One Card Two Ways

Yesterday as I was blog-hopping I came across a lovely card that was quite simple, but was very appealing - so I had to scraplift it (or is it called CASE if it is a card?).

I didn't write down the site I saw it on, and now I can't find it again (please let me know if it's yours so I can give credit).

Here are the 2 cards:

Thank you:

Materials: Cardstock -Kaszazz White A5 trimmed to 5inx3.5in, Kaisercraft pastel pink card; Stamps - Kaszazz spring uncut set, Lucy's medium butterfly, Kaszazz mini messages; Inks - Vivid! wild lime, raspberry and pink; Punch - Kaszazz butterfly; Kaszazz rhinestones; glossy accents; ultrafine glitter; American Crafts green ric-rak ribbon.

Get Well Soon:

Materials: Cardstock -Kaszazz Ivory A5 trimmed to 5inx3.5in, Kaisercraft pastel purple card; Stamps - Kaszazz spring uncut set, Lucy's medium butterfly, Kaszazz mini messages; Inks - Colorbox Chalk deep green, yellow cadmium, orchid pastel and dark peony; Punch - Kaszazz butterfly; Stickles; BigW purple/pink ric-rak ribbon.

Sketches! Challenge #108

Welcome to another Wednesday, which means it's Sketches! {by Tamara} day! This week's challenge is a journalling challenge: "journal about an interesting characteristic or trait of someone you love".

As soon as I saw this challenge I knew I wanted to do a page about how Emily and Sophie both suck the same fingers.

Just because it's a journalling challenge I thought I should share the journalling:

Everyone comments how unusual it is that Sophie sucks those 2 fingers, but I find it even more amazing that Emily used to suck the exact same 2 fingers when she was a baby/toddler. It must be genetic because what are the chances?!

As always I love reading comments (don't we all), and there is some great inspiration from the DT on the Sketches! blog - and leave a link to your journalling challenge page :)

Happy crafting!

Tim Holtz is so cool!

I know I have previously expressed my love of Distress Inks, the Ink Blending Tool, and I'm starting to love the Distress Embossing Powders too... not to mention Crackle Paint and Stickles... the guy is seriously talented to have thought up these products and more.

If you are a follower of his blog you will know he is currently in the UK and was a guest presenter on QVC-UK - something similar to TVSN - this morning (well, I couldn't work out the time difference, but when I checked about 1pm it had already happened). If you want to watch the segments you can go to the QVC-UK website and click on the last 24hrs and select 12:00am - 1:00am to see his products and you can click them to watch the presentation (this will only apply until tomorrow Aust time).

I watched a few of the segments and I learned a few things... like one whole dropper of the Distress Ink Refill is the correct amount to refill the whole pad! Apparently he designed it this way - how clever is that? He also designed each of the colours to maintain their colour integrity - as in, when you add water the colour doesn't change, only the intensity! That means that you always get an accurate colour whether you mix it with no, a little, or a lot of water.

The Distress Stickles are pretty cool too - they are not your standard glitter glue. When they are smeared on in an even, thin coating (he uses his finger to smear it out) they dry with the appearance of crushed glass, or when used in a blob they dry with the appearance of a rhinestone... and the best bit - you can dry them with a heat tool and the particles won't melt!!!

I can't believe I knew nothing about the world of Distress and Tim Holtz before becoming a Kaszazz consultant - how did I survive?! All of the cool products we get to use and demo is just another reason I love Kaszazz!

Sketches! Challenge #107

Welcome to Wednesday! This week at Sketches! it is a recipe challenge. The recipe this month is to use Staples, Stamps and Stitching (real or faux). With the recipe challenge you can choose to use it on a card or a layout, and this month I chose a card.

Here is what I came up with:

This card was super simple - I ran the red bazzill through the Cuttlebug with the raised inside of the folder inked with white Colorbox ink. I then stapled on the ribbon and adhered the red card to the dark brown cardstock. Once in place I used a ruler to mark on the white Signo pen for stitching, and stamped the adore stamp twice - once with brown ink and once with red ink. I circle punched the brown stamped image, and cut the top and bottom of the circle from the red stamped image and layered it over the top. A large scallop circle punched from some red card finished with some white Signo stitching, and attached to the ribbon via a paper clip.

If you haven't already you have to check out the other talented ladies' work at Sketches! Lots of inspiration there. As always please share what you make via the comments section on the Sketches! blog - we love checking out your work!

Big Toot!

I am going to toot my own horn, and announce that I have won the Kaszazz Team Training Day (TTD) competition - out of all of Australia! On TTDs they run a competition with a theme or requirement. Because the new release was Romance, they pre-released some of the stamps so that we could use them to make a project to take along and potentially win a prize on the day. I happened to win first prize at our TTD (and I was stoked!) but then the consultants that were running the TTDs had to send in photos to head office to show what had been created... and out of all of the TTDs across the country they gave mine FIRST! How cool is that!

There was nothing particularly difficult about it - it was 2 pillow boxes, 2 cards and a 'noodle' gift box that I thought would make a cool 5 projects quick. I think Corie and Kim only took a photo of the pink card/pillow box and the noodle box to submit, but here is all of the items I made for the day:

For my little bit of effort, I've not only won myself the 2 packs I got on the day, but now I get a $250 prize pack sent from Kaszazz. I'm pretty stoked!

Finished!!! Well, for now at least.

