Inspired flowers & friends

As promised, I have more card ideas to show you using the Good Friend set, sans birdie (who was having a well earned rest).

First up, this is the second card I made at my church friends class last month. I was really happy with how the card turned out...not so much the picture though!The flower panel was stamped in kiwi kiss with the birdie leg/stem stamp & a little of the thin flower stem. The riding hood red flower has a punched flower & gold brad in the centre & is attached to the stem with dimensionals. I've also added 2 other punched flowers & brads. The panel is matted on kiwi kiss card, before being attached (with dimensionals) to a white base with panels of 'Washington Apple' paper, kiwi kiss strip & some gorgeous riding hood red taffeta ribbon. The greeting from the well named 'Best Yet' set is stamped in riding hood red ink.

For the next two cards, I took my inspiration from two extremely talented stampers who's work I always love to see:

LeAnne's Flower Trio

First is this happy flower trio card, which is a case of the second card in this post by LeAnne from Wee Inklings. If you haven't been over to Wee Inklings to check out LeAnne's awesome blog, go now!....well, at least when you finish reading this post!I loved the 3 flower & ribbon layout LeAnne used, so I had to try it for myself. The colours I used are riding hood red, so saffron, tangerine tango, bashful blue & white. The flowers are riding hood red, so saffron & tangerine tango. Like the previous card, I added punched flowers & brads in the centre & popped them with dimensionals onto some fab striped paper (again from the 'Washington Apple' pack). The ribbon is 1 inch bashful blue ribbon & the button is from the 'Button Bouquet' pack. The sweet 'happy-o-birthday' greeting is from 'On Your Birthday' pack.

Sarah's Wish Flowers

Last, but definitely not least, I'm sure many of you will realise this is case of the wonderful 5th card in this post by super lovely Sarah Klass. This one stopped me in my tracks when I saw it & I immediately had to make one for myself.Sarah has a knack of coming up with the coolest ideas & this card is a perfect example. I couldn't explain this card better than Sarah, who said "It was one of those 'came to me in the middle of the night' ideas - to use white ink for the 'puffy' stamp and thereby make them into dandelions. The last one has been blown away, hence the 'wish' greeting." Don't you just love it?! The colours are kraft, naturals ivory & baja breeze. I don't have the 'Definitions' set that Sarah used, so I substituted it with 'make a wish' from 'Big Bold Birthday' & added a ribbon knot using very vanilla taffeta ribbon. So go now & check out more from Sarah!

Before I go, I'd like to send big mwwwwaaaa's to Sarah & LeAnne again for so generously sharing their inspiration & ideas through their blogs. You totally rock ladies!

I think that's it for Good Friend for now, but I still have lots more projects to show you, so stay tuned. In the meantime, happy stamping & inky wishes from me.
Di

Supplies:
Good Friend flower stem
Stamps: Good Friend, Best Yet
Card/Paper: whisper white, kiwi kiss, Washington Apple DS paper
Ink: riding hood red, tangerine tango, so saffron, kiwi kiss
Accessories: gold brads, riding hood red taffeta ribbon
Tools: Trio flower punch

Flower Trio Case
Stamps: Good Friend, On Your Birthday Card/Paper: so saffron, tangerine tango, bashful blue, whisper white, Washington Apple DS paper; Ink: riding hood red, tangerine tango, so saffron; Accessories: gold brads, bashful blue stitched grosgrain ribbon, button bouquet buttonTools: word window punch, Trio flower punch

Sarah's wish flowers
Stamps: Good Friend, Big Bold Birthday;Card/Paper: kraft, naturals ivory, baja breeze;Ink: white craft ink, close to cocoa; Accessories: very vanilla taffeta ribbon

Good friend birdie confession

OK, here's the thing – when I first saw the Good Friend' set in our new catalogue pre-order, I didn't want to get it. Oh, I thought it was cute, but I wasn't sure of its flexibility & that I'd use it very much. In the end, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt & get it, as I needed another set I could use for kids cards. Then at convention, I saw lots of great ideas using it, including a cool project that Jill Kocherlans demonstrated which made me really glad I'd bought it. So, to get myself started with the set, I cased Jill's card with a couple of minor additions. This was the first one I made: The colours used here are so saffron, pacific point, tangerine tango & riding hood red & the little paper strip is from 'Good Morning Sunshine' (thanks again for the paper Sam). The birdie panel & mat is popped off the base, as is the flower with rhinestone brad. After making this one, I made one with Jean an hour before she left for the airport (true – you have to take your stamping time when you can, hey Jean? – sending hugs to you too!). Here's the evidence.

