July Stamp of the Month "Strong Roots"

 Welcome to the Australasian CTMH Stamp of the Month blog hop, if you have arrived here from Danielle's Scrappychicksart  you are in the right place. If you arrived by chance I hope you will get some inspiration to use this stamp set. 

This set is titled Strong Roots with some lovely vintage look images and sentiments, which looked great with the layout I have created but will also  will work for other themes. Such as a card for a new home owner or heritage layouts. 

I visited Washington DC in 1978 and we went to George and Martha Washington's home Mount Vernon, this historic mansion has been preserved to the year 1799. George Washington is the first American president. When I saw this stamp set I immediately thought of these photos.

Thank you for stopping by now hop along to LaurenCTMHcraftings and see what great project Lauren  has created.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting!

Stars and Sparklers Blog Hop

 Welcome to the Australasian CTMH blog hop, if you arrived here from Megan's Crop Craft Create you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance I hope you see something to inspire you. To continue the blog hop, click on the link at the end of this post.

When you first look at this paper collection you may be overwhelmed by the bright colours but I found it quite easy to work with. I really like all of the papers, just not sure I will have a use for the fireworks paper. The red floral paper is so pretty and the celebrate paper can be used for lots of different projects.

I am loving working with the stacks of the old photos that I printed late last year. When I looked at these photos of my sister and her kids visiting her in hospital after having her last baby, I couldn't help reminiscing about the wonderful times I shared with these amazing kids when they were young. Laura looks pleased as punch to welcome her new baby sister Emma but Matthew looks a little apprehensive. I used the new Vol 5 Make It From Your Heart ideas book as inspiration to make for both of my layouts. This new book has both layout and card ideas.

As a single woman I sometimes dread having to deal with tradesmen as I have in the past had the odd bad experience with them, having family members that help out on occasion is a great relief. I have a narrow patio at the back of my home with a table set up and I love eating outside when the weather is good. But when I have family or friends around for a meal and we want to eat outside I have to remove all my hanging baskets  because I have to pull the table away from next to the wall and then there is no room to walk along the other side without knocking into the hanging baskets. So when I had the opportunity to have another patio area built on the side of my house, I was so pleased when  my niece's husband volunteered to do it for me.  

I distressed the edges of my title cardstock and then inked it with Sapphire ink. Typing my journalling is a new thing for me, but I knew I wouldn't have enough room to add my handwritten story and I really didn't want to cover up the pattern papers too much.

I often struggle making masculine cards and have so many pretty feminine cards in my stash and I felt some of these papers would be perfect. The stamped images are from a discontinued set but there are lots of other current stamps that would work as well.

Thank you for stopping by to continue the hop go to Danielle's Scrappychicks  and see what wonderful project she has created.

Please take a moment and leave a comment before you leave, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting!

June Stamp of the Month blog hop "Outdoor Borders"

 Welcome to the CTMH Australasian stamp of the month blog hop, if you arrived here from Danielle's Scrappychicks Art you are in the right place. If you arrived by chance you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

The June stamp of the month is Outdoor Borders and has some wonderful border stamps with all things outdoorsy. These will be great for page layouts.

I have used this stamped image for my page title, I heat embossed the stamp with white embossing powder on the red cardstock. Even though the photos are of Christmas I didn't want to use Christmas themed paper, this is a discontinued paper collection from a few years ago. I love the multi coloured hearts paper with these photos. Even still I wanted to add a few Christmas stickers and the bicycle is from the Flower Market Cricut collection.  

For this layout I used the hello summer border that I stamped with Blue Belle ink and then just the sun in Canary ink, which I fussy cut and adhered  with 3D foam tape. I also added the speech bubbles stamped in Blue Belle ink as well. The stamped flowers tie in with the flower paper. 

For this card I have used the wavy border stamp, I have coloured the stamped image with Smoothie, Olive and New England Ivy inks using the small water brush.

Thank you for stopping by, now hop along to Shaunna's Passionate About Pages and see what great project she has to share.

Before you leave please leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy Crafting!

Hillside Cottage Blog Hop

 Welcome to the Australasian CTMH blog hop, if you arrived here from Lauren Moore's blog you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance, please continue looking then you can follow the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

Today we are showcasing the Hillside Cottage suite of products, this is a folk artsy collection and is just gorgeous. I love the iconic animals and flowers and really all of the other papers are so pretty, as is the sticker sheet.

I was a little late placing my order so wasn't able to get this lovely collection in time for the hop but I was able to get my hands on one of the sheets of the bulk paper and the sticker sheet and this allowed me to be a part of the hop. You can create something lovely with just one sheet of paper and the stickers. I have added this collection to my next order and should be receiving it soon.

This gorgeous baby girl is my niece and these photos were taken many years ago, pretty evident by the cute sun suit she is wearing. You don't see anything like that these days. She is the first grandchild in our family and what a wonderful addition she was. I love how the papers and stickers enhance these very old photos. I have adhered the stickers with 3D foam tape to give them more dimension and lift them off the page. I will be adding another photo and the journalling to a flip flap to finish off the layout.

