Monday Moments - The Memory Nest

If you're looking for the AAA Cards blog hop click here

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Today's post

It seems such a long time since I first announced I had been given two guest design spots at The Memory Nest - here - but at last the first day has arrived.  This is just so exciting and I'm extra extra pleased and proud because it's all about scrapbooking!

So here's the sketch - so easy to work with and adapt to my pared down style.

And here's my page with a scrummy photo of my youngest interacting with his two nephews.  I really go for these story type photos much more than posed looking at the camers ones.

So I trawled through my enormous stash of paper and selected lots of leftover scraps keeping with a blue/orange/grey/yellow colour theme.  I decided to place my elements over to the right of my background paper so there was plenty of white space - this time orange space - left on view.

Once I'd adhered the base papers I got to work on the sticker embellishments and found three stars in the right colours as well. I used a flexmarker to outline the photo stack - just gives it a bit of a shadowy 3D effect. Buttons without any stitching were the last embellishment to be added.

The title and then the journalling got added - really important to me - slightly further down than on the sketch.

Supplies:
Papers: Bazill Basics cardstock; Collage Press, Tell Your Story; Little Yellow Bicycle, splash; Hambly screen prints, little circles; ep, note to self & a boy's life
Alphas & stickers: ep, All about a boy; Bella Blvd, sophisticates
Embellishments: Flexmarker, light fawn & buttons from my stash

Thanks for looking today, very much appreciated.

Jane
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AAA Cards Game 9

 

At last the long awaited MacGyver Game! This is scheduled to happen every time there is a fifth Sunday in the month, but this, our first ever MacGyver, is even more exciting.  Every DT member has a prize to give away as well as the main huge Stampendous package for the winner.

So here's how it plays:

1. Follow round the blog hop and look for the hidden treasure - images of one of the five MacGyver items will be lurking.  Collect all five and create a post at your blog, add in those 5 images and a quick word or two on your favourite DT visit. Link your post to the AAA Cards Linky. This is Victoria's challenge and the winner receives a Stampendous Frantage Encrusted Jewel Set (Embossing Powders and Elements- see image at AAA Cards). That's the first way to win.

2. While visiting via the blog hop leave a comment that answers the question posed by each of the other DT members. The best answer, chosen by each DT member, will win a Stampendous stamp. That's six more chances to win!

3. Then of course is the actual MacGyver Game. Make a card using each of the five items mentioned and be in with a chance to win BIG!  A large flower Stampendous stamp set and matching dies for each flower! So I think that makes a total of eight ways to win. Got to be worth a go! or two! or.....!

For my part of the Stampendous/AAA Cards amazing giveaway I've made a little photo tutorial of how I created these cards.

Read carefully - there's a question at the bottom! (Ha ha! Very funny! Only kidding about the read carefully, but there is a question for the chance to win my comments contest.)

1. My supplies all out and ready.

2. Swipe the ink across an acrylic block.

3. Spritz the block with water. I found three to four sprays about right for this project.

4. Tilt the block to allow the inks to run together.

5. Place the stamp onto the inked block. There's enough ink to do several stampings so I placed the stamp in a different place for each card to ensure I picked up the colours in different ways.

6. Stamp the image onto water colour card.

7.  Can you see my inky finger? More fingers became inky as I carried on, so be careful when you touch the card or you're probably get a splodge where you don't want it - like I did on card 2. But all is not lost with water colours, I simply used the left over ink from the block and a water brush to make a stripy background.

7. I stamped the sentiment straight onto card 1, heat embossed it onto card 2 and onto a tag for card 3.

So here's my question: Can you guess which is my favourite card and why?

And my prize is:

Supplies:

Stamps: Stampendous, Agapanthus Thank You

Ink: Kaleidacolor, creole spice; Versamaek; Stampendous embossing powder

Die: Claerly Besotted, Tag along

And here's the blog hop order

Victoria Lavender " Sunny in Tucson" 

Angela Maine "from the tool shed"

Jane Taylor "Purplejet Loves Crafts" - that's me

Julia Sager "Julia Sue's Stamping"

Hannelie Bester "Desert Diva" 
Linda Beeson "PaperCutting Kind of Day" 
Vicki Dutcher "All I do is Stamp"

I hope you have fun today with our first blog hop. 

