Rock'n'Roll Melon Mambo Butterflies

I must apologise for my lack of blogging this month - but I have a great excuse! I had a very successful night at my craft desk the last weekend of May and had every intention of photographing and posting the cards on the Monday, but instead I welcomed our second beautiful daughter into the world - Bethanie. Since then, I've been caught up being a Mum-of-two and not knowing where time disappears to!

Here's our gorgeous girl at one week old - I don't know where the last month has gone! If you would like to see more photos of my cherub, check out this post at Katrina Barr Photography's blog.

I have managed to make a few cards, and made tonight's last weekend for a little friend of Luana's birthday. The girly colours and 'garden' inspiration courtesy of the Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge were just perfect, and the flowers in the (rotated) Inkspirations sketch suited the rock'n'rolled butterflies brilliantly.

Not going to write a long post this time - must try to make the most of the time I can get to the craft desk while Bethanie is sleeping and I'm not!!

Thanks for visiting,

Natasha

Happy Easter 2011

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, and for those of you here in Australia that you were able to enjoy our extra-long weekend. In the NT we're a bit lucky and also have a long weekend this coming weekend.

I didn't actually have time to do any crafting over the break as I was visiting family, but I was able to buy up BIG at the KaiserCraft clearance store!! I'm almost glad I don't live any closer as that could be very dangerous :) I did make up some Easter cards before we left though for our nearest and dearest, using this weeks Stampin' Celebration challenge for inspiration - Easter Eggs of course, and I also pulled the colours of Pink Pirouette and Cool Carribean.

This card proved quite a challenge for me - I really didn't know what to do. The trusty egg from A Good Egg came to the rescue using retired Candy Lane DSP! I teamed it with 'Happy Easter' from Well Scripted which featured in the retired Summer Mini and the lovely butterfly from Thanks for Caring in the current Autumn-Winter Mini. I used Pink Pirouette and Orchid Opulence markers to ink up the butterfly and rock'n'rolled the wings in Cool Carribean - I was very happy with the result. The wing was popped up with a dimensional. The background was wheeled with Baroque Border in Crumb Cake on card of the same and mounted on a Cool Carribean base. I pulled some Orchid grosgrain ribbon out of the bottom of my ribbon box to provdie the finishing touch.

And here are the little bundles of eggs I quickly whipped up for colleagues and child care and preschool teachers - cute, if I do say so myself!

Enjoy the rest of your week and thanks for visiting!!

Stamps: A Good Egg, Well Scripted (retired), Thanks for Caring , Baroque Border Wheel
Card: Cool Carribean (retired), Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Candy Lane DSP (retired)

Ink: Pink Pirouette, Cool Carribean (retired), Orchid Opulence (retired), Crumb Cake
Other: Orchid Grosgrain Ribbon (retired)

Love is in the Air!!

There are so many heart, love and Valentine related challenges around at the moment, you can't help but smile! I haven't yet made Paul's card and the day will be lucky to be acknowledged in our house as it will be a SUPER busy day for us (we're moving into our OWN home!). However, I do have a love card to share with you that fits a number of challenges....

I have used the hearts, Rose Red and chocolate elements of this weeks Stampin' Celebration inspiration - don't those cakes look scrummy?! And the colours also fit the first challenge for jac-inks Papercraft Challenges (neutrals plus one) - go check them out!! Just Add Ink, Stampin' Royalty and Pixie Dust Studio all have love and heart challenges this week, so I just had to throw my hat in the ring too.

I am really happy with how the card turned out. I have previously only used Sense of Time for masculine cards, but thought the clocks were perfect for this sentiment from Occasional Greetings. I turned my hand to collage stamping again and distressed and inked the edges to keep with the vintage theme. I highlighted the key words of the sentiment using my Rose Red marker, and coloured the rest with the Chocolate Chip one. The main heart was stamped off in Rose Red then rock'n rolled to give a bit of dimension and 'warmth' and a couple of stamped off hearts were stamped on the clock and background. The brads in the corners and the middle of the clock added the finishing touch.

I'm doubt I'll get back on here over the weekend, so I wish you all a wonderful Valentines Day with those you care about.

Thanks for visiting!





Stamps: Sense of Time, Occasional Greetings, I {Heart} Hearts
Card: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Rose Red
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Rose Red
Other: Brights Brads, Jumbo Brads

Let's Party!

Stampin' Celebration is another blog I check every week, and it has been WAY too long since I've played along. They have the most awesome inspiration collages and I have been lucky enough to be featured as a Pick of the Party a couple of times :)

This week, they've had a bit of a makeover and are celebrating in a big way, so I wanted to try real hard to play along to show my support. Here's the inspiration pic - birthday!!

I decided to run with the party theme and share with you a couple of 6x6 pages I made for Luana's third (Party Time - above) and second (happy birthday - below) birthdays.

