These cards got the thumbs down...

...from Hubby. He thought they were too busy and he wasn't overly fond of the colours (yes, I did ask for his opinion) and he could be right, but I'm going to blog them anyway, because I can ;-).










The colours I have used for these cards are: Riding Hood Red, Pumpkin Pie, Bashful Blue, So Saffron and Whisper White. The Designer Series paper is from the Washington Apple pack and the stamps are from Stampin' Up!'s Nursery Necessities and Party Hearty stamp sets. I have also used the new eyelet border punch and the Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon.

Also, I wanted to say a big thank you for all the lovely comments about the cards in my last post...the Inspired by Nature Emerging Colour/Emboss Resist cards. I made up another card using the same theme/colours, because I had extra stuff cut out and lying around (left overs from the workshop). I have not used any embossing on this one, instead, I have just stamped the daisies in Close to Cocoa ink, directly onto the En Francais background, which is in Riding Hood Red:


It is windy and cold here in Canberra today, so over lunch my mind started wandering...I was thinking of places I'd like to visit today. So, if you had a magic carpet that could take you absolutely anywhere (I'm talking about the magic carpets that can go into outer space, and do time travel too)...where would you go today? I would revisit the Mont St. Michel, and I'd take the kids too, I think they'd enjoy it:


Mont St. Michel, France

Hope you are well.
Have a lovely weekend,
Sam.

Inspired by Pam...

This is the second card that we made at my Emerging Colour/Emboss Resist class on the weekend:


...and this is the decorated inside of the card, and the envelope...


This card was inspired by one demonstrated by Pam Morgan at the Stampin' Up! Australia Convention, that was recently held in Canberra.

The ingredients for my card are (all available from Stampin' Up!):

Cardstock: Close to Cocoa, Very Vanilla and Riding Hood Red
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red and Close to Cocoa
Stamps: Inspired by Nature, En Francais and Sincere Salutations
Accessories: Versamark, Clear emboss powder, heat tool, brayer, Dress Up Ribbon Originals, Linen Thread, SNAIL adhesive, Dimensionals and Glue Dots.

This card is a variation of the one shown above:


Instead of using the En Francais stamp in the background, I have brayered Pink Pirouette and Ridging Hood Red to give a gradation of colour from Very Vanilla through Pink Pirouette, down to Riding Hood Red behind the clear embossed daisies.

...and another www.allposters.com pic for the day:


Tapis de Marrakech
I LOVE Yann Arthus-Bertrand's work...we have his huge coffee table book 'Earth from the Air' here, and the smaller 366 days book. His photographs are amazing!

:-)
Sam.

PS. Wishing I hadn't used Pink Pirouette in the background of the photos, but am too late for dinner already to bother changing it now...sorry!

A funny thing happened...

...I'm sitting here watching Babe - Pig in the City with the kids, and they've just played the line: 'men in suits, men with pale faces and soul-less eyes could only come from one place...the bank'...and I'm just about falling off the couch in hysteria at this...seriously, I know how the Hoggetts feel! My apologies if you work in the banking industry, my apologies and commiserations ;-).

You see, we've had some 'issues' with our fine, upstanding, institution of late too. They are one of the big four, we'll leave it at that. In the last 3 months they have compulsorily changed our credit card rewards program, thereby causing us to loose $500 worth of credit that we had saved, and for which we had to fight tooth and nail to get back. THEN they informed me they'd lost our title deeds, actually, they never admitted they'd lost them, they were claiming they'd never received them and I was busy preparing photocopies of the Oz Post Registered Post documents (from two years ago) to prove otherwise, when they finally found them in some filing cabinet...where they should not have been..apparently! And NOW, they've cancelled our credit card account, and started a new one, which they are claiming we asked them to do...which we didn't! This last little ol' manoeuvre now means that we have to alert all the direct debtors that we have a new account number before they start cutting off our internet, telephone and childcare to name a few!!

Do I love my bank? NO! Do they care? NO!! Do I have a choice?...It is unlikely, unless someone out there knows of a reliable mattress or futon they could put me in contact with. SIGH! Thanks for listening to my rantings. I'll get back on topic now...

I held a Stamping class at my place on the weekend, and we learn't the Emerging Colour technique (which in this particular case could also be described as Emboss Resist....the card resisting ink staining where it has been embossed, and the colours of the DSP emerging from underneath the clear embossed areas). I had a lot of fun, and I hope the girls did too!

This is one of the cards we made (the girls could choose which version they made):




List of Ingredients (all from Stampin' Up!):

Cardstock: Night of Navy, Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Basic Gray
Ink: Night of Navy and Baja Breeze
Stamps: Nursery Necessities, Nursery Letters Jumbo Wheel
Accessories: Urban Garden Designer Series Paper, Vintage Brads, Kiwi Kiss Satin Ribbon, Basic Gray Taffeta Ribbon, Scallop Edge Punch, Brayer, Stampin' Sponges, Versamark, clear emboss powder, heat tool, Mini Glue Dots, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive and sticky strip.

As you can see, in this version of the technique we have stamped in versamark onto Designer Series Paper and then clear embossed it, and brayered or sponged Classic ink over the top, to allow the DSP pattern to emerge. We also made another card, but I'll show that to you another day.

I'm going to leave you with this lovely image from www.allposters.com:


Lake Moraine

:-)
Sam.

PS. Thanks so much for all the lovely comments about my bracelets. Your sweet words always make me feel so good! You guys are the best!!