Cardstock Carnival Blog Hop

Welcome to the Australasian CTMH Cardstock Carnival blog hop, if you arrived here from Doreen's blog you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance, you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post to see more great ideas.

During April you can enjoy some amazing deals on your favourite cardstocks. You can buy bundles of the same colour or bundles of different colours. There are discounts of 20-40% off  of the bundles. The Close To My Heart cardstock has two shade of the same colour on either side of each sheet. This allows great versatility when combining colours for your projects.

Initially I thought it would be hard to create with just cardstock, and no printed paper,  but I am very happy with all of my projects. Some of the suggestions for using the cardstock, were using both sides of the paper, dry embossing and using inks to sponge colour to the cardstock and theses are the techniques I decided to use.

 As Mother's Day is approaching I thought I would make a card. My mother loves receiving flowers and I am sure she will like this pot plant with these gorgeous flowers. This card is 5.5" x 5.5"

As I looked at these photos I could not help reminiscing about my childhood, and I thought what a blessed life I have had so far, not without troubles but still blessed. While working on this layout I decided to write a letter to my younger self.  I did cheat just a little bit by using one of the printed papers for my letter, to use cardstock it would have been too thick. The flowers are from the Flower Market Cricut cartridge and the flourishes are from the Artiste cartridge.

I have used cricut and die cut images in this last 3D project, I saw something similar on Splitcoast Stampers by Girlgeek101stamping and was so impressed with the simplicity of it. Black and white is such a stunning combination and these butterflies and leaves in this shadow frame are quite beautiful.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you have been inspired by my creations. To continue the hop please go to Shaunna's Passionate About Pages and see what great project she has to share.

Please take a moment and leave a comment before you go on to the next blog. Your comments are always appreciated.

April Stamp of the Month "O-fish-ally Awesome"

Welcome to the Australasian Stamp of the Month blog hop, if you arrived here from Doreen's blog  you are in the right place. If you arrived by chance to continue the hop, click on the link at the end of this post.

This stamp set is  O-fish-ally Awesome, lots of great images that I can see being used for many different projects. My projects are all pretty different.

I've had cats for most of my adult life, and they brought much fun to my life, but after the last one died about six years ago I decided that I wouldn't have anymore pets. It was now so much easier if I wanted to go away, I didn't need to get someone to look after them for me. Then about five years ago I thought maybe I would get some goldfish. I first got six but for some reason two died but the remaining four lived happily together and grew bigger and fatter in my pond. 

I thought I would try to manipulate the fish bowl stamp to see if I could create a bowl vase and I am very happy with how it turned out. I used the February stamp of the month for the bunch of flowers in the vase. I water coloured the flowers and used the clear shimmer brush to give them some sparkle but unfortunately it doesn't show in my photo. It really is very pretty in real life.

In these uncertain times with this terrible virus affecting all of us in some way or another, even if  it's just  isolating ourselves, we have to remember to "just keep swimming" and get on with our lives the best way possible. Keep in touch with family and friends and for some of us we have more time to craft than we ever did. I stamped and coloured the fish, then embossed it. It's a really easy card to make.

Thank you for stopping by, please hop over to Danielle's Scrappy Chicks to see some more great ideas. I am sure she will have something wonderful to share.

Have a wonderful day and please take a moment and leave a comment they are always appreciated.