Blooming Basket - CTC167- Saleabration

Here I am again! I know, busy Sunday with two blog posts! I am blogging now with a group of demonstrators who love to take inspiration from the fabulous catalogues that Stampin' Up! put out three times per year. For this hop we are CASEing (aka Copy And Selectively Edit) from the Sale-a-bration Catalogue (aka the FREEBIE catalogue). Yep, a catalogue full of free things for everytime you spend $90, my favourite catalogue of the year. You may have started the hop with me or you may have just been wowed by what Rose had to share.

The card I have decided to CASE is the card in the picture below on the far right. I've switched it up a bit by changing the orientation of the card to landscape rather then portrait.

Have you seen the new release Saleabration items? They are awesome and as soon as I saw the Blooming Basket Stamp Set with the coordinating Basket Weave Embossing Folder, I knew I had to have them. I am so glad my order arrived in time to use for this blog hop.

I'm really happy with how this card turned out. I love the watercolour pencils blended with blender pen on Crumb Cake cardstock and the white heat embossing really makes it pop. The inside of the card got a little bit of love too.

We would love it if you played along with our challenge, for more details click the graphic below...

Now it is time to continue hopping around, next stop Judy, she always has something really creative for you!

Have a fabuous week!

Cheers Megan xx

ESAD Sale-a-bration Blog Hop

Woohoo! It's time for another ESAD Blog Hop. I love seeing all the other creations from other demonstrators. If you have started with me, get yourself your favourite beverage (it's only fair I'm writing my blog with mine!!) and strap yourself in, for an amazing amount of inspiration. You may have already started and if so, have hopped on over from the ah-mazing Jessie Holton, OMG I love her work! What is ESAD?, I hear you say, well do not fear I have a very neat graphic for you......

The theme for this blog hop is Sale-a-bration!!! Everyone's favourite time of the year in the Stampin' Up! universe, well level pegs with our conferences, aka OnStage (I am a bit excited as I have just finalised the details for our next one and the big reveal will be the new Annual Catalogue!). Sale-a-bration is a catalogue of free items that you can earn when you spend $90 and this year they made the catalogue bigger and better and added a level 2, where, if you spend $180 you can get an extra special goodie for free, oh so much choice! On the 15th or maybe it was the 16th?? Stampin' Up released more freebies to the collection and mine arrived in time for this blog hop - yeah new things to play with! My cards today use the new Eclectic Expression Stamp Set, a freebie when you spend $90.

Ok, this card is very busy, I know that. It stemmed from just getting the stamp set out and having a play with the end result I thought, "Well why not make it into a card?" and there it is, not a great masterpiece in my eyes but you know what, others will probably think, well who knows what they will think but at least I didn't waste the piece of Whisper White!!! The Celebrate die cut was a discard from my other cards too, so pretty happy that I used all these elements rather than adding them to the discard pile of items that didn't make the cut!

Onto the "dinky di" cards..... I created two cards at the same time by using the second generation stamping technique. This is simply achieved by stamping the first image with full strength ink, ie you have just inked it up in your stamp pad and stamped it directly onto your cardstock but instead of re-inking the stamp you then use the residual ink to stamp onto another piece of cardstock with the remaining (lighter) ink and you end up with one card that is saturated in colour and one in a more muted tone.

1st generation

**Please excuse my "Celebrate" die cuts, I have coated them with fine tip glue to give a glossy finish but as we are experiencing a huge amount of rain here on the Sunshine Coast it has not quite dried out yet for the photo shoot**

2nd generation

Ok, enough from me, it is time for you to hop on on over to see what amazing creation Delys Cram has in store for you, just click the graphic below....

Thank you so much for stopping by! If you get lost at all on your hopping tour I have included all the participants in a list below, just click their name and you will be taken straight to their blog.

Cheers Megan xx

Blog Hop Participant List

1. Lou Kitzelman  

2. Sandra Mastello  

3. Courtenay Heuston

4. Ellen Woodbridge

5. Cheryl Algie

6. Peta Stephen

7. Nicole Wilson

8. Maree McIntosh

9. Kristel Rimmer

10. Libby Dyson

11. Leonie Schroder

12. Jessie Holton

13. Megan Lenske

14. Delys Cram

15. Rachael Lewsley

16. Kim Oliver

17. Sharon Dalton

18. Melinda Whittington

19. Jenny Hayward

Bokeh Technique for Colour INKspiration #27

Hello lovelies! Today I have a couple of cards that I have entered into the Colour INKspiration Challenge. It's a fortnightly colour challenge that anyone can participate in and you don't need to blog like I do. All you need is Facebook. Challenges are a great way to get you creating and using all those craft supplies you have purchased. I also love colour challenges as they are often colour combinations that I would have never contemplated.

The challenge colour palette.

My card backgrounds are using a watercolour bokeh technique that my daughter taught me. I have been wanting to give it a go, so when I came home to her many backgrounds that she had created that day, I had to make my own. Miss P is a member of a RAK (Random Act of Kindness) Facebook group where each member sends cards to others in the group. The idea is to make someone's day with happy mail. Let me tell you when she opens the letterbox to find one, she sure is happy.

Here are her backgrounds made up into cards to send out to her fellow RAK members . (So glad to see her using the Magical Day Stamp set, that we just had to have!)

I decided to use the Epic Celebrations Stamp set that I got for free when I spent $90. It is a stamp set that when I first saw it I thought what a great boy set. My cards today show that it can also be used for girlie cards!

