Papertrey Ink September Blog Hop

Hello!

I love it when the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop happens on a week-end and I have a spare bit of time to join in the fun! Blackboard technique and autumn colours together, oh so delicious!

I used Doodlie-Do and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday stamps. I white embossed and then brushed with white ink. I coloured with Copics.

This is the beautiful inspiration.

Thank-you for coming to visit!

Michelle
xxx

Happy 1st Birthday, Fusion!

Hello!

Happy New Year to you all!

Today we celebrate the 1st birthday of Fusion Card Challenge! One whole year! And I'm still having fun! :-)

To suit the theme, I made a birthday card. I used the photo as my inspiration. It's been a while since I made a card using the chalkboard technique and it was fun to play with it again.

I used PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday and Mama Elephant Party Kit stamps. I fussy cut all of those streamers! It's time to buy the die set, I think!

My guest this week: Laura Bassen

As an extra-special element to our birthday celebrations, each of us were allowed to invite someone who inspires us to join in the fun. I chose Laura Bassen of Doublestick Heaven as my guest. I discovered Laura several years ago and I just LOVE her style - in card making and in life! Laura makes beautiful CAS cards and often throws in a rainbow of colour, which makes my heart sing! To add to all the artistic talent, Laura is also a comedienne extraordinaire - she makes me laugh. Laura also introduced me to Turtles - pecan, caramel, and chocolate sweets. Have you had a Turtle? I don't eat many sweets, and I really don't eat much chocolate at all, but I discovered a complete inability to resist Turtles. I am so lucky they don't sell them here in Australia and I'm too lazy to make my own, lol! Please hop over to Laura's blog to check out her contribution to the Fusion celebrations and to leave her some love (even superstars still appreciate those kind comments!).

Enjoy the celebrations! I can't wait to see what you all create!

Michelle
xxx

CASE Study #161

Hello!

Today I'm bringing you my second contribution as Guest Designer over at CASE Study Challenge. Our muse is Elena from Just ME, who is super inspirational! I'm still pinching myself that I get to play along with this awesome team of card artists all month. :-)

Elena's muse card this week is a cutie - a matryoshka doll card with a smaller matryoshka inside! So sweet!

I don't own the stamps that I would like to have used for this inspiration... So I sat down and pondered matryoshka/babushka dolls and what their image conjured in my imagination. I decided it was folk art, so folk art is where I headed with my first card. I will admit that it took a few goes to get the stamping and positioning right on this one. I almost gave up, but I'm glad I persevered!

I used PTI stamps - Stylish Sentiments:Birthday, From Me to You, Rosie Posie, Birds & Blooms, Turning a New Leaf. Colours are SU! Poppy Parade, Gumball Green, Bashful Blue, Calypso Coral, PTI Berry Sorbet, Memento Tuxedo Black.

I was feeling all satisfied with that card when I thought that perhaps I should make a card inspired by my daughter's beautiful matryoshka set... and off I went back to my craft table and came up with the next card.

I used PTI stamps - Stylish Sentiments: Birthday, Rosie Posie, Turning a New Leaf. Colours are SU! Poppy Parade and Basic Black. Embossing is white and gold. I also used a gold paint pen for the dots along the edge, which I had punched using a scallop edge punch.

Thank-you for coming by! What does Elena's gorgeous card inspire you to create? I can't wait to see!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Birthday, Kara!

Hello!

Today is Kara's birthday, and I'm joining in a fun blog hop in honour of her day. :-)  If you haven't seen Kara's work before, you should pop over and visit, because it's fabulous! Not only does Kara make beautiful cards, but she is also such a lovely person as well. A fab combination!

Happy Birthday, Kara! I hope you have a wonderful day!

I used PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday, Boutique Borders: Thanks, and Strawberry Patch stamps. Ink was PTI Fresh Snow and Versamark. Chalks and rhinestones are Stampin' Up!

I got a little experimental on this card. I wanted to use the colour scheme over at Just Add Ink, because it sounded just so pretty. And I've had the idea of trying another blackboard card this month to join in at the Paper Crafts Magazine Gallery Challenge. Trying to get colour onto black (for me) is a bit tricky. Firstly I didn't have Bermuda Bay embossing powder or chalk, so I put my thinking hat on. By mixing chalks (aqua and blue), I came up with the perfect colour! It was a miracle. The little silver tendrils are dusted with Perfect Pearls. The frame is silver embossed. The sentiment is white embossed and then sponged with white ink. The whole card ended up as a sparkly, dusty blackboard. :-)  Oh, and for those of you wondering, I used a spray fixative to stop the chalk and dust from moving around any further.

