Just Add Ink #424 - Texture - Signs of Santa

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to this weeks Just Add Ink Challenge - Just Add Texture.

I wanted to ink up a new stamp set that just arrived in Crafty HQ - Signs of Santa. I love Christmas but not a huge fan of traditional colours and thought lets see what this stamp set looks like coloured with a palette more up my alley - highland heather, coastal cabana and granny apple green.

Look at those busy little elves. The background has been sponged using Flirty Flamingo and Melon Mambo inks and once dry, whie shimmer paint was dabbed using a scrunched up piece of plastic. The shimmer paint looks ah-mazing in real life, catching the light, it has a striking pearly but opaque glimmer. 

The snowy ground is a piece of whisper white card that I have cut with scissors in a curvy hill shape. The texture is a thick layer of dazzling diamonds applied with Tombow Multipurpose Adhesive.  Left to dry overnight, the cardstock becomes hard and the dazzling diamonds firmly stuck leaving a sparkling, textural layer of glitteryness.

For a tad more texture, a few white glimmer card die cut snowflakes were added. These were created using the Seasonal Layers Thinlits. All the images were stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured using Stampin' Blends. To finish the card, the sentiment from First Frost was stamped in the centre.

Be sure to stop by all the Just Add Ink Design Team members blogs for more inspiration with this weeks Just Add Texture challenge . We would love for you and your crafty friends to play along, if you have a blog you can add your card to the Just Add Ink gallery here. Don't have your own blog? No problem! Just send us an email to just-add-ink@hotmail.com with a photo attachment. We'll upload it to our challenge entry blog.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty

Card Making Techniques

Good Day Crafty Friends,

I would like to start by apologising for the long distances between posts this month. I have been working on a huge project that took me longer than I had anticipated. I am just so fussy and wanted everything to be perfect and perfectly planned that I had to let go of a few things because as it turns it....Im not wonder woman!! Dang it!! LOL.

I have spent the last month creating a Techniques binder. I also designed a set of workshops/classes that teach all 60 techniques. The workshop participants complete all 60 techniques over 6 monthly classes, and will walk away with a Card Making Techniques binder complete with instructions and samples.

As I still consider myself a fairly new card maker, I was shocked when I starting receiving orders to purchase the binders outright, but even more shocked when the numbers to the workshops started climbing beyond 20 attendees. So much preparation to be done and here I was thinking I had done most of the hard yakka already.....nope! Seven Full Binders with more orders coming in and 24 Demonstrators attending classes!!!!!!!!!!Say What?!?!?

So, as you could imagine, I have been a busy little bee, stamping, sponging, embossing, die cutting, and cutting card stock LIKE A BOSS and everyday for the last month! I loved every minute of it and probable was a little over organised with all my lists LOL.

I had an hour car journey to get to the venue, so packing all the equipment and display stuff is vitally important to me. Here is a photo of the fur babies checking out all my needs for the 4 hour workshop before it goes into the car.

I have a wonderful sideline, Sharon Holder, who helped organise the day with me. She is the hostess with the mostest! We got to use her fabulous work premises and facilities. The venue has a classroom, tea room, gym, basketball court, and chill out room among other fantastic facilities and was such a great place to hold these events. When the weather warms we can spread out into the gym area and really spread our wings lol.

I was so busy fluttering about I did not manage to get the photos I wanted to, but my Hostess with the Mostess managed to snap a few. Her classroom was invaded by 20 beautiful ladies who were all so adorably wonderful to teach and share my skills with.

LOL......Susan (photo above) is an absolute crack up. So many giggles are had on the day. I LOVE these ladies so much! Once a month is not enough!! We always have a ball whenever we gather and I always walk away with sense of belonging to something super special.

I love these days - not only is there wonderful company and conversation, there is always loads of yummy snacks and treats. We all bring a plate and oh my....there is seriously no need to eat for the rest of the day, these ladies always bring the goodies!!! Scones, cream and jam, muffins, slices, cakes, pizzas and quiches, sandwiches, salads, chips and dips, sausage rolls, biscuits and chocolates galore!

I cannot wait until next month! There will be 24 of us so even more giggles and yummies!! Oh and crafting of course LOL.  

The binder has proved to be so popular with Demonstrators and Online, I am considering doing another set of classes next year perhaps for other Demonstrators located in Western Australia. I may even branch out and offer classes to the public or start doing Online video tutorials........eeeeekkkkkk!!!! For now, I am extremely busy creating completed binders that I have sold and taking orders for the next batch.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty.

AddINKtive Designs August Projects - Pocket Cards

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to this months AddINKtive Design Team Projects. As a Design Team member, I have the privilege of using any of the wonderful tutorials that are available to purchase from the AddINKtive Designs Store - including my own lol. I am still totally addicted to Pocket Cards and decided I would create two for August. The tutorial for this style of card can be found here.

