Susan Boyle Rocks!

Non-stamping or crafting post here...just letting you know up front...

I've been meaning to share something with you, although I suspect many will have heard of Susan Boyle already!

About 2 weeks ago I accidently clicked some link that took me to a YouTube video showing Susan Boyle singing on Britain's Got Talent. I must have been lacking for things to do that day, because usually I would back button out of there quick smart....but I didn't, I watched the clip...and if you feel like a bit of uplifting...can I suggest you do the same?

Susan Boyle: I Dreamed a Dream - April 2009

Then there is this clip showing her singing in the Semi Final:

Susan Boyle: Memory - May 2009

The Finals were held last night in the UK...she came second, and this is her performance:

Susan Boyle: I Dreamed a Dream, Finals - May 2009.

Just thought I'd share those with you. Her voice gives me goosebumps, and I hope that there are many big exciting things on her horizon. Susan Boyle, you rock!

Sam.

These cards got the thumbs down...

...from Hubby. He thought they were too busy and he wasn't overly fond of the colours (yes, I did ask for his opinion) and he could be right, but I'm going to blog them anyway, because I can ;-).










The colours I have used for these cards are: Riding Hood Red, Pumpkin Pie, Bashful Blue, So Saffron and Whisper White. The Designer Series paper is from the Washington Apple pack and the stamps are from Stampin' Up!'s Nursery Necessities and Party Hearty stamp sets. I have also used the new eyelet border punch and the Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon.

Also, I wanted to say a big thank you for all the lovely comments about the cards in my last post...the Inspired by Nature Emerging Colour/Emboss Resist cards. I made up another card using the same theme/colours, because I had extra stuff cut out and lying around (left overs from the workshop). I have not used any embossing on this one, instead, I have just stamped the daisies in Close to Cocoa ink, directly onto the En Francais background, which is in Riding Hood Red:


It is windy and cold here in Canberra today, so over lunch my mind started wandering...I was thinking of places I'd like to visit today. So, if you had a magic carpet that could take you absolutely anywhere (I'm talking about the magic carpets that can go into outer space, and do time travel too)...where would you go today? I would revisit the Mont St. Michel, and I'd take the kids too, I think they'd enjoy it:


Mont St. Michel, France

Hope you are well.
Have a lovely weekend,
Sam.

Inspired by Pam...

This is the second card that we made at my Emerging Colour/Emboss Resist class on the weekend:


...and this is the decorated inside of the card, and the envelope...


This card was inspired by one demonstrated by Pam Morgan at the Stampin' Up! Australia Convention, that was recently held in Canberra.

The ingredients for my card are (all available from Stampin' Up!):

Cardstock: Close to Cocoa, Very Vanilla and Riding Hood Red
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red and Close to Cocoa
Stamps: Inspired by Nature, En Francais and Sincere Salutations
Accessories: Versamark, Clear emboss powder, heat tool, brayer, Dress Up Ribbon Originals, Linen Thread, SNAIL adhesive, Dimensionals and Glue Dots.

This card is a variation of the one shown above:


Instead of using the En Francais stamp in the background, I have brayered Pink Pirouette and Ridging Hood Red to give a gradation of colour from Very Vanilla through Pink Pirouette, down to Riding Hood Red behind the clear embossed daisies.

...and another www.allposters.com pic for the day:


Tapis de Marrakech
I LOVE Yann Arthus-Bertrand's work...we have his huge coffee table book 'Earth from the Air' here, and the smaller 366 days book. His photographs are amazing!

:-)
Sam.

PS. Wishing I hadn't used Pink Pirouette in the background of the photos, but am too late for dinner already to bother changing it now...sorry!

A funny thing happened...

...I'm sitting here watching Babe - Pig in the City with the kids, and they've just played the line: 'men in suits, men with pale faces and soul-less eyes could only come from one place...the bank'...and I'm just about falling off the couch in hysteria at this...seriously, I know how the Hoggetts feel! My apologies if you work in the banking industry, my apologies and commiserations ;-).

