Stampin' Sandi

Not another reindeer ... no really it's not!!

2010-12-22T15:16:00.000+08:00

I know it seems as though all of my recent Christmas cards feature the gorgeous 'Dasher' but that's not quite true. Here is one I made using the Christmas Tree stamp from 'Snow Swirled' and more of the pretty gems I'm so fond of. I made various versions of this card by changing the cardstock colour, ribbon colour and treatment and the greeting stamped at the top.

The tree was much like the Santa faces I mass produced earlier ... I put them together whilst sitting with my family in front of the TV. I found an essential piece of equipment was my fine craft tweezers, without them the gems would have been impossible to place correctly.

Night of Navy Dasher

2010-12-22T11:43:00.001+08:00

As you can see I LOVE my 'Dasher' stamp. I think it is a very versatile stamp which can be dressed up to elegance or made bright and fun depending on the colour treatment. This little guy was done in 'Night of Navy' with silver, Basic Grey and Whisper White.

I blinged this one even more than the previous one by using bright blue gems on the background as well as the crystal gems on Dasher.

This is the kind of card I would have made for my Dad if he was still with us. Elegant but masculine ... and to me it shouts "I love you".

Elegant Christmas

2010-12-22T11:05:00.004+08:00

Well here it is ... the gift & card combo I am so proud of. I hand delivered it to my beautiful neighbour on Monday evening and she loved it as much as I do.

For the card I have combined my favourite Stampin' Up! Christmas stamp "Dasher" with one of my all time favourite SU! colours 'Elegant Eggplant', added some silver by way of Encore ink and a piece of ribbon (ooops not SU!) and a few pretty crystal gems in Dasher's antlers. The neutrals I used are Whisper White and Basic Grey.

As an afterthought I turned Dasher into Rudolph by placing a half pearl on his nose ....

I love to put my heart & soul into creating gifts/cards for my friends & family. And if I can't make time to create something personal & unique for them, even something as simple as a matching card & ribbon giftwrap then that tells me something ... and probably them as well.

I hope you like this one as much as I do, thanks for stopping by xo

Dasher ... my favourite Christmas stamp this year.

2010-12-19T19:39:00.000+08:00

Hey how about this ... two posts in one night? Well I do have a lot of catching up to do! I have neglected my blog for far too long.

This little beauty is a card I made in a series of similar style. More elegant than the Santa face cards I mass produced ... and almost as fiddly. "Dasher" is my favourite Christmas stamp this year and is available as a single stamp in the 2010-2011 Stampin' Up! ideas Book & Catalogue. This one is done in Rich Razzleberry on an Old Olive base. What you may not be able to see from the photo are the clear crystal gems embedded in his antlers. They sparkle beautifully and add a little extra class I think.

I do have a few variations of this style to photograph and post, including a sweet gift wrap with matching card combination I made for my beautiful next door neighbour Lorraine. I will be giving it to her tomorrow and then I will be free to blog it!

I hope you are all getting well and truly ready for your Christmas festivities, putting the final touches on cards & gifts so that you can relax and enjoy the big day.

Thanks for stopping by, love to hear what you think of my creations.

Sandi xo

Cute Santa cards

2010-12-19T19:23:00.000+08:00

Well Christmas is almost upon us and I have finally finished shopping and posting out cards so it's time to update my blog and start wrapping gifts!! The poor Christmas tree is looking decidedly lonely with only 2 presents wrapped and peeking out from under it's highly decorated branches.

The first card I'd like to share with you is a style I mass produced with variations in cardstock colour, patterned paper, ribbon & buttons. They all had the little Santa face at the top - the part which took the longest to put together. I made the faces over the course of a few nights sitting in front of the TV with the family. Needless to say I don't remember what was on the box ... I was totally engrossed in my craft!!!

I hope you like it.

Stay tuned for more posts in the next few days, I have some lovely gift wrap / matching card combinations to share with you as well as some more elegant Christmas card designs.

Enjoy and thanks for stopping by.

Sandi xo

The Summer Mini is here!

