Woo Hoo!

Today is a good day! It's September 1st which means the 2011-2012 Idea Book and Catalogue is out! And it's stunning. Here's the front cover...



Don't you just want to tear it open? Well email me and I'll send you a copy but if you can't wait that long it's online on the stampin' up website and can be found here

Today is also a good day cos I have a scrapbook page to share. I know GASP! I scraped! It was my mission on my team weekend away to scrap at least one page and I did. I've used a new stamp set some new accessories and one of the new incolours. Here it is... (Now I have difficulty photographing scrap pages, I apologise in advance)


My gorgeous daughter Riley at 11mths old just after she had eye surgery. Isn't she beautiful? Now apart from her, Check out those doilies in the background, Aren't they so beautiful. I created the background myself with that nifty set. Here's a close up of the background and also one of the new border punches which I blinged up with some rhinestones.



I also made my own flower on the page in the beautiful new colour, Wisteria Wonder. I faux sueded the flower and stamped on it and then finished it off with the gold smooch spritz so you may be able to see a slight bit of glitter. Here's a close up



I haven't journaled it yet but intend to on the orange top note. I just haven't been able to get the right words together.

Stamp Set: Delicate Doilies
Ink: Melon Mambo, Wisteria Wonder, Pretty in Pink
Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Wisteria Wonder, Pretty in Pink, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: 2 3/8" scallop punch, Heart to Heart punch, Lace Ribbon Punch, 1 " circle punch, Big Shot, Scallop Circle Die, Top Note Die, Timeless Typ Junior Alphabet Die, Gold Smooch Spritz, Pretty in Pink Button, Rhinestones

Thanks for looking and I'll be back soon with some SPECIALS!! What a great way to kick off the new catty :)

Dani

6X6 Scrapbook Page Swap

WOW 3 posts in 4 days, I'm on fire!!!! And theres lots more to come too! I'm so proud of myself!

I just had the opportunity to participate in a 6x6 Scrapbook Page Swap with my fellow Inklings. The theme was 'HOME.' I struggled at first cos I don't have many photos of my current house and all my ones of my old place are on another computer. I then thought about what my meaning of Home really is. For me home is a sense of belonging, of love and somewhere you go and feel comfortable. My family makes where I live feel like home so I thought to incorporate them into my page. Here's what I came up with...



The top note pulls out from behind the photo to reveal journalling and looks like this



I apologise about the photos. I find it so difficult to take photos of scrapbook pages without making them look all odd shaped.

Stamp Set: Priceless
Ink: Versamark, Melon Mambo
Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Kraft, Basic Black, Ballet Blue
Accessories: Black grosgrain, White Gel Pen, Black Stampin' Write, Dimensionals, Big Shot, Top Note Dye

Thanks for looking
Dani

I {heart} meal times

On New Years Eve I participated in a challenge night with the Inklings (Demonstrator Group I'm apart of). The first Challenge was to create a Scrapbook page using the Page layout on Page 4 of the SAB catalogue. I have been working on a scarpbook for my boyfriends brother for a while now so decided to scrap some more picks of his beautiful daughter. Here is the page i ended up with

The caption at the top reads "I {heart} meal times" and the journalling in the Tempting Turquoise box says "Asha loves to eat and decorate herself at the same time - Asha's first year 2007"

Stamp Set: Simply Said, Whimsical Lower Alphabet*

Cardstock: Barely Banana, Certainly Celery, Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise

Ink: Certainly Celery, Rose Red

Accesories: Double Rectangle, 1 3/8" Circle, Scallop Circle and Scallop Edge Punches, Dimensionals, Hemp Twine, Turquoise grosgrain Ribbon, White Gel Pen, Ice Rhinestone Brad

Also quick update on my health if your interested. After a few hospital visits and admissions and a thousand tests I have finally been diagnosed with Kidney Stones. They aren't blocking and I have been told to pass them naturally (If you consider that natural). I am still limping around in pain but am happy to have a diagnosis and action plan. Baby is happy and fine!

Thanks for all the get well messages and emails! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a safe New Year! I look forward to all the adventures 2009 will bring for me!

Happy Stampin'

Dani

Scrapbooking Challenge

I originally got into craft after my mum started scrapbooking a few years ago. I got into scrapbooking and found it alot of fun but my pages were very basic. I started buying stuff with the intent of scrapbooking but never had photo's printed (I'm sure others can also share a simular predicament) so moved onto card making. My card making started off again very basic and still wasn't all that spectacular until I found Stampin' Up! Since then though I haven't really continued doing much scrapbooking because I still feel my skills are quite basic and can never really come up with any new layouts. I find my pages also take me a very long time to complete because I can't just get an idea and sort of run with it like cardmaking I have to explore absolutly every possibility and then give up after 2 hours and just end up doing something very basic.

The other day when we were given challenges by the lovely Kylie. She set us a challenge to use traditional Christmas colours (Red, Green, Gold (if embossing) and White) to create a card or scrapbook. Usually I would just go the easy option and make a card. I decided that I have heaps of photo's I've been meaning to scrap as a Christmas Pressie to my Boyfriends Brother of his beautiful daughter, Asha, so I should get a headstart on that. This page took me a very long time but I am so happy with how it turned out and it is very different to anything I'd normally do. I got some inspiration for the page from looking at some of the gorgeous pages by Beth Stewart. She has some great work if you ever have time to check her blog out.

Behind the First Picture there is a pullout for some journalling which I haven't written on yet as I want to make sure I put something special on there that really tells the story of the photo's and I think my boyfriend should help with that.

I used flowers from the pretties kit which I coloured in with real red ink and a sponge Dauber. They are so nice and the first time I've used them! I think I'll be using them again!

Stamp Sets: Season of Joy, Many Merry Messages, Big Deal Alphabet

Card Stock: Real Red, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Certainly Celery Prints DSP

Ink: Real Red, Wild Wasabi

Accessories: Real Red Marker, Summer Sun Marker, Real Red Eyelets, Crop-a-dile, Round Tab Punch, Pretties Kit, Ice Rhinestone Brads, Dimensionals, Mat Pack, White Gel Pen, Stapler, Hemp Twine, Spounge Dauber

Thanks for looking!

Cheers Big Ears!

Dani

All About ME!!!

A couple of months ago the wonderfully talented and newly published Alana Galagher who is a member of the Inklings team proposed a 6x6 page swap. I was very excited as I am desperate to fill up my album. This swap however came with a slight twist though. The page had to be about you the creator of the page. I needed to be in the photo in some way. Thinking it was fun I signed u for the challenge. I don't know about you but I hate photo's of myself and prefer to be behind the camera.

Just before my birthday my boyfriend through me a surprise party (which I picked up on a few days before hand) so I thought what a perfect opportunity to get some photo's taken with my mates and use one of those. Needless to say like any traditional birthday bash there was some alcohol involved and I was as crissed as a picket after 2 glasses of wine and... This is where the fun pictures began. I got home and analysed the photo's taken and although there were some great ones of me and my mates I couldn't go past these two that are rather silly but extremly captulating of my personality.

Picture Number 1 (I think I was singing and dancing in my seat either that or I was trying to massage my frontal lobes a little)

Picture Number Two (Can everyone say "huh???" I promise I was not posing in this photo and it was just sort of luck of the snap... Or unlucky which ever way you look at it)

I ended up deciding on the least unflattering of the two (Although I just put the other one on the web for the world to see) for my page. I must say I am so happy with how the page turned out and I think it is me all over. I am a real kid at heart, I don't mind making a fool of myself and I laugh at my own jokes.

The page was also so fun to make as I wasn't trying to capture the feeling of the photo of someone else it was something that was all me. So without further ado I show you the finished page...

Stamp Sets: Looks Like Spring, Big deal Alphabet

Cardstock: Summer picnic DSP, Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive

Inks: Bashful Blue, Real Red, Old Olive

Accessories: Mat Pack, Real Red Eyelets, Whisper White Ribbon, Old Olive Marker, Sponge Danber, Luggage Tag (Non SU!), Fiscars Stencil for the arrow shape (Non SU!)

Technique: Kissing

Behind the picture there is a tag which is non SU! It slides in and out and it has some info about me.

Thanks for looking! I hope you love the page as much as I do!

Happy Stamping!

Dani :)

My Design Stalker, The Spotlight and crafty goodness!

Ok I haven't blogged much this week but that has meant my crafting has been on hold, it's more the latter. So with that said I must warn you in advance, This will be a long post. But the pictures will be plentiful!! Above is a picture of my July Make and Take project.

MY DESIGN STALKER

Firstly, as said in my last post I'm am getting quiet carried away with Kristina's challenges. The last one was no exception. After I completed the challenge I had this other idea floating through my head. I tried to leave it be but even when doing my eScape thank you gifts I couldn't kick this design that kept stalking me in my head. So yesterday during my eScape event I finally gave in and gave it a whirl. I must say, I AM SO HAPPY I DID! I am rather in love with what I came up with and even more so think this colour combo was just amazing.

To jog your memories the combo that was given to us was Purely Pomegrante, Regal Rose, River Rock, Wild Wasabi and Whisper White. Here is what I did with the colour combo and the design aspects of the bedding a second time around.

