Ballerina, Saffron & Peacock Colour Dare Challenge #311

This week's challenge Color Dare #311 was to use Ballerina, Saffron, Peacock with optional Gold. 

Guidelines on Neutrals:  White, Cream, Black, Gray, Kraft and Brown(s) are free to use.  Unless they're listed in the challenge then you need to use them.

For me my favourite colour is Peacock and so when I was demonstrating Opaque Matte Texture Paste to my cardmaking class today (at an adult learning community centre), I grabbed the Peacock Ink. I didn't have my re-inker at class to drop a few drops of ink down on my All-Purpose Mat so I turned my ink upside down and splatted it there. I pulled some texture paste out of the tub with the long skinny Palette Knife and then moved it onto the inky section and mixed it in (as below) with the thicker palette knife. 

After I Demoed the colour blending on the mat, I showed the stencil with a little butterfly cut out, quickly moved around and smeared it again and again (without rinsing the template between). With my left over peacock coloured texture paste I just smeared it over the White Daisy cardstock I had. 

After the peacock coloured texture paste dried I cut it down slightly to be 3.75 inches x 3.75 inches. I backed it with Saffron Cardstock. I cut s 0.75 inch strip of Ballerina Cardstock and stuck on one of the saffron coloured long stickers from the Boutique Complements. 

I cut it down and kept the left over piece. Then I punched out chipboard/card hello complement from the Boutique Complements and stuck it up on 3D Foam Tape. Later I may add some ribbon or other embellishments to it but I did like the simplicity of this card. A quick texture technique and BAM a card is made. I wanted to show the ladies at the class that you could do this quickly and easily and didn't need to use up much time. 

Thanks so much for dropping by to check out my latest project. Hope you can join in the Colour Dare Colour Challenge #311 too. I'm really interested to hear what you think about it, so I'd love you to leave a comment. See you again soon. If you don't have a Close to My Heart Consultant (and you're in Australia) feel free to contact me either on this blog or via my website HERE. 

Vandra Stenton, Close to My Heart Consultant, Perth Western Australia

www.vandra.closetomyheart.com.au

Sew What?! - CTMH Technique Blog Hop

The Sew What?! Technique Blog Hop is about using stitching in your artwork - be it real stitches or faux stitching using Thin Cuts, stamp images, etc. This is my second time joining this Technique blog hop group and I'm very happy to be part of it because its an International group and I am in Australia, with lots of my sister consultants in this blog hop in the US and Canada.  If you have arrived here from Valerie Kapsha then you are in the right place. If you landed here another way, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. Follow the links, check out all the amazing ideas for using stitching in your artworks and eventually you'll come right back here to where you started.

I pulled out the new Stitched Borders stamp set that I wanted for this challenge. I started by stamping the shortest length stamp as shown below (the longest stitch) around the edge of my white daisy cardstock in black ink. Lining it up well as I could in a straight line for the second stamp to get the right length. 

Then I pulled out my new Colour of the Year Sugarplum Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad and stamped the block words "you're a Beautiful Soul" from the Operation Smile™: Beautiful Soul stamp set. When you purchase this stamp set, Close to my Heart will donate $7 USD of the proceeds to Operation Smile™, a non-profit organization that provides surgeries to repair cleft lips and palates for children around the world.

I cut out the sugar plum titles and placed them around the middle of the card so I could get the placement of the stitching circles. I lay them on top of the card so I could get the placement right but didn't stick them down right away. I moved them aside to stamp the circles. Then I stamped the two hearts from the Operation Smile™: Beautiful Soul with  Sugarplum Exclusive Ink™ and then stamped the stitched heart besides each one. To finish it off I layered the white daisy with Sugarplum Cardstock behind the card and then the title stuck on with 3D Foam tape. 

I am very happy with my finished card although my photo looks a bit skewed - trust me its perfectly square - Trick photography :) 

Thanks so much for dropping by to check out my latest project idea. I'm really interested to hear what you think about my stitched card, so I'd love you to leave a comment before heading off to the next stop on our Technique Blog Hop which is  Melissa Robinson I hope you leave a lovely comment on all the blog posts and come back around to mine. See you again soon.

If you don't have a Close to My Heart Consultant (and you're in Australia) feel free to contact me either on this blog or via my website HERE. 

Vandra Stenton, Close to My Heart Consultant, Perth Western Australia

www.vandra.closetomyheart.com.au

Boutique CTMH Australasian Blog Hop

Welcome to our Australasian Blog Hop. We have all been creating with the most lovely paper suite Workshops Your Way® Boutique Scrapbooking Kit matching complements, kits, stamp sets and ribbon, which is featured this month. If you have arrived here from Doris Taylor Creative Inspirations, then you are in the right place. If you landed here another way, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. Follow the links, check out all the amazing ideas and eventually you'll come right back here to where you started.

