Tag You're It!

It's been ever such a long time since I participated in a challenge (at least, not one that I wasn't on the Design Team for, or affiliated with in some way) so it was so refreshing to be able to carve out a bit of time this weekend to play along with the Tag You're It! Challenge.

Here's what I made:

The idea of the challenge is pretty easy. Simply take some inspiration from the example tag that is posted and make your own version of it. My inspiration came from the general way the tag was assembled... some stenciling in the background, a cluster of background leaves and flourishes, and a brightly coloured focal point to catch your attention. 

I make my own tag cutouts using the Sizzix Framelits Tag Die Set by Tim Holtz, and my layered hummingbird is also a Sizzix Die Set, called 'Free Bird' (which just so happens to be on sale I noticed!)

I asked my daughter Moriah if she wanted to create alongside me and participate in a challenge too and she was so excited! This is what she made:

She made all the design and colour decisions herself, I only helped with the cutting out. She chose the Sizzix Wild Hedgerow Die for her glittery leafy branch, and the Sizzix Gerbera Set for her flower.
She was thinking of her older sister when she picked out the sentiment sticker! ;-)

Not bad for a 7 year old hey?!

Thanks for the challenge Tag You're It! Me and Moriah both loved playing along!!

Neat and Tangled March Release

It's that time of the month that we've been waiting for! After the long week of teasing us with sneaks, new products and designer inspiration, the latest release at Neat and Tangled has actually gone live in their shop!

I'm not officially required to create anything for the release as such, but I couldn't help but whip up a couple of cards when the products landed in my hands because they are just too fun! Here's what I did...

The Yo Ho Ho Stamp Set and coordinating Dies are no doubt going to prove very popular. I love that there are girl images as well as the more traditional boy pirates, plus there is also cute swash-buckling animals and some fun sentiments too.

The background for this card was made by doing some quick ink-blending over the February stencil 'Scalloped'. I turned it upside down because it reminded me more of waves which seemed relevant for the theme ;-)

The second card I made was because I was desperate to try out the other stamp set that comes with matching dies and that's the Medallion Flower Builder. There really are so many possibilities with this idea of having all the flowers and leaves being able to fit together in a pattern, but I've actually just gone ahead and used them as embellishments instead.

And see the fun line of little hearts cut out of the bottom of my white card? That's just one of the 5 dies you get with the Tiny Cuts set which is also part of the release. I'm pretty confident I'm going to be using this one A LOT!

I had the honour of filming the release video where I show off ALL the new products, giving you a walk-through and a real-life look at everything so you can more easily pick out your favourites ;-)

       

You can find the March release live in the Neat and Tangled shop HERE.
And catch more inspiration from the Design Team on the blog HERE.

March Mood Board at Jot Magazine

So it seems we're already in March and firmly heading towards celebrating Easter already. Crazy hey?! It feels like we just got over Christmas!

Anyway, I'm more than happy to be creating with some cute Easter-esque stamps from Neat and Tangled for this latest Mood Board Challenge at Jot Magazine.

Here's a look at the board that inspired my card above. It's full of berry tones of pink and purple with only a hint of aqua, but I swung the balance around to be much more 50:50 which I think still works well.

In fact, it was the bunch of balloons in the mood board which really started my inspiration flowing, especially since I had just received this balloon stamp from Krumspring. That set comes with either a bear or a house to stamp below the balloons but I wanted to change things up a little and mix and match some images. I chose the girl with her wagon, and also the rabbit to pop in it from the Cottontail Cuties set from Neat and Tangled as the bearers of my balloons :-)

In the mood board the balloons are mixed in with some flowers and foliage and so I hand-drew some leaves around the edges of my stamped bunch to mimic that idea. And since I can never be satisfied with a one-layer flat card I added the felt bow and funny little sentiment for extra texture!

Steph from Kitaholic Kits is our sponsor for the March mood board. Kitaholic Kits is an Australian based monthly kit club that caters to papercrafters of all genres :-) Find out all the details for our challenge and how you can join in over on the Jot Magazine blog RIGHT HERE!

Studio Calico Crop Weekend

A couple of weekends ago Studio Calico held a crop with quite a few challenges. I was in the mood to be inspired in a fresh direction so I played along with a couple of the ones that really spoke to me, and created these two cards.

The first challenge I wanted to try out was Lisa's "over-stamping" technique, which is effectively about stamping in layers with different coloured inks. I've had this Houseplants stamp set in my stash for a couple of months and it was still untested so I pulled it out to play, and quickly whipped up this card...

It was so quick and easy that I immediately moved onto another challenge, this time trying out Carson's "multi-ink spritz" technique. It was slightly similar, with the idea being to ink up your stamp with different coloured inks at the same time, and then spritz them with a little water before stamping them to create a bit of a water-coloured effect.

I used the same Houseplants stamp set, and the same Color Theory Inks that I used for the first card. It was also supposed to be a one-layer card.... but try as I might I couldn't just leave it as a stamped background and had to add a few dimensional embellishments too. Whoops!

It was so nice just to create something quick and easy without needing to think about it too much, and just for the fun of it!