2010-12-02T12:03:00.000+08:00

Well as if we aren't already busy enough with Christmas parties, Christmas shopping and end of school year concerts ... now we have the new Stampin' Up! Summer Mini catalogue to drool over!!

There are some super gorgeous offerings in the mini again ... a great excuse to hold a workshop and earn some lovely freebies. Contact me anytime to book your January workshop or place an order.

Check out the December Frenzy specials while you're at it ... links to both are on my side bar.

Happy Stampin' everyone!!

Sandi xo

Just Add Bling ... and Pink - Just Add Ink #38

2010-10-10T19:21:00.001+08:00

With the Cancer Council's national Pink Ribbon Day coming up on October 25th the ladies at Just Add Ink have set a beautiful challenge to help raise awareness about breast cancer.

This weeks challenge is based around all things feminine, beautiful and proud! Just add bling and pink!!

Well as you can imagine I didn't struggle too long with this challenge. My goodness I was like a kid in a candy store ...

Unfortunately the glitter doesn't show up very well in a photo ... the rose red flower is covered in a light sprinkling of Dazzling Diamonds. There is also a very subtle scattering of bling on the base card which doesn't show up either. The pink gems in the bottom right corner were added to ensure the bling didn't go totally unnoticed :)

I'm not sure if this enlargement of some of the detail shows it better, but here it is anyway:

Thanks for stopping by, I'd love you to leave me a comment if you have the time or have an opinion you'd like to share. It's always lovely to hear from new friends ... and old ones.

Happy stampin'!

Sandi xo

Owl Candy

2010-10-09T10:50:00.000+08:00

I just stumbled across this great opportunity to win yourself some great blog candy and wanted to share it with you. The Stampin' Up! Owl punch is on my wishlist already but look at what else Amanda has up for grabs!

Check out her Stamp In Style blog and I'm sure you will jump at the opportunity to follow Amanda's work, even without this wonderful tempter she has on offer. She is an amazingly talented papercrafter.

Enjoy ... and good luck xo

Just Add Ink #36 - My Pink Butterflies Card

2010-09-29T10:45:00.000+08:00

Ok so I'm running late again, but at least this time I have a good reason ... and I'm submitting my challenge card with hours to spare rather than just minutes!!!

The reason?? Well hubby and son are off on adventures together for just over a week and that meant a late night at the airport last night. And for the last 4 days we have been organising, squeezing in last minute shopping, visiting, and getting psyched up for the trip. It didn't leave much time for crafting :(

I did sneak on to check out the latest challenge at Just Add Ink last Friday and it has been calling out to me ever since. A beautiful sketch challenge with butterflies!!! Yes I know, the 2 focal object don't need to be butterflies ... but me pass up an opportunity to use butterflies? I think not.

So I let loose my girlie girl mojo and here is what I came up with:

I didn't stray far from the sketch except that I used the beautiful 'Elegant Bouquet' Textured Impressions folder to emboss the very vanilla card rather than using DSP. It doesn't show up well in the photo but it's actually very pretty in a simple way. I also broke out my new Embosslits 'Beautiful Wings' folder for the first time - I love it!! How gorgeous are those butterflies ... and so easy!!! Here's a close up of the embossing detail as well as the ribbon:

I'm not sure why, but I seldom get my Big Shot out for Just Add Ink challenges ... I may have to make more of an effort in the future as I do love using it.

Before I forget, here is the sketch the ladies at Just Add Ink gave us. I'm moving the challenge image to the end of my blog posts from now on as I have been having some 'technical issues' getting the thumbnail I want when I link in from other applications.

A gorgeous sketch, I hope you like my take on it.

Thanks for visiting ... happy stampin' xox

Sometimes it all comes together ...

2010-09-21T21:09:00.001+08:00

Last week the ladies at Just Add Ink set a colour challenge and I was really excited when I saw the colours. I had a great time creating my Just Add Ink #34 entry. Although it was the colours which inspired me initially, I ended up falling in love with the design I came up with. So once I had completed and blogged my Just Add Ink card I couldn't help playing with the colours to come up with this bolder version to cheer up a very special friend who needed a bit of a lift.