You see, we've had some 'issues' with our fine, upstanding, institution of late too. They are one of the big four, we'll leave it at that. In the last 3 months they have compulsorily changed our credit card rewards program, thereby causing us to loose $500 worth of credit that we had saved, and for which we had to fight tooth and nail to get back. THEN they informed me they'd lost our title deeds, actually, they never admitted they'd lost them, they were claiming they'd never received them and I was busy preparing photocopies of the Oz Post Registered Post documents (from two years ago) to prove otherwise, when they finally found them in some filing cabinet...where they should not have been..apparently! And NOW, they've cancelled our credit card account, and started a new one, which they are claiming we asked them to do...which we didn't! This last little ol' manoeuvre now means that we have to alert all the direct debtors that we have a new account number before they start cutting off our internet, telephone and childcare to name a few!!

Do I love my bank? NO! Do they care? NO!! Do I have a choice?...It is unlikely, unless someone out there knows of a reliable mattress or futon they could put me in contact with. SIGH! Thanks for listening to my rantings. I'll get back on topic now...

I held a Stamping class at my place on the weekend, and we learn't the Emerging Colour technique (which in this particular case could also be described as Emboss Resist....the card resisting ink staining where it has been embossed, and the colours of the DSP emerging from underneath the clear embossed areas). I had a lot of fun, and I hope the girls did too!

This is one of the cards we made (the girls could choose which version they made):




List of Ingredients (all from Stampin' Up!):

Cardstock: Night of Navy, Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Basic Gray
Ink: Night of Navy and Baja Breeze
Stamps: Nursery Necessities, Nursery Letters Jumbo Wheel
Accessories: Urban Garden Designer Series Paper, Vintage Brads, Kiwi Kiss Satin Ribbon, Basic Gray Taffeta Ribbon, Scallop Edge Punch, Brayer, Stampin' Sponges, Versamark, clear emboss powder, heat tool, Mini Glue Dots, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive and sticky strip.

As you can see, in this version of the technique we have stamped in versamark onto Designer Series Paper and then clear embossed it, and brayered or sponged Classic ink over the top, to allow the DSP pattern to emerge. We also made another card, but I'll show that to you another day.

I'm going to leave you with this lovely image from www.allposters.com:


Lake Moraine

:-)
Sam.

PS. Thanks so much for all the lovely comments about my bracelets. Your sweet words always make me feel so good! You guys are the best!!

Blue Beads and Snow

Howdy Doody!

I'm sitting here procrastinating while I should be preparing for an upcoming stamping class (its on Saturday, and I still have a few seats left if you are interested...we will be learning the Emerging Colour technique), but I digress.

I recently took a photo of another lampwork bead bracelet that I made a little while ago, and haven't got around to putting up on here...so here it is:


The lampwork beads are made by Marie-Andree of Bleu Verre in Quebec, Canada, and are very lovely! This bracelet sparkles a lot :-)!!

While I was procrastinating I was browsing allposters.com...they have the MOST amazing posters there. Check out this little beauty by Gordon Wiltsie (if you click on the photo it will take you to allposters.com where you can see a close-up version of the poster):


The Matterhorn

Anyone for a wee walk? I have purchased from allposters.com once before. I got a beautiful poster of the Olympic National Park in Washington State (no, there are no Cullens in it, but I have a fairly good imagination ;-).

Anyway, I should get back to my desk...it looks like a bomb has gone off over there, a big fat craft shop bomb...SIGH!

See you :-),
Sam.

Beautiful cards by Kim...

I just wanted to show you these lovely cards that we recently received from my friend Kim:


You can read about the ingredients for this FANTASTIC birthday card on Kim's blog here. Is this not a stunning card???



This one has not made it on to Kim's website yet, but when it does, I'll link it here so you can see what she has used. Unfortunately my photo has not picked up the beautiful Dazzling Diamonds bling effect on the Eastern Blooms. It looks amazing in real life! You also may not be able to tell that it is a slider card, with the flower mounted 5 rolling back and forth when you tip the card. So much work has gone into this card.

...and last, but not least...


This one is probably my favourite, and that may be in part because it was for me (the others being for the kids' birthdays), but I also love the flowers, which have Dazzling Diamonds on the Pumpkin Pie areas of their petals. I'm a sucker for glittery cards ;-).

The colour combo is such that those flowers pretty much jump off the card, and the total combination of effects is just perfect. You can see this card on Kim's site, here .

Thanks so much for our lovely cards Kim. We all feel very special, and I have them on display on our sideboard, so we can enjoy them.

Hope everyone has a great day!
Sam.