Chances are good to win a prize, maybe it will be you!

  

Thanks for visiting and good luck in your treasure hunt quest!

Jane

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Saturday Scribbles

After all the excitement of CASing a card for AAA Cards this week I was delighted to to see Time Out are also asking for a card to be CASEd.  Theirs is by Donna Mikasa and uses some of my all time favourite colours.

 

Once again I've stuck pretty close to the original - such a striking vibrant card!

I've picked up on the colours, the hexagons, the butterfly and the gold. My twist is to use a coloured card, all butterflies, a die cut sentiment and I've reversed the colours on my hexagon stencil which colours the lines rather than the insides - I swiped a brush of colour over the insides after I removed the stencil.

Supplies:
Stencil: TCW, hexagon
Inks: SU melon mambo, tangerine tango, daffodil delight
Dies: lawn fawn, scripty thanks; Lil'inker, stitched mats recatnagles
Punch: Martha Stewart, butterfly trio

Thanks for visiting my blog today, it's much appreciated. Be sure to check out AAA Cards blog hop tomorrow.  It's going to be a big one with 8 prizes and a treasure hunt!!

Jane
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Friday Focus

Okay, so I own up, two purple cards are not enough. So here comes number three and I promise the last one for the Uniko Studio challenge.

I had these two pieces of card that I'd trimmed off when I made the first two cards and thought why not give it a go and see what happens.   The long rectangular shape made me reach for the Background Builders Vines stamp set and as I love the large Happy Birthday stamps - use them all the time - it was an obvious choice for the sentiment. 

I'm really smitten with the Vines set, always looks good and always looks different no matter how often I use them. And I'm loving them all over again in purple on this card!

Supplies:

Stamps: Uniko Studio, All Occasion Sentiments #2, Background Builders Vines

Inks: Memento, grape jelly, London fog; Ranger distress, tattered rose; SU, rich razzleberry

And the reason for my quick posts earlier this week - a little to do with preparing for the AAA Cards blog hop on Sunday (8 prizes to win!) and a lot to do with a visit to watch my grandsons' school sports day.  This visit involved a long drive, a flight (on the way out delayed for 4 hours) and three days away from my crafting supplies. There was a whole load of scheduling posts and early preparation of cards. But every bit of this was worth it and I've memories to cherish until we see them again - but probably not before Christmas.

Thanks for looking at my blog today, your visit is very much welcomed.

Jane

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Wednesday Words

So talking about my purple obsession - well I was yesterday - couldn't resist making another card for the Uniko Studio challenge.

 

This time I used the new - and oh so gorgeous - butterfly stamps and a little bit of colouring with my promarkers. Been a while since I used them and I do love to colour, so relaxing.

 My go to Wink of Stella was added to all the white parts of the butterflies - gives them such a subtle  pretty sparkle. 

Supplies:

Stamps: Uniko Studio, English Country Garden Butterflies, Flower Power #2

Inks: Memento, grape jelly

Promarkers: sunkissed pink, cool grey 2,

Embellishments: Papermania, adhesive shimmer dots; Wink of Stella, clear

Another fairly brief post today. There is a reason for this and all will be revealed at the end of the week.

Thanks for your visit, I do appreciate your time.

Jane

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Tuesday Talk

Well would you believe it Uniko Studio's current challenge colours include - PURPLE!

 

And the theme is BIRTHDAY

So I'm not going to miss this opportunity to indulge my favourite colour obsession. Here's my card:

A really simple creation that puts the stamp to the forefront, using one purple and the grey from the colour combo (a much better match for shade in real life).