The first card is an adaption of the Pocket Card Tutorial available in the AddINKtive Designs Shop. It uses the same base template with the Envelope Punch Board but instead of a pull tab insert, I have included a tri-fold card and adhered to the base. There were even more panels to decorate with this version of the Pocket Card plus the exterior envelope.

I kept the envelope exterior fairly simply, decorating the top flap with some Tropical Chic DSP and a Gold Foil die cut created with the Colour Your Season Framelits. Some ribbon, a bow and gold sequin trim were used to close the card, finished off with a gold heat embossed sentiment attached with gold metallic thread. 

The inside panels have a subtle colour palette inspired by the pastel tones in the Tropical Chic DSP. Blushing Bride, Daffodil Delight and Soft Sea Foam were used to colour and stamp the images with hints of gold foil strips on the top two panels. The bottom panel has a layer of Blushing Bride card embossed with the "Tufted" Embossing Folder along with the panel that holds the heat embossed sentiment. I love this greeting from the Postcard Pals stamp set, and really wanted it to be the focal point when the recipient opened the card, so I cut it up and adhered the four lines with spaces in between each line of the birthday sentiment.

The second Pocket Card marks the first of my Christmas Card stash. We celebrate the festive season in the Summer months here in Australia so I am instantly drawn to the Christmas stamp sets that have fun, summery themed images. The So Santa stamp set is one of the sets I had to have from the new Holiday Catalogue. 

The Surfin' Santa is my favourite image of the three, and so fitting for friends and family back in NZ. I grew up in a small sea side town where almost everyone spends time at the beach during the Christmas - New Years holidays. We had Surfing Santa's! They would hand out tubes of Sun Block and create havoc up and down the beach with swarming kids attracted to the Lollie Scrambles.

How cool is his Pineapple Cocktail! Love his Poinsettia/Holly print boardshorts - too cute! The Tropical Chic DSP was perfect for the card I wanted to create - something not too floral or girly, more on the masculine side of tropical and with a hint of Christmas. 

The Pocket has been created using Granny Apple Green card teamed with Black, Whisper White and a little Coastal Cabana. The Tropical Chic bundle was used to create the Black card foliage.

There are so many awesome sentiments in the So Santa stamp set, I used one of my favourites for the Pocket Insert "Wishing you a season of warm memories and sunny smiles". 

Thanks for stopping by today. Don't forget to check out the AddINKtive Designs Blog Post for this months highlights. We have such a talented team of Designers sharing projects regularly, with most creations collated into one blog post at the end of the month.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty!

ESAD Colour Your Season Blog Hop

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to the ESAD Colour Your Season Blog Hop. You are currently visiting Jackie Aitken in Western Australia.

I am excited to be hopping with the talented ESAD crew today, as we show the amazing verstaility of this fabulous bundle. I love this bundle soooo much, the stitched framelits have to be my all time favourite and I can see them living in my craftroom forever!

I have made quite a few floral themed cards using this bundle and decided it was time to create some Christmas Cards with the cute Holly image.

I love NON TRADITIONAL Christmas colours - I prefer bright, vivid colours over the traditional Red, Gold and Greens. My Christmas Decorations colours are close to Melon Mambo, Lemon Lime Twist and Tempting Turquoise with Flamingos and Palm Trees.

For this Hop, I decided to challenge myself and create a few cards using Reds and Greens. The first card has a teeny weeny strip of Red LOL The Holly images have been Gold Heat Embossed, Water Coloured and Fussy Cut.

The next card has LOADS of Red! Some Real Red DSP has been used to fill in the negative space left from the Stitched Framelits. Again, the Holly image has been Gold Heat embossed, water coloured and fussy cut. The sentiment was also heat embossed and fussy cut.

The third card uses the same layout as the first card. This time Granny Apple Green Spotted DSP has been used with a small strip of Real Red Striped DSP. Gold Metallic thread and a gold foil snowflake have been tucked under the Holly image, along with a few vellum die cuts.

The fourth card is my favourite. I love Granny Apple Green and it looks wonderful with Gold accents. The die cut frame has been raised with foam strips with the Holly images and strips of DSP/Card adhered directly to the bottom of the die cut frame. To finish the card, a Gold Heat embossed sentiment and two gold glitter snowflakes were added.

Need more ideas before you purchase the Colour Your Season Bundle? Check out some of the projects I have created recently for some inspiration using the other images in the Blended Season stamp set.

Be sure to follow the ESAD Blog Hop all the way through for even more inspirational ideas using the stunning Colour Your Season Bundle. A participant list has been provided below to help you along your journey. Up next in the hop is Leonie Schroder with her amazing project. Enjoy x

Blog hop participant list:

1. Libby Dyson

2. Nicole Wilson

3. Teneale Williams

4. Lou Kitzelman

5. Delys Cram

6. Fi Cobbin

7. Rebecca Scurr

8. Narelle Fasulo

9. Barbara Williams

10. Jackie Aitken

11. Leonie Schroder

12. Maree McIntosh

13. Denise Buetler

14. Jackie Noble

15. Kim Oliver

16. Sandra Mastello

17. Katrina Duffell

18. Lauren Meiklejohn

19. Megan Lenske

Thanks for stopping by today. Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty!