At this point, I decided that Mr birdie was just the cutest thing ever & chose to use him at my May class for friends from church. This was the final version I made with them.As you can see, I changed the colours around, & added a little stamped 3D wing & a black brad for his eye & used the Family Phrases set for the greeting (I think this set works perfectly with Mr Birdie & I think it's the only one in the current catty with an 'all of us' greeting).

I also used Good Friend for the second card we made at the class...no birdie this time though, but it's too late to show you tonight. I'll try to show you this one, plus some other Good Friend cards next time.
Inky wishes
Di
PS: Thanks for all the lovely comments about our new furry babies. They're settling in very nicely, despite having the trauma of their first bath & blow dry today....but don't they look cuter than ever?.....as does Damo too!Supplies:Stamps: Good Friend, Family Phrases
Card/paper: so saffron, riding hood red, whisper white, Good Morning Sunshine DS paper
Ink: pacific point, tangerine tango, so saffron, riding hood red
Accessories: rhinestone brads – Fire pack, black brad
Tools: 1/2 inch circle punch

Meet Harry & Jaz

Indulge me a no card post today, as I wanted to introduce you to our new furry family members, Harry (left) & Jaz.

They're two very cute & cuddly 15 week old Lhasa Apso pups, who came to us from the lovely Jenny of Amesen Lhasas. We've been wanting to get a dog for ages & finally brought Harry home on the 24^th. We then decided it would be good for him to have a doggy pal, so we brought home his sister Jaz last Saturday. Since then, they've had tons of fun getting to know their new home, playing & chasing one another around. As you can imagine, life with two new puppies is anything but dull, but they're generally very laid back little guys. We've had so much rain though & our backyard is really soggy, so we've become very good at towelling off little furry feet & bodies – especially since they discovered it's soooo much fun to run through puddles, roll in wet grass & dive through bushes.

Anyway, here are some solo pics. This one of Cara & Harry was taken the afternoon he came home. Harry is a cuddly & playful l litte boy & occassionally a little cheeky with Cara, so we're trying to teach her to be a calm & assertive pack leader just like the Dog Whisperer.& this is a very serious looking Jaz on her first night home (get used to that camera girl!) .....in between her watching tv – true! ... just the dog for Damien (hee hee). She's a very sweet & gentle girl...except when she pins down Harry in a rumble.Anyway, I've been trying to get this post finished for days, so I'm going now! I'll be back next time with some paper fun.
Inky wishes
Di

Sweet Upsy Daisy & More

Helloo again! I’m back with the second make & take from last weekend’s open house. This card uses the fabulous & very flexible ‘Upsy Daisy’ set.
I think I had one of Kellie's cards in my head when I made it, as I realised it's very similar to the second card in this great post. First I stamped the ‘Upsy Daisy’ flowers in pink pirouette ink, then matted it on some pink pirouette card, teamed it with some ‘Sweet Always’ designer series paper – I can’t resist a good spot & the colours in this paper look great together. The greeting is from the level 1 hostess set, ‘Best Yet’, which I think is my fave one this year (so far!). I’ve just punched it out & laid it over some wrapped choc chip ribbon. Oh, the inside has a white panel, partially stamped with the daisies too.
Here are some other Upsy Daisy cards, to show you more ways you can use it.

Brocade Blue Daisy
Speaking of Kellie (*waving* at ya Kelllie), I have another Upsy Daisy card to show you, which was a definite case of the first card in the same post, with a couple of twists.
I’ve seen lots of cards with the daisy image stamped twice to get a shaded effect, but I loved Kellie’s really easy idea of creating a shadow down the side with a grey marker & did it on this one - it's hard to see in the pic but much better IRL. I stamped the main image in brocade blue on very vanilla card, the greeting (also from ‘Upsy Daisy’) in night of navy ink & then matted the stamped panel on old olive card. I folded a little brocade blue ribbon behind the panel, near the greeting & mounted the panel on the base, with dimensionals. The base is bashful blue, with a strip of brocade blue ‘Patterns’ paper from the level 1 hostess pack & some twill tape.

