May your day be a special one + an announcement

I hope everyone is gearing up for an awesome weekend :) This one promises to be rainy for us in Brisbane which is great for the garden so I am not complaining!

I am of course here to share this week's AnnaBelle Stamps challenge with you, however before I do I have an announcement to make - this week's challenge will be my last as a DT Belle for AnnaBelle Stamps. I'm very sad to be leaving the team - all of the Belles are so talented and absolutely the loveliest ladies you could ever hope to meet, but life has been a bit hectic lately and crafting needs to take a backseat for the moment. Thanks so much to Andrea for letting be a part of your awesome team and letting me work with your awesome designs.

I will still be stamping and making cards (I haven't purchased a card in three years and am not about to start) but whether or not I will be blogging remains to be seen. I will be around in cyberspace however if you want to drop me a line :)

So without further ado, here's this week's challenge:

Please note that it is piercing, not piecing. Right Belles? hehe :) This technique (in case you don't know) is where you pierce the paper with a sharp instrument like a pin or a paper piercer (hence the name) to create lines or a pattern. I've gone with a border on my card below:

I used AnnaBelle Stamps white cardstock for the base, Carnation Hero Arts layering paper for the stamping and piercing layer, and butterflies and a sentiment from the All Things Grow set.

I white embossed the sentiment and butterflies and then created the border using a ruler and a paper piercer.

See what paper piercing fun the rest of the Belles had this week:

Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Danielle


Hope you have a lovely weekend :)





About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

XXX

Happy Friday to you! I am here to share another AnnaBelle Stamps challenge with you!

This week we want you to use the colours Lime and Orange in your projects. Here's my card:

All of the Belles used Lil Monster's Balloon stamp set this week, along with a soon-to-be released die that goes with it! I stamped the lil monster and the XXX sentiment from the set with Archival Ink in Jet Black on watercolour paper.

I then coloured him in using a paintbrush with Distress inks (Shabby Shutters for his shirt and his balloon with Spiced Marmalade) mixed with water. I used a marvy marker (Grey) to do some shading on the lil monster himself.

See how the rest of the Belles used this cute stamp set! Links to their blogs can be found on my sidebar.

That's it from me, take care and have a fantastic weekend!





About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Congratulations

Hope everyone is enjoying lovely weather in their corner of the world! The rain has finally stopped here in Brisbane and we have been enjoying some lovely sunny (but cool) weather in the past week or so which is a nice change.

Are you ready for another inspiring challenge from AnnaBelle Stamps?

Adding faux stitching with a white gel pen has to be one of the simplest ways to create interest to a card without bulk (cardmaking queen Kristina Werner rarely makes a card without it) and looks just about real enough to fool anyone at first glance.

I had the contents of my recently delivered parcel from Simon Says Stamp all over my desk when I went to start making this card - I couldn't resist the April card kit from Simon Says Stamp (what can I say, I love pastels!) and the round buttons die by Memory Box was practically walking itself over to my Bigshot to be used ;)

I used the Hero Arts (Lilac) layering paper from the card kit for the cardbase and the sentiment layer as well as for one of the buttons. The largest button is made with Carnation layering paper (also from the kit) and the orange button is cut from some Kaisercraft Peachy Keen patterned paper I had in my scrap drawer.

I white embossed the sentiment from Love Birds and added a stitched border above and below the cute patterned paper from Lawn Fawn (also from the card kit). I also added real stitches to the buttons with crochet thread.

I hope that you will find the time to play along with this challenge, sewing (faux or otherwise) is so much fun! The rest of the AnnaBelle Stamps DT girls' blogs can be found on my sidebar - I recommend having a look at their blogs to see what they have come up with this week!

That's it from me, take care and have a fantastic weekend!






About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Just a note

Happy Friday to you! It's been a real wet and rainy one here in Brisbane this week - my favourite type of weather! I'm here once again to share an AnnaBelle Stamps challenge with you - Say it in Kraft, Lemon and White:

I went with a kraft cardbase and came up with the following card:

I started by using post-its to mask off the sides of the cardfront and stamped the flower image from Fanciful Flowers randomly to create a pattern using Brilliance White ink and Canary Versacolor ink.
I removed the post-its and stamped the sentiment (also from Fanciful Flowers) with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

I then used a ruler to add lines using a white gel pen.

For some big doses of inspiration check out the links below to visit the rest of the DT gals' blogs. You will not be disappointed! :)

Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Danielle

That's it from me, take care and have a fantastic weekend!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Just a note

I'm so glad it's Friday! Even though it's been a short week at work this week due to the public holiday on Wednesday (Anzac Day) I will be over the moon when this week is over ;)

And because it's Friday I have another AnnaBelle Stamps challenge for you!

I used the placement of the shapes in the sketch for the elements in my card below:

I inked up the gorgeous dandelion image from Garden Silhouettes first with Broken China Distress ink and then around the edges with Stormy Sky Distress ink. I stamped it on smooth white cardstock cut to 3.5x3.5" (folded).