Supplies:

Stamps: Uniko Studio, Flower Power #1, #2 & #3

Inks: Memento, grape jelly, London fog

Embellishments: Papermanis, adhesive shimmer dots

Short and sweet today, but hope you like my card. Thanks for looking.

Jane

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Monday Moments

I've recently been playing with water colours - bit of a hint of something coming up at AAA Cards soon - and signed up for an online class at www.onlinecardclasses.com 

Now I've done a few online classes, some excellent, some good and some not so good. This one falls into the excellent category - which I suppose I should have guessed as Jennifer McGuire is involved and she's a real class act. And the price is brilliant too - $25.

I didn't make the live run of this class, but I think I actually prefer to work at my own pace and absorb things slowly - I find I hate to get behind in live classes and rush through the experimenting stage trying to keep up.

All this preamble leads me into sharing a card I made for Less is More's current challenge to use watercolours. And it's a card that turned out so much more than I hoped and I'm totally in love with it!  Don't you just love it when things turn out better than you expected?

 

Our challenge is to use

WATERCOLOUR 

First I prepared the background by applying ink to an acrylic block, spritzing it with water and stamping onto watercolour card.  Once it had dried out I stamped the butterfly and then did a second generation stamping set slightly off the first to get a bit of a blurred image.  I then just finished it off by stamping the sentiment. Hope you like it as much as I do!

Supplies:

Stamps: Uniko Studio, English Country Garden Butterflies, All Occasion Sentiments #1

Inks: SU, daffodil delight, rich razzleberry, tempting turquoise; Memento, tuxedo black

Thanks for dropping by today, I do appreciate you taking the time.

Jane

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AAA Cards Game 8 Inspire

This week it's time to be inspired!

Well when I first saw Vicki's card I was gobsmacked! It was just so perfect I couldn't begin to imagine how I would ever be able to interpret it without just doing a straight copy. But as I don't have the same supplies as Vicki some adaptations were necessary, but as you'll see I stuck pretty close to her card.

Did you recognise the stamps I used from the little peek yesterday?  Yes, of course, they're from Uniko Studio - I use their stamps so much and love the clean sleek look that can be achieved.

I stamped the chevrons first picking up on the colours from Vicki's centre strip. Then I stamped the flower, stem and sentiment. I cut this piece of card a little smaller than the base card and added three red sequins in place of Vicki's six aqua sprinkles.

Hope you like my interpretation and manage to find time to be INSPIRED yourself and play along at AAA Cards this week.

Supplies:
Stamps: Uniko Studio, Background Builders Chevrons, All Occasion Sentiments #3, Beautiful Blooms 1
Inks: SU, real red, tempting turquoise; Memento, cottage ivy, tuxedo black
Embellishments: sequins from my stash

Thanks for visiting, am looking forward to returning the favour and can't wait to see how you've been inspired by Vicki's card!

Jane
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Saturday Scribbles

So I made this card for Freshly Made Sketches:

I loved the sketch from the moment I saw it, but I know I'm the queen of crooked and would never be able to line up all those pieces even if I did manage to cut them straight.  A different way had to be discovered!

 

Not content with one problem I then further complicated things by choosing to use the CAS Colours & Sketches combo. Just about managed to find a reasonable match for Coastal Cabana and Crisp Cantaloupe, but that Wisteria Wonder - nothing in my stash even came close.

Eventually I found some cardstock from an ancient sarabooks pad that was ok for colour.  I then stamped the grid, a large butterfly in the centre square and random smaller butterflies over the rest of the card. 

I stamped a border using an acrylic block and mounted the grid card onto it. Finally I stamped one large and two small butterflies from the purple card, hand cut the large one and used a punch for the smaller ones and adhered them on top of the grid. No sentiment yet as I don't know how I will use this card.

 Oh and of course some Wink of Stella was added!

Supplies:

Stamps: Uniko Studio, English Country Garden Butterflies, Background Builders SQUARED

Inks: Ranger distress, tattered rose; Adirondack, eggplant; Kaleidacolor, Caribbean sea

Punch: Martha Stewart, butterfly trio

Embellishments: Wink of Stella, clear

Don't forget to come back tomorrow when I'll be revealing my new DT card for AAA Cards game 8 when we are CASing a card from Vicki Dutcher - see her blog here.  

