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Thursday 30 July 2009

How Bad am I ?

I am such a bad person! My wonderful down line Karen celebrated her birthday last week and I missed the date. Somehow I had got in a muddle and had it down for August. Anyway, I realised my mistake and quickly created a belated birthday card to send off to her.




Yet again I made a grab for the Bloomin' With Beauty stamp set. This is certainly proving to be my favourite. This time I used Summer Sun and More Mustard Ink to colour the flowers. The card base is a white 5" x 5" card with Old Olive card stock and a panel of So Saffron DP. The coloured flower image was placed onto So Saffron card stock which had been paper pierced in each corner. Very Vanilla Grosgrain ribbon finishes it all off nicely.

Supplies:
Stampset: Bloomin' with Beauty
Card: Whisper White, Old Olive, So Saffron
Ink: Summer Sun, More Mustard, Creamy Caramel, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue
Accessories: Crafters Tool Kit, Very Vanilla Grosgrain Ribbon

Awards

For my first award I need to say a big thank you to Maria, who left me this award on her blog. Head on over and give her a visit. Her work is truly inspiring.





My second award, is from Alex. Alex is a member of my Stampin' Up! team. She is such a talented crafter and a truly wonderful person. Pop over to her blog here. You won't be disappointed.



Thank you ladies, I am truly honoured.

Now I am supposed to pass these awards onto others, but I have such difficulty in choosing people. I follow so many talented crafters and their blogs I find it difficult to pick out individuals. So my awards go to all crafters. If you come and visit my blog, please do leave me a message so I can come and visit you and if you wish take an award away with you.

Monday 27 July 2009

Curtain Call Color Challenge Act 1

Another challenge completed. I really loved the colours in this challenge over at Stacey's Stamping Stage, they jumped right out off the screen at me.




I do have a massive confession to make though!... When I grabbed the Not Quite Navy Ink off the stand, it was still wrapped in its cellophane. I have been a demo for 18 months and I bought all the ink pads with my very first order. It was the same with the card stock! SHAME on me....

Anyway here is my creation. Have to admit I loved these colours together and will be trying them out again soon.




Supplies:

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Thank You Kindly
Ink: Night of Navy, Not Quite Navy
Card: Night of Navy, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White
Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Gold Brads

Sunday 26 July 2009

Weekend Sketch Challenge

While looking through the Blogs in my Google reader, this sketch over at Laurie Schmidlin's blog Just Give Me Stamps caught my eye.



I loved this layout and decided to make a card for the challenge.




The first thing you will notice is, It's not Pink LOL..... but I am still using the Bloomin' With Beauty stamp set. I just love this stamp. Love the flowers and all the different colours you can use. This time I used my Blender Pen with Pale Plum ink to colour the flowers. For the flower centres I used Perfect Plum .

Supplies:

Card: Pale Plum, Whisper White, Perfect Plum, Always Artichoke
Stamps: Bloomin' With Beauty, Oval All, Baroque Motifs
Ink: Pale Plum, Bashful Blue, Creamy Caramel, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery
Accessories: Certainly Celery DP, Scallop Oval Punch, Oval Punch

Thanks for stopping by.

Carole x

Friday 17 July 2009

Teachers gifts

I can't believe that today my son walks out of his Junior school for the last time. In September he will be starting his journey through High School. Yesterday there was a prize giving service at the local church for all the leavers. I was able to have a proud mum moment, when Ryan received an award for his help in maintaining the schools laptops and training IT monitors from each of the year classes. I was a bit miffed that I couldn't get anywhere close enough to get a photo of him receiving his prize, but here is one I took yesterday when we got home from school.

I have to admit, I am very proud of him, he has worked so hard, and achieved so much this past year. His SAT'S results where fantastic, all 5B's and he was one of the top achievers in his year. He is turning into a very confident young person and I am sure a lot of this is down to his fantastic teacher he has had in Year 6. He went off to school today armed with presents for her and the TA.





I also made this for the class to give to their teacher.

I found this kit from House of three and using the little squares, the TA got all the children to write a thank you note to the teacher. I then put them all together in a book. Here are a few more photo's.

Hope she likes it. There are some real fun messages hidden in there, I had to smile when I was reading them, while putting the book together. Well here starts SEVEN weeks of school holidays, lots of cricket matches to attend and hopefully some lovely warm weather. (there is a Storm here at the moment, I can hear the Thunder so has better got off this puter!!

Monday 13 July 2009

Stamping at Last !

I expect you have been getting a bit fed up with all these photographs LOL. Well I got in the craft cabin yesterday and managed to make a few things. One of the projects is for my sons teacher so can't share that just yet. But I did create a couple of cards using the Bloomin' with Beauty stamp set.

This is such a great stamp to colour, this one has been coloured in pinks. I decided not to make the card too fancy as the image is so beautiful.

Supplies:
Stamps: Bloomin' with Beauty, Oval All
Card: Regal Rose, Rose Red
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red. Bashful Blue
Accessories: 5/8" Regal Rose Grosgrain Ribbon, Blender Pens

Next card is same image, but coloured in purple's.