The sentiment is from Fanciful Flowers stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink. The rhinestones beside the sentiment are 'Ice Blue' from Kaisercraft. I created the scallop border with my Fiskars Scallop Sentiment punch.

If you want to look at some more inspiration for this wonderful sketch please click on the links below to visit the rest of the DT gals' blogs. You will not be disappointed! :)


Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Danielle

That's it from me, take care and have a fantastic weekend!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Just a note

Happy Friday folks! I hope you're ready for another AnnaBelle Stamps challenge? This week we want you to cover your background with stamps!

You can either use a background stamp, or if you don't have any of those, just create your own! Even though I have a million and one background stamps I find it more fun to create my own:

I started off with a 3.5"x3.5" white cardbase and stamped one of the stamps from the Garden Silhouettes stamp set with Chateau Gray Versacolor ink. It doesn't show very well in the photo, but I also stamped in the blank spaces with the little three dot stamp from Love Birds using Chateau Gray ink. 

The largest flower is from the white petal pack at AnnaBelle Stamps. I coloured the smaller flower (bought years ago, not sure where from) with the Chateau Gray inkpad and set it aside to dry. I made a bow to sit behind the flower using sheer ribbon using one of the methods that Shari Carrol demonstrated in this video for Hero Arts (I need to practice and refine my technique - she makes it look so easy doesn't she?!) The flower was finished off with a button glued with Glossy Accents. I also used Glossy Accents to adhere the flower to the card.

The sentiment panel is a scrap piece of the same white cardstock trimmed to size with a sentiment from the Love Birds set stamped in Versafine Onyx Black ink.

If you want to see more beautiful cards with stamped backgrounds please click on the links below to visit the rest of the DT gals' blogs. You will not be disappointed! :)


Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Danielle

That's it from me, take care and have a fantastic weekend!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Congratulations

Happy Friday everyone! Since this is Friday the 13th (one of three this year!) AnnaBelle Stamps has a very apt colour challenge for you:

I did a bit of tone-on-tone stamping for my card below using A•muse studio black cardstock which I love because it's coloured on one side, white on the other - perfect for cards!

I stamped the beautiful damask-style stamp from Fanciful Flowers in Versamark ink once along the top and then again beneath it to repeat the pattern. The photo below shows the stamping alot better:

I cut another strip of the black cardstock and white embossed it with a sentiment from the Love Birds set. I layered the black strip over some white cardstock and adhered to the cardfront. Super simple right? :)

Also, today only you can buy both stamp sets used in the above card, plus many other products from the AnnaBelle Stamps shop for 13% off! Click on the button below to visit the shop:

If you want to see more beautiful cards please click on the links below to visit the rest of the DT gals' blogs. You will not be disappointed I assure you! :)


Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Danielle

That's all from me, take care!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Birthday Wishes - Birthday Blog Hop for Lilypad Cards!

Welcome to the Lilypad Cards First Birthday blog hop! You should have just been at Ashley's blog.

There are three prize packages with a total retail value of over $300! These prizes will be awarded by random draw. There are two ways to be eligible for the prize drawings. You can “like” us on Facebook, but if you do not have a Facebook account, you can also be eligible for the drawings by leaving a comment on the Lily Pad Cards blog. To better your chances even more, leave comments on the other blogs participating in the hop. For each comment you leave, you'll get your name entered again! (but only one comment per blog, please.) You have a whole week to get hopping - make sure you leave all your comments by the deadline - Sunday, April 8 at 12pm EST.

To make this celebratory card I used some scraps from the Inque Boutique 'Isn't it Romantic'  6x6 paper pad. I cut the green layer about an 1/8" wider than the paisley hearts layer. After adhering the paisley panel to the green layer I poked holes along the edges using my ruler and piercing tool.

I then used a white gel pen between the holes to give the illusion of stitching. The sentiment is from Kaisercraft's 'Birthday' mini stamp set which was stamped in Worn Lipstick distress ink.

Thanks for stopping by! The next stop on the hop is Vera!

Remember, if you hit a bad link, you can always go back to Lily Pad to view the master list of blog links. Please report any bad links to aris@inlinkz.com.

Hope you get a change to hop along!
Bye for now!

Thinking of You

Hello again! Welcome to another challenge from AnnaBelle Stamps! This week we have a sketch challenge for you:

I'm currently taking Tim Holtz's current online class (Creative Chemistry 101) which inspired me to pull out the distress inks and have a play with embossed resist. Here's what I came up with:

I white embossed the flourishy stamp from Love Birds onto plain white cardstock which I had already cut into a hoop using circle nestabilities. I blended Stormy Sky and Tumbled Glass distress inks on the surface of the hoop. The white embossing resisted the ink which is such a cool effect.

