Tag!

Happy Weekend everyone!

To start off today’s post, I am going to share 7 unusual facts about myself! Why would I do that, you ask? Well, it seems I have been tagged! Beth Stewart (check out her beautiful blog here!) has tagged me and so I must complete the challenge and then tag 7 others to keep the blog tag game alive! Here are the rules:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog .

Okay so here I go – 7 unusual facts about me:

1. My name Kari originates from Finland where I am told it is generally a men’s name! (pronounced car (as in automobile) – ee)

2. Since meeting my hubby over 12 years ago we worked out that we probably already met as kids at Yamaha music classes and possibly Vacswim classes!

3. When I was little I told my teacher that my parents named me Kari ‘because my dad liked cars!’

4. I learned piano for 11 years and completed grade 2 and 3 exams for it.

5. I learned German until Year 12 at school – and now can pretty much only remember how to count to 20 and say hello, goodbye and ‘coffee and cake’ in German!!

6. I love Royal Winton china (the chintzy stuff)! I have 3 old, original pieces and I drool over it at Antique shops!

7. Hubby and I bought a large picture for a Christmas present to each other to hang in our new house – that was 3 1/2 years ago! The picture is being stored at my parents house and we still haven’t built our new house!!

Okay! I hope that was funny reading for you all!! Here are the blogs I am going to tag:

Michelle

Kylie

Toni

Sharon

Ally

Trish

Fleur

Sorry, guys, but I can’t wait to read your facts – and I highly recommend all of these girl’s blogs/wbesites too! Lots of inspiration there!

Last but not least for today….. my altered tins! I am not very experienced at ‘altering’ stuff, but I’ve covered these two so I can use them again for gifts or pencil tins.  I left the centre of the scallop circle blank because I figured I could then stamp and punch out whatever sentiment I need when I go to use it!

 

Enjoy your weekend everyone! - and I’ll have some exciting SU! news for you all tomorrow! K

 

Workshop Make and Takes

Tonight I thought I’d share with you the two projects that I made with customers at a workshop last week – Hi Heather!

First off we made a 6×6 scrapbook page using Very Vanilla and Mellow Moss cardstock. We used the Baroque Motifs stamp set and stamped the scroll in Mellow Moss and the flowers and sentiments in Groovy Guava. It is only a simple page, but would be very easy to expand onto a 12×12 page with more photos and more scrolls and perhaps some groovy guava ribbon…..

The second project was this card made using the Bud Basics set and wheel. We used black ink and combined Groovy Guava, Mellow Moss and Perfect Plum ink with the Whisper White and Perfect Plum card. I also stamped a little flower and cut it out, then added a silver brad to the middle before mounting it at the edge of the Cheery Chat sentiment.

If you are interested in hosting a workshop to earn free stamp sets and products please email me. I am in South Australia, but have fellow team members around Australia who would be more than happy to help you begin your Stampin’ Up! experience!

Ooh – just a little teaser…… who wants to escape the emails with me in June?!

I’ll let you sleep on that!!! Night!

 

Bold and sparkly

Hello all! Tonight I’d like to bring you two more cards! These are more from my ‘heap of scraps’ and I am quite happy with the first, but not so much with the second. Let me know what you think…….

Card number 1 is from Ballet Blue card and a strip of the Spring Flowers DSP down the side. I’ve used Real Red grosgrain and done the bow a bit differently today – really snazzy way of tying it that a customer showed me (thanks Angela!). The flower is from the Petals and Paisley set and I’ve layered the whisper White card on Ballet Blue then Real Red and Barely Banana scallop circles. I wanted to add a sentiment down along the bottom right, but decided to wait and see who and what occasion I use the card for, then I can use an appropriate sentiment, be it birthday, thankyou, get well or just hello!

Card number 2 is Very Vanilla with touches of Mellow Moss, Almost Amethyst and Prtty in Pink. Stamps used are from Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Baroque Motifs and Cheery Chat, using matching inks to the cardstock. I have then used my two-way glue pen to trace the letters and parts of the stamped motifs before sprinkling liberally with Dazzling Diamonds! Love that stuff!!

Verdicts?!

That’s all for tonight folks, I hope to have some more for you before the end of the week. Bye for now!

 

Some photos at last!

Hi! Hope you are having a good week so far. Mine is a little so-so, but I’m in a good mood tonight – helps that I’m playing with my paper and rubber!!! I have also finally been taking photos of my ‘heap of scraps’ projects – I seem to have actually made more scraps!! Don’t know how, probably best not to think about it too hard! Anyways, I’ll be sharing them over the next few days.

This card and the bagalope next to it are decorated with papers from the Pallette’O'Prints pad. Would you believe this is actually my first ever bagalope!! It is VERY easy to make, check out Splitcoast Stampers or lots of other blogs for instructions. I have decorated it with a Dahlia fold embellishment which is made up of 8 punched circles all folded and attached to a circle of cardstock behing. I also added a little circle to the centre to hide my untidy joins!! The card is such a simple little one, a strip of patterned paper, a piece of gorgeous wide grosgrain and then a little sentiment stamp just to finish it off! Colours are Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery and Very Vanilla.

Last but not least is another Colour of the Month card! No, I hadn’t forgotten! I just keep picking up other colours first!!! This card showcases Blue Bayou with Real Red and Whisper White – and just a hint of Soft Sky behind the stamped image. I stamped the greeting from the ‘For a Friend’ Hostess set on Whisper White with black Stazon and then used my trusty aquapainter to colour the heart with red ink. Easy as falling of a bike! The stamped pattern along the bottom edge of the card is the Rough Texture jumbo wheel – fantastic just to create a bit of texture without adding mulitple layers.

What do you think? Could I hide this one away for hubby for next year’s Valentine’s Day?! No, I think I’ll save it for a day when he’s not expecting it and pop it under his pillow!

That’s all for tonight, check back in on me soon and I’ll have some more for you! Also – suggestions for next months Colour of the Month are welcome – I’ll be ordering my cardstock at the end of the week and am having trouble choosing! I would hate for it to come down to me ordering the ENTIRE range so I had a bit of everything available to me!!! Nope, I think I’ll have to get out my paper piercer and open to the colour page at the front of the catalogue!!! Ouch!

End of a promotion…..

Well the end of May brings the end of the Pallette’O'Prints Promotion and the end is nearing very fast! So much so that Stampin’ Up! is in fact running out of stock of these gorgeous papers!!! If you’d like to order one with your regular $35 or over order please contact me ASAP so you don’t miss out.

I just thought I’d also draw your attention to the possibility of gift vouchers. I can offer gift vouchers for products or classes purchased through me. Each gift voucher is also hand-stamped and in a colour of your choosing. Please email me karigail@internode.on.net if you’d like to find out more information about these.

And lastly, thankyou to everyone for your well wishes! I am on the road to recovery and just need more sleep – well who doesn’t these days!!! I hope to catch up on some posting this week and share some more of my projects.

‘Night! K

Attack of the tonsils!!!

AAGH! This week started with hubby having tonsilitis and is ending with me having tonsilitis! I know, I know, all of you are smirking and thinking you know how I caught it, but NO WAY!!! He already had a cold, so no way was I getting that close to him, but yet I still got it! Oh well, antibiotics, hot tea and a bit of rest are helping and I’m planning on some “r’n'r” on the weekend so that should get us both healthy again. – Then I promise you’ll get some new photos of projects out of me!

Other news of the week is today’s morning tea for ‘Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea’! Today I held one at work and we raised over $75! Wow! I did a bit of baking (thoroughly washed my hands I promise, and I almost even masked up!!!) and so did another friend from work (Hi Nicole!) and we put on a yummy spread to tempt the money from the pockets of our co-workers. I’ve been doing this for several years now and it has been great to see the amount we raise increase from $20-$30 in the first couple of years to now this amount. I would encourage everyone to either attend or host one of these events as apart from the charity benefitting from the money raised it is also a great personal sense of fulfillment to do something to help. There are always lots of things we can all do to help others in the world, but every little bit counts and today I hope that our funds can provide some help to someone with cancer or their family, or to help in cancer research. In my work we see a lot of cancer patients and I’ve had some close family friends affected by cancer in recent years, so although it is a positive day for me, it is a day of rememberance as well.

Enjoy the end of your week! K

Scrappy weekend!

This weekend I have been doing a bit of tidying and the hoarder in me finds it hard to throw things out that are perfectly useful…….except that I have no immediate use for them!! I also have lots of little pieces of card and paper or stamped card where I have ‘tested’ colours etc but I hate to put it in the bin! So I though I would give myself a ‘Heap of Scraps’ challenge! Below are pics of two tins I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of and a pile of card and DSP offcuts along with a few ribbon offcuts and stamped images. I hope to bring you a few of my creations with these items over the next few days!

I also have another cyberchallenge picture to show you. This is another 6 x 6 page and the challenge for this project was the layout (8th one down the page). I have used Blue Bayou, Groovy Guava and Whisper White card with Blue Bayou and Groovy Guava ink. I printed off the journalling – my handwriting is not that great – and added a bit of glitz with the 2-way glue pen and some dazzling diamonds (such a quick and easy way to add the bling!).

Thanks for visiting! K

Cyberchallenge night!

Yay! Last night was another Inklings Cyberchallenge night! They are so much fun – we get set 3 challenges to do and it’s great to have a little online chat with others in the team as we are creating and them to see what each other comes up with! I finished off 2 of the three challenges last night – or so I thought…. after I finished number 2 I realised I hadn’t followed the Colour challenge for that one, just the sketch challenge! Ooops! Anyway, That just gives me an excuse to try this layout (bottom right corner) again! Hope you like the photo, Alison and Vicky – you both look very happy to be in Sydney!

I’ve used Whisper White, Pixie Pink and some Almost Amethyst DSP for this layout, plus Pixie Pink Ink for the stamp and to colour the flower. I plan to do a little journaling on the right hand side – at least names and place – but will add that later.

Have a great day! K

‘Leave-ing’ me!

Okay, so my ATCs are in the post, I finished them off the other night and here they are with one done…..

What do you think? I’ve mounted the stamped and bleached Old Olive onto a piece of Summer sun cardstock and added a strip of Pumpkin Pie grosgrain. On top of the grosgrain (hope you can see it) is a little leaf I’ve cut out with my FANTASTIC new paper snips (WHY didn’t I buy these earlier?!! They cut so easily and beautifully!) and I’ve mounted the leaf with a mini glue dot.

I shall have the ATCs from 8 different people next week and I’ll post a pic so you can see everyone’s work.

Bye for now! Kari

More punching!

In my last order I purchased the large oval punch. I wanted something for adding greeting type embellishments to the front of my cards and I’d seen it used well for this. However, I also saw another cute way to use it – to make a tulip!!

This Blue Bayou card features 3 ovals punched from Rose Red DSP – Palette’O'Prints Promotion – plus one oval in Certainly Celery and I used my square punch to remove the middle section from this oval to form ‘leaves’ (you can just trim it with scissors) and a strip of Certainly Celery forms the stem. I was reminded of naive applique when I put it together so I added the linen thread rather than the ribbon I had picked out as I thought that suited the more rustic nature of the card. Finally, I added the ‘happy’ sentiment from the ‘Petals and Paisley’ set in Blue Bayou ink. The flower is actually mounted on the back of the card as I cut and scored the card so that it only overlaps on the left hand half of the back piece – just a little different to a ‘normal’ card.

Hope you like it! Thanks for visiting! Kari