Then I had to make a special card for a very crafty friend of mine celebrating a milestone birthday. But because she is so good at making cards and has such a knack with colours I really felt the pressure. So I stuck with the same design but changed the flowers from stamped and punched to lace ... just for a little bit of extra pizzaz ...

I've had a lot of fun with the Baroque Motifs stamp set but now it's time to break out some of the other beautiful stamps I've been dying to try out. Stay tuned ...

Thanks for visiting.

Sandi xo

Just Add Ink #35

2010-09-21T19:47:00.001+08:00

This afternoon after school I was planning a quiet hour or two in my craft room while my son watched one of his beloved Harry Potter movies. However life rarely runs to plan. At short notice I was asked to pick up a girlfriend's two cherubs too and have them here for a couple of hours. No problem of course - I'm always happy to help when I can BUT the noise of three "cherubs" running around the house was quite a distraction.

As a result my submission for the Just Add Ink weekly challenge of 'Just Add Sympathy' isn't quite what I had originally planned but it was all I could manage under the cicumstances. At this stage I am just relieved to have a finished card.

So here it is:

I hope you like it and thanks for visiting.

Sandi xo

Just Add Ink #34

2010-09-12T17:19:00.000+08:00

This week I was really excited when I saw the challenge set by the ladies at Just Add Ink - a colour challenge that suits me very well. So Saffron is one of my all time favourite Stampin' Up! colours and of course I always love to use pink ... any shade of pink will do.

This is the colour combination they set for us:

And here is what I did with it:

I have been looking for the right opportunity to break out this beautiful motif stamp and decided this was it. And although I'm still coming to grips with Crumb Cake (previously called Kraft), I will admit that I am getting more comfortable with it each time I use it. Although the finished result is not quite what I had in mind when I started I am actually quite happy with it and I hope you like it.

Sandi xo

Just Add Ink #33

2010-09-08T21:22:00.000+08:00

This week the ladies at Just Add Ink have set a very challenging project ... the sketch below:

I struggled for inspiration until I turned my head to the side and looked at the sketch from a different angle. Then suddenly the idea of creating a flower for the greeting and using the ribbon and bow component to form the stem & leaves popped into my head. The next challenge was choosing colours to bring my idea to life. Totally out of character I chose to use blue, green & brown rather than my comfort zone colours of pink & purple. Here's the result:

I guess I still like the idea but feel a little disappointed with the final result. Perhaps I would be happier if the flower was a vibrant pink or purple :)

Just Add Ink #31

2010-08-25T20:28:00.000+08:00

I'm back in action this week after missing last week's challenge at Just Add Ink due to a severe lack of inspiration. With my son's birthday fast approaching I had to find my mojo in a hurry or resort to (please excuse my bad language) buying a card. Me buy a card?? No way! So I played around with a few different colours and stamps until I managed to reconnect with my style. And in the process I also found inspiration for this week's colour challenge at Just Add Ink.

I was very tempted to use these colours to make a Christmas card but resisted and instead went for an occasions card which may come in handy a lot sooner than Christmas. This is the end result ...

I think my photography is really improving and for a change the colours have come out pretty true.

Now I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my pre-order from the new Stampin' Up! 2010-2011 Ideas Book & Catalogue so I will have some lovely new goodies to play with and demonstrate :)

Thanks for visiting, come back soon for more blog posts with a sneak peak at some of the new SU! products available from September 1st.

Sandi xo

Just Add Ink #29

2010-08-09T19:52:00.000+08:00

This week's challenge from the girls over at Just Add Ink is a colour challenge, and I love the colour combination they've come up with. And not just because it includes one of my very favourite colours (Rose Red) either. I think these colours are just gorgeous together. And when I saw them I felt an overwhelming urge to use ribbon ... BIG ribbon ...

Here are the colours:

And this is what I did with them:

I think the floral spray stamp from the Thoughts & Prayers stamp set lends itself perfectly to inking with markers in multiple colours ... and looking through the other submissions at Just Add Ink this week I see I'm not the only one to think so.