Pam’s Daisy
This is a total case of a really simple card that Stampin' Up!’s Pam Morgan demonstrated at convention. Pam is a brilliant presenter who always has great ideas to show & this time was no exception.
To create the multicoloured flowers, the daisies were inked up with kiwi kiss, regal rose & rose red ink using sponge daubers, then stamped onto whisper white card. The stamped card was mounted onto a strip of baja breeze, a greeting was added (also from Upsy Daisy), then finished off with a kiwi kiss satin ribbon knot (gorgeous!). My version is a bit messy, as I was trying to finish it about 5 minutes before I picked up Cara, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Marelle’s Daisy
This last card is a mixed up case of a card that the super talented Marelle Taylor demonstrated at convention.
As Marelle showed us, I inked up the daisies in 3 shades of ink before stamping. First, the whole stamp was inked in so saffron, then, the bottom two thirds in more mustard & the bottom third in tangerine tango. The joins were blended with a sponge dauber & stamped on white card. This gives a really effective look that I hope you can see in the pic. The rest of the card is super easy – tangerine tango base, strip of ‘Haiku’ paper (love it!) & a greeting. For the greeting, I stamped the best wishes greeting (‘Cute & Curly’) with really rust & old olive markers & punched out with the curly label punch. As the daisies were popped off the front with dimensionals, I attached two more mustard punched shapes to the back of the punched greeting to give a bit of height & weight. So, that’s my take on Marelle’s lovely card, which is the second card in this post.

Anyway, hope you liked seeing these. Back soon with more cards & some news!
Inky wishes
Di

Supplies:
Sweet Upsy Daisy
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Best Yet
Card/Paper: choc chip, pink pirouette & whisper white card, Sweet Always DSP
Ink: Pink pirouette, chocolate chip ink pads
Accessories: choc chip 1 inch stitched grosgrain ribbon
Tools: curly label punch (Curly label punch bundle)

Brocade Blue Daisy
Stamps: Upsy Daisy
Card/Paper: bashful blue, old olive, whisper white card, Brocade Blue Patterns 1 hostess DSP
Ink: Brocade blue & night of navy ink pad, basic grey marker
Accessories: brocade blue grosgrain ribbon, twill tape

Pam’s Daisy
Stamps: Upsy Daisy
Card/Paper: kiwi kiss, baja breeze & whisper white card
Ink: kiwi kiss, regal rose, rose red & baja breeze ink pads
Accessories: kiwi kiss satin ribbon

Marelle’s Daisy
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Cute & Curly (Curly label punch bundle)
Card/Paper: tangerine tango, more mustard & whisper white
Ink: so saffron, more mustard, tangerine tango ink pads, really rust & old olive markers
Tools: curly label punch (Curly label punch bundle)

Urban Silhouettes make & take

Well, I finally had my new catalogue launch/open house last Saturday. It’s been a long time coming with everything that’s been happening lately, but better late than never I say! Thanks to all the lovely ladies who came & helped save me from eating all the chocolate cake by myself.

At the launch, I showed projects made with lots of new goodies & there were 2 cards that everyone could make. This was the first make & take:I think it’s a very simple & modern card. The colours are baja breeze, kiwi kiss, not quite navy & white, which I took directly from the striped paper (from the sooo stylish Urban Garden paper pack). The silhouette images from ‘Pocket Silhouettes’ were stamped in kiwi kiss & not quite navy ink. The bracketed best wishes greeting (I just love brackets) from ‘Cute & Curly was stamped in not quite navy ink. Both the image & greeting are punched out with the curly label punch (which comes in a bundle with the Cute & Curly stamp set – this one is going to get a work-out!). You may not be able to see it, but the greeting is mounted with dimensionals onto a punched not quite navy label to give a little more depth. Some of the ladies used smaller greetings punched out with the large oval punch, which looked great....but I forgot to take pics of these. Sorry!

I thought you might like to see some other cards I made with the same supplies:

For this softer monochromatic version, I used the pretty floral print on the other side of the striped paper. The stem images were stamped in baja breeze & not quite navy ink & sit behid a popped frame of not quite navy punched out with the curly label. I added some white taffeta ribbon & an elegant greeting from ‘On Your Birthday’ set, to add to the soft look. Here’s a close up of the frame: For this one, both the stem image & greeting are from ‘Pocket Silhouettes’ & the ribbon is white taffeta.

I’ll be back with the second make & take hopefully tomorrow. Hope you have a great weekend.

Inky wishes
Di

PS: Almost forgot! – if you’d like an instruction sheet for the first card just e-mail me.

