Not that I’ve written 56 previous posts detailing the various things I love about what I do, but I think if I were to add them all up, I could probably get to at least 57…

My big girl is at home from school with a cold today.  Despite being in fairly high spirits considering the snot factor, I thought it best to keep her at home so as not to spread the joy around.

How is this something that I love about my job…?!

Any previous job that I have had would have required me to take the day off work myself, or alternatively send her to school laden with the aforementioned snot.

Today, and every day for the past almost four years since I started this stampin’ thing, I have had no such decision to make, as taking a day off for me now requires nothing more than stepping away from my stamping desk for a while, and truth be told, I don’t even really have to do that, as she’s sensible enough to take herself off for a rest when she feels she needs it, or play quietly or read when she feels up to it.  And I’m right here with all the mummy love she needs, which is the thing that always got me through any childhood afflictions

Does that sound like a job that appeals to you?

As an added bonus, until the end of this month, all new demonstrators signing up have the opportunity to choose an additional stamp set for free on top of the already amazing value of the starter kit.

Head to the Join my Team section for more information on the demonstrator opportunity and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or queries.

It’s week seven over at Just Add Ink, and this time around it’s another colour challenge – a most challenging one for me that gave me a good old shove out of my comfort zone.

Here are the colours:

They look quite delightful and Springtime-ish here, but Bold Brights have never been a strong point for me, and having to create anything with such bright colours, quite frankly, ‘frightens my life out’ as my girls would say.

I will admit to a false start with this challenge that never made it into a complete card.   I wasn’t happy with the stamped panel that I had created, so that was cast aside in favour of this…

The Flower Fancy stamp set that I have used here is usually one that I reserve for colours such as Rose Red and Always Artichoke, so inking up those flowers in Pink Passion and the leaves in Green Galore was quite a stretch.

The panel of Whisper White that you can see at the bottom of the card has been scored at random intervals using my bone scorer and paper trimmer.

To get this effect, you simply insert the cardstock into your paper trimmer as though you were going to cut it, but instead run the tip of the bone scorer down the cutting groove.  It’s one of those great techniques that adds a little something extra to a project, but without requiring any fancy tools or equipment.

Not that I have anything against fancy tools or equipment – heck knows I own a lot of those (and have another en route as we speak….!) – but sometimes it’s nice to be able to achieve simple but effective results using nothing other than what you have in your basic stamping kit.

Don’t you agree?

I’d love to see what you can come up with using these colours – mostly so I can CASE some awesome ideas for myself – so make sure you head on over to Just Add Ink and play along!

“Just Add Ink Challenge #7″
Stamps: Flower Fancy
Paper: Pink Passion, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White
Ink: Punk Passion, Green Galore
Accessories: So Saffron Marker, Large Oval Punch, Eyelet Border Punch, Chit Chat Rubons, Whisper White Taffeta Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Many of you would already be aware that we are smack bang in the middle of the most fun time of the Stampin’ Up! year – Sale-a-bration!

Other than put a little advertisement up to the top right there, I haven’t done much in the way of shouting it from the rooftops, so I hope to rectify that today by sharing a couple of cards I made with my favourite of the stamp selections available in the Sale-a-bration brochure.

I loved all the stamp sets on sight, but my favourite one is Happy Moments.  I reckon you can’t go wrong with a stamp set that contains four images that could be used for pretty much any occasion, PLUS three greeting stamps into the bargain as well.

And it is a bargain, ’cause it’s free!

It – or any of the other three sets in the catalogue – can be yours for free with any order of $100.  Spend $200, choose two sets.  Spend $300, choose three sets plus the associated hostess benefits.

Spend more than that, and you and I need to have a serious chat about the Stampin’ Up! demonstrator opportunity…  Oh and did I mention that if you take up that particular opportunity during Sale-a-bration you get to choose a free stamp set from the Idea Book & Catalogue too…?

Yep, you do.

See I told you Sale-a-bration was fun!

