Coral, Cocoa, Blush, & Kraft Oh MY!!! - JAI10

I received a text message today from my number 1 blog fan (**HI SCOTT**) telling me he was less than happy with my lack of blogging. So this blog post is for you Scott x x

I am definitely running behind with my entry into this week's JUST-ADD-INK Challenge. It has taken me days to recover from the wedding of the decade on Friday (it was very beautiful, lots of fun AND they loved their card!!!). I also feel that I have my finger in a few too many pies this week with lots of different orders and projects on the go- I will have to pull some organisational skills out of the bag :o).

I was in love with this week's colour combo challenge the minute that I saw it but I did struggle for a while with the idea of how I was going to put the colours together. I decided to borrow my Mum's Pocket Silhouettes set (**Thanks Mum**) and make a very pretty, feminine Mother's Day card for one of my orders (told you I was getting organised!!!).

Here is my card:




FOR YOU MUM CARD

Stamp Sets: Pocket Silhouettes; Vintage Labels
Card/Paper: Kraft; Close to Cocoa; Blush Blossom; Cameo Coral; Bella Bleu DSP; Candy Lane DSP
Ink: Cameo Coral
Other: Kraft Taffeta ribbon; Paper Piercing Tool & Mat Pack; Word Window Punch; Corner Rounder Pundh; Cricut Machine (**Thanks again Mum**); Rub-ons (Non-SU)

Yay - I can tick some more things off my list - Challenge done - TICK; Happy with card - TICK; Posted on blog - TICK; Given Scott something to see when he checks my blog at work tomorrow - TICK - hahahaha.

Thanks for taking time to have a look x x x

Lou x

Wedding Crazy!!! (JAI Challenge 9)

I'm writing this post very, very quickly between a kitchen tea and a wedding ceremony rehearsal!!! Yes it's wedding crazy around here. The kitchen tea was for a gorgeous work friend of my Mum's and the rehearsal is for my brother's wedding which is this Friday. I can't believe my little brother will be a married man this time next week. I am so so excited about his big day.

I decided to make my brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law's wedding card using this week's Just-Add-Ink Sketch Challenge. Here is the sketch:



And here is my card:





The inspiration for this card came from Delys Cram's (a JAI Design Team Member) creation for the Just-Add-Hearts challenge. Thank you Delys- you can see her wonderful creations HERE. I have also fallen in love with Teneale Williams' work and having seen the way she decorates the insides of her cards I have decided to start adding something special to the insides of my cards too. (I forgot to take a photo of the inside of this one but will add it to this post when there is some good light to snap it in). This card came together so easily and I really am so very happy with it!!!

"Forever Happy Together Card" Ingredients

Stamp Sets: I (Heart) Hearts; Framed with Love; Cheep Talk
Ink: Riding Hood Red
Paper/Card: Riding Hood Red; Whisper White; Pink Pirouette
Other: Riding Hood Red Taffeta ribbon; Scallop Edge Punch; Paper piercing tool & mat pack; Chit Chat Rub Ons; Half Pearls; Crystal Effects (to make the bold red hearts shiny).

I have another wedding card to show you which I will hopefully get chance to post tomorrow before the craziness of this week begins!!!

Bye for now,

Louise x

Easter Wishes and A Just-Add-Ink-Challenge (#8)

Happy Tuesday!!!! I am sitting here at my desk which is covered from end to end in paper, tools, stamps and ink- what a mess and I have to admit my head feels just as messy!!! Things have been a little bit crazy around here the last week or so with the small one deciding he doesn't like sleeping anymore- it is driving me mad as it sends the whole day and night out of whack if he doesn't have his day sleep. Today, however, he went down without a bother and is still sound asleep now after 2 hours. Hopefully things will get back to normal now.

When I saw this week's Just-Add-Ink Challenge I wondered if this would be the first week that I wouldn't enter. The challenge was to Just-Add-Easter and I don't own a single Easter stamp - no eggs, no bunnies, no chickens!!! What was i to do?!?!? The Design Teams creations were just gorgeous (check them out HERE) as are all the entries so far and I really, really wanted to enter too. Anyway last night I had a serious case of insomnia (you think I would be dead on my feet after a day with no-sleep-Elliot, but no!!!) and at some ungodly hour of the night my idea came to me. YAY!!! I imagined my two favourite "ALL IN THE FAMILY" kids with a stash of eggs from an Easter egg hunt and so my card came alive. Here it is:


It was a fiddly little number this card and it took me forever, with all the paper piecing (each of the eggs are made from a different piece of Sweet Slumber DSP as are the little people's clothes); watercolouring; crystal effecting; button making and ribbon tying :o). You can see the paper piecing and watercolouring here. Unfortunately the Crystal Effects turned the decorations on the eggs a funny brown colour instead of black, but I don't think it matters too much!!!!


Here is a close up of my little, shiny individually wrapped eggs in the title box:


And a close up of my DSP Egg-shaped button:



"Easter Egg Hunt Card" Ingredients

Stamp Sets: All In The Family; Framed With Love; Good Neighbours
Ink: Baja Breeze; Old Olive; Riding Hood Red; Blush Blossom
Paper/Card: Baja Breeze; Sweet Slumber DSP; Watercolour paper
Other: Chit-Chat Rub ons; Baja Breeze 1" DS Grosgrain ribbon; Scallop Edge Punch; Paper Piercing Tool & Mat; Linen Thread; Aqua Painter; Crystal Effects

I am so happy that I was able to enter the challenge after all and am pretty happy with my entry.

Wishing you all a happy day - I hear a stirring from the bedroom.

Louise x

Feeling Very Special!!!