Supplies:
Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes, Cute & Curly (Curly Label punch bundle).
Card/Paper: whisper white, baja breeze, not quite navy & kiwi kiss card, Urban Garden Designer Series paper
Ink: kiwi kiss, baja breeze, not quite navy
Accessories: white taffeta ribbon, dimensionals,
Tools: Curly label punch (Curly Label punch bundle)

My baby turns 8

Can you believe my baby Cara is now 8 years old? How did she grow from this little (& very cute) 8 week old baby... ... into this sweet, beautiful & funny 8 year old, seemingly in the blink of an eye. All I know is that when I arrived home from convention, she seemed to have grown a few inches! After we opened pressies (the bright pink ipod seemed to be a winner!), we celebrated with her delicious Choc Trio cake from our favourite patisserie, Cavallaro's.I wanted to make a bright & fun card for my special girl, so I started with a favourite colour of hers - red...or riding hood red in SU speak, & this is what I came up with, modelled by the birthday girl herself (in crazy face mode)!
The riding hood red base is 21cm x 20cm (front 10cm x 21cm) & the patterned paper is from the 'Washington Apple' pack (isn't it yummy?). The 'Good Friend' birdie got his first inking too, with riding hood red, so saffron & pumpkin pie ink. I thought he needed something to cheep about, so I added a birthday cupcake (from 'Big Bold Birthday') & a word window bubble for him to tweet happy birthday. All the stamped elements are all popped on dimensionals. Cara loves glitter so I decided to glitter birdie & the cupcake with dazzling diamonds at the last minute ( I have to confess that I wasn't happy with the effect on the cupcake but Cara loved it so that was OK!). Anyhooo, here's a slightly blurry close up of them both... ... & here's the inside & matching envelope just to finish it off.

Thanks for sharing this happy mummy moment with me & I hope you liked her card too. Bye for now.
Warm & inky wishes
Di
PS: Don't forget that you can get 4 patterned paper packs for the price of 3 this month...including Washington Apple! Check out the details here & contact me to place your order soon!
Supplies:
Stamps: Good Friend, Big Bold Birthday, Family Phrases
Card/Paper: riding hood red, pumpkin pie, whisper white, Washington Apple DSP
Ink: riding hood red ink, pumpkin pie & so saffron ink & markers
Accessories: 2 way glue pen, dazzling diamonds glitter
Tools: word window punch

My convention swap

Here I am with part 2 of my convention wrap-up. A big part of convention fun is swapping ideas with other Demos & many make card fronts or other cool items to swap with each other. With over 400 Demonstrators at convention, it's a little like mayhem, but fun! As it was so busy with our family being here, I only managed to finish 16 swaps, so mine didn't last very long, but I did receive some really beautiful cards in return. Anyway, This was my swap...

Avid readers (are there any of you out there?) will realise this is a modified version of this card I posted yesterday. I changed some of the colours - this time I used perfect plum, pale plum & (surprise surprise) celery. The reason for the celery was that I wanted to have a ribbon stem (that's my excuse & I'm sticking to it!). I used a new & beautiful 'thank you' greeting from 'Thank You Kindly', as I really wanted to use a loooong greeting that crossed over the stem (which the original you didn't see had too!). To add more weight to the greeting panel, I included a punched flower & smaller matching lilac rhinestone brad beside it. Just for fun, here's a shot of all the cards waiting to be bagged! That's a lot of petals!So what swaps did I receive in return? I haven't had a chance to take pics yet, but I've included some links to some I've found online so far, so you can see how cool they are too. If I find more, I'll add to the links.

Sam Post's: This glittery beauty... & one for the Twilight fans....tab right down to Edward

Karens: Sweet Always square
Teneale Williams': Gorgeous rose card
Marelle Taylor's: Fab 5th Avenue Floral
Louise Sutton's: Clever masked silhouettes

Well, that's all from convention this year for now. I'd better be scooting up to school to pick up Cara, who's just started 3 days of her first ever exams. I think a treat will be well deserved this afternoon.

