I'm back!

I'm back home from my week of training and weekend of partying! By the end of the week, I was glad the training was over. I learned a lot but a week is way long enough! My weekend was spent in Melbourne attending a country picnic race meeting (that's horse race meeting) for my sister's 40th birthday. A fantastic time was had by all!

I have returned home to find that my SBS sister Vanja has given me the following award:

The rules are:

1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

So, I've done numbers 1 and 2 so I guess I have to nominate 5 other blogs. Well, the nominees are ........

1. Nerine
2. Karen
3. Natasha
4. Melissa
5. Stephanie

I'm off to leave a message for my lovely nominees. Hopefully I'll be back in the next couple of days with some more creations.

Simple Delights

Firstly, I must apologise for the quality of these photos. I had to take them using my mobile phone in low light at night in my hotel room! Really, I think they turned out pretty good, all things considered.

I made these 10 cards using the Simple Delights Simply Sent Kit for Stampin' Up. The first card (pictured on its own) and the group on the right were pretty much as per the instructions. However, I had to do some playing and so the group on the left are variations on the top card. I kept the same basic layout but changed the stamping and the orientation. On one of them I even stamped on the twill tape!

I really like these cards, very subtle and simple. The colours are Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip and River Rock. An elegant combination.

I'm going to a meeting tonight so I probably won't post until Thursday night before I catch my flight to Melbourne.

For those of you reading this in Australia, I actually drew the winner of the Melbourne Cup in the sweep at work - I won $120! There's a first time for everything!

SBS25 Challenge

The SBS25 Challenge for this week was to make a birthday card with only 2 embellishments, extra points to be awarded for using Really Rust, Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant and Basic Black. This is my contribution.

The base card is Really Rust. I then layered a piece of the Really Rust print from the Apple Cider DSP with some Old Olive wide grosgrain ribbon. The sentiment is stamped on Very Vanilla in Basic Black. All the images and sentiment are from the Bold Birthday set.

I stamped the bottom of the cupcake in Really Rust on Very Vanilla and cut it out. The icing was stamped in Versamark on the Very Vanilla and embossed clear. The candle was stamped using Summer Sun and Ruby Red. I then assembled the cake and candle on a piece of Old Olive textured cardstock (love the textured cardstock!). The whole was layered on Elegant Eggplant. I then used some Basic Black brads (my second embellishment) and adhered the image section to the base with Stampin' Dimensionals.

I decided to add some more dimension, so I used Crystal Effects on the candle and flame.

It is my sister's 40th brithday on Friday and I am travelling down to Melbourne to attend her party. This will be her card. I hope she likes it.

I'm not sure how much I will be able to post this coming week as I will be in Darwin attending a training course. I am taking 4 Simply Sent kits with me so I have something to do in the hotel room at night (I couldn't possibly go a whole week without stamping!). Simply Sent kits are fabulous for the truly addicted stamper (me!) when we go away. They are also a great beginners kit as they include everything needed to make 10 or 12 complete cards (except scissors) - stamp set, ink, adhesives, cardstock and envelopes - including instructions! I love them.

Hopefully I'll check in during the week. Have a great week.

Soulology Week 2

Well, I actually completed this week's assignment in time! We had to write a list of 10 Positive Attributes about ourselves and then incorporate them into a layout. I'm not super happy with this page but I'm not sure how to improve it either.

The background is actually Ruby Red (although it has come out considerably brighter than that in the photo). The photograph was taken at lunch at The Empire Hotel in Brunei. Just a gorgeous place looking out over the sea - which is what I am doing in the photo. Think I must have been a little sunburnt!

The photo is mounted on Soft Sky and Blue Bayou. I cut the tree from Close to Cocoa DSP. The leaves are from Bodacious Bouquet and are stamped in Garden Green on Whisper White. After I had adhered them, I wrote my 10 positive attributes using a Chocolate Chip marker. The page title was made using my Sizzix and the Doodle Box alphabet in Blue Bayou and Soft Sky.

Thanks for visiting!

Soulology Title Page

I was trying to find a photo for my 10 Positive Attributes page last night when I remembered this one. Whilst Alan was away for 6 months this year. I arranged for Charis and I to have some "glamour" protraits taken. This is one of the ones I chose to be printed and framed. I managed to prise it out of the frame without damaging either, scanned it and saved it to my computer. Then I printed it so I could use it.

Having worked so hard to get the photo to a point I could use it, I decided that it would work better for a title page so I still need to find one for the Positives page!

Nevermind, I'm really pleased with how this page came out. I'm not new to scrapbooking but I'm very new to using stamps on my scrapbook pages (until May this year I was a Creative Memories Consultant). The cardstock base is Brilliant Blue. The stamp sets are Whimisical Alphabet(retired), Jumbo Outline Alphabet and Scribble (Doodle) This. I just used Whisper White ink to stamp the images on the blue base. The letters S O U L are stamped in Brilliant Blue on Whisper White and cut out roughly. I mounted the photo on Whisper White cardstock before adhering it to the page.

Hope you like it.

Soulology Week 1

This is my layout for Soulology Week 1. Soulology is an online scrapbooking course which helps you to scrapbook about yourself. Every Monday a new task is released. Last Monday we were asked to write a list of 100 things - 50 we liked, 50 we disliked - and then to make a layout with those lists. It was very difficult! I got to about 34 in the list of things I like quite easily and hard a very difficult time coming up with the last 16. Don't ask about the list of things I dislike. It actually took me 8 days to complete the lists and then another 2 to do the layout. I decided on a double page because it just seemed to fit better than incorporating both lists into one page.

Here is a closer look at each page.

The background colour is the first item on list of 50 things I like - Teal (Taken with Teal). I used the Its Beautiful wheel in Whisper White on both sides of the Like page and Night of Navy for the Dislike page. The flowers are from Bodacious Bouquet. I printed my 2 lists on vellum and then tore the edges. The titles are chipboard letters covered with Whisper White and Night of Navy textured cardstock. I attached the letters with mini glue dots and the vellum with brads (Tempting Turquoise and Brilliant Blue).

Quite simple layouts really but they work for me. Do they work for you?

Very Merry!

This week's challenge on SBS#25 was to make a Christmas card without using red or green! How is this possible? Well, I did it.

The base of this card is Bashful Blue which I stamped randomly using the tiny snowflake from Short and Sweet in Versamark ink.

The main images are from Hung Up on the Holidays stamped on Whisper White. I used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the hangers and then extended them using a Stampin' Write Marker. The inks colours are Close to Cocoa and Brocade Blue. I had to add some sparkle (it is a Christmas card after all) so I used my 2-way Glue Pen and Dazzling Daimonds on the patterns on the baubles and the gingerbread man's buttons. This panel was mounted on Close to Cocoa and then adhered in the top left-hand corner of the card base.

The sentiment is from Short and Sweet, stamped in Close to Cocoa on Whisper White and punched with the small oval. I was going to mount it on a Close to Cocoa large oval but that didn't look right so I chose to use the oval frame from the Syled Silver Hodgepodge. The ribbon is Bashful Blue striped grosgrain.

I really like this card - the soft colours really appeal to me at the moment.