Just Add Ink #28

2010-08-04T20:07:00.000+08:00

This week the design team at Just Add Ink have thrown a double challenge at us. They have given us a classic colour combination to use in a card for a man ...

Well it just so happens that I am terrible at making masculine looking cards ... and my husband recently wanted some help in making a card for his eldest son ... so here is the result.

What isn't clear from the photo is that the kraft squares are mounted on stampin' dimensionals to raise them above the chocolate chip spiral squares for extra interest. I'm quite proud of the joint effort considering I can't do masculine cards and this is maybe the 3rd or 4th card hubby has ever attempted ...

Just Add Ink #27

2010-07-28T20:22:00.002+08:00

This week's challenge over at Just Add Ink is a sketch challenge ...

I made my card for this challenge for a very special friend who needs a lot of love and cheering up right now. She loves purple (one of the many things we have in common) so I chose Opulent Orchid as the base colour, one of my very favourite (and discontinued might I add) purples.

Best friends listen for what you don't say ....

Just Add Ink #26

2010-07-21T20:10:00.000+08:00

This week's challenge over at Just Add Ink is to "Just Add Embossing" and as I was just dying to try out my Manhattan Flower embossing folder I came up with this card.

After I ran my very vanilla card through the Big Shot with the Manhattan Flowers embossing folder I water coloured the flowers using aqua painters and stamping pastels. Because the flowers are quite busy I decided less was more for the finishing touches on the card. A simple sentiment and a few half pearls from the pretties kit.

I admit to being rather chuffed with myself for managing to blog two weeks in a row after a 12 week absence. Thanks for visiting, see you next week xo

Just Add Ink #25 second entry

2010-07-14T20:09:00.002+08:00

I decided to pull out all stops for my return to Just Add Ink challenges and the wonderful world of blogging. Here is my second card, this time a thankyou card I made for an inspirational girlfriend who always manages to be by my side in my hour of need.

The colours for the challenge are:

I had to keep the card very simple as it is only gift card sized and there's not a lot of space for anything busy or fussy.

Still struggling with Soft Suede ... practise, practise, practise!!

Just Add Ink #25

2010-07-14T18:56:00.002+08:00

As you can see it's been many weeks since my last blog entry. What can I say? I've wanted to get back to what I love best but life and the universe conspired to keep me away. But no longer ... I am back this week and this is my first entry for Just Add Ink challenge #25 which is a colour challenge. I love these colours ... well to be more specific I love 3 of the colours ... Soft Suede is still outside my comfort zone but not as far outside as it once was.

Unfortunately a very dear friend recently lost a close family member and I wanted to make her a special sympathy card. As she is a very talented scrapbooker and card maker I felt a bit under pressure to create something worthy ... and this is what I came up with.

What doesn't show up very well in the photo is the subtle wash of Elegant Eggplant pastel around and under the sentiment. The stamps I used are not Stampin' Up! but all the card stock & inks/pastels are.

I hope this first blog post in 3 months marks my return to regular weekly offerings.

Until next week .. Happy Stampin' !!

Sandi xo

Just Add Ink #13 colour challenge.

2010-04-20T21:22:00.003+08:00

It's been a few weeks since I blogged I know, I've also missed a couple of challenges at Just Add Ink but this week I am back. And this week is another colour challenge which are for me always very challenging!

Unfortunately of late I have needed a few sympathy cards so I made another one but this time using Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip and Barely Banana. I added stamped images in White Craft Ink to lighten up the Chocolate Chip base card.

I was a bit concerned with the greeting after I tried to remove the hard straight edges by tearing around it. It looked a bit ... well torn. So I softened the edges into an antique parchment look by dusting them with Chocolate Chip pastel on a sponge dauber.

Once I saw the finished card I was actually quite thrilled with the way the greeting worked in with the rest of the design. Even though it didn't really end up as I had planned at the start I am actually proud of using Kiwi Kiss which I usually avoid as I do most shades of green. Not bad for this pink and purple girl :)

I hope you like it.