There are many more birthday wishes for Kara today, why don't you join in the blog hop and check out the cards that her other friends have made as well. :-)

Joyce
Cathy

Christina

Jeanne

Jill

Kelly G.

Kelly S.

Kim

Leigh

Lisa

Lynn

Marybeth

Michelle (that's me!)
Nancy

Renee

Sharron

Tracey

Thank-you for coming by to visit!

Michelle
xxx

RIC#43 and MUSE#33

Hello!

It has been so long since I sat down to play along with Runway Inspired Challenge and Muse! These are two of my favourite challenges, and my busy life has interfered with my playtime! But, when I saw the RIC Inspiration photo I was determined I would not miss this week. Since crafting has been a bit slow around here, I needed a little extra inspiration to get me started... and then I saw Laurie's card at Muse. Laurie provides me guaranteed inspiration in every single card she makes. :-)

So my card is Laurie's design wrapped up in Lela Rose Resort fashion!

I used Mama Elephant Basic Borders to stamp the plaid. Sentiment is from PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. Card is SU! yellow (Sunshine? It's retired), Basic Black, PTI Soft Stone. Sequins are from Avery Elle. Ink is Memento Tuxedo Black.

Laurie's card for Muse #33

Runway Inspired Challenge #43 inspiration.

I made this card after bedtime last night, and I'm blogging instead of preparing the kids for school and me for work, so I'd better get back to it. Sneaking crafting and blogging time is tricky, LOL!

Thanks for visiting! I apologise for my slow commenting. I do visit as often as I can, but comments are often beyond my time constraints.

Michelle
xxx

Dynamic Duos #68

Hello!

Phew! What a busy few weeks! I'm happy to report that we had an AMAZING long week-end away last week-end. I took lots of photos, and when I get a moment at home, I will sit down and put together a story (or two) on my other blog (Happy Snap Michelle). My kids took their first ski lessons, and managed to ski a few (slow) runs with us afterwards. I remembered how much I LOVE snow skiing!  This week-end we are at our nephew's wedding at Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. A wonderful celebration in a beautiful location!

This week at Dynamic Duos, we get to work with Perfect Plum and another colour of our choice. I chose Primrose Petals.

I used PTI Round Repeats, Hero Arts Envelope Pattern background, and Avery Elle Modern Leaves stamps. Ink is SU! Perfect Plum and Primrose Petals. Card is SU! Perfect Plum and PTI Basic White.

While I had these colours out, I couldn't resist making another card. This time I added PTI Soft Stone to the mix. I'm loving these three colours together!

I used PTI Rosie Posie, Stylish Sentiments:Birthday stamps. Ink is SU! Perfect Plum, Primrose Petals, PTI Soft Stone, Memento Tuxedo Black. Card is PTI Soft Stone and Basic White.

My gorgeous team mates have created some fabulous cards this week again, too! I'm sure they'd love a visit!

Alison Barclay

Anne Marie Hile

Debbie Henderson

Hayley Kew

Janet Bagnall

Janet Zeppa

Lori Turner

Susie Wittwer

Tara Bourgoin

Tracey McNeely

Thanks for coming by!

Michelle
xxx

Dynamic Duos #66

Hello!

How is your week-end going? As this post goes live, I am at the Sunshine Coast with my family. My hubby was mad enough to sign up with our brother-in-law and friends to run Tough Mudder this year. It looks like a heap of fun, but not for me, yet. It is 20km PLUS obstacles, I'd be lucky to make 10km WITHOUT obstacles at the moment, LOL!

This card is for this week's Dynamic Duos #66 which asks us to use Pool Party and Basic Black. The optional extra is embossing. I love black and pool party. I don't love trying to photograph black... apologies for the slightly grey-ish look in the photo! I used the SU! Stripes embossing folder to create texture.

Ink is Memento Tuxedo Black and SU! Pool Party. Stamps are Stylish Sentiments: Birthday, and Boutique Borders: Thanks. Dies are PTI Mat Stack #1 and Mat Stack #1 Layers.

The rest of the team have done some fabulous work, too!

Alison Barclay

Anne Marie Hile

Debbie Henderson

Hayley Kew

Janet Bagnall

Janet Zeppa

Lori Turner

Susie Wittwer

Tara Bourgoin

Tracey McNeely

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

It's a (belated) celebration!

Hello!

