Surfin' Santa

My little brother has been asking me since last Christmas if I would make his Christmas cards this year. He wants twenty, and he wants to pay me to make them (isn't he a sweetie :-). Anyhoo...I've been 'crastinating and 'crastinating and 'crastinating...and finally he says to me last week...'Sam, I need 'em in 7 weeks!' Hokey Smokes! My little bro works 4 weeks on/4 weeks off and commutes between Oz and West Africa for each shift (yes he has frequent fliers!!!!!!!!). He knows people all over the world due to his work and travels, and he has advised me that he wants to put his O/S Christmas cards in the mail during his next stop here (late Oct/Early November)......HOW ORGANISED IS THAT? Rate I'm going I'll be lucky to get mine in the mail before Christmas, let alone in OCTOBER!

Anyway, last night I decided to stop the 'crastinating and get to it. I'd already ordered the stamp set that I thought he would like, and a few other bits and pieces that I fancied I'd give a whirl...and last night with a BRAND NEW SEASON OF NCIS on the telly to keep me company (YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH), and an icy cold Vanilla Coke :-)...I knuckled down and started. I did have a few directives...no fluffy fussy stuff, or bling (BOOOHOOO)..he even said no ribbon..WT? That's not on, so I just ignored that bit ;-).

I've just now finished my first attempt, and wanted to see what you thought...Mum, you especially...whaddaya reckon? Will it pass muster?



I realise I've set the bar high. Watercolouring twenty of these Surfin' Santa's will probably put an end to any desire to watercolour for at least the next 2 years...but I really like the look! Mum, who is a fabulous watercolourist herself, has also very kindly offered to sub-contract some of the watercolouring for me...so its not as big a job as it might seem.

The cardstock colours are: Whisper White, Real Red and Old Olive. I've used Real Red, Old Olive, Blue Bayou and Creamy Caramel Classic Inks (this Santa has spent a wee bit of time in the sun...I was going to colour him Blush Blossom.....which I fancy is a more likely body colour for him given his Arctic abode..but Creamy Caramel looked better IMO).

The Old Olive layer has been Cuttlebugged (yes, and the sky is blue Sam!!), and I have stamped the sentiment on Twill Tape in Black Stazon (and I was surprised how well it came out). I've attached the Twill and 5/8" Real Red ribbon strips using Red Eyelets.

Last but not least, I purchased some Liquid Applique for Santa's beard, mo and Christmas hat trim. This stuff is FABULOUS! What a groovy look. Gotta get me some more of that :-).



So what do you reckon...will he be happy with this?

Thanks for looking,
Sam.

BLOG COMP WINNERS...

First, I want to say a huge thank you to all the ladies who made an entry for my 20K Blog Hits Celebration. I have had so much fun receiving your entries, and checking them all out. I have some wonderful new ideas to work with now too :-).

This morning I compiled all 17 entries into a mosaic in Photoshop:


I fit this to my laptop screen then took it to show hubby. He was being extra considerate this morning (I think he could tell I couldn't wait all day!!) and he agreed to do his judging straight away! The images looked much nicer IRL, than they do above...they were at higher resolution....I had to reduce this for posting here.

I did have the opportunity to see some of these beautiful entries IRL, and have even received one in the mail...(thank you so much), but I restricted hubby to the digital images to keep it a level playing field. I did not tell him who made what, and I did ask him that he disregard image and colour quality totally. He had not seen any of the cards before this morning.

I gave him the laptop and I sat with him for about 2 minutes while he had a scan, then I had to go and get the kids dressed. When I came back, about 10 minutes later, he was still checking them out. He zoomed, he scrutinised, he tilted the screen...he took it very seriously! He even went through the things he liked about various cards. He did change his mind once, it was a close call (I should have run it like Deal or No Deal...but I wanted him to take his time)...in the end, this was his choice:




The little flowerpot card by Robyn Clarke. Congratulations Robyn! Can have a think about what you would like from the current Stampin' Up! catalogues, to the value of AUD$20, and let me know via email: navarino@yahoo.com

I did not let the kids watch daddy making his choice (mean mummy), because I wanted their completely unbiased and fresh take on them. Miss 4 chose:





Jean McKenzie's beautiful creation! Miss 4 was adamant...no mucking about here. Jean, if you send me your postal address there will be a little something in the mail for you.

I couldn't let everyone else have a pick, and not Mr 2....so he chose:




Kim B.'s fabulous flower (he is quite partial to a fabulous flower, my little man). Kim, there will be a little gift for you too.

I love all of the entries that I received, and am so glad that I did not decide to elect myself judge (I considered it for a microsecond). Picking just one winner out of these wonderful submissions would have been very hard work indeed!

Thanks again everyone. I hope that you enjoyed participating.
Have a great day.
Sam.

PS. No, I have not made a card for my own challenge....NAUGHTY! I'll work on that ;-).

Blog Comp Entries Part 6...

A few more entries for my blog comp!

This beautiful card is from my cyber-friend Kristie:


Then there is this lovely contribution from my great stamping buddy Di:



And, finally (for now) there is this wonderful card from Debbie:


I have had so much fun receiving all of your entries girls...thank you! I might have to hold one of these comps again....SOON!

