack away all of my crafty toys in a box!
The class featured the Chalkboard technique and was heaps of fun.  Here is what we made:

This first card uses just the Chalkboard technique….

 

and the second one has been coloured using some watercolour pencils.

Having to keep this short today, but if you have any questions, feel free to email or leave a comment.  And YES, I will be holding classes in Cooma, as well as continuing doing classes for my lovely stamping ladies in Canberra!  Stay tuned for dates.  And now for some box unpacking – particularly my stamps! 🙂

Happy Stamping!
Chris

Shades of Pink and Purple

They just happen to be my favourite colours, so I have combined this week’s Stampin’ Up! Only Challenge of making a project featuring pinks and purples, with a new challenge that I have found on the blog fellow stamper Lesley Croghan at Always Playing with Paper.  Lesley’s Challenge #2 is a sketch, (and I do so enjoy a sketch challenge:) ):

I have used one of the “Best of” sets that are only available for a few more weeks, in this case “Best of Butterflies“.  I think this particular butterfly is just gorgeous.

I have stamped the butterfly in different shades of purple, then layered them from darkest to lightest, and added the pink layer to centre one.  It’s a bit hard to see the layers in the photo so I have taken another one side on.  And I do apologise for the colours in the photo, today has been rather a cloudy, dreary day here, so not much good for taking photos.

A fair bit of “fussy cutting” needed for this card, but I am one of those slightly odd people who find fussy cutting relaxing – a bit like paper piercing and watercolouring! 🙂
Happy stamping!
Chris

Mojo Monday 336

I am enjoying taking part in some different challenges at the moment, it is definitely helping to get the mojo flowing!
This week’s Mojo Monday sketch has inspired a few ideas, so I might just be making a couple of cards for this one.
Here is the sketch:

 

My card uses the lovely Simply Sketched Hostess stamp set, and I have just kept the image really simple so that the shapes in the layout of the card become more of a feature.  I have also used the Needlepoint Border Embossing folder to create the horizontal feature lines, and the Circles Collection Framelits to cut out the two circles.

This is such a versatile sketch, you could do so many things with it.  Why don’t you have a go too? 🙂
Happy stamping!
Chris