Stamp Sets: Think Happy thoughts, Baroque Border Standard Wheel

Cardstock: River Rock, Glossy White

Inks: Purely Pomegrante, Regal Rose, Wild Wasabi and Versamark

Accessories: Regal Rose Wide Grosgrain Ribbon, Scallop Punch, 1 3/8 circle punch, 1 1/4 circle punch, Ice Rhinestone Brads, White gel pen

Technique: Ghosting

THE SPOTLIGHT

No I'm not talking about the technique or the hostess set. I'm talking about a new feature to my blog. Each month I will be choosing a SU! product either Stamp Set, Accessories, Cardstock colour, etc or a technique which I will focus on for the month in addition to my other beautiful projects. The purpose of this is to:

1. Show my readers how versatile different SU! products can be and different ways of using them.

2. Show my readers how to use different techniques and there versatility.

3. Challenge myself to think outside the square and use some different products instead of going to my favourites all the time.

4. Be a good resource for others when selecting products they would like to purchase.

So when will all this great stuff happen? 1st July which happens to be this Tuesday. Have a check back to my blog then when I will reveal this months "Spotlighted" product/technique.

CRAFTY GOODNESS

As stated above I have been very busy. In fact I recieved a phone call from my relatives 2 weeks ago asking if we would make my cousin a scrapbook for his 21st. The album was completed and given to him yesterday! That was alot of fun considering not only did me and my mum have to throw together some scrapbook pages to fill an album in less than 2 weeks we also had to hunt down the photos, scan them, motidfy them, get them printed ready to be scrapbooked.

I did a few pages which I'm quiet happy with considering I don't really consider myself a scrapbooker. I do apologise in advance for the quality of the photographs. It was hard to get good light where a flash wasn't needed so therefore the photo's have a flash reflection.

I must admit for the first time ever I have featured a non SU! product on my blog. It is the striped blue paper. I couldn't help but add it onto the page as it coordinates so nicely with his outfit. Otherwise all other products are SU! Don't you just love the ribbon effect? Here's a close up:

Here is another page I have done. In the photo are my aunty, my brother Andrew is on the left in blue and my cousin Keagan who the scrapbook was done for.

Thanks heaps for bearing with me through this lengthy post. I wish you all a lovely Sunday evening whatever you get up to.

Dani :)

The Story of Purdy

Who is purdy you ponder? Well alot of you may not know this but I have 4 very interesting pets. Purdy is one of our dogs and she is a beautiful dalmatian whom is featured in a 6x6 scrapbook swap i did this month. But the story of how Purdy came to be our dog is not as simple as we bought her when she was a puppy or someone gave her to us, It's alot more complicated than that.

My Uncle's exwife and his daughter (my cousin) like to collect animals and a few years ago my aunty picked Purdy up from the pound after she had been taken from a house where the owner had passed away. My aunty then as she does got sick of the novelty of a dalmatian wore off and she passed Purdy onto her daughter, my cousin. She had her for about a year or so but there was issues with her connecting and fitting in with there rather large family of animals and small backyard. She then made a move onto my Uncles partners place which was rather perfect for her as they live on acrage and she could run around all she liked.

They had her for about 1 1/2 years when they got a new puppy. Purdy is very jealous and loves to be the centre of attention and that didn't mesh very well with her. It was also bad because my Uncle's partner and her daughters ignored Purdy and paid attention to the new puppy. My uncle's partner was then going on holidays for 2 weeks and didn't think the girls would feed Purdy whilst she was away so we said we would look after her for the 2 weeks. We didn't know how she would go with our little maltese x poodle but thought it was only two weeks.

Well... That was 3 years ago!!! Needless to say she meshed very well with our other dog and our cat and very well with our family. When she was picked up to go home she basically refused to leave even when being picked up by my father so we said we'd keep her a little longer until we sorted something out and she ended up staying and becoming a permanent resident of the Fender household.

Anyway enough waffling on about our dog. Here are is the photo I used of her for a 6x6 page swap I did just recently.

I couldn't decide what photo to use as I knew some people would get offended if I used photo's of them and gave them to complete strangers so my mum said I could use Purdy if I got her permission so I asked her to wag her tail to say yes I could use her photo. She wagged her tail so I took that as a yes (Even though I think she thought I was going to pat her) and I made this cute 6x6 page swap to swap with other Inklings.

Stamp Set: Priceless, Big Deal Alphabet, Short & Sweet, Seeing Spots, Snow Flurries

CardStock: Basic Black, Whisper White, Taken with Teal

Ink: Basic Black, Taken with Teal

Accessories: Black Grosgrain Ribbon, Black/White Gingham Ribbon

Techniques: Kissing

As a special side thing I am also giving away a small gift to demonstrators or customers who post a comment at the bottom of this post guessing the location that the photo of the 6x6 page was taken (As I usually take them in my house, that's a clue). The most accurate and/or silly/out there guess I recieve before 30th June will win something little from me.

Happy Guessing!

Dani :)