Two weeks in a row – I’m on a roll folks!  And you’ll note that Challenge Chewsday got the nod from the majority of commenters (commentators?!) on the last post – not that I was taking a poll or anything, but since you offered your opinions, let’s go with it!

This week I headed back to Inkspirations HQ and used the fabulous sketch on offer there…

Combined with this PRETTY colour combination from ColourQ…

And this is what I turned them into…

On Thursday just gone, our gorgeous across-the-road neighbours added a beautiful baby girl to their already sweet and lovely family, so as a heartfelt thank you for giving me a brand new baby to sniff, with a little bit of congratulations thrown in, this is the card I made for baby Lily, that we headed over this afternoon to give them.

I also made a little matching gift tag to hang from the bag…

So there you have my challenge entry for this Chewsday!  Hope you’re enjoying my new blog feature – I certainly am!

• An oldie but a goodie – sponge the edges of your cardstock and paper for a lovely vintage look
• Punch a strip of cardstock with a border punch, feed it through the Crimper, then concertina the straight edge together and stick it behind an oval or circle shape for a pretty border
• Use a White Gel Pen in conjunction with watercolouring for some great highlights

“Happy Birth-Day Lily!”
Stamps: Awash with Flowers, Teeny Tiny Sentiments
Paper: Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, Pretty in Pink, Whisper White, Watercolour Paper, Cherry Cobbler, In-color DSP stack,
Ink: Versamark, Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette
Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Ovals die, Eyelet Border Punch, Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Neutrals Brads, Crimper, 2-3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch, 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, Bitty Buttons, Owl Punch (heart), Blushing Bride Stitched Poly Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Glue Dots, Stampin’ Sponges

Following on from my previous post about Frames with a Flourish, another of the stamps sets that I will find it very hard to see the back of will be Nursery Necessities.

It is such a perfect set for all things baby, with its variety of sweet images.

Here is a project from the depths of my picture archive that is almost a year old now, but has not yet seen the light of day here…

Just over a year ago we had some lovely neighbours move in across the street, and shortly after they arrived, so did their first baby – a gorgeous little man named Jacob.

I got him a set of cute little singlets and packaged them up in a little box to match the pictures on the front

Here’s the matching card…

This next gift is another long-ago project and also one that has never been blogged, but even worse, has never been given!

I made it for a girl that I worked with for a little while several years ago who had a baby boy – gosh, it would be well over a year ago now…  I don’t see her often and after I made it, time just slipped by until it got kind of pointless, especially as the gift was socks and feet tend to, well, grow.

Anyway, here it is along with its matching card (cased from one by the lovely Sarah Jane Kalé)…

The little box slides open to reveal the sock bounty within…

…and fits three pairs in total…

Can you see what I mean about the delight of Nursery Necessities..?

Here are some more cards using this gorgeous and to-be-missed set…

If you read my earlier post, then you will likely have a slight case of déjà vu, being that some of the cards in the round up above also contain Frames with a Flourish, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to show you them again

Wouldn’t you agree that there is indeed a vast array of possibilities with this delightful Nursery Necessities set?!

If having a versatile, gender-variable and let’s be honest, flippin’ cute baby stamp set is something you think would be a useful thing for your stampin’ collection, then you really can’t go past Nursery Necessities.

But if you don’t act by tomorrow, it will go past you, as it won’t be making a showing in the soon to be released 2010-11 Idea Book & Catalogue, so be sure to contact me if you want to nab yourself a set while you still can!

*retiring products in red*

“Baby Jacob Gift Set”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Baja Breeze, Basic Grey, Going Grey, Whisper White, Vellum cardstock, Patterns Pack II hostess DSP
Ink: Baja Breeze, Going Grey
Accessories: Word Window Punch, 1/2″ Circle Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Baja Breeze Striped Ribbon, Baja Breeze 1″ Double Stitched Grosgrain, Stampin’ Dimensionals

“Socks in a Box Gift Set”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities, Polka Dot background
Paper: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Versamark
Accessories: Wide Oval Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Brocade Blue 5/8″ grosgrain, Clear Buttons, White Embossing Powder

I would announce sweet Grace herself, but it would be rather overdue an announcement, considering that she was born in late August last year and is likely polishing her walking skills and most definitely up to eating solids as we speak.

Yes, I am that far behind in my blogging, who wants to know…?