Ok, onto the cards.  They both use the stack of gifts stamp from the Happy Moments stamp set, which I love because you can colour it all girly and pretty, or make it more boy-ish colours too – both of which I have done in the following examples…

This first card was for a little school friend of my big girl, whose 7th birthday party was just this morning.

The cutest thing was that when Hannah gave her the card, as she was ripping into it, she said “I know what this is – this is a card that your mum made”.

They’re onto me…..!

Here’s a close up of the watercolouring on the stamped image, and I also wanted to point out something else about this part too.

See the scalloped border around the edge of the circle?

Well that circle is the 1-3/4″ Circle Punch and we don’t actually have a corresponding scallop circle punch in the catalogue.  Check out this post on Marelle Taylor’s blog for a nifty little trick to get different sized circles out of your original Scallop Circle Punch…

“Happy 7th Birthday Madelen”
Stamps: Happy Moments
Paper: Kiwi Kiss, So Saffron, Watercolour Paper, Regal Rose Patterns DSP (Level 1 Hostess)
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Kiwi Kiss, So Saffron, Regal Rose, Tangerine Tango, Baja Breeze
Accessories: 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch, Aquapainter, Tangerine Tango striped ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

The next card was for the principal at school after I noticed a couple of weeks ago that his birthday was listed in the school newsletter.  It’s such a lovely school that my big girl goes to (and next year, so will the little one…!) with just one class for each year level and the teachers and the principal know each and every one of the kids by name.

Here’s his card…

The image on this one is also watercoloured, but this time I first stamped and embossed with White Embossing Powder, so it gives the image quite a different look.

So that’s just two simple examples of the many different looks that you could get out of this one stamp, never mind that you have three other image stamps in the set to play around with as well.

Sale-a-bration runs until the end of March, so get in on the free stamps action by contacting me and letting me know what you’d like for your $100 (or $200 or $300!) order

“Happy Birthday Mr Martin”
Stamps: Happy Moments, Short & Sweet
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Naturals Ivory, Kiwi Kiss, Watercolour Paper, Urban Garden DSP
Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Sahara Sand
Accessories: Chocolate Chip side double stitched ribbon, Aquapainter, Stampin’ Sponges, 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals

My word these weeks are passing quickly and it’s time once again for a new Just Add Ink challenge.

This time it’s another sketch challenge – love these – and here it is for your inspiration…

This one shouted “scrapbook layout” to me, so after I had asked it to please use its inside voice  (we don’t shout in our house… ) I set about creating a layout according to the guidelines of the sketch.

And here it is….

You will notice that I flipped the sketch around as there was more empty space to overlap the smaller pictures on the left hand side of the large one, but other than that, I stuck pretty faithfully to the original layout.

To the left of the small pictures, you will notice some little tabs…

These were created using the “left-over”  part of the Round Tab Punch as you can see in the following “how-to”:

These tabs have function as well as a decorative purpose, as they actually indicate that the photo’s can be lifted up to reveal the journalling underneath…

The journalling is divided between all three of the lift-up photo’s and following on from the first bit that you can see above, says:

A couple of days after Christmas, we got to work on creating a fabulous ‘do’ for her.  One hour and a very patient 6 year old later, she had a head full of bouncing barrel curls.

Then it was time for the photo shoot…  Sophie hadn’t been too keen on the hairstyling thing, but definitely wanted in on the modeling action…

27 December 2009

To balance the page, I added a little embellishment in the top right, using the Eyelet Border Punch to create a pretty photo corner, then layered on some stamped images and small embellishments to fancy it up a bit more.

Truthfully, the main photo is just a tad pageant-ish for my liking, but since we were just messing about and playing hairdressers, I figured she could get away with being a bit of a diva for the camera just this once

So now it’s your turn!  Head on over to the challenge at Just Add Ink and see what you can turn the fabbo sketch into!

