Welcome to our little blog hop - hope you've been enjoying the journey so far. You may have just arrived here from the blog of my friend Di Dunk - or if you're just starting here, enjoy the little tour! Our group today has focussed on products that are FREE during Sale-a-bration - bet you're lovin' that Designer Series Paper?

I am madly in love with that DSP and today I wanted to do something completely different with it - so I have gone for a masculine layout. YES! With all those pretty florals, I have done a complete backflip from my usual style .

The layout title is GRANDFATHER DOBSON and I have used ACROSTIC POETRY as a way of journalling some memory triggers - quite a few of which only family will understand.  For each of these words there is a long story and many years of memory creating, far too much to put on one 12"x 12" layout.

I am quite tempted to see if I can dig out a few other photos and do some accompanying layouts to complete the story, but of couse, the red truck and the appletrees are now long gone and in those days photos were few and far between . . .

The main colours used here are Soft Suede, Peach Parfait and Lucky Limade with Early Espresso ink. There are some quite symbolic images in the stamping too. The forest of trees, the oak tree and the oak leaf and acorn were all very much significant in my grandfather's life.

This little snippet of the main photo blows me away! When I went to load it up, there were my youngest cousin's eyes looking straight out at me!  Not bad for about 70 years between!

And since this blog hop is about Sale-a-bration, here's a close up of that gorgeous DSP!

There is actually a tiny finishing touch left to add to this layout - an antique brad in the middle of that largest flower!

Well, that's it from me for today, thanks for visiting! Before you "hop" off to the next person, please leave some blog love in the form of a comment, as I really appreciate your feedback, and then off you go to visit the delightful Sue Madex.

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 [email protected]

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

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!

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.

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. 

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!

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 : [email protected]