Grace is the most delightful angel of a dear friend of mine that I have known since school days.  When she was born, I offered to make the birth announcements as a gift because I thought it would be a useful gift and also, quite happily,  gave me a fabulous excuse to dabble in the digital world that I love so much!

Of course a gift is not a gift unless it is packaged and embellished within an inch of its life, and this was no exception.

I made a little flat-ish box to sit the stack of announcements in, then wrapped the box in an overlapping layer of vellum, tying on a sweet little tag with lashings of Regal Rose grosgrain.

Here you can see a tiny peek of the box within, and a tiny peek of the princess herself, delicious little girl that she is

The flower on the tag is from Hello Again – a gorgeous little stamp set from the Summer Mini that has loads of possibilities, particularly as there are four other equally lovely stamps that make up the set.

I have used it to death these past few months and it looks equally good in soft, pastel colours as it is above, or in brighter colours like the following card that we made in one of the workshops I held here at home last month.

So while you’re patiently waiting in the queue for Framed with Love from the previous post, you might want to consider adding Hello Again to your list.  At $21.95, it’s a serious bargain, it has a matching Stampin’ Around wheel in Retro Remix,  and there are no guarantees that it will pop up again when the new Idea Book & Catalogue hits in September.

If I didn’t own it already, I know what I’d be doing

“Grace’s Birth Announcements”
Stamps: Hello Again, Nursery Necessities
Paper: Sage Shadow, Whisper White
Ink: Sage Shadow, Regal Rose, So Saffron
Accessories: Regal Rose 5/8″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Wide Oval Punch, Linen Thread

“Bright Hello Card”
Stamps: Hello Again
Paper: Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, Pixie Pink, Summer Sun, Whisper White
Ink: Versamark
Accessories: Green Galore, Pixie Pink & Summer Sun Stampin’ Write Markers, Scallop Square Punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals

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

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

As promised yesterday, here is the project I made using the most challenging (for me) of all the colours in the Stampin’ Up! colour families.

Several of you guessed it, and a few of you appear to be similarly challenged by it..

It’s Glorious Green!

This colour is not only not in my comfort zone, it resides a goodly number of postcodes away.

And in all likelihood it would have remained unscathed in my cardstock shelf had the gift that I was packaging not contained that very colour, so in this case, my fear of using this extremely challenging colour was overidden by my penchant for all things matchy-matchy!

Here’s the gift box from the outside…

I think you can kind of make it out in the first picture that I actually embossed the stars onto the vellum lid.  The ink can take a while to dry on vellum, and being the impatient crafter that I am, decided to hasten the process, as well as improve the overall look as it turns out, by throwing on some clear embossing powder.

Here you can see the little set of three pairs of shoe/socks that I packaged inside.  The colours..?  Ballet Blue, Real Red and Glorious Green!

I just realised that you can’t actually see the green pair in there!  I must have subconsciously stuck them at the back behind the other two…

The little gift is for the head coach at my big girl’s gymnastics class who just had her first baby about a month ago.

Here is the matching card…

So you can see that although the Glorious Green is most definitely the accent colour rather than being front and centre, it’s most certainly there!

Baby steps people, baby steps…

Although I should have learned my lesson by now, out of interest, I asked for Tim’s impressions of the box.

His response…?

“Now that’s Christmassy!”

#&%$(#@*&$!!

“Sock box and card”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Brocade Blue, Real Red, Glorious Green, Whisper White, Vellum Cardstock
Ink: Brocade Blue, Real Red, Glorious Green
Accessories: Real Red and Brocade Blue wide grosgrain, Wide Oval Punch, Crimper, Silver Brads, Linen Thread, 1-1/16″ Circle Punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Here is the sixth and final (for now) installment in the week that has been my parade of baby cards!

This one is for another of my customers who welcomed her 5th baby last month.  Little Mitchell made his appearance the very day after I last saw Nikki at a workshop! There’s some stampin’ committment for you – taking yourself to a friend’s workshop a day away from giving birth

This time I challenged myself to brighten it up a bit…

I combined Pacific Point with Tempting Turquoise then added some Very Vanilla in an attempt to tone down all that bright blue!  I quite like the effect!

I was reminded of how much I like the look of punched out shapes stuck on the same colour cardstock for a kind of dry embossed effect, and took inspiration from my lovely friend and fellow demonstrator Marelle (you’ll have to scroll down a bit in the linked post to find the card) in using the small star punch.