“Just Add Ink Challenge #6 – Stylin’ Layout”
Stamps: Framed with Love, Always
Paper: Close to Cocoa textured, Rose Red, Whisper White, Bella Bleu DSP
Ink: Close to Cocoa, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White craft
Accessories: On Board Lots of Letters, Eyelet Border Punch, Round Tab Punch, Flower Fusion and Flower Fusion Too, Button Bouquet, Pretties Kit, White Embossing Powder, Stampin’ Sponges

]]> http://www.sarahklass.com/just-add-this-sketch/feed 12 http://www.sarahklass.com/my-first-video-tutorial http://www.sarahklass.com/my-first-video-tutorial#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:38:51 +0000 Sarah http://www.sarahklass.com/?p=1415

Hopefully it will be the first of many, but if the extended hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, software-swapping, massive learning-curve(ing) experience that was my day today is anything to go by, I’m not sure that I can promise anything at this stage!

It is way past the time that I prefer to be long asleep these days, but having spent pretty much all day – most of it in pyjamas – trying first to start up and use the most frustrating piece of computer software I have ever known (I had higher hopes for you Adobe…), then finding what seems at this stage to be a much better editing option (yay for you, Sony!), then spending the rest of the day nutting out exactly how to edit the footage that I recorded yesterday, there is no way on God’s green earth that I’m going to end this day before I have  shared the fruits of my extremely laborious labour.

So here it is – my first attempt at a video tutorial.

Please excuse the various part of the video where it appears that I have lost the ability to speak English.  I’m sure I will get used to chatting to a camera that is hovering above my right ear if I do it a bit more often.

Oh, and please also excuse my head that keeps popping into the frame at the bottom left.  You’re just lucky it’s out of focus, or you’d be subjected to the patch of grey hairs that I have right there.

Ok, I’ll shut up now (can you tell I’m a bit nervous…..?!)

I don’t currently have the capacity to upload in HD, so apologies for the quality being not so great.  It’s another thing I hope to rectify if indeed I am able to make some more tutorial videos.

Right, I’m done!

Thanks for visiting (and watching if you hung around for the show!)  I’d love to hear any feedback that you might have on my first video effort

It’s week four over at Just Add Ink!  Isn’t it amazing how time flies when you’re having fun?

And judging by the number of entries in the challenges each week, a lot of you are having fun with the various assignments too!

For your stampin’ pleasure this week, it’s a colour challenge…

As many of you would know, I am a huge fan of colour challenges, and if not for them, it’s unlikely that I would use more than a handful of colours EVER!

In this case, Rose Red, Kraft and Whisper White get very frequent workouts at my stampin’ desk.   Sage Shadow a little less frequently, but I love it still.

More Mustard I also like, but am quite often stumped as to what to put it with, so it frequently stays in the ‘too hard basket’, while I move onto other colours that I’m more comfortable with.

For this reason, I was very happy to be challenged with it this week, and here’s what I came up with based on this set of colours….

The smokey effect of the flowers was achieved by stamping onto Kraft cardstock using Whisper White Craft ink, then dabbing Stampin’ Pastels over the top.  Except for the flower petals – those are just the plain ink.

I stamped the image onto two separate pieces of Kraft and cut the flower images out of the second one, mounting them on top of the first images using Stampin’ Dimensionals to give the card more dimension and realism.

The rest is pretty self explanatory, with some punching, some ribbon, a rub-on and a whole lotta layering to finish it off.

One thing that I will point out since we’re talking colour, is that you will notice that although there are five different colours used in this card, they’re not used in equal proportions.

In order not to have all the colours competing with each other, and to achieve a good balance, you want to make sure not to use the same amount of each colour, but use a slightly lesser proportion each time you add a new colour in.

You will notice in my card that Kraft is the colour that you can see most of, followed by Rose Red, Whisper White, Sage Shadow, then More Mustard.

It’s a rule I follow with all of my stamping and creating and it seems to have served me well.   I can always tell when I haven’t quite got the proportions right, as I won’t be happy with the result until I add some colour here or subtract some there.