Here's a little peek at my card, see if you can recognise the stamps:

Thanks for looking at my blog today, love to know that people are prepared to give up some of their time to visit!

Jane
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Friday Focus

Today I'm sharing a card I made in honour of CAS.ology's 100th challenge. Imagine all the cards that have been created and looked at and been inspired by their cue cards. Mind boggling!

I've kept my card very clean, very simple and just one layer. The colours are from ColourQ and make the card very striking despite its simplicity. And, of course I expect you've already guessed, I've blinged up all the rich razzleberry ink with Wink of Stella.

   

  

Supplies:

Stamps: Unikos Studio, All Occasion Sentimnets #1, Flower Power #5, Background Builders Vines

Inks: SU, rich razzleberry, old olive; Memento, toffee crunch, Summer sky

Embellishments: Wink of Stella, clear

Before I go I just want to share some photos of this amazing garden we visited this week - Gooderstone Water Gardens in Norfolk.  The weather was perfect - sunny, but not too hot and I could have happily sat on one of the many benches and gazed at the water and flowers forever.  Stunning!

As usual all photos taken on my phone.  Love how it fits in my back pocket and is always with me whenever I see something I want to photograph and I think that more than makes up for the lesser quality of shot.

Thanks for dropping by today, hope you've enjoyed what you've seen. Thanks in advance for any lovely comments you choose to leave.

Jane

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Wednesday Words

Don't you just love it when you get something unexpected? I was opening up my email the other day and up popped some new photos of my grandsons having fun and climbing trees like boys love to do.

So of course a scrapbook page or two is in the making. Today I'm sharing one I made for two challenges.  The layout is from my favourite place to play The Memory Nest - they always have great sketches to be inspired by.

My first ever entry for the challenge at 1-2-3 Get Scrappy last month was picked to be in their top three - here - so it would be rude not to support them again this month.  I picked these three elements from their new board: circle shaped picture, brads, pastel colours.

       

I started my page by machine stitching the grid lines from the sketch.  Next I die cut the two photos into cirlces and mounted them onto pastel patterned paper, also die cut. I stamped a sentiment onot the smallest square of patterned paper.

I temporarily placed them all onto the page with the buttons and brads so that I knew where to stamp the sentiments and camera image.  Then I added my title and journalling.

I plan for this page to be opposite another page about the same visit which will show a larger landscape to set the scene and also a photo of one of the boys rolling down the slope - hence the rolling mentioned in my journalling.

Supplies:

Paper: Chatterbox, Scrapbook Walls + scraps from my stash

Stamps: Bo Bunny, Mam-Razzi; May Road, Spool Sentiments; Technique Tuesday, Summer Rocks by Ali Edwards; Kaisercraft, Life Sentiments

Ink: Memento, rich cocoa

Die: Spellbinders, Classic Square large

Alphas: Sophisticates, yellow high five; Papermanis, birdsong

Embellishments: brads & buttons from my stash

Thanks for dropping by today, your visit is much appreciated.

Jane

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Tuesday Talk

It's one layer week over at Less Is More and that always gets me thinking. 

Once more it's One Layer Card time and

 the title of our challenge is 

OFF THE EDGE

 

Funny all the time I don't need to produce a one layer card I seem to want to make them, then bang it's compulsory and all the ideas evaporate!

But I'm a capricorn and we persevere stubbornly - so I did and came up with this:

And since it only uses Clearly Besotted stamps and their current them is 'Anything Goes' I've decided to enter it there as well.

Supplies:
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, Design A Tree & Say It In Style
Inks: SU, daffodil delight, melon mambo, rich razzleberry
Embellishments: Kuretake Wink of Stella, clear

So glad you found time to drop by today, your visit is apprecitaed.

Jane
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