PS. Thanks for all your lovely comments on my Mermaid birthday cake and the Mermaid party invites. Yes, it was a lot of effort...but I had a huge amount of fun doing it. Mum thinks I must have felt party deprived as a child ;-).

I should post pictures of the kitchen sink, or the laundry in the lead up to party time...lets just say lots of jobs fell to the side in an effort to put that party together...the only 'wonder' is that we have anything other than party food to eat this week ;-).

Party Time...

Miss 5 had her birthday party today, and I think it went pretty well...not that I remember much about it...it was a blur of games and food and kids ;-).

Here is the cake...


...and yes, it was enough for a football team (it still is). I spent Saturday baking and cutting out the base...I used 6 buttercake mixes!!!

I got the design from the Woman's Weekly kids cake book. I have a couple of 'issues' with how she turned out, but after spending 2.5 hours icing and decorating her this morning...I let it go, she was how she was ;-)!

I also had some fun making little goodie bags for the girls:


I hope that your weekend was peaceful. I'll be hoping for one of those myself, next weekend...hehehehehehe!

Sam.

Another Lampwork Bead Creation...

Just another little bracelet that I made this past weekend. This one is for hubby's mum, for Mother's Day:




Again, the beautiful glass lampwork beads are by Tera Belinsky-Yoder of beadygirlbeads. I love Tera's beads. They are so bright and fun.

I have boxed it up in a hand-made origami box (see the tutorial on SCS here), and have used some Urban Oasis Designer Series Paper for the lid, and textured Basic Black cardstock for the base. The black satin ribbon is from Papertrey Ink.

I hope she likes it!
See ya :-).
Sam.

A bit on the riotous side...

This is a birthday card I recently made for my little boy. It is a bit on the riotous side, and I nearly wasn't going to put it up here, but it has kinda grown on me:


The cardstock I have used here is Tangerine Tango, Basic Black and Brushed Silver. I have stamped the rocket image in Black Stazon on watercolour paper and coloured it with an aquapainter and classic ink (in Tangerine Tango, Pacific Point and Baja Blue).

The black ribbon is from the Valet Ribbon Originals pack. The sentiment is from the Think Happy Thoughts set and has been punched out using the 1 1/4" circle punch and mounted on a metal edge tag.

I also wanted to show you a couple of shots from our Mother's day bushwalk today:




Who knew tomatoes could be so much fun?



We found this lovely grassy meadow...and what better thing to do, but have a little snooze!



...or a run, take you pick ;-).

Hope you had a lovely weekend.

Thanks again for visiting.
Sam.

Trendy Trees

I've just been having a little play with one of the lovely stamp sets we received at Convention...Trendy trees:


The colours are: Old Olive, Riding Hood Red, Basic Black and Whisper White. The Designer Series Paper is from the Haikou selection. The sentiment is from the Level 1 Hostess Set, Best Yet, and has been stamped in Basic Black classic ink. The black ribbon is from Papertrey Ink.

The tree is stamped in Riding Hood Red and Basic Brown Classic Ink, and I have covered it with Crystal Effects.


This one was made using pretty much the same ingredients. I have Crystal FX'd the leaves of a couple of the trees, and the ribbon is the Riding Hood Red Satin Ribbon.

On another subject...check out the bump on Mr Three's forehead:


Picture this...small child, in the process of climbing out of the car, with precious biscuit in hand. Small child slips...there are two choices: 1/ drop the biscuit and save your head, 2/ save the biscuit and let you head fend for itself. Which do you think Mr 3 chose? Obviously, this was no ordinary biscuit ;-).

Last, but not least...I couldn't resist the moon, again:


Hope your weekend is a good one.
Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there.

Sam.

Mother's Day Mojo

I thought I would use the current Mojo Monday sketch to make a Mother's Day card...


The colours and papers are all the same as the card I made last night...because I didn't clean up after myself...plus, I'm having a thing for these colours just now anyway ;-).

This is the card that I made:


The cardstock colours are Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip and Whisper White, and the ink is Basic Brown Classic ink. The Designer Series Papers are from the Bella Rose and Candy Lane packs. The Mother's Day sentiment is from the Occasional Greetings stamp set.