Just Add Ink #10 a colour challenge.

2010-03-30T12:41:00.001+08:00

This week's challenge at Just Add Ink is a colour challenge.

These are the colours set for us to use ...

I wasn't exactly confident with these colours ... Earth Elements are not my strong colour family and kraft is one I haven't used before. So that meant stepping fully outside my comfort zone and this is what I came up with ... eventually!!

Because of the soft earthy colours I decided to add Very Vanilla as a neutral to stamp the greeting on and also in the ribbon. I'm not sure why the colours haven't photographed so nicely today ... the kraft is looking a little on the yellow side ... so you may need a little imagination to match it to the colour combination set by the ladies at Just Add Ink.

No more birthdays until after Easter please!!!

2010-03-28T09:39:00.004+08:00

What a crazy week it's been for birthdays ... I have been busy, busy, busy making cards and gift boxes and now with a week left before Easter I will be flat out making baskets and pouches for chocolate treats.

But before the next round of craziness begins I thought I would share a few of my favourite designs from the past week. Last week's Just Add Ink challenge was the card I made for my lovely upline Sarak Klass (see my previous post). I loved the colour combination so much that I used the same colours but in different amounts for my beautiful niece Caitlyn who turned 14 on Wednesday.

Yes MORE Rich Razzleberry ... I just can't resist it. I really had no choice but to use it for Caitie as she loves purples just as much as I do.

Inside the card I created a little pouch to hold her Dymocks gift card ... she is also a booklover like me. I'd call her a mini version of me except she is way taller than I am and as slender as a reed ... very unlike me ;)

I'm pleased to say that she loves her card as much as I do!

The second card I want to share with you was a huge challenge for me. I have never found it easy doing cards for men or boys ... certainly not boys over the age of 4. And looking through my Stampin' Up! stamps and embellishments I realised I really haven't catered for more masculine creations at all. I will attempt to remedy this next time I place an order for myself.

Well I scratched my head for a while over how to design for a 7 year old boy who wants to be a scientist and has a great interest in space too. I ended up downloading some public domain pictures from NASA, printed them on matt photo paper and created this card. I did manage to incorporate one SU! stamp and punch and some crystal effects on the greeting :)

I'm not sure how successful I was with this one but it was a lot of fun to make. The photo doesn't really show off the metallic "teal" coloured matting behind each photo, in reality it is much more vibrant. And the greeting is also bolder than it looks in Taken With Teal ink.

The card matched the theme of his gift too so all in all I'm not too unhappy with the result.

I have a couple of other projects still to blog, but I might have to hang on to them in case I have a totally unproductive week some time.

Enjoy!!

Just Add Ink challenge #9

2010-03-22T18:07:00.005+08:00

This week's challenge at Just Add Ink is a sketch challenge.

This is the sketch we were given to inspire us.

This week is a crazy week for me with 5 birthdays ... 4 of which fall today!! So I decided to combine this week's challenge with making a birthday card for Sarah Klass. It was Sarah who introduced me to the wonderful world of Stampin' Up! and continues to encourage and inspire me in her uniquely Sarah fashion. I just hope she has seen it on her Facebook page by now as I would really like her to be the first to see it ;)

So here it is ...

Happy Birthday Sarah! Thank you for infusing such energy into everyone and everything you touch. xox

Just Add Ink challenge #8 - Just Add Easter

2010-03-14T15:19:00.000+08:00

This week the girls at Just Add Ink have given us almost open slather with the Just Add Easter challenge. So since I'm really not good at Easter designs - it just doesn't strike a chord with me - I decided to swipe the design for this cute little Easter basket from Nicole McMurtrie on the design team and make it my own by adding my new favourite Stampin' Up! colour ... Rich Razzleberry (available from 1 April 2010).

