First Attempt at The Inklings ATC Swap - Distressed Theme.

Having recently signed on as a Stampin Up demonstrator with the Inklings, I decided to have a go at participating in the Artist Trading Card Swap for this month. The theme set by Carol Dunstan was Distressed.

For my contributions I fiddled around with Tea Staining, Scrunching, Grating, Water Wash Dying, and then finally Stamping. Here are my results: If you'd like to know how I created these techniques, just leave a comment with your email attached and I'll send you the details.

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad!

For once in my life I managed to remember my parents anniversary ahead of time. Don't ask me how many years they have been married, but it's over 40 and less than 50. As usual being the girl of the family it was my job to remind Dad and organise flowers. This year I decided to delegate, so I left it to my brother to order the flowers online. He made a great choice and Mum loved them...even better, they turned up on the correct date.

I made this card very quickly the night before, using a similar layout to my last Pocket Silouettes card. Mum loves these colours together (Barely Banana, Old Olive and Elegant Eggplant).

5 Ingredients Busy Mum Biscuits!!!

One of my other passions in life is baking.....not that I do much of it these days. My hubby banned me from baking him anymore treats due to his expanding waist line (apparently!!!!! Have you seen my lean mean man?)

With Bub number 2 quickly approaching I wanted to be organised for all those baby crazy visitors I'm going to be entertaining in the weeks after Bub 2s arrives. These biscuits come from my friend Andrea. She introduced me to the convenience of these quick little yummy treats during our Easter trip to Teewah. You simply make the mix, roll into logs and then freeze. Ready for unexpected visitors. When you need a quick treat, just defrost and cut into rounds, press with a fork and bake for 10-15 minutes in a 200c oven. So yummy and so quick!!!

Busy Mum Biscuits

500g soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
5 cups of SR Flour
1 packet choc chips (250g)

Cream butter and Sugar. Sift in SR Flour. Add Condensed Milk and Choc Chips.
Stir together. Roll into balls and bake at 200c for 10-15 minutes or roll into logs and cover with Cling Wrap (for freezing and baking later).This mix makes about 5 batches of small biscuits. You don't just have to add choc chips, I added mini M&Ms, white choc chips and other people have also substituted nuts. Once you try these you'll be hooked!!!!

K Werner Colour Inspiration 55

For this Challenge I took the easy option, using a recent layout in the set challenge colours. We were asked to make a creation using this picture as our colour guide: Yet again I used my beloved Cheep Talk stamp set from Stampin Up with the set colour combination. My photo hasn't turned out all that well, so you can't see the faux handstitching around the edge of the card, music notes or the lined note paper on the cream. (I'll see if I can take a better pic today - out in the sunlight). Card Recipe:
Stamp Set - Cheep Talk (Stampin Up)
Paper - Urban Oasis DSP, Really Rust, More Mustard and a Cream Lined Paper (Stampin Up)
Ink - More Mustard, Really Rust and Versa Watermark (Stampin Up)
Ribbon - Tangerine Rango (Stampin Up)
Other - White Gel Pen and Lead Pencil used for hand stitching and music notes.

Mandy Schiller Challenge

Enjoying time...Together !!!

My good stampin buddy Helen, inspired me to do another page for Emerson's VERY THIN scrapbook. During our conversation today she told me how she had finally started a page for her own son's scrapbook using the Challenge Sketch from Mandy Schiller. I thought I'd check it out and see if I could get the page completed while my hubby had his night out at Squash (my night of stamping!!!).

This is what I had to work from:The page I then created was from our Anniversary Weekend at Rainbow Beach, in the beach front park where we got married. We had a fun time playing with Emerson and our sunglasses. It was such a relaxing afternoon together as a family. For this page I used the Hoppy Together Stampin Up Scrapbook Kit along with the Heidi Grace "We are Family" stamp set.

Gina's June Challenge

This month Gina set this sketch as the challenge: I created two very different cards from this sketch.

The first is this very soft card using the torn paper technique explained in the 09/10 Stampin Up catalogue. I also got to use my new pocket silhouettes stamp set, hemp twine and dotty cricut embossing folder. My next card is very retro in style. I really love how this one turned out! For this card I used Stampin Up's design Series Paper and another of my new sets, Cheep Talk. As with most of my cards of late I rounded the corners and used some of my favourite colour, Chocolate Chip. To finish it off I also did some faux stitching and drew in the music notes. Somehow...I think I'll be using this stamp set a lot. It's just too cute!!!

Cyberstamp June - Challenge 3

Babies! Babies! Babies!

At the moment I feel like almost every second female I know is pregnant. 4 out of our 6 Mums at Mums and Bubs group are expecting their second child this year. My 2 bridesmaids are also pregnant and the list just goes on.......... Cyberstamp challenge 3 for June required that we use Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Kraft and Basic Grey in a card. I've used this colour combo in a baby card last month and couldn't help but use it again with the Urban Oasis Design Series Paper from Stampin Up. This time I was also able to use a couple of my new stamp sets, All in the Family and Occassions for All. Expect to see more baby cards over the next few months! Let's hope we get a mixture of boys and girls. At this stage I only know the sex of one of the bubs...A little boy for Jodie from Mums and Bubs Group.

Inklings June Cyberstamp by Fiona

Late last month I signed up as a Stmapin Up demonstrator.One of the many benefits of being a demonstrator is that I get to join in the Inklings Activities. Last night I joined in my first Cyberstamp as part of the Inklings Team. Fiona set us three challenges. Due to technical difficulties (eg. my inexperience with uploading and resizing photos....still can't do it!!!) I only got two of the three challenges completed.

The first challenge was to follow a sketch. I came up with this card for my sister-inlaws birthday. Due to my addiction to the latest DSP, I couldn't help but use it as the basis for this card. I also added some design series brads and some of the incolour ribbon. Next we had to use the purse pattern from the Stampin Up Demonstrator Website. I chose to make a matching purse to go with the card I created. My job is now to find something small to give Lindsey as a gift. The purse is the perfect size for jewellery.I'm hoping to finish the third challenge tomorrow - a colour challenge using Kiwi Kiss, Kraft. Baja Breeze and Basic Grey. I'll keep you posted.