It is not too late to enter...I will accept entries until midnight AEST tonight (30th September 2008). The full details can be found here.

Talk to you again soon,
Sam.

PS. I think that I am up-to-date with posting all of the entries that I have received notice of so far. So if you have made an entry, and you haven't seen it on my blog yet, please drop me a line tonight on: navarino@yahoo.com and let me know. Thank you!

My second card class card...

This is the second card we made at my card class here last Wednesday night...


This card is a CASE of one shown to us at our recent Stampin' Up! Regional training event in Sydney. We were shown how to make this card by a very talented fellow demonstrator, Tracey Eaton. I believe that she said she got the idea for it from Kerri Hunter. Thank you very much for this groovy idea ladies!

This card uses the masking and reverse masking techniques, and gives a fabulous effect IMO! The card uses: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and Whisper White cardstock. I have rolled the Blue Bayou cardstock with the Speckled wheel (repeatedly)...which gives, what I call, the 'blizzard' background effect ;-). I crimped the Soft Sky layer using....drum roll please...the crimper! WOW, bet you never saw that coming. This layer is also mounted up on dimensionals.

The baubles are made using both the Round Tab punch (punched at right angles to create a large circle mask), and the 1 3/8" circle punch. The baubles are sponged using Soft Sky ink first, then the shadow effect is added (in this case in the bottom left hand corner) using Blue Bayou ink...also sponged on.

The bauble decorations are stamped on, with the outer mask still in place, using the Snow Burst stamp set. The bauble string is from the Hung Up on Christmas stamp set, but you could easily freehand these in with a marker too. The Merry Christmas sentiment is from the Many Merry Messages stamp set, and has been stamped in Basic Black ink.

Once the card is fully assembled I have traced over some of the Snow Burst snow flakes using the two-way glue pen, and sprinkled on some Dazzling Diamonds...because a bitty bit of bling is a very Christmassy thing!

Thanks again Tracey for a fabulous demo!

Sam.

Blog Comp Entries Part 5...

I've got some more pretties to show you!

Check out this fantastic card by Kellie:


Averil L. has sent me another entry...aren't these gorgeous?


Love the candle Averil...I will have to find out how you did that!

And check out the work that went into this beautiful card by Kim B....


Thank you so much for your entries girls!

Not long to go now :-).

Sam

New baby card

The idea for this card came from Lauren Meader, and inspiration to use the So Swirly wheel to decorate the body of the outfit came from Jayne Mercer:


We made this card at a recent workshop. The card base is Whisper White, trimmed with either Pretty in Pink or Bashful Blue scalloped edges. We inked the body in either Pretty in Pink or Bashful Blue ink using the So Swirly wheel. We also used coordinating taffeta ribbon and buttons...and that's all. It is a very simple card to make...but looks so effective (IMO).

Sam.

PS. If you look at the large version of this photo I think you can see the red dirt on the wall where I stood the cards for this photo. Every now and then we get these red mud rains in the ACT...probably because of the drought. So any lovely stamping ladies who live out west of the ACT, if you are missing some dirt, I have it here....would you like it back?

Blog Comp Entries Part 4...

I have a few more entries for my blog comp to show you:

The first card is by Averil L. It is so pretty!



And this beautiful creation is by Mandy...



Thank you so much for your entries girls!

The comp finishes tomorrow, 30th September....then I'll get hubby to pick the winner!

Talk to you all soon,
Sam.

Christmas Card Class Card...

Here is one of the cards we made at my Wednesday night card class, an origami Christmas Tree card:



I first saw the instructions on how to make these origami Christmas trees on Juliann's blog Pixie Too, but I was inspired to use our Wintergreen DSP when I saw this card on Michele Force's blog.

The cardstock colours used are: Always, Artichoke, Soft Sky, and Whisper White. I have also used Wintergreen DSP; Soft Sky, Always Artichoke and Versamark inks; Stampin' Up!'s small star punch; gold brads; Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon (for the tree trunk); stamps from the Many Merry Messages and Short and Sweet stamp sets; the retired Twinkle wheel and the Linen background stamp....and that's about it (except of course for SNAIL adhesive and a whole bunch of dimensionals [I hate it when my raised layers sag.......there will be no sagging I say!]).

I love how this card turned out :-).

Thanks for dropping by...again!
Sam.

Delightfully Dashing!

I just wanted to show you a little Christmas card that I made last weekend. I got inspiration for this card from this beautiful creation by Laurie Schmidlin.


The colours are Real Red, Old Olive and Very Vanilla. I have also used some of Stampin' Up!'s fabulous 'Dashing' Designer Series Paper (DSP), Old Olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, a metal edge tag, and the stamped sentiment is from the Merry, Merry set (which comes with the free matching jumbo wheel - worth $15.95 - if you purchase it during September).

I made this card as part of a hostess gift, and decided to make these packs of coordinating 6 x 6 inch Dashing DSP squares as well.


I hope you are all having a lovely weekend! I'll be back later with some more cards and some blog comp entries too.

Sam.

Blog Comp Entries Part 3...

Hey everyone,

Just thought I'd pop on here and show you some more beautiful cards that have been made for my blog competition.

These two very pretty cards have been made by Dani:



Thanks Dani!

Sam.