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 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 we are again with a third idea for a baby card, bringing us to the halfway mark in the parade.

Isn’t this FUN?!!

This one is for a dear friend that I have know since high school, who just had her first little poppet the week before last.

I still actually have it here, ready for when we catch up next week, but I feel safe in the knowledge that my friend won’t see it here as 1) I don’t think she reads my blog and 2) she has a brand new bundle of baby – why would you need the internet when you can stare at and sniff one of those all day….?!

Here is the card for little Grace Ashana…

This one started with a sketch that I found here.  Gotta love sketches

Join me tomorrow for a twin boy card – that’s a fun one!

“Welcome Grace card”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Kraft, Very Vanilla, Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette Patterns DSP
Ink: Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White craft
Accessories: Crafter’s Tool Kit, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Alrighty, we’re still on track – amazing with my recent posting history, but here we go…!

This next baby card was for my friend and stampin’ team member Vicki, who is also a friend of my cousin Lucy, whose little man Ben was the recipient of yesterday’s creation.

Confused yet?  Well this will confuse you even more.

Shortly after we met, Vicki and I discovered that her eldest James and my youngest Sophie were born on the exact same day.  Kind of cool, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Shortly after that, we discovered that our husbands’ birthdays were also on the same date.  Different year this time, but the same date.

Hmmmmm.

Then, Vicki happened to mention that her birthday was the 4th of November – the same date as my wedding anniversary.

Okaaaaaay.

THEN, when she was pregnant with little Abigail, her due date was the same date as my big girl’s birthday – May 28th.

As it turns out, Abby made her entrance a few days early, thereby ending the significant occasion date stalking situation that we seemed to have going on.

You still with me?  Good, here is little Abigail’s card…

It’s a bit hard to see the detail in the centre stamped image – let’s see if we can arrange a close up…

See the little filigree detail at the top and bottom of the oval stamp?  SO pretty.  The stamp is from the Gallery set, currently available in the Spring Mini catalogue.  Page 11 for those of you playing along at home

You will recall at the end of yesterday’s post that I mentioned this next card was pretty much the exact same card as Ben’s but with different stamps and colours.

Here they are side by side…

One of my favourite things to do is to recreate a single layout idea and make it entirely different just by altering some (or most!) of the elements.

I encourage you to try it if it’s not already standard practice in your card making.  If you love a particular card that you’ve made, make it again and just change it up a bit.  It sure beats re-inventing the wheel every time!

Oh and when you do, come back here and share it with me in the comments section – I’d love to see what you can come up with…!

“Welcome Abby card”
Stamps: Gallery, Nursery Necessities
Paper: Whisper White, Pink Pirouette, Pink Pirouette Patterns DSP
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Sahara Sand
Accessories: Whisper White Taffeta ribbon, Flower Fusion too, Silver brad, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Well, it’s only a small parade but if you need a baby card, hopefully you’ll find some inspiration here over the next few days…!

We begin with Ben – my cousin Lucy’s delightful little boy who was born in February this year.  I only caught up with Ben and Lucy a few weeks ago, for the first time since he was born – terrible, I know.  I am like the plumber with the leaky taps and the mechanic with the old rust-bucket of a car.  I am the card maker that is always late with cards for my nearest and dearest.

Seriously, it’s a problem….

I did enjoy making Bens’ card though!  Here it is…..

I just can’t get enough of Baja Breeze with any kind of brown at the moment and I think this combination works as well in a card for a little fellow as it does for almost any other occasion.

At least I’m hoping it does, ’cause it’s my current go-to colour combination for pretty much everything I’m churning out these days…!

Check back tomorrow for a baby girl card based on the exact same layout as this, but with different stamps and colours and quite a different result…

“Welcome Ben card”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities, Frames with a Flourish
Paper: Naturals Ivory, Baja Breeze, Baja Breeze Patterns DSP, Whisper White
Ink: Baja Breeze, Close to Cocoa, Pacific Point, Sahara Sand
Accessories: Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon<, Stampin’ Dimensionals

I promised in my last post that I would share details of the baby shower that we threw for Jules, so here we go!

Having said that, despite the fact that I love nothing more than a good excuse to get to crafting, there’s not a whole lot of stuff that I can show you…!  I made the invitations, but they were digital rather than stamped, so while they allowed me to exercise my love of faffing about in Photoshop, they don’t provide much in the way of stampin’ inspiration…!

And then there were the little guest boxes that I made up, but these were packed in clear plastic catering type boxes, which do not a good photograph make…

Here’s the card I made for Jules though!

No doubt you’ve seen them in several places around cyberspace.  I’m not sure where they originated, but I just love the sweet and simple idea for a baby card so thought it would be perfect for the occasion.  I tried to make it non-gender specific, which I find quite a hard thing to do…

“Baby Shower Romper Card”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White, Hand Drawn Designer Series Paper
Ink: Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Scallop Circle and 1-3/8″ Circle Punches, Large Star Punch, Earth Elements brads, Stampin’ Dimensionals

We had a couple of games to play – not too many though, mostly people chatted and ate the mountains of food that we had there.  Here are some little sets of cards in tins that I made up as prizes.  Each tin had a set of 10 little cards inside like the ones shown…

They were very well received by the ladies who triumphed in the little party games, but the biggest exclamation of the day were reserved – and quite rightly so – for the cake…

Is that not the most amazing creation of edible beauty that you’ve ever seen?!  Not only did it LOOK amazing but it tasted divine too – white chocolate and strawberry marble.  The only shame about the whole thing was that we had to cut it!

We hardly even made a dent in the size of it either – there was a large section, including the rather lovely firm, rounded pair towards the top of the picture, left over.  I sent it home with Jules so she could give it to Grant – a pair that he was allowed to touch…;o)

The pastry chef is an extremely talented chick that I know, so if you’re in Perth and ever in need of a super-impressive sweet creation, then Julie’s your gal!  She is in the process of setting up a website as we speak, so I will post the details here once I have them