Hi everyone,

Sorry for the long absence – it’s been weeks, I know! I’ve just had a lot of other stuff I’ve had to take care of in the past few weeks, I’m sure you all know what it’s like!

Thank you to my loyal readers who have been patiently waiting and checking up to see when I’m going to post next. And reminding me I have a blog! I have sorely missed doing Kristina’s challenges, so today now that I have more time to breathe, I thought I’d give it a shot!

This challenge was great in a couple of ways: I just got the Tangerine Tango cardstock recently – it will be available to everyone in NZ as of April, for the month of March only Demonstrators here have been able to get their hands on it. So it was great to break open my first pack of that colour and have a go at using it! This was also my chance to use a piece of So Saffron DSP from the Spring Showers collection, that we are farewelling this month, it retires with the current catalogue this coming Tuesday. So this was a bit of an out with the old, in with the new combo!

I also made this card with a special friend in mind; I heard some very sobering news two days ago that a good friend has been diagnosed with cancer. This is not supposed to happen to my friends!! It seems that more and more people that I know, have been attacked by the big C in one of it’s many forms, in the last year than I recall ever before. Maybe it’s a sign of my age, or maybe it’s because I’ve got more friends now that I’m a Demonstrator, than I used to have. But anyway, it leaves me feeling sad and a bit angry at the same time. It always seems to happen to the nicest of people, you know? I hope my card cheers her up just a little, and lets her know I’m here if she needs me.

Anyway, the flower on my card was actually inspired by a layout that my friend and upline Jacque taught on the weekend when we went up north, and I’ve just realised that she used it in her entry for Kristina’s last challenge. It’s a really simple idea but very effective – you just use the two oval punches to make an oval frame to use as flower petals. I used a 3/4″ circle of So Saffron cardstock as the flower centre and added one of the beautiful brads from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge kit. The stamped greeting is from Sincere Salutations (one of my most-used greeting sets, ever!) in Chocolate chip ink. I punched a scallop edge in the So Saffron DSP, and tied on some Chocolate Chip Taffeta ribbon to go with the base card, also in Chocolate Chip. A simple card but hopefully my friend will like it, I know she likes Chocolate Chip as much as I do!

Oh, I should mention, I have my supplies of the brand new 2009-2010 Idea book and catalogue here now! Stampin’ Up! have revised their pricing policy and we can’t offer permanent discounts on the catalogue like most of us have done in the past, so we are now obliged to sell them for the recommended retail price of $14.95. However I can do a short term offer – so if you’re in New Zealand, contact me this week (click here to e-mail me) to order your copy of the catalogue for $14.95, and I will give you $5 off your first order in April. As Stampin’ Up! Idea book & Catalogues always are, this is a beautiful book and fabulous value for just the ideas, let alone the divine shopping-in-your-PJs experience that you can get by having one!

Thanks for visiting, have a wonderful week!

Hi everyone,

Well it’s a very late night post for me tonight, I was just heading off to bed and realised I hadn’t posted this up for Kristina’s challenge yet, and I went to the trouble of making it, so that would just be a waste wouldn’t it!

I think you can see what the inspiration was (apart from the colours), there’s lots of dots in the picture Kristina gave us! I was flicking through an old magazine last week and saw a cup I think it was, with different sized circles with holes in them and smaller circles added in the holes, so that gave me the idea to do the same thing here! I love punches and it gave me a good excuse to play with all of my circle punches, what more does a girl need?

The scalloped edge was made by punching lots of circles and sticking them behind the Chocolate Chip circle. I’m sure at least one of you will want to know if that was tricky getting them all spaced perfectly – well, yes it probably took the longest time of the whole card. But here’s a trick: use the Dotto removeable adhesive. That way you can stick the circles down, and then as you work your way back to the start you can move them around a bit to make them fit nicely. You can’t do this if you use a permanent adhesive straight away! Then I just put permanent adhesive on the circle I cut for the back, so those little scallops are sandwiched in between, nice and secure.

Recipe:

Stamps: Say it with Scallops

Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Brocade Blue, Old Olive, Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Other: Scallop circle, 1/16″, 1/8″, 1/4″, 1/2″, 3/4″, 1″, 1&1/4″, 1&3/8″ circle punches (see I said I played with all of them!), Chocolate Chip Taffeta ribbon, Linen thread, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Dotto adhesive, snail adhesive, 2-way glue pen.

Today Stampin’ Up! released the Retiring List for NZ/Australia. It’s huge! I am so sad to see so many gorgeous products go, but I have faith that Stampin’ Up! are making way for bigger and better things for us! If you are interested to see the Retiring list, you can access it via this link to the Stampin’ Up! Website. If you’re in NZ then you can just e-mail me (click here) to place your order!

Thanks for visiting, have a great week!