Inky wishes
Di

Supplies:
Stamps: Pick a Petal, Thank You Kindly, Eastern Blooms, Scribble Wheel
Card: perfect plum, cpale plum, certainly celery, whisper white
Ink: pale plum, perfect plum ink pads, pale plum marker
Accessories: lilac rhinestone brads (I used some clear ones too), celery grosgrain ribbon
Tools: ½ inch circle punch, trio flower punch, piercing tool

SU convention happy-nings

I know I'm a bit behind with my convention update, but I'm sure you know that's par for the course at colour me happy! I could waffle on for hours about it (just ask anyone who's asked me about it!), but to sum it up, it was a whole lot of fun mixed with great information & inspiration.
There were sooo many great ideas shared by the US Stampin' Up! crew, as well as lots of Aussie & NZ demonstrators, all of whom were fabulous. (& I have over 300 pics to prove it!). There was also a fun make & take session where we got to make some great projects with our new stamp sets 'Trendy Trees' & 'Circle Circus'. I'll share these here sometime soon & will also have them at my Idea Book launch &Open House on 23 May. (If you're not on my mailing list & haven't heard about this yet, please drop me an e-mail).
One of my favourite parts was being able to spend lots of time with my good friends Sam & Kellie & Leanne....here we all are at the wonderful Awards Night dinner. (L-R Kellie, Leanne, me, Sam). Love ya girls!I was also thrilled to meet up with some blogging friends who really inspire me, many of whom I've never met in person before. There was the all round fabulous Sarah Klass, who also gave the most amazing & presentation on recruiting & won lots of great awards at the Awards night too! There was much squealing when I found the lovely Christine (Chrissie) Allen, who deserves an award for the most consistent commenter on my blog – thanks again lovey!Then, we found Karen Rogers, a lovely & talented Demonstrator & blogger from Auckland NZ. Here we all are at one of the sessions (Karen far right).I was also very excited to finally meet Karen Thomas & Jean McKenzie, but unfortunately didn't get a pic of us – next time ladies!
If you're a demo & haven't been to a SU Convention yet, I'd highly recommend next year's, which will be on 21-22 May in my hometown of Sydney. If you're not a Demo yet, what are you waiting for? Check out this fabulous offer to join SU for $150 this month, & contact me for more information.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed 'meeting' some of the lovely & talented ladies at convention. I'll be back in a little while with my convention swap.
Inky wishes
Di

Petals for Mother’s Day...or birthdays

I'm back again with the next best thing to the second mother's day project from my last class...a birthday version of the same card.I'm sure you recognise 'Pick a Petal' – can you believe it's the first time I've used it in a class? The colours are close to cocoa, sage shadow, pale plum & perfect plum, which I wasn't sure of initially, but they really grew on me. The background is rolled with the Scribble jumbo roller, as I liked how the tiny flowers matched the large Pick a Petal ones. The flower head is made of two sets of five petals & the centre is a punched ½ inch circle with a lilac rhinestone brad in the centre (Looks fab with a large brad from the styled silver hodgepodge set too!). Some of the guys at the class didn't want to make a second Mother's Day card, so we also used greetings from 'Sincere Salutations'. The flower & greeting is popped on dimensionals

This design will look pretty familiar to any Demonstrators out there who swapped with me at convention, as my swap was based on this card too. Everyone else will have to wait for my next post for that one.
Back soon!
Inky wishes

Di

Supplies:
Stamps: Pick a Petal, Sincere Salutations, Scribble jumbo wheel
Card: close to cocoa, sage shadow, whisper white, perfect plum
Ink: pale plum & perfect plum classic inks, pale plum marker
Accessories: lilac rhinestone brad (Ice pack)
Tools: ½ inch circle punch

Happy Mother’s Day

I just wanted to pop in to wish all the lovely mums a very happy Mother's Day. I'm finally surfacing after having a totally fun & flat out fortnight with my cousin Jean & family, mixed with an awesome trip to Canberra for the annual Stampin' Up!® convention (but that needs more time!).

I also wanted to show you the cards we made at my Mother's Day class waaay back on April 4^th . Now I'm here though, I can only show you one now, as I've realised that I don't have a pic of the second one, which is now in Kempsey with my wonderful mother-in-law Shirley (love ya Shirl!) ... so stay tuned for an alternative next time! The card I can show you is one I gave to my wee mum today....so here it is!It's almost a total case of this card by Kellie (waving at ya Kellie), which I totally loved – so simple, effective & flexible. I used the same colour combination that I used for this card (Baja breeze, pink pirouette & regal rose), stamps from 'Always' (flower) & 'Occasional Greetings' (Happy Mothers Day). Anyway, I hope you like it & that you've had a wonderful weekend.

Warm & inky wishes
Di

Supplies:
Stamps: Always, Occasional Greetings
Card: baja breeze, pink pirouette, whisper white
Ink: regal rose, baja breeze
Accessories: regal rose grosgrain ribbon
Tools: square scallop punch