It's Mojo Monday's 300th challenge. I've intended to join in all week long, and I've left it to the very last minute! So a belated entry (but not too late) and a belated birthday wish to my good friend, who I neglected to send a card to on time.

I used Snippets paper, PTI Ruby Rose and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday stamps. Card base and ink is SU! Early Espresso.

This is the sketch for Mojo Monday #300.

I've just returned home from a week-end at the Gold Coast. We stayed at Surfers Paradise, which is really not my favourite place in the world (crowded, tourists, crime, massive roadworks and blocked roads), but we were treated to beautiful weather, and the kids got to play on the beach. On the beach, everything is perfect - the beach is long and white - and I can ignore the highrise buildings and the crowded streets. :-) Here is an unedited photo to give you a taste of Surfers Paradise Beach in Winter. Unfortunately a bit cloudy, today was pure blue skies, but we were on our way home and no time for photos.

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Birthday, Ardyth!

Hello!

Today is Ardyth's birthday! And I was invited to the party! If you would like to join in, you can too! The party is being hosted by my friend Darnell, who is one of the sweetest ladies in the card blogging world.

I am lucky enough to have made friends with Ardyth. We met here, in blogland. I think I was probably one of her first followers, and I still adore everything she creates. Recently she did some naughty enabling by sending me a recipe for Turtles (aka Sweet Georgia Browns). Oh, they are BAD!!! In case you want to make these super-sweet caramel chocolate pecan treats for yourself, here is the LINK.

Happy Birthday, Ardyth!!

The idea was that we were to CASE Ardyth. Well, I did, sort of. I went over to Ardth's Pinterest boards and decided on bright colours, repeated words, and super-CAS. I ended up with a mix of Ardyth and me, LOL!

I used the colour scheme from this week's ColourQ Challenge #191.

I also found, while visiting Ardyth, that she is hosting her own birthday party at One Layer Wednesday. And we are invited to make a card that we think she would like. How cool, I already made one!

Ardyth, I hope you have a fabulous day!

Michelle
xxx

Dynamic Duos #54

Hello!

I'm here today with my card for Dynamic Duos Challenge #54 where the colours this week are Bashful Blue and Midnight Muse.

My husband asked me to make him a card that his running group could all give to a friend's father for his 90th birthday. The card had to be big enough for them all to sign. The birthday "boy" is one of the nicest men I've met. He is a retired builder and a few years ago he supervised my hubby doing some building work around here. Being about 85 at the time, we didn't want him climbing ladders, but we really needed his building expertise, since we were repairing posts that held our veranda and veranda roof up! He's helped out a few times in various ways. He's a good man.

Anyway, onto the card! It's 8 1/4" x 6".

I used SU! Bashful Blue, Night of Navy (I don't have Midnight Muse), and Whisper White. The dies are wPlus9 Star Stax. The sentiment and little star are from PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday.

At this point, I will say that I am very sad that Bashful Blue is retiring. If there are any SU! demos out there who still have a reinker available, please let me know. It has sold out in Australia, and I haven't found anyone who has one in their stock.

Now, I hope you're still with me! After you go and visit the rest of the Dynamic Dynamos, go and make a card and join in the fun! ;-)

Alison Barclay

Anne Marie Hile

Debbie Henderson

Hayley Kew

Janet Bagnall

Janet Zeppa

Lori Turner

Susie Wittwer

Tara Bourgoin

Tracey McNeely

I'm also linking up over at Paper Issues where they're inviting us to use dies. :-)

Thanks for coming to visit!

Michelle
xxx

Papertrey Ink May Blog Hop - Take 2

Hello!

This is my second card for the Papertrey Ink May Blog Hop. It's one of those cards that is "almost" right. I'm itching to remake it, but I'm so tired that I really need to get some sleep! There is certainly enough right about it to post it. In fact, of the cards I made today, this one is my hubby's favourite (even though he called my cards today "Mum cards", which translates to "Grandma cards"). If I was making this for a Mum or Grandma, I'd make it a LOT more flowery. ;-)

I used PTI The Sweet Life and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. 

I was inspired by this colour palette.

I found a guide for how to line up The Sweet Life on Pinterest. The actual tutorial is somewhere in the PTI Forums, but I couldn't access the real link because I keep forgetting my username and password (why is it so hard??). Anyway, my pin is THIS ONE. If you can remember your own username and password on the PTI forums, you can follow my Pinterest link (otherwise just follow the pictures, like I did). These instructions have demystified the process for me. Now I can hand this set back to my friend (who owns it) with some instructions to make it easier! :-)

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

Dynamic Duos #51

Hello!