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this colour. When I received my advance copy of the new Autumn/Winter Mini catalogue I was pretty excited. But when I saw the new In Colours and the new Designer Series Papers I was in absolute raptures ... now I even dream in Rich Razzleberry ... stay tuned for more samples from my Razzleberry Heaven :)

Just Add Ink challenge #7

2010-03-09T20:42:00.000+08:00

This week the ladies at Just Add Ink have set us a colour challenge. The colours are bright and funky and to be honest a couple of them are definitely outside my comfort zone:

So Saffron and Pink Passion were never going to cause me much trouble but Tempting Turquoise was going to be tricky and Green Galore .... well that one had me shaking in my boots!!!

Anyway it also happened to be my sister's birthday this week and as she loves blue and yellow together I decided to make her a birthday card and submit it as my entry for the challenge. But being as busy and as disorganised as I am at the moment - of course I didn't have it made on time - so on her birthday she received a text message with a snapshot of her card attached ...

I was particularly pleased with the "pretties" flowers which I tinted with Green Galore ink and a wet paintbrush ...

Happy Stampin' All xx

Just Add Ink challenge #6

2010-02-28T15:30:00.006+08:00

Well this is it - I have finally completed a Just Add Ink challenge with time to spare. So this week I will be officially participating for the first time. Not that I haven't made the effort in the past but somehow I keep missing the deadlines :)

This week's challenge is a sketch challenge and you can find all the details by clicking on this Just Add Ink link that I've just been taught how to create (thanks Danielle).

I had originally decided to make a Mother's Day card, but part way through it morphed into something else. I was trying to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit too so I have tried using colours that don't necessarily come easily to me but I mixed them in with my beloved pink... so here it is:

Having finally made a deadline I am hoping to make the Just Add Ink challenges a regular part of my week. This will be so much easier now that I have officially dropped back to 2 days a week in the office ... yes you read it correctly ... just 2 days a week. So now I can dedicate a whole day to blogging, creating and running my business.

Now I'm off to play with all the lovely pink craft supplies that arrived in the post this week.

Happy Stampin' all.

Third post in three weeks - not too bad :)

2010-02-18T16:25:00.000+08:00

Well so far so good, I can proudly say I am meeting my initial blog a week target. When I see how things pan out at work I may be able to re-evaluate and maybe step up the pace. I would like to say I'm almost a day a week closer to getting out of the I.T. industry for good :)

This week's project is a variation on a project I did on team day ... an A4 frame for a photo using Stampin' Up! Petal Pizzaz stamps and Bold Brights card and ink. As I don't have any pretty little girls to frame in it I have left it blank for now ...

Happy Stampin' ... enjoy!!

School's back tomorrow ...

2010-01-31T18:14:00.005+08:00

Well the school holidays are all but over. After a weekend of virtually no craft due to school preparations I am well and truly ready to return to some kind of routine. After 8 weeks of playing Ben10, Transformers, Justice League and Clone Wars I am so ready to immerse myself in coloured papers, inks, ribbons and other creative media.
Over the last few weeks I have been working on a different kind of project ... a bead curtain for my craft room. I have been searching the bead shops and internet for just the right sparkly glass beads to create the strings which will separate my craft haven from the rest of the house. I hit a slight snag today ... the little silver hooks won't go into the curtain rod ... my technical advisor assures me the solution is simple ... stay tuned.
So I was wondering what to post here tonight and decided that I would share the card I made for a good friend's 40th late last year. It's bold, kind of funky & vibrant - like her ... I love the Kaleidoscope DSP from Stampin' Up! that inspired the colour combination. I hope you like it.
Enjoy!

Here goes ... my first blog ever ...

2010-01-28T14:35:00.000+08:00

Well here goes girls (& guys) ... I am going to attempt the wonderful world of blogging. For those of you who have been asking me to start a blog I hope it doesn't disappoint. I make no promises as to how often I will manage to post but I will attempt to put all my new projects here before I update them to my website. Eventually I will get my old projects up here too - but that may take me a while to achieve.

So what should I put in my first blog? Well here are the cards I made for the first ever "Just Add Ink" challenge ... but I missed the deadline for entering ... let me know what you think. And if you haven't been over to "Just Add Ink" for a sticky beak then you are missing out on some great designs. Enjoy!