Is it Spring already?

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We couldn’t believe it – in a matter of a week we’d heard of five different couples we knew of who had each been blessed with the birth of a son… and one little girl. It’s been so long since I have touched anything even resembling a baby’s card so talk about getting into a completely different mind space!

And of course, me being me, I couldn’t just go down to the Studio and whip something up… oh no… I had something very specific in mind and when it wouldn’t transpire to – well… let’s just say it slowed things up tremendously. It did however remind me that I had made a card a while back  in celebration of a friend’s first grandson that I never posted and now that I’m looking at it again I see I’ve used a retiring colour so without further ado here ’tis… a Fond Farewell to Colour #13 – Summer Sun!

 

Once again, this card is nothing what I had in mind as I wanted to peg the name onto the string and even had a little jumpsuit cut out for it (an influence from the new catalogue – not long now!)  but it just didn’t look right at all. The blue I’ve used is the Brilliant Blue which is also retiring. Everything on this card is Stampin’ Up! with the exception of the ribbon. I did try the narrow white ribbon from Stampin’ Up! but felt this one in the blue with a little yellow running through it worked much better.

The next card I did was for Harrison’s hairdresser who after four little girls now has his heir! For this card I used another retiring colour so here’s a Fond Farewell to Colour #14 – Only Orange.

I was really happy with this card as I was able to use a few things from my other stash which had me thinking out of the box. What I found amusing was that I’ve never been a great fan of orange but after making this card it really had my creative juices flowing. Consequently I now have depleted my Only Orange supplies. How funny is that?! 

Here is another card the orange inspired for a work colleague of my Darling Hubby’s who recently was blessed with his first son also. With the background on Samuel’s card I simply Versamarked it, whereas on Felix’s card on embossed it in orange.

Here are the other two cards I did – yet another boy’s card for Master Blake, then saving the prettiest for last, Miss Emily’s card. Welcome little people!

I just can’t resist the white picket fence on a baby card can I but I haven’t done it on the next one if you are a little over it! Emily’s card is VERY girlie… and NOTHING like I planned it! I know, I too wish there was a something I could take for that as it would save a LOT of pain let me tell you 😉

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

Joanne x


Fond Farewell to Colour #8 and…

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Happy Birthday Darling Husband of mine!!! And believe me when I say… colour #8 Going Gray has no relevance to my husband… yet 😉 !!!

I love the Going Gray combined with the black card-stock and the Urban Oasis DSP. The stamp set Inspired by Nature has been one of my fav’s from this catty (and I’m pleased to whisper that it’s in the next catty being released in just a few weeks…). On top of this I’ve then used Black Staz-On for the background followed by embossing with red for the flowers.

Everything I used was Stampin’ Up! with the exception of the Making Memories zipper tags which I bought close to five years ago and have been “saving” for something special just like this!

Joke of the Day:

What do you call a robbery in Beijing?
A Chinese takeaway… boom boom!

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


Upsy Daisy…

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this has to be one of my favourite sets from the current Stampin’ Up Idea & Catalogue Book. I have seen this set used in just so many ways and it always looks fabulous! On this card for hubby’s mum, I have done battle with my Taken with Teal ink pad, and yes it was a battle trust me!

Ever since I bought it (from a friend hence no returns…) it’s always looked more like Night of Navy so this week I was taking no prisoners and on more then one piece of scrap paper I just squished and squeezed that ink pad until something resembling Taken with Teal revealed itself. I do love the colour but given it has only a few more months before retirement, I’m not losing any sleep over this dilemma with the ink pad. But I digress, here it is… (and yes, I promise in future when scanning this cards on white backgrounds, to put a dark background behind it for easier viewing!)


Before I digressed, I was going to say that I also used some of the Urban Garden DSP which is what influenced my use of Taken with Teal. What I also tried for the first time was pressing the stamp into the embossing powder once heated instead of embossing the image after stamping with Versamark. This stamp set – SU’s Dreams du Jour – has always appealed to me but has always remained on my wish list.

So imagine my delight whilst visiting a friend yesterday, as she went through her stamping supplies looking for a suitable set to use on a teenagers card, she pulled out this one. I have no shame… me please, me please! Needless to say I was a tad excited when I arrived home yesterday with this set under my arm but knew I had to work on my birdhouse and this card so put it aside. But things happen for a reason don’t they…

I’ve had this Upsy Daisy card sitting to the side all week, simply waiting to be assembled but something wasn’t quite right hence my hesitance in assembling. Where I now have the what looks like the Faux Metal “Dreams” embellishment, I had a metal Happy Birthday on a punched out tag. It looked fine but obviously deep down I knew it wasn’t quite right then as I commenced assembling this morning… voila… I knew exactly what had to be done and this was it! Hope you like it

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

Joanne x

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