Give it a try and let me know how you go!  I’d love to hear if this little tip has helped you out

“Just Add Ink Challenge #4″
Stamps: Inspired by Nature
Paper: More Mustard, Whisper White, Kraft, Sage Shadow, Raspberry Tart DSP
Ink: Whisper White Craft, Rose Red
Accessories: Eyelet Border Punch, Rose Red double stitched grosgrain ribbon, Whisper White taffeta ribbon, Chit Chat Rub-ons, Stampin’ Pastels, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Stampin’ Sponges

Yesterday I mentioned how much I love the For Everything stamp set from the Summer Mini catalogue, and went so far as to say it was my current favourite stamp set.

A bold statement for someone with a large and growing collection of stamp sets, but a true statement nonetheless.

I also mentioned that I would show you another baby project using this very stamp set, so here it is.

Baby Nadia is the new little sister of one of my big girl’s classmates, and she was born towards the end of the school year last year.

The whole project was inspired by the actual gift inside the box – a delightful little outfit from Target that you can see when the box is opened…

How I love tiny girlie clothes, and those frilly little knickers – TOO cute!!

I had LOADS of fun putting this gift together as the matchy-matchy thing just gladdens my heart, and of course Stampin’ Up! does matchy-matchy oh so well

For the card, I started with a piece of Watercolour Paper and used the same technique I mentioned in my previous post – stamping first, then going over the image with an Aquapainter.  Being watercolour paper, the images don’t need a lot of coaxing to get all blurry and undefined, so less is definitely more when you’re Aquapainting, unless you want a blurry smudge in the middle of your paper.

At least it would be a colourful blurry smudge, but it wasn’t the look I was going for, so I took care not to over-squeeze the barrel of the Aquapainter as I went.

I used the same colours for the box, then made a little tag to match…

The scalloped edge of the tag is one of my favourite features and is achieved by first punching a length of cardstock with the Scallop Edge Punch, then feeding it through the Crimper.

Then you take the length of crimped scalloped cardstock and pinch and squeeze the flat, un-scalloped side together, concertina style, until the cardstock starts to bend around into a circular, or in this case, oval shape.

Once I had the shape I wanted, I stuck the scalloped edge to the back of the punched out Wide Oval that I had already stamped with images to match the card.  Then I neatened it up by sticking another Wide Oval at the back to cover the edges of the scalloped border.

Not sure that any of that makes sense, but if you’d like a clearer explanation, a tutorial, or maybe even a video tutorial now that I have the capacity and machinery to create one of those, just shout!

“A Gift for Baby Nadia”
Stamps: For Everything, Polka Dot, Nursery Necessities
Paper: Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette, Certainly Celery, Barely Banana, Watercolour Paper
Ink: Whisper White Craft, Pink Pirouette, Certainly Celery
Accessories: Scallop Edge, Eyelet Border, Scallop Oval, Large Oval and Wide Oval Punches; Crimper, Certainly Celery Wide Grosgrain, Two-way Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter; Barely Banana, Regal Rose and Rose Red Markers; Aquapainter, Linen Thread, Button Bouquet, Stampin’ Dimensionals

In the past two days, I have showed you two very different versions of the sketch that is the current challenge over at Just Add Ink.

In case you missed them, you can see them –>here<– and –>here<–.

Here is the third and final (for now!) card that I made using the sketch as a guide.  It’s another of the four baby girl cards I’m currently in need of to send to people I know who have recently been blessed with precious little angels…

To achieve the slightly blurry watercoloured look that you can see in the above close up, I first inked up the stamps (using Markers in the case of the flower), stamped them onto the Naturals Ivory cardstock, then took to the images lightly with an Aquapainter.  It took the defined edges off the images a bit and was exactly the softened look I was hoping for.

The little dotted border was added in as a bit of an afterthought, as I wanted to define the circle a bit more.  I drew the lines and dots free-hand with my Regal Rose Marker, then went over them with the Aquapainter as well.

The stamp set is my current absolute favourite, which is a large statement, I will admit!  It’s called For Everything, and you can find it in the Summer Mini catalogue until the end of March!

I’ll show you another baby project using this stamp set tomorrow, so be sure to tune in for that!