It's my first post as part of the Dynamic Duos design team! Woo hoo! :-)  To say I'm excited is an understatement!

Dynamic Duos has been one of my favourite challenges for almost a year now (one year next week!). I have always treated Dynamic Duos challenge as an exercise in extreme-CAS stamping. This first card is not the best example of that style, LOL! But over the next six months, you'll most likely see several of my really basic CAS designs coming out. I love the limitations of using only the two colours, it forces me to really think about the design of the card. I know that other neutrals are allowed, but I do my best to just use the two colours (and usually white card base). As soon as I saw this week's colours, this card jumped into my head and wouldn't jump back out, so here it is:

I used PTI Rosie Posie and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. Colours are Daffodil Delight and Baja Breeze.

The Dynamic Duos #51 colours are:

I am honoured to be working with this amazing team, and I would love it if you would pay them a visit, too!

Alison Barclay

Anne Marie Hile

Debbie Henderson

Hayley Kew

Janet Bagnall

Janet Zeppa

Lori Turner

Susie Wittwer

Tara Bourgoin

Tracey McNeely

Thank-you for visiting!

Michelle

xxx 

I'm celebrating!

Hello!

Some of you will have already seen me jumping up and down and screaming all over Facebook, and some of you may have missed the news. I'll shout it here, too! This morning I received my very first ever acceptance email for publication of one of my cards! Yippeeeee!!!

I'll calm down now, and show you the actual reason for this post. I made a card.

I used PTI The Sweet Life and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. Colours are Black and SU! Raspberry Ripple. I used watercolour paper for the front panel.

There were three inspirations for this card. Firstly, I saw Marion's Vagg's cards this morning, and was totally in awe. My card is a little different from hers, but I was definitely inspired by the watercolouring.

Secondly, I've been pondering the CASE Study #139 inspiration for a couple of days. This month our muse is Maile Belles. I'm seriously swooning! I LOVE Maile!! From Maile's card I took the layout, although I changed the orientation) and the flower theme. I may give this particular CASE study challenge one more go, because I would actually like to do more of a COPY of this card (Shhhh! I'll call it CASEing, if I do it, LOL!).

My colours I took from The Play Date Cafe Challenge #180.

Thanks for coming by to visit!

Michelle
xxx

I'm back from the wilderness!

Hello!

Well, maybe I wasn't in the wilderness, but it felt like it with no internet connection. Whoever heard of a three day outage of cable internet in this modern age? Forget for a moment that this is a modern-age problem... It was also a 3 day Foxtel cable tv outage, but I don't have cable tv, and I don't watch tv much at all, so that didn't bother me... I imagine those people who watch tv were doubly devastated, no tv and no internet as a backup option for entertainment, LOL!  I coped relatively well, interspersed with a few well-chosen barbs thrown at the telephone company via their various avenues for complaint. My kids were ecstatic to find it working tonight.

Back to why I'm actually here. I've made a card for Muse Challenge. This is it:

I used PTI Postmarks, and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday, and Hero Arts Envelope Pattern background. Colours are SU! Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, and Real Red.

When I saw Virginia's beautiful card this week at Muse Challenge #14, my card is not what I originally had in mind. But this is what came out of my fingertips when I sat down to create. Virginia's inspiration is slightly different to my creation, but I think the inspiration is evident in the masked, offset sentiment frame.

Yesterday we spent the morning at the local ANZAC Day march and service. Watching the old returned servicemen from our local area marching so proudly made me all teary. The service was excellent, as always.  I will put some photos up over on my photo blog sometime in the next couple of days. Here is one.

Thanks for dropping by to visit. Now I'll try to make up for my lack of visiting and commenting from the past couple of days.

Michelle
xxx

Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop

Hello!

I've been without Internet for two days now. I apologise in advance for the quality of this post, I'm mobile blogging on my iPhone and I'm certainly no expert at that! My photo was even taken and edited on the phone. I can't see so well to know what it really looks like, LOL! This screen is a little too small for my ageing eyes.

I'll also apologise up front here for not leaving comments while the Internet is down, commenting on the iPhone is not great for me. I think I might need an iPad, what do you think? ;-)

Today's card is for the Papertrey Ink blog hop. I'll come back and add the links to my post, I promise!

I have used the colours from ColourQ #186.

Thanks for visiting. I hope to be back up to full speed soon.

