Cath Kidston Inspiration

I was so excited to see Cath Kidston's website to use as our Inspiration Challenge today. For those who don't know me, I'm CK crazy! Yep, it's true. I have Cath Kidston EVERYTHING : ironing board cover, tea towels, hand towels, apron, dish brush, sunglasses case, coin purse, wallet, handbag, paper hankies .... boy, quite a lot of stuff! SO to have her products as an IC was thrilling!

Here's a pic of my Cath Kidston bag. My Daughter, Sarah, used her summer pocket money last year in England to buy it for me, she stashed it away in her suitcase and hid it until Christmas, how cute is that?

My card is a softer version of the bag ~ I wanted it to be more vintage looking and shabby chic. Here's what I came up with.

... and a closer look at the FABULOUS new SU Four Frames stamp which matches our Decorative Label Punch. This set will be available next month for pre-purchase from the upcoming Idea Book & Catalog.

Recipe

Stamps : Four Frames, Baby Blossoms, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink : Baja Breeze, Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Peach Parfait, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose
Cardstock : Sahara Sand, Baja Breeze, Naturals Ivory
Accessories : Decorative Label Punch, Baja Breeze Seam Binding Ribbon, Button, Spritzer Tool, Sponges

Stylish Blogger Award

Is it just me, or are you uncomfortable receiving blog awards? Well, I have to admit that Four ladies over the past couple of months have nominated me for a Stylish Blogger award and I wanted to say a huge thank you to each of them, and to let you know who they are and where to find their blogs:

Brenda ~ www.QbeesQuest.com
Sherry ~ www.stampingcowgirlcreations.blogspot.com
Rhea ~ www.rheastamps.blogspot.com
Paula ~ www.sweetshoppecards.blogspot.com

Thanks so much for the honour ladies. It makes a HUGE difference when you know someone likes what you're doing! Happy weekend to you all.

New Goodies from Stampin' Up

Stampin' Up Demos were able to purchase some Designer Paper and a new stamp set which will both be included in this summer's new Idea Book & Catalog. It felt like Christmas yesterday when my box arrived! How FABULOUS ... a stamp set to fit the Decorative Label Punch!!! I love all 4 of them, more samples will follow in the days to come :)

Look at this yummy paper. Back home in England there is an Interior Design Company called "Sanderson" ... these papers look JUST like they were lifted out of their fabric and wallpaper sample book!

Recipe
Stamps : Four Frames, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink : Soft Suede, Baja Breeze
Cardstock : Soft Suede, Paisley Petals DSP
Accessories : Decorative Label Punch, 1/2 Pears, Baja Breeze Ribbon

A New Stamp Set

Morning! I have had my eye on the stamp set 'Hand Knit' ever since my mum and sister took up knitting last year. Mum is a fanatic! She's like a whirling knitting dervish!!! I hope she won't mind me posting a pic of a cushion she knitted recently, so clever!

Anyway, it's mum's birthday on Sunday and I decided to order this stamp set to make her a set of knitting gift tags, cards, general knitting 'stuff'. Obviously, I'm way behind and it's too late to have it all in England by Sunday, so, Mum? A lovely pile of stamped knitting goodies are promised for later this month! Here's a close-up of the lamb.

I'll send this card as a teaser. Cute isn't she? The lamb I mean, not mum. Well, mum's pretty cute too!

Recipe
Stamps : Hand Knit
Ink : Early Espresso
Cardstock : Naturals Ivory, Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake
Accessories : Aquapainter, Spritzer Tool, Crumb Cake Marker

Colour Challenge & Creative Crew

So now you know that one of the challenges for the Stampin' Up CREATIVE CREW is 'recycling', I thought I'd use the recycle challenge combined with today's SCS colours, Certainly Celery, Rose Red and Marina Mist!

Start with an empty tin ~ mine is a Cashew Nut Tin!

Cover your tin with DSP ~ I like to cover the main tin with DSP as it's a shade thinner than our cardstock and therefore easier to wrap around the tin.

Fill your tin with whatever you want ~ these are actually PENS, you take your pen, add the fake flower to the top and wrap the whole thing with floral tape which anchors the flower to the pen!

Recipe
Stamps : Punch Potpourri, Tiny Tags
Cardstock : Nursery Suite, Rose Red, Shimmery White
Ink : Marina Mist, Rose Red, Certainly Celery
Accessories : Bird Punch, Scallop Trim Edge Punch, Tag Punch, 1/2 Crystals, Marina Mist Ribbon, Pretty Pens! Nut Tin!

MARCH 2011 CREATIVE CREW CHALLENGES

I'm very excited to share my March Creative Crew Projects. The challenges for March are:

CCREW0311CF ~ Catalog Focus on the section 'Growing Up' ... make anything with a stamp set from this section of the Idea Book & Catalog.

For this challenge, I used the Tiny Tees Wheel and stamped the baby-grow 3 times, one on the shimmery white paper, and 2 to be cut out and popped up with a dimensional. VERY simple, but pretty cute :)

Here's the box open, you can see the DSP liner and the flaps which make this box so unique. The tutorial is on the sidebar under 'Tutorials'. I'd love you to have a go :)

I made a small rose for the ribbon treatment. Spent the day on Saturday with my Michigan Mingle buddies over at Jill's house and Jill was making these cute little ribbon rosettes. So I had to have a go too ~ this twill ribbon is pretty bulky, but I made it work! The centre is one of SU's Vanilla Rosettes which I dyed in reinker to match the project.

CCREW0311DF ~ Design or Colour Focus. The challenge for March is to use Woodland Walk DSP, or the colours of Vanilla, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, Crumb Cake and Chocolate Chip. Here are my projects with this colour combo:

One of my friends, Carol, showed me a card in the SCS gallery by Connie Tumm. It was sheer genius! She used a Lattice Die on the inside of her card to make a pop up mechanism. I thought I'd use Connie's idea for this Creative Crew challenge. I absolutely love the inside of this card. I kept the outside VERY simple, as all the action is going on inside!!!



My second Colour Focus card still uses the Owl Punch ~ well, it's too cute NOT to use, right? But this one is slipped inside the mini envelope from the XL Die 'itty bitty box and envelope'.



CCREW0311HF ~ The Holiday Focus is on International Earth Day, ie. recycling, repackaging etc. I recycled one of SU's stamp cases. I just trimmed down a notepad to fit inside and hey presto! Love this one :)

This is the inside, I trimmed down the notepad and put the Newsprint DSP over the header. So easy and SO effective.

There is a final Creative Crew Challenge which I didn't participate in, it's a scrapbook page about YOU! So come on over to SCS and play along, we'd love to see your creations in the Creative Crew galleries. Use the keywords listed above, and the words creativecrew, no spaces!

Tickets, Ladies & Gentlemen!

Well, a whole week with no stamping. That's what happens when the school is off for a week!!! Actually, I can't say no stamping, I got my Creative Crew projects for March done, but that's all I did, not one challenge! So this week I shall try to do them all. Fingers crossed :)

Today's TLC on Splitcoast is to make a card incorporating tickets. Easy enough ... until you go looking for an appropriate set, that is! I decided to pull out a stamp set I haven't used much, with a punch I haven't used much ... and ended up with this. I quite like it, very simple but fun!

Here's a close up of the petal and insert.

Recipe
Stamps : Eat Chocolate, Cute by the Inch
Ink : Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Cardstock : Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler
Accessories Petal Punch, 1/2 Crystal, Ticket Corner Punch, Early Espresso Satin Ribbon