Stampin' With Michelle Pepper

How is that for an amazing view from your backyard? Our family have just been to Queenstown, the world's 4th friendliest place where the boys got to experience many "first-s" (ski, gondola, luge, extravagant hotel/apartment), beginning with their very first time being on-board a flying plane. I won't go into details about the trip, except to explain how it has  anything to do with today's card. It was just so lovely to be welcomed into a city we've not been before as a family by being invited to lunch with a local resident. Gill is our friend's mum whom we have met probably about 5 times in Auckland. She welcomed us so warmly, fed us lunch and took the time to show us on the map where the attractions are. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and of course was designing a thank you card in my head while I sat at her dining table. My eyes went back and forth from the view out of her dining area, the majestic snow-capped mountains (the above picture was f...

This week the Cue Word for CASology Challenge is Dessert. Of course, chocolate is top of mind. I pulled out this dear old retired stamp set called Eat Chocolate which I love but haven't used it nearly enough. I have been working on the bag sample on page 88 of the 2013-14 Annual Catalogue, using some retired Designer Series Paper (the name of which escapes me). As soon as I saw them both together, I knew what I had to do. Yes, I set to work in the kitchen. (No, not in the middle of the night, but the next morning.) Soon enough, out of the oven came a batch of some gooey chocolate brownie...hmmm....Once cooled and dusted with icing sugar, into a cello bag went a slice, a strip of DSP set around it and topped off with another sentiment from this great chocolate lovers stamp set. And ta-da, you have an exquisitely dressed up treat bag for someone special. And let me tell you, it is only fitting to dress up this decadent brownie! By the way, I can actually sa...

In this card, I have managed to use all of the 5 colours in the 2012-14 In Colour Range. The oval piece is in Basic Gray, and the sentiment is embossed with White Emboss Powder. I felt that the main image was slightly skewed to the right, so I had to think a bit to rectify the imbalance. I have noticed that the scattering of jewel rhinestones has been in trend for some time now, so I gave that a go, and ta-da, I reckon it did the job nicely. Now, when I was deciding on what sentiment to use, I again thought this card is quite versatile - birthday, thank you, hello...but I wondered about whether it's too cheerful a card to be a sympathy card? I decided to play it safe :-) By the way, the Basic Gray Oval piece had to be there because I had to cover up a stamping boo boo, otherwise I might have opted for no sentiment. Oh, oh, I just realised that this card qualifies for this week's CAS(E) this Sketch! Challenge : If you don't know what paper craft challenge...

In just a little under three years since I signed up as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I have managed to collect quite a few stamp sets. There are sets that I have hardly used, and you know, about all of them, I would say I haven't used as much as I would like to. It is a little hard as my stamping time is usually restricted to a start time of 10pm. Anyway, the point I want to make is this: I am making an effort to get as much mileage as I can from each stamp set that I own. So that could mean this blog might just be very boring, always showcasing the same stamp sets. Yet it could be inspiring and helpful perhaps to show the versatility of the stamps. On the right side of this blog, there is a section for Labels. It is sorted alphabetically so if you scroll down you'll see the list of Stamp sets and next to each name is a number, which indicates how many blog posts have been tagged with that stamp set. As I write now, I am pondering whether to make the goal quite specif...

I originally made this for a gift set of cards for a sister in law, however, when I packaged it up together with the 4 hand made greeting cards, it just didn't look right. So in the end I just made a box with a lid for the gift set...so what was to be the fate of this mini magazine folder? As it happened, there popped up a discussion on Stampin Connection (a forum for Stampin' Up! Demonstrators)...I have actually forgotten what the discussion was about, lol...however, I know I got the idea of using this holder to hold the Emboss Folders from that discussion. Quite neat, don't you think? I have left this quite plain Jane but you certainly can dress it up real good. Here is the link to Karen Titus' video tutorial which I used to create this handy card sized holder.   Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by :-)

I still have time to participate in  this week 's challenge at Freshly Made Sketches: I was looking at the samples by FMS' Design Team for quite some time before it dawn on me what was it that is different to what I'd normally do. It was the layering which I don't usually do.  So that's like a challenge within a challenge for me today. And here's the end result: I remember that I had a lot of Tempting Turquoise "off cuts" from a project a year ago, so that's the borders you see on the layers. Since the Wild About You stamp set was out, it was just too handy to use it, even though it is retired. The other thing I had in mind was that this card could be a "thanks for your support", or just simply "Hello" or perhaps "Welcome Baby" card. I used the 2013-14 In Colours because then I didn't have to think too hard about colour combination. I haven't got any 2013-14 In Colours DSPs, so I made m...

Boy, have I missed participating in challenges! I have been busy this July month working on birthday projects for it seems to be a very popular birthday month among my friends/family.  I have bookmarked my current favourite challenges blogs and the first one I looked at today was Less is More. As soon as I saw what this week's challenge was I got so excited because I had been wanting to make this Heels card all week ever since I first came across it.  Fellow SU! Demo, Tanya Bell, is the genius behind this design - and for AUD2.00, this template is a steal! All of us must know at least one person who loves heels, to whom this card would be just the perfect card to give. Click here to see some variations that Tania has shared, and she even made a video to show us how to put the card together. Why did I choose these colours? Well, that's easy - the second challenge blog I visited today was Fab Friday and this week's challenge is a colour challenge using Te...