“Just Add Ink Challenge #3 – Take 3″
Stamps: For Everything
Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Pumpkin Pie, Pink Pirouette, Naturals Ivory, Sweet Always DSP
Ink: Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Circle Scissors Plus, Regal Rose, Pumpkin Pie & Rose Red Markers, 1″ Circle Punch, Regal Rose wide grosgrain, Aquapainter, Stampin’ Dimensionals

So I mentioned yesterday how much fun I had with the first sketch challenge over at Just Add Ink…

Here is the second card I made using this very fun and versatile sketch…

It’s very different to the first, which is precisely what I love about sketch challenges – the variety of results that can be obtained from a single “map”, if you will.

To get the watercolour-ish effect in the flowers, I coloured directly onto the gorgeous silhouette image from Upsy Daisy using Summer Sun, Cameo Coral, Rose Red and Old Olive Markers, starting with the lightest colour and working upwards to the darkest.  That way, when you overlap the colours a little bit, it won’t ruin your markers.

Next I grabbed my spray bottle filled with water and with the coloured stamp approximately arms length away (the bottle has a fairly serious spray attachment!) I gave the stamp around 3 spritzes of water, then stamped it onto my cut out circle of Naturals Ivory.

This card was sent off to a lady that has a son a couple of years below my big girl at school.  She turned up at a garage sale I had a couple of weeks ago (a long overdue clear out of toys and clothes that have been outgrown at various stages since my girls were born…  procrastinator much?!) and offered to sell off anything that I had left at the Baby and Kids Market where she had a stall the following weekend.

How nice is that?!  Thanks again Penny

If you haven’t tried the sketch challenge yet, you have until midnight next Wednesday to take part.

Actually you can try the sketch whenever you want, three or more times over as I did if you like, but if you want to enter it in the running to be judged one of the Top 5 or Honourable Entries, you have until midnight next Wednesday.

Get to it!

Just Add Ink Challenge #3 – Take Two
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Trendy Trees
Paper: Naturals Ivory, Old Olive, Raspberry Tart DSP
Ink: Rose Red
Accessories: Circle Scissors Plus, Summer Sun, Old Olive, Cameo Coral & Rose Red Markers, Very Vanilla wide grosgrain, Button Bouquet,  Stampin’ Dimensionals, yellow embroidery thread (non SU!)

In case I haven’t mentioned how much I am enjoying being part of a design team, I am SO enjoying being part of a design team!

The girls running the show, Danielle and Amanda are super organised and the team as a whole is so friendly and so flippin’ talented!

And I have been stamping much more than usual these past couple of weeks, also partly due to having a brand new kickin’ morning routine that leaves more than five minutes here and there for stamping.

Gotta love routines

The other reason I have been loving stamping so much this past week in particular, is because of the AWESOME challenge the girls came up with for Just Add Ink Challenge #3!

I ended up creating three cards – all completely different- using this sketch and no doubt I will be going back to it again and again, due in no small part to the fact that it lets me use my fabulous Circle Scissors Plus!

LOVING this tool!

Here is my first card, and the one that is also up at Just Add Ink, along with the jaw dropping creations of the rest of the design team…

I have a number of baby cards to make at the moment – four for girls and one baby boy card, plus I have several that I made towards the end of last year that I must show you too.

I think I feel another Baby Card Parade coming on….!

This card was inspired by a thank you card I received from one of the mums at school who had a gorgeous baby girl at the end of the last school term.

I’ll show you the card and gift that I made for her later in the week, once I have got through the other versions of this sketch that I made.

They’re up tomorrow and Sunday!  Stay tuned…

Oh, and don’t forget to have a go at this sketch yourself and enter it over at Just Add Ink.

And one other thing….  when you get tired of tracing around various sized plates, bowls, CD’s and another other circular paraphernalia you have around the house, contact me to get yourself some Circle Scissors.

I promise you won’t be sorry!

“Just Add Ink Challenge #3″
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White, Kraft, Pink Pirouette Patterns DSP
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White Craft
Accessories: Circle Scissors Plus, Pink Pirouette Striped Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals