Stamping with Kathryn Lowe

Stamp & Scrappin' Clubs 2012

Hi all,

Hope Cupid has been good to you today, if that's what makes you happy?

I am very excited to introduce my Stamp & Scrapbooking Clubs for 2012.  All the dates are on my Classes & Events Page, and all the details are on my Club details page. 

We are kicking off in March and I need 6 ladies for each club. So have a read through the details, and email me to register!  Email kathryn@katlodesigns.com

If there's more than enough interest, we could create a Saturday afternoon group too, let me know your preference.

Inspiring Ideas from the Catalogue

Often when I am stuck for ideas for a simple but cheerful card, I will turn to the Stampin' Up! Ideas Book & Catalogue and see if a particular card jumps out at me.  Then I will usually take some design elements from the layout, select my own stamp set and colours and create away.

This month, my sister said she wanted to make the cute Easter card on page 29 for one of her classes, but what else could she do in the class?

I thought this was a great card to team with a 6"x 6" layout for a lovely gift, and if you don't own Easter stamps, who cares?  There are so many other special occasion stamps you could select!

I love the Petite Pockets in Wisteria Wonder on the same page of the catalogue too, so I had a look around for a stamp set, and then decided to create away - pretty much re-creating the card as shown, with a different stamp set, putting together a co-ordinating layout, and making the Petite Pocket. Lots of fun and quite simple when you don't have to spend days thinking of how to put it all together.

My stamping friends who saw the elements of the card in real life, before I assembled it, think I am totally insane, for inking up that tiny stamp with markers! LOL that's one of my favourite techniques for multi-coloured stamping.

Now, as for that rosette, lovely touch, but that IS madness!

Now it happens that two of my lovely Stampin' buddies have just been promoted to the design team at Just Add Ink which is VERY exciting for them! Just Add Ink is a great challenge site, and this month their Scrapbook Challenge is Holidays!

So, even though this layout could be any old day out at the beach, a little tab added to the top of the photo reminds us that it was a) school holidays and b) I was on holiday visiting my gorgeous nieces & nephew.

A close up of the embellishments & DSP -see, really simple, with lovely cheerful colours :

Here's a close up of the Petite Pocket, as once again, I have inked up the stamp with markers - I really do love the effect of it, even if it is fiddly!

Thanks for having a look at what I've been doing - and be sure to check out Just Add Ink, and leave some love for Christine Blain & Tina Gillespie, my talented stampin' friends!

Heroes & Pop-up's

Hi folks, hope you're having a nice week?

In Tuesday's post about Black Saturday, I included a tiny snippet of photo of some pop-up firemen - just like a chain of paper dolls.  This was a project I was happy to revisit, as it was another Altered Book Round Robin which I participated in about 5 years ago, and it took me quite some time to dig out the photos, so I hope you don't mind, but I thought I would share more of the project with you today.

The book theme was black & white photos, and the layout that month had to include pop-up's. Never one to shirk at a challenge, and influenced by the mood in the world at the time (the London bombings had only recently occurred), I decided on a pop-up that was reflective, but also celebrated the strength of the human spirit.

The small piece of text down on the right hand corner reads, "Inside every good heart is a hero waiting to happen".

I'm sure you'll agree that human adversity certainly brings out the hero in ordinary, every day folk.

A Day of Remembrance

On this day three years ago, terrible bushfires swept across our state, taking with them the lives of 173 humans, countless animals, domestic and wild, and wiped out over two thousand homes.

There is no single word that can describe that day or the feelings over the next week as those awful numbers kept climbing. Today we remember that long month of hot dry weather, monitoring burning tree stumps, fending off ember attack and pouncing on spot fires and we remember the lives that were changed forever.

But alongside the tragedy of that time, I also wanted to reflect on the good.  Out of the ashes came stories of miraculous survival, and normal, everyday people who rose up to the incredible challenges put before them and out of their acts of compassion and love for their fellow humans became accidental heroes.

There were neighbours, relatives, members of the emergency services and complete strangers who out of the trying circumstances (and without even thinking about it) showed what the human spirit is all about and rose up on angels wings to prove how communities can come together and how even the smallest act of kindness or compassion can make such a difference.

Thank you to all those heroes of Black Saturday. We remember those who were lost, but we also remember those who fought the fires, survived the fires and then fought to keep their communities alive and to support their neighbours and friends devasted lives back to some semblance of normalcy. 

Elements of Style Mosaic Cards

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday with some of my favourite stamping friends coming over for a Sale-a-bration Party. Despite how hot it was, we had a very creative time and got to try a couple of newish techniques for the group.

One of these techniques had a few steps to it, and rather than making a finished card, we just concentrated on getting the technique done.  With 9 people squeezed into a small space and trying to juggle the heat gun, embossing powder and only 6 blender pens, it was an awesome effort by everyone to at least get that far.  Now I know the girls are dying to know what to do with their sample, so here's what I came up with this morning :

Now, credit where credit is due!  My lovely team member Elaine Hannam in St Helens, Tasmania is the star behind this technique.  She showed me her sample cards using the Open Sea stamp set and told me how to do the technique when I visited her earlier this month. I couldn't wait to rush home and use up my rubber scraps to make my own mosaic block!

One thing I have really been finding this year that suits me perfectly is that in lots of cases, LESS is MORE!  I have been been adding less and less to my cards and liking them much better!  Of course I love a card or layout that has lots of delicious layers and looks like someone has put hours of LOVE into it, I love a project like that too. But when there are a dozen birthday's a month, thank you cards to be made, invitations to make, all the other occasion cards on top of that, it really feels good to create something that looks great but only took a short while and you know you can make a stack in one sitting if you need to!

And if it's for someone really special, just add some lace and a few pearls!

So what have I used?

Elements of Style & Thank You Kindly Stamp Sets,

Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper

Always Artichoke, Bravo Burgundy, River Rock & Sahara Sand cardstock

Blender Pens for colouring the Elements of Style old roses image

Versamark Ink pad & clear embossing powder, set with a heat gun.

and the Top Note Die

If you are interested in attending some techniques classes to learn how to do different things with your stamping supplies, then please ask me for more details. I will be running techniques classes one Thursday night a month in Croydon North.

See you again soon!

Summer Mini Florets Layout

On the front of the Summer Mini Catalogue is a really great, bright and happy 6"x 6" layout full of gorgeous flowers and layers.  I love the colours used and the different textures created using some of my favourite Stampin' Up! tools.

My Australia Day treat for myself was to recreate this lovely layout for my album. I had two related photos I wanted to use, upped the size to 12"x 12" to fit them on, added a few more embellishments to fill a couple of gaps and VOILA!

The fabulous colours are Melon Mambo, Tangerine Tango and Wild Wasabi - so very bright & cheery!

The flowers have been cut from my favourite and most used die - the Fun Flowers Bigz L Die. Once cut out, I have scrunched them into tiny balls, smoothed them back out then spritzed them with our Vanilla Smooch Spritz.

For a bit of extra colour and depth in the background I have not only used the Vanilla Smooch, but have pulled out my Stampin' Up! Colour Spritzer tool and Stampin' Write Markers and added a quick splash of colour.

The stamped flowers are from Fabulous Florets stamp set and have been hand cut, and also spritzed with the colour spritzer.

Other embellishments include a Vintage Brad and a dozen or so of our adhesive half pearls.

Lots of ladies say to me they've often thought about trying scrapbooking, but never gotten around to it.  This year, one Thursday night per month I will be running a scrapbook club. I hope to start it soon, so if you're at all interested, please email me for the details. Email : kathryn@katlodesigns.com  

Simple Birthday Cards

In recent weeks the projects I have been showing on here have been more complicated - lots of steps and quite a bit of time spent and you could be thinking, "Yes lovely, but I just want to be able to whip up a few birthday cards to get me through the next month or two . . . "

Perfect! Today I have two really simple, quick and easy cards to show you, one for boys and one for girls!

This card is SO simple!  It consist of the Cajun Craze card base, one piece of striped paper from the Frightful Sight Designer Series Paper and one stamped greeting on a co-ordinating scrap of card.  The very cute spider on this card is actually part of the patterned paper.

I've chosen Cajun Craze for the background layer for the greeting, but you could use black, grey or Old Olive to co-ordinate with the DSP too.

My card for girls uses the same very simple supplies and sketch,with an added layer, a butterfly, and a pretty edge on the inside.

This double sided patterned paper comes from the hostess set Cheerful Treat - I love those stripes and the pretty floral pattern!

The great thing about these bright cheery, simple cards is that you can churn out quite a few in a short time.  I think they're terrific!  What do you think?

Summer Mini Blog Hop - A Touch of Spice!

Welcome to another little hop around stampin' land, to see the inspiring work of my lovely creative friends. All our projects today feature products from the Summer Mini Catalogue which are available to purchase right now, and all orders over $100 can receive free Sale-a-bration goodies.

There are seven ladies involved in today's blog hop - a nice little journey. You may have just come from my lovely friend Alisha Watson's blog, or you may be starting here, welcome! It's easy to join in the blog hop, just follow the link at the bottom of each post, to take you to the next one.

Anyway, what have I been making?  I have fallen in love with the gorgeous designer series paper Spice Cake which is on page 10 of the Summer Mini, and have created a 12" x 12" layout and a mini tag book with these gorgeous prints and the amazingly large co-ordinating Spice Cake buttons which are also in the mini.

The tags are cut from Very Vanilla Textured card stock, punched with the corner rounder punch.  The round tab punch was used to cut Spice Cake DSP scraps for the tag tops, and Stampin' Up! Seam Binding Ribbon added as a final touch to each one.

My 12" x 12" layout is my second creation for my journey in the on-line scrapbooking class "Twelve" which consists of 12 colours, 12 categories, and 12 months of layouts for 2012.  This layout falls into the category "Personalities" where I had listed this very cute little boy.  He has so much personality right now, although the photos I have used are a couple of years old, but they certainly add to the story.

This layout is very much inspired by the sample in the Mini Catalogue. I love all the texture that is created by weaving the strips of DSP and it's a great way to show off both sides of the gorgeous patterned papers.

The buttons are fantabulous!  At first I was shocked at the size, but I love them for their simple, uncluttered look - and how you can rustic them up with a bit of linen thread.

The shiny chipboard letters came out of my stash from about 5 years ago - I knew they'd come in use one day! And I am glad I remembered them for this layout.  In TWELVE, the online class I am doing, I have matched "personalities" with the colour Rich Razzleberry, and there is a requirement to put a splash of this awesome bold colour onto every layout you complete for this category. 

When I was putting the finishing touches to this layout, I suddenly remembered this and rolled my eyes in horror at the thought of Rich Razzleberry trying to blend with River Rock, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party, Soft Suede and More Mustard.  Then I spotted a scrap of Rich Razzleberry Seam Binding Ribbon and noticed how closely it matched with some of the shades in the old non-Stampin' Up! chip board letters!  Pheww! Not such a clash as I had expected after all!

Well, that's an awful lot of photos and hopefully a good bit of inspiration for you!  So now I must send you on your way to the next blogger in our blog hop.  But before I do, please, please, please leave a comment for each of the ladies - there's usually a comments tab right at the bottom of the post - we SO love to hear what you think of our creations, or of the products themselves!  Thanks so much.

Now off you pop to visit Di Dunk, who never ceases to amaze us with how much amazing work she always puts into these projects! Enjoy the journey and have a nice day!

Happy AUSTRALIA DAY!!

Congratulations to all our "New Australians" who receive their Citizenship Certificates in Australia Day ceremonies across the country today.  We had the pleasure of attending such a ceremony in our nation's capital, Canberra, in 2009 - it was such a buzz!  (or maybe that was the 21 canon salute, or the FA-18 flyover!!).

To celebrate today, I have gone hunting through some OLD photos and dug up a favourite project I did in 2005.  I was working on lots of Altered Book projects at the time, and this one had the theme favourite places.  The month's project had to include "windows" in the page, so I embedded acetate sheets between several pages and created some windows which I stamped one of our favourite national emblems onto - yes, the kangaroo!

Anyway, here's what it looked like!

The words are just a couple of verses from the very moving Dorothea Mackellar Poem, My Country, one of my all-time favourites.

Don't you love that last line . . . I know to which brown country my homing thoughts will fly . . . ?

It's like when you walk down those long corridors at Heathrow after a month in Europe and suddenly you see row upon row of flying kangaroos - yes the tails of dozens of Qantas jets, and with tears in your eyes, you realise . . . you're going HOME!!  Home to the best country on earth! 

Have a great day - enjoy this beautiful fresh air and sunshine and I hope your day is blessed with beautiful happy family memories!

Happy Sale-A-Bration!

ESAD Blog Hop Day

Welcome to a very exciting day!  It's the start of Sale-a-bration today, and to celebrate, we are blog hopping with the ESAD girls!

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin’ Up! demonstrators.

We so love what we do, and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors, but we share our love for what we do with each other, as demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know-how, and cyberstamps, and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed.

So if you are a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator  located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group. 

If you're not a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator then you should be!  It's so much fun!  There is even a great join the SU! family promotion during Sale-a-bration with a discounted starter kit and a FREE stamp set - any one you want!!

What are you going to see on our blog hop today?  Sale-a-bration Items!  Twenty-three of us have designed and created lovely new projects using the gorgeous products you can get for free during Sale-a-bration.

I have used the delicious Designer Series Paper Pack : Everyday Enchantment and created a tri-shutter card to show you.

The paper is so vintagey, but in lovely bright colours, and I adore how it co-ordinates with the stamp set You Are Loved, from the Summer Mini Catalogue.

Here are some of the little close up details for you :

You can see I've had lots of fun inking up the stamps with my Stampin' Write Markers for multi-coloured stamping. It's one of my favourite techniques as the results are always different and surprising!

The next stop on the blog hop is back to the very start to Sherylee Tutt. If you are just starting here, click on the link following her name, to go to her creation, then follow the links from there to go the full circle. Please leave a little blog-love by leaving a comment for as many of the ladies as you can. We love and really appreciate your feedback.

In case you get lost, or one of the links is broken, here is the full list of participants.

1.  Sherylee Tutt  www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/sherylee/blog

2.  Juliette Chapman  www.juleskraftikrafts.blogspot.com

3.  Alison Barclay  www.gothdovedesigns.blogspot.com

4.  Corina Beyer  www.beyondinkstamper.com

5.  Christie Krunkel  www.christiescreativecorner.blogspot.com

6.  Jane Norrish  www.janenorrish.com

7.  Nicole Derendorf  www.nicolederendorf.com

8.  Jacinta Argent  www.jacintascreations.blogspot.com

9.  Leonie Schroder  www.stamp-a-latte.com

10. Alisa Tilsner  www.alisatilsner.com

11.  Keryn Campbell  www.kerynscards.blogspot.com

12.  Sharlene Mayer  www.magpiecreates.com

13.  Madonna Dunn  www.madonnadunn.com.au

14. Joanne Kechagias  www.Joannekechagias.blogspot.com

15.  Pauline Bennetts  www.paulinebennetts.com/stampede

16.  Monique Fielder  http://www.stamping-with-moni-q.blogspot.com/

17.  Bron Heslop  www.bronheslop.wordpress.com

18.  Felicity Fernandez  www.stampinwithflick.blogspot.com

19. Michelle Grech  www.stampmeshell.wordpress.com

20. Kelly Nelson  www.kellysstampinspot.wordpress.com 

21.  Louise Layton   www.inkyloulou.com

22.  Yvonne Walker  www.yvonnescreativecorner.blogspot.com

23. Kathryn Ruddick  www.katlodesigns.com

Happy hopping folks, enjoy the journey, and please fall in love with the Sale-a-bration products and book a Sale-a-bration workshop with your demonstrator!  Or ASK one of us about how you can be part of the fun and get the discounted starter kit and extra FREE stamp set!