The ribbon is 5/8" Grosgrain in Chocolate Chip and 1/4" Pretty in Pink. I have also used the scallop edge punch, paper piercer, Flower Fusion Too felt flowers, Clear Rhinestone Brads, SNAIL, sticky strip, dimensionals and mini glue dots.

I apologise for the dodgy photos of late. I've been photographing at night, using the flash...it does all sorts of weirdo things to the colours.

Hope you all had a great week.
Thanks for visiting,
Sam.

A new little someone...

A work colleague and his wife recently had a baby girl, and I volunteered to make the welcome card. This is the card I have made:


The cardstock colours are Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip and Whisper White, and the ink is Riding Hood Red Classic ink. The Designer Series Papers are from the Bella Rose and Candy Lane packs. The giraffe stamp is from the Wild About You stamp set. The sentiment is from the Chit Chat rub-ons and the brad is from the Filigree designer brad set.

The ribbon is 5/8" Grosgrain in Chocolate Chip. I have also used the eyelet border punch and a variety of Spellbinders Scalloped Oval and Plain Oval Dies. I have pierced the large Chocolate Chip Scalloped Oval layer using a paper piercer. As always, I've used a whole bunch of SNAIL, dimensionals, mini glue dots and sticky strip!

The card measures 6 x 6 inches and I will put it with one of the Stampin' Up! square Chocolate Chip envelopes from the Carousel Notes set.

I think that about sums it up. It is waaaaay past my bed time now....please 'scuse any typos.

:-)
Sam.

Inspired by the IBC...

This little card was inspired by the picture on the bottom of page 34 of the current Stampin' Up! Australia - New Zealand Idea Book and Catalogue:


The colours are Baja Blue, Kraft, Pink Pirouette and Certainly Celery. I have also used a crimper, Pink Pirouette Striped Grosgrain, Scallop Edge punch, Scalloped Circle punch, Round Metal Edge Tag, Rub-Ons, On Board Lots of Letters Chipboard, Crystal Effects, Sticky Strip, SNAIL, Mini Glue Dots and Dimensionals.

I have coloured the chipboard with Baja Blue ink using a sponge dauber, and then I have painted Crystal Effects on using a paint brush. I have sealed the ends of the bow by holding it near a candle flame...this prevents it fraying.

I really love this colour combo...it looks so fresh and pretty!

Thanks for dropping by,
Sam.

Little Mermaid Party Invites...

I was up late last night (and will be again tonight) finishing off some birthday party invites for Miss 5's upcoming party.

Last month I asked her to choose a cake from the Women's Weekly children's cake book, and she chose the mermaid...so I decided to go with a mermaid-themed party, and this is the invite that I came up with:




I got the idea for the mermaid from Splitcoaststampers. I have seen a slightly different looking mermaid on Ngaire Anderson's blog too.

I have used a variety of Stampin' Up! punches for my Little Mermaid, including the: 1 inch circle, large oval, scallop circle, word window, trio flower and full heart. I have used cardstock in Old Olive for her tail, Ruby Red for her hair, Blush Blossom for her skin and Orchid Opulence for her 'shells'.

The glitter on her tail is from the Fine Supernova glitter collection, and has been adhered using crystal effects. The 'shell' in her hair is secured with a clear rhinestone brad.

I'm pretty pleased with the way she turned out. What do you think? Does she look like Ariel to you?

Hope you are having a great week.
Sam.

PS. When I asked my daughter what she thought of the invite she said she thought it looked like Ariel was waving with one hand and hiding a present behind her back with the other! How cute :-).

Mother's Day 2009...

I can show you this little card and gift because Mum already has it. Mum came down last weekend, and we gave it to her then:


The Designer Series paper (DSP) I have used is from the Berry Bliss set. The ribbon is Purely Pomegranate Satin ribbon. It is soooooo beautiful...sigh! I have used the emerging colour technique on the cardfront, but using DSP instead of stamps. The stamp set is Big Bold Butterfly. I have used some SU Wireworks silver wire for the butterfly antennae. The DSP, ribbon, wire and stamp set are all retired (SOB!).

Here is what was inside the little box:






The lampwork glass beads are by Amanda at rufusandroxy on Etsy. The crystals are Swarovski bicones, rounds and olives in Burgundy and clear. The pearls are also by Swarovski, and the sterling silver beads are from a variety of places.

Mum seemed to like her pressie!

Hope you all had a great weekend,
Sam.