I have JUST finished cleaning, tidying and rearranging my scrap space.

Yes, I know you want a look...

This is my new corner - well, it's the same corner, just different!

Now I wish I could say that it still looks like this... but it has been a good half an hour and there were piles of papers, a box full of ribbons, brads, buttons, etc and some display pieces that needed a home so they are all piled in that spare space to the right of my craft mat... and I will find a new home for them tomorrow. Oh and the tub at the end of the table is filled with all my Kaszazz products that I need to find a home for too.

Ok, so what's where... the top shelf of the bookcase is the pink drawers with my cuttlebug dies and folders, and my cuttlebug. The big basket currently holds all my inks, embossing powders and rollagraph stuff (we'll see how that works). Second shelf has my rubber stamps in the CD cases, stamp cleaning stuff and pencils/textas/crayons. Third shelf is a mixture of paints, brushes, jewellery stuff and my Xyron that never gets used (roll eyes).

Fourth shelf is boxes of photos, acrylic stamps and sewing stuff, plus my unused chipboard album/projects. Bottom shelf is home to my mags, wool and x stitch, bling and more jewellery stuff.

On the desk from the right is Kaszazz folders, Scrapbook albums, Kaszazz tub (everything you could imagine is in there), card and envelopes (in my new boxes), adhesives, paints etc, chipboard and stickers, all my tools, my OTT lamp (l.o.v.e this!) and my new document tray/drawer where I can store my unfinished layouts and in the drawer is more bling.

I think the way I have arranged the desk and bookcase makes better use of the space - it doesn't eat into the room as much. Now the only problem is I'll need eyes in the back of my head to watch the kids!

Coming up for air...

I have got to the point that I have to do some rearranging and sorting of my scrap space. And anyone who knows me, I can put up with things for a while (I'm good at ignoring) but when it has bugged me enough, that's it! It gets done once and it gets done properly.

I'm thinking I might get rid of a whole heap of stuff that I've never used and probably never will... if anyone out there in blog-land would like some free stash (yes it will probably be old papers and embellishments - but still in excellent condition) drop me a line and I'll post it to you. I'd rather that than throw it out. At the minute I'll limit it to people within Australia - just for the sake of postage costs for me.

So, I'm in the process of trying to sort out the "to keep" and "not to keep" while considering how I'm going to rearrange my space. I have limited room in my corner of the lounge, with my dining table (it literally is our old dining table that I have adopted as my desk) and a small bookcase. I currently have the bookcase in the corner against the wall, then next to the end of the bookcase is my table with the end to the wall, and the computer desk is along the wall next to that... kind of like a T shape with the table sticking out into the room. I'm thinking it may work better with the table longways against the wall and moving the bookcase.

Eventually we plan to get the wall built in with cupboards and a bench (similar to our kitchen) which will give us a lot more storage and a clean neat look (seeing as it's on display) but the budget isn't stretching that far at the moment. I'll have to make do for now :) oh, and drool over all the cool stuff at Ikea - you know I've only ever been there once, but I visit the website quite frequently.

So, I'll be back to it again tomorrow and hopefully by this time tomorrow I might have a photo of my "new" space to share... maybe? If I haven't posted by Wednesday someone please come and rescue me from under my table where I could possibly be rocking in the foetal position or pinned to the floor trapped under the heavy weight of cardstock, papers and embellishments...

Sketches! Challenge #106

Hello again on a Wednesday (and late at that!).

This week has been swapped to a card sketch over at the Sketches! blog (instead of the recipe challenge).

Here is Tamara's sketch:

And this is my card:

I have to be honest - it wasn't one of my favourite sketches, but I think it turned out ok. All materials are available from Kaszazz (email me if you'd like more info about Kaszazz products or to order).

Don't forget to check out the other DTer's work - they totally ROCK!

Sketches! Challenge #105

Hi all and welcome to another week. Here in Australia all of the kids have gone back to school after their 6 weeks of Summer Holidays. My oldest munchkin started kinder this year, although you could say she is old hat at it, because she attended 3 year old kinder last year, and turns 5 in May this year. No apprehension or fears from her - which is good :)

This week over at Sketches! it is a Layout Sketch:

And here is what I created with it:

As you can see it wasn't a direct translation, but I rotated bits, flipped some, and ended up with something that suited both the paper and the photos... well I think so - lol. Don't you just love those photos that maybe are not perfectly shot, but capture those fleeting moments? Emily (at not quite 2) decided to climb up onto the couch and immitate Matt reading the local newspaper.

And how cute is this paper? I've had it for probably a year or more, and in line with my goal for this year (use it or lose it) I decided it was time to take the scissors to it. The paper is by Kaisercraft, inked with Tim Holtz Distress Inks, the little acetate owl is stamped using Oscar Owl (Kaszazz), using Ancient Page ink in chocolate. The key to stamping on Acetate using Ancient Page is just to let it dry completely (this took about a day) - then no smudges! The title was cut with my cuttlebug, which has been very neglected (insert embarrassed face) and I think I need to pull it out more. When I first got it I used it ALL THE TIME, but now it seems to have a film of dust over it each time I remember I have it.

I think my aim for this month is to re-organise and sort all of my stash. There has to be a better way... but in my little corner of the lounge with a table and bookcase there is only so much you can do with it!

Please leave a comment and don't forget to share your creating using this sketch over at the Sketches! blog.