Michelle
xxx

Retro Duos

Hello!

I'm popping in to share a card which is a little different for me. It's grey and black, and it has a few layers! Surprise!

I used PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday, patterned paper is PTI black patterns (it is supposed to be black, but this pack of paper is definitely grey, so perhaps I got grey patterned paper?), card base is Soft Stone.

I made this card in response to two challenges. This week's Dynamic Duos #49 is monochromatic Basic Grey and Basic Black.

The sketch is Retro Sketches #60

I really enjoyed making this card, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. :-)

This week we have ANZAC Day here in Australia. On Thursday 25 April we remember those who have served (past and current) in our defence forces to protect Australia. I will be taking my girls to the march in our local community. We're all looking forward to it. I'll share some photos, if I can capture some good ones.

Thanks for coming by to visit me.

Michelle
xxx

Paper planes = happy

Hello!

I squeezed in a little crafting time right at the end of the day today. This "simple" card took a bit more effort than it looks...

I used PTI Sentiment Signs, and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. I also used Mama Elephant So Breezy. Colours are SU! Daffodil Delight, Memento Grey Flannel, and Hero Arts Pale Tomato.

The inspiration came from the colours at The Play Date Cafe Challenge #178.

and I used the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch #24  (really, I did! I turned it on it's side, and then got a little creative with my interpretation, LOL!)

Now I must run off and get to bed (after making some lunches and packing some school bags...)

Thanks for coming to visit me!

Michelle
xxx

Retro Sketches #59

Hello!

I had a wonderful time stamping with my friends on Friday. I only got one card made, but I loved the company. I'm probably more of a distraction than necessary to my friends, because I tend to chat non-stop (so excited to get some time with them...). I must learn to be a little quieter. ;-)

This morning I played with a set I borrowed from Cassandra, and I'm in love. Oh my goodness, this set is awesome (if you can line up the images correctly, which I found a little challenging).

I used PTI The Sweet Life and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday stamps. Colours are SU! Primrose Petals, Real Red, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, and PTI Berry Sorbet.

I was trying a little bit of stitching a la Leigh Penner, whose cards I just adore. My tension and stitch length were wrong, but other than that, I love the detail the stitching adds to the card. I stitched a layer of vellum over my background to soften it up.

The card is made using the sketch from Retro Sketches #59. I turned it upside down.

I'm also entering this card over at Simon Says Stamp Spring Flowers challenge.

I'm enjoying a sunny, warm day which is a huge contrast to the last two cold and rainy days. I'm happy to get the washing done before we go back to school and work tomorrow!

Thanks for coming by to visit me.

Michelle
xxx

Fusion #2

Hello!

I'm so excited to be joining  Fusion as a Guest Designer! Woo hoo!

The concept of Fusion is fabulous! You can choose to use the Sketch (Jackie's challenge) or the Inspiration Photo (Lesley's challenge) or you can do them both and create a FUSION!

My challenge today was to use the inspiration photo, and what an awesome photo it is!

I had fun making my card. Just looking at it makes me smile. Green chevrons and grey dots. Without the inspiration photo, I don't think I ever would have come up with this by myself. ;-)

I used PTI Soft Stone card base and a strip of White. PTI Chevron Stripes die with SU! Old Olive. 1/2" circle punch with SU! Basic Grey. Sentiment is PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday stamped in Memento Grey Flannel.

Are you inspired to join in? I hope so! I can't wait to see everyone's interpretation of this challenge.

Thanks for coming to visit!

Michelle
xxx

Yay! It's your birthday!

Hello!

Well, maybe it isn't YOUR birthday, but I was having trouble thinking up a header... and it IS someone's birthday, that's why I made this card. ;-)

I used PTI Turning a New Leaf and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday stamps. The flowers are MFT Die-Namics. Colours are PTI Hibiscus Burst PP, and SU! Garden Green and Night of Navy ink.

I made this card for Muse Challenge #12 where Therese Calvird is our Muse this week with this gorgeous card.

I looked, and looked again, and decided that I was not going to do Therese justice if I just copied this card. Therese has already made this one to perfection. I made a stylised version. ;-)

I used the colours from the April CARDS Blog Challenge.

  Today I am spending the day with my real-life stamping friends. Finding a day in school holidays where none of us are working, or busy, is just heavenly. Our kids run rampant, totally ignored by their mothers, and we spend a lot of time chatting, and a little time putting ink to paper. ;-)

Thanks for coming to visit!

Michelle
xxx