Party Time links in a bit more with the bright colours of the balloons in the inspiration pic. I used one of my go to stamp sets, Eastern Blooms, with my Stampin' Write markers to add highlights to parts of the petals after they had been stamped off - love the two tone effect!

I must admit this would have to be one of my favourite pages; so bright and cheery - just like my girl!!

This page obviously links in with the balloons (2 balloons for birthday #2) and also the more muted colours of the bottom left pic. There's a little bit of sparkle on the balloons too which the photo hasn't picked up too well.

Head on over and visit the girls at Stampin' Celebration - it's a lot of fun!!

Thanks for visiting!

Ribbon Rose for Annika

I have been a very bad friend and have not yet made a welcome card for a good friend's little girl who arrived into the world a few months ago.... I have had every intention, but lacking inspiration, until the Just Add Ink colour challenge from a few weeks ago (Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Crumb Cake), which I didn't play along with due to lack of time (and the move may have had something to do with it to!!). I was stoked when the Challenge appeared again on ESAD - one of the Stampin' Community groups I am on (albeit using ONLY those colours, no neutrals!). Plus, this gorgeous inspiration from Stampin' Celebration helped too:

The colours linked in and I drew inspiration from the gorgeous flowers and made a ribbon rose:

I'm so please with how this turned out. Annika took up a bit more space on the card than I had planned, so my rose stem didn't make it to the card.

Thanks for visiting!

Stamps: Petals Jumbo Wheel (retired)

Card: Crumb Cake, So Saffron, Afternoon Tea DSP (retired)

Ink: Versamark

Other: Pretty in Pink Grosgrain Ribbon, Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon, Timeless Type Alphabet

Celebrate!

Boys/male cards are always a tad more challenging it seems, but it does seem to help a bit when the colour scheme is already nutted out for you (like using DSP for inspiration, or a colour challenge) and this week's Curtain Call Colour Challenge was my help for my brother's birthday card.

Add to this the same colours and stars from this weeks Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge and I was good to go!! The star panel was created by 'rolling off' the Classic Stars Jumbo Wheel and using the second generation stamp, and was mounted on a very thin border of Real Red. The edges of the base card were lightly sponged with Night of Navy. I wanted to add texture to this card, so the edges of the white panel were distressed with scissors and I sprayed the larger Night of Navy panel with water before scrunching it and allowing it to dry, and torn the edge of it as well as the Whisper White underneath. The Celebrate! banner was popped up with dimensionals in the middle to give the illusion of 'movement' and a few punched stars were scattered to finish.

Stacey of the Curtain Call Colour Challenge is giving away some blog candy to celebrate the launch of the new In Colours in the US IB&C, so pop on over and give her some comment love - or better still, create a card for the Curtain Call!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!! We'll have a drink together soon!

Happy Fourth of July, Happy Canada Day and Happy Territory Day (1st July too!!) too!

Thanks for visiting!



Stamps: All Year Cheer II (retired), Classic Stars Jumbo Wheel
Card: Kraft, Night of Navy, Real Red, Whisper White
Ink: Night of Navy
Punches: Small Star, Star

Girly Birthday Cake

Luana had her first Alice Springs birthday party on the weekend. She had an awesome time on the bouncy castle and the climbing wall, and it was great to meet some more parents in town. The theme was Princess Party, and I had every intention of using Pretty Princess, but then saw this Inspiration Challenge from Stampin' Celebration and just had to play along:

The cupcakes and flowers were just too sweet to pass by..... I have been visiting Stampin' Celebration since they started a couple of months ago and love the Inspiration Challenges they come up with, but must admit this is my first time playing. Isn't this weeks Inspiration just so girly and gorgeous?!

I teamed this challenge with the latest Inkspirations sketch challenge, being hosted by Cindy this week.

Cindy has issued an additional challenge of 'using something from your stash you have been hoarding for a long time'. Well, I pulled out two stashed products - Certainly Celery Prints DSP (I think it's about 2 years old now....) and Pink Pirouette Striped Grosgrain Ribbon (this is the first time it's seen the light if day since I bought it!!).

It's really hard to see and it hasn't come out as well in the Pink Pirouette as it does with darker colours like Chocolate Chip, but I used the small swirl from Priceless to kiss the cupcake icing to simulate the swirls of the knife (my icing is NEVER smooth!).

Hope you're having a great week and thanks for visiting!!

Stamps: Big Bold Birthday. Priceless

Card: Pale Plum, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Certainly Celery Prints DSP (retired)

Ink: Pale Plum, Barely Banana, Certainly Celery, Pink Pirouette, Rose Red

Other: Clear Rhinestone Brads, Dazzling Diamonds, Pink Pirouette Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Scallop Oval Punch, Scallop Circle Punch