The watercolour bokeh technique is so soft and dreamy and is super easy to do. You simply get watercolour paper and wet it down quite liberally then pick up your different colours (I squeezed my Classic Stampin' Pads while closed up to transfer ink into the lid) with your Aquabrush and touch it to the paper. The colours will wick into the water and spread. Keep adding your colours until the whole of the watercolour paper is filled. We let our backgrounds air dry or you could speed the process up with your Heat Tool.

While your backgrounds are drying you need to make some circle stencils of varying sizes. Miss P used the Layering Circle Framelits to cut out circles in scrap cardstock, which worked well. However, seeing as we enjoyed it so much we have now made some out of Window Sheets to keep permanently on hand. You then take your stencil and hold it over your paper and take a sponge or dauber dipped in Craft Ink and sponge a white circle on top of your background. With the stencil still in place you can then dab a bit of the ink off with paper towel if you want a more transparent circle. You then simply keep adding different sized circles, overlapping some as you go until you are happy with your background. Once your Craft Ink is dry you are good to go to create with your beautiful background.

Thank you so much for stopping by! Don't forget to check out the Colour INKspiration Challenge, just click HERE.

Cheers Megan xx

A Beautiful Peacock, Painted with Love! - CTC166

Hello lovelies! Sunday is here again and it is time for the CASEing the Catty Blog Hop. We are a group of Stampin' Up! demonstrators who love to take inspiration from the fabulous projects featured in the amazing Stampin' Up! catalogues. If you are starting with me, welcome, and if you have just hopped on over from the very talented Kelly Kent, thank you for continuing on.

This week we are CASEing from the Painted with Love section of the Occasions Catalogue. I usually CASE a layout of a card but this week I decided to CASE the colour palette of the suite. The papers in the Painted with Love are beautiful and rich with gold accents. I have used Melon Mambo, Powder Pink, Rich Razzleberry and Gold Foil and teamed it with Very Vanilla (the suite uses Whisper White).

I have used the Sale-a-bration stamp set Beautiful Peacock that I earned for free with sales of $90. It's a gorgeous stamp set and I have seen some beautiful creations from other crafters. For my card today I decided to use a technique where you stamp along the edge of card front and then trim along the image to created a shaped edge (rather than just a normal straight edge).

Above is a close up of the peacock and my fussy cutting. I love how by cutting around the peacock image, it then contrasts against the Rich Razzleberry card base. Did you notice his wing? There isn't an actual stamp that allows you to stamp it separately but I wanted it to be gold embossed. To achieve this I just squeezed a little bit of Versamark refill ink onto an acrylic block and then painted it onto the wing with my Aquabrush (after using my embossing buddy!) and then sprinkled gold embossing powder on and heat set. Voila!

The inside of the card received some love too!

We'd really love it if you could play along with our challenge, no need to be a blogger it is all through Facebook. For more details click the graphic below....

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today, it's time for you to continue onto the very creative Jackie Noble, just click the graphic below.......

Cheers Megan xx

Lots of Lavender - CTC164

Hello lovelies! Quick one tonight for me as my weekend has been super busy. I hope you have had a great weekend and what a way to finish one by hopping around to see all the inspiration the Crew have in store for you today. If you have already commenced your hopping you would've just seen Sandra's stunning cards (I'm thinking I need to add that stamp set to my wishlist!) or you may be starting with me, welcome.

This week we are CASEing from the section........

My card this week is a simple design that utilises some of our gorgeous Designer Series Paper - Sweet Soiree. I'm so proud of myself as I often hoard the beautiful papers and this week I cut it up!

 The stamp set I have used is the Lots of Lavender Stamp Set that you can earn for free with a $90 spend during the Sale-a-Bration. The sentiment is from the super sweet Fairy Celebration stamp set and the banner and it's matching die from the Number of Years Stamp Set.

The card I CASEd is the one below on the far left, I have just changed the orientation to portrait.

We would love it if you joined in with our challenge, just click the image below for more details....

Time for you to hop on over to the super talented Angela and see what gorgeousness she has for you. Just click the image below.......

Thank you for stopping by!

Cheers Megan xx

Mermaids Don't! - CI26

Hello lovelies! Don't you just love this saying? My daughter came across it the other day when I was creating the project for this Colour INKspiration Challenge. We both instantly loved it for it's meaning and also it gave us a laugh with it's cuteness!

The challenge colours for this challenge are.......

How gorgeous are they? They immediately had me thinking mermaids and of the card I did a little while back, you can see it HERE. This card has been admired by one of my fabulous class attendees who wanted it just for the artwork (not to be used as a greeting card) or home decor I guess you could say. Her request is for a different colour scheme but I thought this challenge would be a great opportunity to trial creating a larger art piece before I do the commissioned one. The completed piece measures 24cm x 16.5 but of course will be larger still when matted and framed.

Unfortunately, it has been raining for the last couple of days here on the Sunshine Coast (we needed the rain, so I am very grateful), getting a photo that shows off the Wink of Stella on her scales and the gorgeous Shimmery Embossing Paste proved to be a little hard, but take my word for it, it is very pretty in real life!

I embossed the mermaid with White embossing powder on Watercolour Paper and then coloured with my Aquabrush and inks. I was also pretty excited to use the Faceted Gems on this bigger piece (on my original card I used rhinestones).

Oh my gosh! If you don't have the Shimmery Embossing Paste, get it!!! It is SO (again, sorry, the picture doesn't do it justice) beautiful. Here I have used it with one of the Sweet Soiree Decorative Masks, I think this mask is meant to be chains of blossoms?? I thought they also looked like seaweed. Cakes, blossoms, seaweed very interchangeable, they do say art is very subjective!!

Thank you so much for reading my blog and if you would like to join in on the Colour INKspiration Challenges you can do so HERE, no need for a blog, just a Facebook page.

Cheers Megan xx