I followed on with the “A Star is Born” kind of theme with the large star from Nusery Necessities.

So here ends my little jaunt into the fun place that is baby cards!  I hope you were able to glean some inspiration for any upcoming baby cards you might have a need to create.

I have a lot more to show you and am planning similar project parades along the lines of birthdays, gift ideas and some scrapbooking too!

Stay tuned…..

“Welcome Mitchell card”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise, Very Vanilla, Good Morning Sunshine DSP
Ink: Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: Small Star Punch, Very Vanilla wide grosgrain, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Here’s a fun idea for a baby card, and a great way to use all the lovely different but matching designs you get in a single pack of Designer Series Paper!

Quilt them!

This card, which is for the brand new baby of one of my school mum friends,  started out as a tiny seed of an idea in the stamping corner of my brain.  The yummy sherbet-y colours in the Tea Party pack of Designer Series Paper reminded me of the first quilt I ever made – a gift for a friend’s first baby almost 7 years ago.

It also happens to be the last quilt I ever made to completion- but let’s not even go there, because there is the cob-webby recesses of the upper shelf in my wardrobe – the resting place of the second quilt I ever made – but never quite finished – that is still a front, a back, and a middle held together with safety pins.

Moving right along…

For this card, I first figured out how many 1-1/4″ punched out squares would fit neatly across the front of a card, and having determined that it was three, and also three down as I wanted to leave some plain colour at the bottom, I punched and arranged and fiddled and re-arranged, then fiddled a little bit more until I was happy with the way the different designs were situated.

Then I questioned myself, stood back and looked, fiddled a bit more and decided that I liked the way I had them the first time.

It’s how things generally get done (or not) around here…

After I had stuck the squares the way I liked them, I used the paper piercing guide from the mat pack and pierced holes around the perimeter of each square.  The distance of the holes in the piercing guide were perfectly placed so that I didn’t have to faff about with the corners, which made it a relatively quick and simple process.

I couldn’t resist turning the pierced panel over and taking a pic – how wonderfully neat and cool is this…?

Kind of like braille for the OCD oriented.

For the lower panel I scored some vertical lines that kind of added to the quilted feel, which you can see a bit better here, as well as a close up of the sentiment:

What I love about this kind of card is that with the very vast array of different Designer Series Papers that are available, you could make a card for any kind of occasion along these same lines.

In fact it’s just given me a GREAT idea for a special birthday I know of later this year…

Coming up tomorrow – another bright and funky baby boy card.

Be here, or be….elsewhere…

“Welcome Lucia card”
Stamps: Sweet Little Sentiments (Level 1 hostess)
Paper: Almost Amethyst, Pretty in Pink, Whisper White, So Saffron, Tea Party DSP
Ink: Pretty in Pink
Accessories: Large Oval Punch, Scallop Oval Punch, 1-1/4″ Square Punch, Certainly Celery wide grosgrain, Rich Regals brads, Bone Folder & Paper Trimmer (for the scored lines), Stamper’s Tool Kit, Stampin’ Dimensionals

So as promised, here we have an idea for a twin card and I knew right away which stamp set would get in on the action for this one – can’t go past All in the Family!

This card is for one of my customers who added twin boys to her family last month, thereby being two thirds of the way to her very own Brady Bunch!  She already had two sweet little girls

*waving* Anita!

I wanted to incorporate a colour that might not normally be associated with a baby card, so I used Not Quite Navy in combination with Bashful Blue – a much more baby-fied colour.

What do you think, does the Bashful tone down the Navy enough to make it pass for a baby combination?

I had a lovely time watercolouring the little fellas, and they really pop off the page with the addition of a light grey watercoloured border…

I’m rather partial to their rosy cheeks too….

Tomorrow I’ll show you a sweet idea for a baby girl card using some gorgeous Designer Series Papers – I’ll see you then!

“Anita’s Bundles of Boy card!”
Stamps: All in the Family, Frames with a Flourish
Paper: Bashful Blue, Confetti White, Not Quite Navy, Watercolour Paper
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Blush Blossom, Regal Rose, Bashful Blue, Not Quite Navy, Going Grey
Accessories: Aquapainter, Bashful Blue striped ribbon, Bone Folder & Paper Trimmer (for scored lines), Stampin’ Dimensionals