Just Add Ink #422 - Embossing - First Frost

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Hope you have had a great week. Its challenge time over at Just Add Ink, and this week, Rochelle has challenged us to Just Add Embossing. This could be Heat Embossing, Embossing Paste or Embossing Folders.

I chose to use Heat Embossing and a couple of different Embossing Folders - I have run out of Embossing Paste! Bugga it! Lol I probably would have added a teeny weeny bit of that too if I still had some.

I have used a stunning stamp set from the new HOLIDAY CATALOGUE, called First Frost. The floral images were stamped and sponged and then with a paint brush, I have painted Tombow and then applied Dazzling Diamonds. 

The three panels that the stamped images rest on, have been embossed using two folders - Subtle and Tufted. The other Embossed element in my card is the sentiment, which has been stamped in Soft Sea Foam and then Clear Heat Embossed.

The Soft Sea Foam foliage has been adhered with Tombow and the Flowers over the top with mini dimensionals.

Be sure to stop by all the Just Add Ink Design Team members blogs for more inspiration using this weeks challenge colours. We would love for you and your crafty friends to play along, if you have a blog you can add your card to the Just Add Ink gallery here. Don't have your own blog? No problem! Just send us an email to just-add-ink@hotmail.com with a photo attachment. We'll upload it to our challenge entry blog.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty

Stamping Sunday - Darling Label Punch

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to the Stamping Sunday Blog Hop. You are currently visiting Jackie Aitken in Western Australia. This month the Design Team are creating projects using the Darling Label Punch.

This Punch is sold as part of a kit - The Darling Label Punch Box is a tin filled with crafting goodies and is packaged in a gorgeous decorative tin, making it a great item to gift someone who just starting out in the card making journey.

The Kit has the Punch and six stamps, plus ink spots and an acrylic block. All you need to add is card/paper. I have decided to use other stamp sets with this punch, to show how cute and versatile the punched shape can be.

First up is a pocket card. I have kept it very clean and simple, so that the punched shapes taken from the card front are really visible.

I have created a watercoloured background using Granny Apple Green and Coastal Cabana inks, then using the label punch, four punched shapes were removed from a whisper white card and placed over the water coloured card. A few whisper white die cuts made using the Stitched Season Framelits were tucked under the punched out shapes.

The sentiment has been gold heat embossed on Vellum as adhered using Tombow and a sponge. A gold foil dragonfly was added at the bottom as it was just too plain without it.

The inside of the pocket card has a few more dragonflies to tie in with the one on the cover.

For my next project I made little personalised treats for an upcoming class I have at the end of this month. The edible candies will be placed on the tables along with their class project kits.

They were super simple to make using the Pick a Pennant stamp set, which has the alphabet and the little floral image teamed with a few Stampin' Blends and the Label Punch.

I actually ran out of time to complete all 20 name candies so will have to finish the rest off within the next week - plus I saved all the names with the most letters!!!

I am last on the list today, but if you haven't already, be sure to follow the hop all the way through for loads of inspiration and creative ideas using this Punch. A list of the all the blog participants has been provided at the end of each blog, so hopping is as simple as clicking on the next hoppers name.

Just Add Ink #420 Inspiration

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to Just Add Ink Challenge #420. This week we have a gorgeous inspiration picture to play along with. Such a vibrant and colourful image, there are so many stunning colours that maybe the inspiration behind your creation, or maybe the large flower. Whatever the inspiration, we would love for you join us.

I originally was going to create a brightly coloured floral card but when I looked at all the floral stamp sets I own I just wasn't feeling it. Instead I chose to pick a couple of my favourite colours from the image and "stamp" them using my ink pads and acrylic blocks. Such a simple technique but I do love the results for the minimal effort.

Using the "H" Block, I simply pressed it flat onto the ink pad, spritz with water and pressed the block onto Water Colour cardstock. You can see your ink smooshing through the block - so fun!! 

Colours used were: Melon Mambo, Grapefruit Grove, Pineapple Punch, Coastal Cabana and Lemon Lime Twist. 

Once dry, I took to the water colour card with my trimmer and sliced a small portion off. Then using foam strips I adhered the coloured card to a layer of Whisper White card, leaving a small gap between the two coloured pieces. 

The whisper white then has a black layer before adhering to the card base. The 'amazing' has been die cut from black card and adhered with tombow. A portion of a sentiment from Postcard Pals has been white heat embossed on black card and adhered above the die cut word with mini dimensionals.

Be sure to stop by all the Just Add Ink Design Team members blogs for more inspiration using this weeks challenge colours. We would love for you and your crafty friends to play along, if you have a blog you can add your card to the Just Add Ink gallery here. Don't have your own blog? No problem! Just send us an email to just-add-ink@hotmail.com with a photo attachment. We'll upload it to our challenge entry blog.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty