Pinch and a Punch for the First Day of the Month…

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Plus the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming… aaahhhh, the first day of Spring. That was until the clouds blew in, the breeze became gusty, and the air… generally cold. Do you ever get the feeling real life and one’s perception are two TOTALLY different things?

On saying this though that I must confess this morning was beautiful which worked brilliantly for Miss Seven’s and Master Nine’s Book Week celebrations on the oval. They had a hoot all dressed up – one as a witch, the other as the Hunchback of Notra Dame’s skeleton, and I as Big Red – Little Red Riding Hood’s big sister. See, she was the one who should have been looking after Grandma when the wolf ate her but instead had just stepped outside to “chat” to the woodsman about how big his axe was!

Another big event today was the official launch of the 2010-2011 Idea Book and Catalogue – how exciting! No more secrets, no more narrative – you can see it all for yourselves! Whilst you are waiting for your own copy of the new catalogue, click on the picture of it just to the right to scroll through the pages… as I’ve said before, it’s beautiful.

Now, don’t forget, I have the new catalogues here for $10, or if you’d like one for nothing, simply book a workshop and not only will you receive a complimentary catalogue, but you will have the opportunity to earn free stamp sets and loads of free merchandise – too easy!

One of my “new” favourite stamp sets is Artistic Etchings – besides the wonderful Eiffel Tower, there is a fabulous circle stamp that I’ve used quite a bit already for backgrounds, along with a key, crown, and others. Both the key and crown I’ve embossed in gold before cutting them out and adhering to the card. I’ve also added small adhesive pearls to  both of these.

 My dear friend ROC showed me this following  little darling a couple of weeks ago. Something so very useful with the silly season looming so quickly upon us – a Gift Card Wallet!

 

 Open it up and you have this… how clever is this, the divided sections within is simply an envelope that’s been halved!

Don’t you just love it!

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


Getting closer every day…

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You just know what kind of day you’re going to have when you have 4 Tim Tam Crunches and a can of Coke for breakfast… there was nothing I could do it, I just HAD to have them.

In my defense though I shall say by 8am I had already done three loads of washing – of those dried and folded two, made 4 purses with 4 matching notelets for each, tidied the studio, found Master Nine’s missing school shirt; as well as the usual watering and feeding of the children and getting them to school almost on time complete with lunches.

School lunches just do my head in ’cause as soon as you think you have it all sorted… tastes change and nothing you put in those darn little bags is like anymore… aahhhhh!!! Although I am looking forward to tomorrow as it’s a sausage sizzle so there is half the pressure off me. Then for the rest of the week we have leftover pizza from Tight Wad Tuesday… a sliver of silver lining for me!

Anyways, before I get back into it let’s bid a Fond Farewell to Colour #27 – Lovely Lilac. This is another of those colours I would never have declared as a favourite but I did tend to use it a lot in layering as it goes so beautifully with the Elegant Eggplant. On saying that then I guess I’d best order some before it’s “off the shelves“.

 Just over 24 hours left of retiring products so please don’t delay if you’d like me to order anything – call me now!

Joke of the day:

What did the lion say when he saw two rabbits on a skateboard?
Meals on Wheels!

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


The House was as Quiet as a Mouse…

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Well, it would have been if Pish Posh hadn’t been lapping the house for what seemed like hours and hours!

I couldn’t work out why she was zooming around the  house like a mad cat until this morning when she began it again. This time though I was in the bedroom  so could see where this cat was running too – she was running into the children’s bedrooms. Both children had sleep-overs at friend’s houses last night so obviously Pish Posh was missing them – what a little sweetheart she is!

I, on the other-hand, missed the children but did accompish a lot in their absence. Although I did have my doubts intially as to how much I was going to get completed as it was 10.30 before I arrived home yesterday morning after dropping the children at school then doing some errands and I still had to clean the house. JUST clean the house… HA… as if!

Yep… it was 6.30 before I finished getting the house into order last night and headed down to the Studio. It was my own fault of course for putting off a lot of those little chores “until tomorrow” combined with a week’s worth of washing and folding. I’ll say never again will I do this but I think we both know that as housework isn’t my strongest card… it WILL happen again!

Anyways, once in the Studio knowing I was free of interruptions I was able to play. I experimented with one basic design using three different colours. The first was with Really Rust – Fond Farewell #18. For the hearts I simply embossed the card-stock with the Perfect Polka Dot embossing folder then used the Full Heart – Extra Large punch. I used the large stamp from Baroque Motifs on the Really Rust background in Really Rust and used the Weathered background in Versamark on the Ivory overlay. Not that  you can see it in this picture no matter how much you squint your eyes.

The next card was a big surprise as I used the Bordering Blue – Fond Farewell Colour #19. This colour I’ve always regarded as more as a dirty blue so have had little interest in it… until today that is. Embossing the card-stock changed this colour completely, it became almost silver in appearance and once the card was constructed the colour as you can see is more like Almost Amethyst, very nice!

The colour in the next card has scanned as if it’s pink rather then it’s actual colour, Ruby Red – Fond Farewell to Colour #20. For this card as you can see I still used the six punched hearts in two groups of three and the scalloped oval with sentiment. Instead of using any layers though I simply stamped the background with En Francois in portrait instead the landscape format I had in the other two.

Same basic design – three very different outcomes don’t you think!

Joke of the Day:

What do you get when you cross a cow with a duck?
Milk and quackers!

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


But wait… we have one more day!

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Oh glory, I was so accustomed to Stampin’ Up! and their  deal of the week starting on a Wednesday and finishing on Tuesday night that I automatically wrote that last night without realising that next Wednesday is the last day of June and as such will be the closing day for deal of the week instead of the usual Tuesday. Works MUCH better for me so hope it does for you also!!!

Today is bit of a blur as I had both children home with nasty coughs, fortunately though yesterday was a  different case with the “Card Crusaders” I meet with fortnightly. We were all set the challenge of demonstrating a card using any technique we liked. As if my head wasn’t hurting enough this  last week, I then had to decide on one technique amongst the hundreds out there… yeah right!

Actually it wasn’t such a hard decision as whenever I think of techniques I always think of embossing, and heat embossing at that. Anything to do with heat embossing is my idea of a good time so I went with the resist embossing technique as I’ve seen some truly inspiring work of late which I wanted to have a bit of an Inkee Fiddling with myself.

The small difference between simply heat embossing and the resist embossing technique is that you stamp your chosen image with Versamark for heat embossing with your preferred embossing powder. In this instance I’ve chosen clear embossing powder for this card as I wanted the background image I had stamped to show through the embossing.  

BUT…  Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive were then sponged over the image although I’ve not done this very heavily this time as once again I wanted the stamped background image just peaking through. Once sponged the image had a quick wipe over with a paper towel to remove any ink on the embossed image.

On assembling the card it was obvious that even though the kraft cardstock worked for this card it simply wasn’t enough so with the Versamark I stamped that beautiful vines stamp found in the Vintage Vogue set all over the background. By using the Versamark it  gives the image that wonderful watermark appearance.

Of course I did have something very different in mind when I started but it simply wasn’t coming together so next week I may attempt that one again… maybe!

 

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


Flower Power…

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Of all the photos I could of been posting, I’ve only just realised tonight that I’ve never posted the cards that were made in my “Technique Tuesday/Thursday” class back in the first week of May. Not sure how THAT happened but given how full speed life is at present, I guess it’s understandable in some ways. This is card #1… To You From Me


There was a slight change in my class in that instead of utilising two different punches – both the scallop and the five-petal punch – to make four different flower, only the one punch was used to make three flowers. After careful consideration I felt it better to put the time into making three fabulous flowers rather then racing the clock to tick the box on four flowers. This is card #2… For You

Don’t you just love the how the Medium Jewelry Tag from the Autumn-Winter Mini Catalogue creates the delightful white picket fence?! I prefer calling this punch the “tiny tag” punch as this is what it is to me so if I ever mention a tiny tag punch I’m sure this is the one I’ll be referring to! It’s actually a white background but the bad lighting has it looking very similar to the Pale Plum I used on card #1.

And lucky last, card #3… Thank You for your Friendship

Unfortunately taking this photo at night has done NOTHING for the colours I’ve chosen. The background is Taken with Teal with the DSP being Urban Garden. After circling this pack for so long, now if anyone looked at my cards I’ve been making of late they would think this is the only pack of DSP I have!

And of course I couldn’t help myself by using the Big Shot’s Leaf Sizzlit with all three cards. What can I say – I love it – much like my alphabet sizzlet set but more of that another time! But as you can see, just the one punch and three beautiful flowers. I can’t decide which I like the best as they are all so effective. Miss Seven loves the rolled rose flower (card #2), whilst Master Eight leaned towards the scrunched flower (card #3). Guess that leaves me with card #1!!!

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x

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