I had some aqua/teal Kaisercraft ribbon but it wasn't quite in the right shade to match the hoop, so I ran my blending tool preloaded with Tumbled Glass over it to give the colour a nudge in the right direction :)

The sentiment from Fanciful Flowers was stamped on another circle of plain white cardstock with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I then used foam dots to pop up the hoop and more foam dots to pop that up on top of the ribbon which I adhered to the cardbase (after allowing it to dry of course!)

Exciting news to share this week as well - the AnnaBelle Stamps DT have a new addition - Danielle Daws! Danielle has a gorgeous, clean and graphic style and I love every card she makes. I'm sure she will create some jaw-dropping cards with AnnaBelle Stamps!

Be sure to check out the rest of the Belles to get some inspiration for this week's challenge:


Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
That's it for now - have an awesome weekend!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

With Love

Happy Friday! Hope everyone is gearing up for a great weekend! I am hoping that this wet weather goes away for a few days so that I can get some washing done - how about you?

And since it's Friday I'm here to share this week's AnnaBelle Stamps challenge with you. It's time to use some twine!

I am fairly unimaginative when it comes to twine and ribbon... the most daring thing I do is a knot instead of a bow ;) So this card is totally me:

Stampwise I used the silhouette image from All Things Grow with Love and the sentiment from Squared Mother's Day. I inked the silhouette with Umber Versacolor and then around the top with Pinecone Versacolor. The sentiment was stamped with Pinecone.

I dyed some Natural Hemp Twine with ink from a brown Marvy marker diluted with water and waited for it to dry. Once dry I looped it around the top panel where I had already stamped the silhouette and sentiment and tied a bow. The cardstock is lovely textured Canson Vivaldi cardstock in 'Cream'.

I hope that this card has inspired you just a little bit! Check out the links below to see what my fellow DT members have created this week - their amazing creations show how versatile twine can be!



Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Bye for now!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Give Thanks

Happy Friday and welcome to another challenge at AnnaBelle Stamps! This week it's a colour challenge and what a fresh and happy combination it is too!

I love yellow and white together (reminds me of mangoes and ice-cream!)

I went with an extremely simple card in one layer:

Ack! I'm sorry if that blinded you! It is alot of yellow isn't it?

Very simple recipe for this one: Garden Silhouettes from AnnaBelle Stamps stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with Ultra Fine White EP from Hero Arts. Okay, one more image to show the gorgeous texture that you get by heat embossing on Bazzill:

If you can still see I suggest you hop along to find out what the rest of the Belles have created this week ;)

Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Bye for now!




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)

Topical Tuesday - Simple tips for coloured pencils

This week it was my turn for the Topical Tuesday feature on Stamp Embellish Create (exclusive to members). Click on the image above to go straight to my tutorial. If you aren't a member yet go ahead and sign up - it's free!

Have a wonderful day!

Miss You

Sorry I haven't been blogging as much lately - apart from my AnnaBelle Stamps design team posts I haven't been crafting as much as usual. I put it down to being sucked into the current season of My Kitchen Rules which commands my attention for the hour that I usually have for crafting (7:30-8:30). Is anyone else addicted to that show like I am? Argh! :) I don't even like cooking! But anyway, I do apologise, and I hope to get some extra crafting in this weekend so that I can share more during the week!

So since it's Friday I am here to once again share an AnnaBelle Stamps challenge with you. This time we want you to:

You could make something using the colours of chocolate, or perhaps create something that incorporates chocolates in some way. I created a box to hold some Ferrero Rochers (yum).

I created the tag using white cardstock with a flower from the Fanciful Flowers set stamped in Scarlet Versacolor ink. The sentiment is from the Garden Silhouettes set, stamped in Versafine Onyx Black ink.

For the box I randomly stamped flowers from the Fanciful Flowers set in Versamark ink on red Bazzill cardstock which I had cut to size and scored with my Martha Stewart scoring board but hadn't folded yet so that it lay flat.

I cut and folded the box base and lid, popped in the chocolates and wrapped it up with some white satin ribbon tied in a bow. Done!

Hope you get time to play along this week! For some added inspiration click on the links below to see what the rest of the Belles have created this week:
Marion
Sue K
Therese
Sue W
Andrea
Kylie
Patti
Until next time,




About our challenges:

• We post our challenges every Friday at 12:00pm AEST (AEDT during Daylight Savings).
• Each challenge runs for a week, and will close on the Friday 10.00am so that we can announce and showcase our weekly winners prior to the next challenge.
• Each weeks winner will receive our special blinkie to display on their blog and a $10.00 Gift Voucher to spend in store at AnnaBelle Stamps (or something equivalent).

How To Play Along:

• Copy and save our challenge banner and include it and a link back to the ABS blog in your post.
• Please link directly to your entry not just to your blog.
• Please don't link to postings made prior to the date of our current challenge. All projects submitted must be new.
• A maximum of 7 challenges may be combined including this one.
• You may enter any of our challenges several times as long as each submission is with a new creation.
• We would love you to use AnnaBelle Stamps and embellishments, but you can play along without using them, it’s all about sharing ideas :)