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Workshops Your Way® Boutique Scrapbooking Kit

Product Description

Kit contents:
1 – Boutique Paper Packet (X7235B)
1 – Boutique Complements(X7235C)
4 – cardstock sheets (1 Peach, 1 Peacock, 2 White Daisy)
1 – Boutique Puffy Stickers (Z4234)
1 – Mink Twine (Z4221)
photo placeholders
printed instructions

Use the materials in this kit to create three coordinating scrapbook layouts or combine them with the Boutique Deluxe Bundle (Z4500) to create three enhanced layouts. (Instructions for both sets of layouts are included with each kit and are also found on my website here.)

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To make my cards for this blog hop, I pulled out the coordinating inks that match in with the colours of Boutique. Sugarplum, Peach, Saffron and Peacock Inks are the ones I chose to add to the New stamp set called Bunches of Love, which is in the Boutique area of the Seasonal Catalogue. 

I stamped the colours for the flower and then fussy cut it out. I LOVE this bunches of love stamp set because its designed to be rough to look like a block printing thingy, so you literally can't make a mistake with it. It looks good no matter the roughness of your stamping. I wish all stamps were this forgiving!

I added the gorgeous spotty paper to my card with the matching colour of the year Sugarplum at the bottom of it with some Gold Glitter paper strip in between. Then with 3D Foam tape I added the stamped and cut out flower on top. I did the Just Because in Peacock on the sugarplum cardstock. 

I LOVE this stamp set so much the Bunches of Love that we have played lots of times with it. Caroline & I have done a craft video that just needs to be edited before I can load it to my blog. I will post it here when its finished. See below few pics on our samples on the left using Sugarplum and Sage and Caroline's card on the Right using lots of the new colours. As you can see she's also used the paint platter stamp from Bunches of Love to make a gorgeous border around the card and birthday sentiment. 

The next card I did very similarly to my first Boutique Card but I used a larger piece of Sugarplum cardstock and less dotty paper. I had a small gap between the paper and cardstock so I put thin 3D foam tape and added the gold with a small 3D element on this card to make that element a bit more enhanced. I used the Operation Smile™: Beautiful Soul set for the title. When you order the Operation Smile stamp set Close to My Heart will donate $7 USD of the proceeds to Operation Smile™, a non-profit organization that provides surgeries to repair cleft lips and palates for children around the world.

To finish off this card I used the Boutique Puffy dotty stickers around the encouraging sentiment. This would be a great card when someone's done something really amazing in their life, school, work career, celebrate a kitchen tea, a pregnancy, or any achievement worth noting or a reminder for someone who is feeling a little down to lift them back up. 

Remember this great set  Workshops Your Way® Boutique Scrapbooking Kit  and associated things will be only available while stocks last with this seasonal catalogue which finishes in December (if not sold out beforehand) so go to my website or to your Close to My Heart Consultant. If you don't have a Close to My Heart Consultant feel free to contact me either on this blog or via my website HERE. 

Thanks so much for dropping by to check out my latest project ideas. I'm really interested to hear what you think about them, so I'd love you to leave a comment before heading off to the next stop on our Australasian Blog Hop which is Lara Moss, Scrappykea, I hope you leave a lovely comment on all the blog posts and come back around to mine. See you again soon.

Vandra Stenton, Close to My Heart Consultant, Perth Western Australia

www.vandra.closetomyheart.com.au

Peacock, Kraft & Ruby Colour Dare Challenge #310

My second blog for the design team the Colour Dare Colour Challenge for #310. I found it really interesting that this post is my 110th post on my blog, so those numbers actually line up nicely.

This week's challenge #310 was to use Peacock, Kraft, Ruby with optional Gold. 

Guidelines on Neutrals:  White, Cream, Black, Gray, Kraft and Brown(s) are free to use.  Unless they're listed in the challenge then you need to use them (like Kraft is, in this challenge). 

I pulled out my My Type of Note (pic below) stamp set and I used Peacock ink to stamp the typewriter. I LOVE Peacock, its one of my absolute favourite colours. I then inked Ruby to stamp the "thinking about YOU!" sentiment and the love hearts. I stamped all of this on White daisy cardstock and matted it with Kraft Paper on top of a White Card with Envelope. I also made a pennant banner with the Kraft Paper and used 3D foam tape to give it a 3D finish. I used thin foam tape to matt the white daisy onto the Kraft paper. 