Supplies:
Stamps: Bloomin' with Beauty, Oval All
Card: Pale Plum, Perfect Plum
Ink: Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Bashful Blue
Accessories: Oval and Scallop Oval Punches


Couldn't leave without showing you another technique I have learnt in Photoshop. Putting Text on Photographs. The idea is to put text in white areas of your photo's. Boy did I have plenty to choose from.. I have placed a folded paper looking texture behind both these photos then added the text.

This one was taken about a 4 years ago. One of those very ordinary photo's you have of the kids. But now worth looking at.
This second one is of my DS and our friends children in Ireland back in 2005, just before my DS fell over in the water and got soaking wet. His nickname for the rest of the holiday, was SpongeBob LOL. Again the photo was taken far too far away, but adding the text has created it into a worth while picture.

Saturday 11 July 2009

Textures

I have been learning about dressing photographs with textures. Have to admit I am having a ball. Just loving this course. Here is my photo before anything has been done to it.


As you can see it's not a very good photo, typical point and shoot without any thought behind. LOL. But using what I have learnt so far I have transformed it to this...
I expect you are all a bit fed up with photographs... Hoping to do some crafting this weekend and will share some crafting creations soon I promise. :-)

Wednesday 8 July 2009

What did I learn today?

Today's lesson was making giving photo's an antique feel...I found this a bit more difficult today mainly because I couldn't choose a photograph that I felt worked with this technique..Note to myself TAKE MORE PHOTOGRAPHS!!!!!

Anyway here are my photographs after being tweaked...





Here are the photos before having anything done to them. You certainly can see the difference.


Tuesday 7 July 2009

Learning Something New

I have had Photoshop elements software on my PC for a few years now and haven't ever got to grasps with it properly. So I decided to try out a free class Jessica Sprague's Photo Editing 'Frame Ups & Special Effects'. Yesterday was the first lesson. I didn't get around to doing it yesterday, so I am on catch up already LOL..but managed yesterdays and today's lesson this morning. Lesson one was all about PNG files and how to add a 'frame' and 'word art'. Here is what I came up with.





these are the two men in my life. I am loving this photo of my DS. The frame has really made the photo pop.

Today's lesson was using brushes on photos, she described it as thinking of them as stamps. I felt at home stamping LOL and created this...



This photo is from our holiday in Florida in 2006. We swam with the dolphins at Discovery Cove. DH decided he didn't want to do this so he was available to take some photo's. He was limited to where he could take them from so couldn't get close in and allot of them are cluttered. By applying what I learnt in Lesson 2 I was able to transform this photo and bring it back to be being just DS and myself, instead of us being lost amongst the others.

Can't wait for Lesson 3 tomorrow.

Sunday 5 July 2009

Good Day of Crafting

Weather was cooler today so I could get into the cabin for some crafting. I have been busy making some presents for my DS to take into school for his teachers, so I cannot share them at the moment incase they see them...
All I can say is I have been playing with the Fresh Cuts stamp set.

Here is something I can share with you all...I stamped the large image from the Fresh Cuts stamp set onto Whisper White card using Basic Grey ink. I then coloured in the flower part of the image using Pumpkin Pie and Certainly Celery ink using a blender pen. The photo isn't showing it very well, but I lightly inked all over the image in swirls with ink as well.

I am pleased how this card turned out, hope you like it too.



Supplies:
Stamps: Fresh Cuts,
Card: Pumpkin Pie. Whisper White, Black
Ink:
Basic Grey, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Certainly Celery
Accessories:
Pearl from Pretties Kit, Blender Pen, Scallop Oval and Oval Punches

Thursday 2 July 2009

One month exactly....

Ohh....I hadn't realised I hadn't updated my blog for a month!!..Sorry

My time has been taken up with taxi services for my DS. He has a love of cricket and plays for the U11 team and this year also the U13 team, so yes that means double the amount of travelling not to mention the couple of County U11 matches he has been asked to play. This along with his bowls has kept me rather busy. Plus now I am not working, hubby seems to think I can do all the chores around the house!!

I have however been doing a little crafting and have a couple of cards to share today.

This first card is one I made for my swap card for the Stampin Up! field training I attended last week.



Supplies
Card:
Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla
Stamps: Soft Summer, Canvas BG, Soft Cuts
Ink: Certainly Celery, Basic Grey, Pink Passion, Rose Red

Accessories: Silver Brads, Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon

I made 25 of these to share with my fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators. I also came home with some wonderful cards shared by them. I used the fabulous Soft Summer stamp set for my card. I have to say, this stamp set is becoming my favourite, I seem to grab this set every time. Love it.

My second card is one using a stamp set I have been struggling with. With all this cricket I have had to attend, I have took along some crafting when ever I can. It is not always easy to do, but I have been water coloring in the beautiful flowers from the Playful Petals stamp set. I now have tons of these ready to make into cards. Yesterday, I thought I ought to use some of these, but found it really hard to create something using them...Grrrr. Can't understand why! they are such beautiful designs....just one of those days I guess...anyway after allot of shuffling of card and images, I came up with this.....




Supplies:
Card: Pretty in Pink, Whisper White, Black
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Almost Amethyst, So Saffron
Stamps: Playful petals, Best Yet (Hostess Level 1)
Accessories: Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon, Oval and Scalloped Oval punches