I'm feeling very special right now - my "Wild About You" layout got picked in the Top 5 at Just-Add-Ink this week!!!!



Thank you so much girls, I really can't believe it! Also thank you to everyone who has left lovely comments on my blog x x x. I'm becoming a JAI challenge junkie and a blog addict - ha ha ha!!!

Wild About You with a bit of Pink Passion (JAI Challenge 7)

Well who can believe it?!?!? It's only Saturday night and I am posting my entry into this week's Just Add Ink Challenge- a whole four days earlier than I usually do. So much more relaxing this way!!!! The reason being is that my little treasure slept for 3 hours today so I used the "bonus" time to do some creating just for me (not for business) and Waa-Laa here is my "Wild About You" Layout for this week's challenge.

The Just-Add-Ink Challenge was a colour challenge this week. Here are the colours:



Wow what a bright little lot!!! At first I thought "EEK" because they are not colours I often use alone never mind all together. But then I pictured a little Green Galore crocodile and the rest of my "Wild About You" A4 layout followed. It was a bit of a stretch adding Pink Passion to a boy's page but I think it actually fits in just nicely.

I had SOOOO much fun putting this together. I have always loved this picture of Elliot eating grass in the park and am so happy that this challenge motivated me to scrapbook it. I only noticed when I had finished my creation that he was wearing his little zebra shoes in this shot - which ties in ever so perfectly with the other zoo animals- fancy that!!!!

I have to admit to cheating ever so slightly though with the lion's Chocolate Chip mane but I just couldn't bring myself to give him a turquoise, green or pink mane!!! Poor little lion no one wants a mane those colours. Seeing as it's the only colour I have used that is not a challenge colour I hope I will be forgiven :o)

So here is my little "wild" child with his animal friends:



And a closer look at Elliot in his zebra shoes munching on grass:




"Wild About You" Layout

Ingredients:

Stamp Sets: Wild About You
Card/Paper: Tempting Turquoise; So Saffron; Green Galore; Pink Passion; Whisper White; Sweet Slumber DSP; Washington Apple DSP
Ink: Tempting Turquoise; Pink Passion; Green Galore; So Saffron; Chocolate Chip
Other: Scallop Edge Punch; Scallop Circle Punch; 1 3/8" Circle Punch; Spiral Punch; Word Window Punch; Tempting Turquoise 1/4" Grosgrain ribbon; Designer Buttons; Paper piercing tool and mat pack; Dimensionals


I hope that everyone else that has a go at this week's JAI challenge has as much fun with this funky colour combo as I did.

Thanks for popping by to have a look

Lou x

Girly Sparkles and Pearls - JAI6 & Stamp Club Project

WOW! I can't believe it's Wednesday already!!!! The week's are just zooming by and I think that with the long weekend this week has gone quicker than most. I woke up this morning and thought "Oh it's Wednesday, better post my projects for the Just Add Ink Challenge!!!".

Before I post though I would like to that the girls on the JAI design team for the special mention I received for my Frame for Harry last week. Little Harry was born yesterday (a week later than expected) and I get the joy of meeting him for the first time and giving the frame to his Mummy and Daddy today- very exciting!!!

So onto this week's challenge. The girls set a sketch challenge this week. Here it is:



I have ended up with two projects that fit the challenge. The first is a little bag that I am going to get the girls at Stamp Club (**Hi girls**) to make this week. I got the idea for the little bag from Julia Bettencourt's Circle Scissors Plus Purse which you can see HERE. Julia's purse has a craft bag separating the front and back- forming the purse bit- but I decided that I wanted it to be a bit sturdier and the whole bag to be matchy-matchy. So I designed a little box for the middle with accordion fold sides.
**I have just realised I have used the word "LITTLE" about a billion times in the last paragraph :o) !!! Maybe it's because the bag turned out smaller than I imagined it would in my head (it stands about 14cm high).

So here it is - My Little, Pretty, Sparkly Bag - full of glitter, pearls, buttons and ribbon to make it super girly:

One side:


The other side:


The accordion box middle:


Close up of Glittery Flower:


My Little, Pretty, Sparkly Bag

Ingredients:

Stamp Set/s: Petal Pizzazz (AGAIN!!!)
Card/Paper: Baja Breeze; Whisper White; Parisian Breeze DSP (retired)
Ink: Baja Breeze; Kiwi Kiss; Riding Hood Red; Pink Pirouette
Other: Circle Scissors Plus; 1 3/4" Circle Punch; Scallop Circle Punch; Scallop Edge Punch; 1" DS Baja Breeze ribbon; Dazzling Diamonds glitter; Half Pearls; Designer Buttons


I also made a card this week with the challenge in mind. This card is for someone very special to me but I won't spill the beans on the off chance that she looks here. I have wanted the Priceless Stamp Set ever since joining SU! last year but for some reason kept ordering everything else before it. Finally I got my hands on it thanks to the Stampin Start promotion and I love, love, love it. I used my Colour Whee lto find the colours for this card and used colours I don't use very often. I actually really like how they go together.I have obviously been in a very girly, pretty mood this week as this card also features glitter, pearls and shiny butterlies (thanks to some Crystal Effects).






You Mean A Lot Card

Ingredients:

Stamp Set: Priceless
Card/Paper: Perfect Plum; Pretty In Pink; Mellow Moss; Whisper White
Ink: Perfect Plum; Mellow Moss; So Saffron; Pretty In Pink
Other: Paper Piercing Tool; Dazzling Diamonds Glitter; Half Pearls; Crystal Effects; Chit Chat Rub-Ons

Well that's all for me today. Will hopefully get chance to post again before the next challenge with some other recent creations- but I'm making no promises :o)

Louise x