To finish the heart trail floating up the card I added small Gold Pearls, as my optional Gold accent. This gold in the pearls really blends in well with the Kraft paper. 

Thanks so much for dropping by to check out my latest project. Hope you can join in the Colour Dare Colour Challenge #310 too. I'm really interested to hear what you think about them, so I'd love you to leave a comment. See you again soon. If you don't have a Close to My Heart Consultant (and you're in Australia) feel free to contact me either on this blog or via my website HERE. 

Vandra Stenton, Close to My Heart Consultant, Perth Western Australia

www.vandra.closetomyheart.com.au

Twisted TicTacToe Colour Dare Challenge #309

Today I created my very first card for the Colour Dare Colour Challenge #309. I just became one of the design team. This latest challenge is a Twisted TicTacToe Challenge with the colours that have just retired from the Close to My Heart range. 

These were the options to start with and we could choose 3 or more colours from these above shown colours. 

I selected Bashful, Juniper, Poppy, and Blossom. Plus Black as a neutral free to use colour.  

Guidelines on Neutrals:  White, Cream, Black, Gray, Kraft and Brown(s) are free to use.  

The Big flower is Bashful with the bashful pearl in the centre, the medium flowers were Blossom and the dark flowers were Poppy. The leaves are all Juniper. The Juniper striped paper is from the whimsy Fundamentals paper pack.

This is the new stamp set I used called Bunches of Love. 

I really love how the flowers and leaves don't cover everything and it looks amazing no matter how roughly its stamped because that's the design. 

Thanks so much for dropping by to check out my latest project I'm really interested to hear what you think about it. Hope you can join in the Colour Dare Colour Challenge #309 too. 

Vandra Stenton, Close to My Heart Consultant, Perth Western Australia

www.vandra.closetomyheart.com.au

Just Treats S1809 CTMH Stamp of the Month Australasian Blog Hop

Welcome to our Australasian Blog Hop. A group of us have been creating with the "Just Treats - September Stamp of the Month" Stamp set. If you have arrived here from Wendy Hopper -Expressions of the Heart then you are in the right place. If you landed here another way, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. Follow the links, check out all the amazing ideas and eventually you'll come right back here to where you started. 

Today I would like to share with you my projects which feature the Just Treats - September Stamp of the Month available exclusively throughout September 2018 for $29.50 or for just $8.25 when you spend $82.50. 

The brand new catalogue has gone live today! YAY!!!

This is me when I first got hold of my catalogue at our product launch in July. Its so exciting that its finally live to EVERYONE now!! YAY!!! Check out my website to get a closer look at all the exciting things. 

So I used the new inks Candy Apple and Clover on my Christmas Themed card but I don't have the matching cardstock yet, so I used the Candy Apple ink to ink the edges of the white strip 1.5 x 5.5 inches. I did the half and half stamping on white cardstock and stuck with 3D Foam tape on the Gold Glitter Paper. I cut a Gold glitter paper pennant. 

I stuck the strip of white with the candy canes and Christmas trees with 3D foam tape too. Then I stuck white dots from the Black & White dots. 

I have been singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"  Here is my favourite Pentatonix version of the song. Get into the Christmas Spirit (okay its September but I can get Christmassy already can't I?). 

After I got all Christmassy. I decided I loved the title "Thankful for sweet friends like you". I grabbed my favourite Raspberry ink (that's a bit messy since I got it returned after loaning it out to someone). Then I randomly stamped on white cardstock 3.75 x 5 inches with the lolly wrapper, then the love heart and then filled in the smaller areas with the 3 little stars. I lined it with raspberry cardstock, 4 x 5.25. Then the title in Black ink with 2.5 x 2 inches and then half inch larger with the raspberry cardstock to back it.  

I adhered the title to the cardstock and then sat it up with 3D foam tape. 

Remember this great stamp set Just Treats - September Stamp of the Month is only available throughout September from my website or from your Close to My Heart Consultant. If you don't have a Close to My Heart Consultant feel free to contact me either on this blog or via my website HERE. 

Thanks so much for dropping by to check out my latest project ideas. I'm really interested to hear what you think about them, so I'd love you to leave a comment before heading off to the next stop on our Australasian Blog Hop which is Doris Taylor Creative Inspirations I hope you leave a lovely comment on all the blog posts and come back around to mine. See you again soon. 

Vandra Stenton, Close to My Heart Consultant, Perth Western Australia

www.vandra.closetomyheart.com.au