This card is really cute and also uses both sides of the same paper as the layout as well as the  sticker strip. CTMH have so many lovely flower stamps and I have used these flowers from a few years ago, the flowers are stamped with Canary ink and the leaves were stamped with New England Ivy ink which I stamped 2nd and 3rd generation. Doing this gives you so many more colour options. I hand cut the flower centers and used a white gel pen to make the dash lines.

Thank you for stopping by, now hop along to Danielle's blog Scrappychicks and see what lovely project she has created. 

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting!

May Stamp of the Month "Flowers for You"

 Welcome to the CTMH Australasian stamp of the month blog hop, if you arrived here from Lauren Moore's blog  you are in the right place . If you arrived by chance please continue looking and you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

This stamp set has some lovely images and sentiments, the floral circle is so pretty and all of the stamps can be used in so many different projects. This set would be perfect for a Mothers Day card.

 

                                  

I have taken inspiration from one of CTMH's sample cards using this stamp set. I love the look of the white heat embossing, this is a simple but pretty card. I heat embossed  the flowers and sentiment using the Daisy White pigment ink instead of Versamark ink and then used white embossing powder. I added some splatters using the same ink and the pearls adds a little bling.

           

This layout has photos of my mum and our beautiful front yard from many years ago. My dad was the gardener and I love how beautiful these flowers are. Because I have  misplaced my Spectrum Noir markers I have stamped the flowers in a single colour and I am really happy with how they look. Mothers are special people aren't they, my mum turned 89 this January and thankfully she is still quite independent and lives alone but is now requiring a lot more assistance than before. 

After stamping the image for this card I used the stitched circle thin cut to cut just part of the image. I dry embossed the yellow cardstock with the dot folder then lightly sanded it to reveal the white core, how pretty is that. I love the sentiment "just because" so when I want to send a card that's not for any particular occasion this is perfect.

Thank you for stopping by now hop along to to see what Danielle from Scrappychicks Art  has to share I am sure it's something great.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting!

Eat, Play, Love Blog Hop

 Welcome to the Australasian CTMH blog hop, if you arrived here Danielle's blog from you are in the right place. If you arrived by chance I hope you are inspired by my projects. You can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

We are showcasing the Eat, Play, Love collection, as always it is a beautiful selection of papers and decorations. Family feasts and cooking are a big part of most of our lives and these papers and decorations will compliment those photos beautifully. 

I wanted to show that even though it looks like a rather feminine collection you can use the yellow check paper for a masculine page. My dad had a number of different hobbies, one of his favourites was flying model planes. He made the planes himself and he belonged to a club, I really believe one of his happy places was out flying his planes. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of dad with his planes just these that he took of his different planes. 

I am so enjoying delving into my stash of past products to combine with the new ones to decorate my projects. I really like how these kraft embellishments look on this layout and the bright pop of red makes it look so cheery. The plane stamp is now discontinued.

We all have those friends that are the queen of the group and I made this card to recognize one of them. It was so much fun to create, I have used Queen Bee (Z3720) and Air Mail by Aimee Ferre (Z3645) both of these stamp and thin cuts sets are available in the Stamptacular Sale. Don't you just love the crown on the bee.

This layout came together pretty quickly, I used a sketch I found on Pinterest as inspiration. The title and floral embellishments are popped up using 3D foam tape. Some pen stitching really helps to ground the pattern paper

Thanks for stopping by now hop along to Shaunna's Passionate About Pages blog and see what great project she has to share.

Before you leave please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting!

Daisy Meadow Blog Hop

 Welcome to the Australasian CTMH blog hop, if you have arrived here from Danielle's scrappychicks  you are in the right place, if you arrived by chance you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

The Daisy Meadow collection is filled with beautiful products, the papers are so lovely and the scrapbooking stamp and thin cut set is fantastic I will be getting it for sure. 

I haven't any Easter photos to create a layout with, but I was able to create a cute Easter card. I fussy cut the flowers and some of the Easter eggs. I love these little Easter bunny die cuts, I have had them in my stash for many years now. 

I love when my grand nieces and nephews come to visit, Lucy spent a few days with me last October school holidays. It was a wet few days so we could spend anytime outside. So I decided some girly time together was in order, we went to the local nail salon and had pedicures. She loved it!

I think the peacock and sundance papers work really well with these photos. I am having a great time going through my stash of older embellishments and using them with current papers. The nail polish bottles were hand cut. The journal tag was cut out of one of the PML cards and matted on another PML card.

I worked in the same hospital for the last 30+ years and retired late last year, I worked with some wonderful people during that time. I received some special gifts from my nurse manager and wonderful friends. This will be one of a double page layout, I haven't finished the other side so I have left the title off until I finish it. As I haven't yet got the great stamp and thin cut set, I fussy cut the flowers from a PML card to decorate the layout. The butterflies are from previous collections, I adhered the flowers and butterflies with thin 3D foam tape to give them some dimension. 

Thank you for stopping by, to see more great ideas please head off to Lauren's blog I am sure she will have something special to share.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting!

March Stamp of the Month "Winged Masterpiece"

 Hello and welcome to the CTMH Australasian 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.

I think this is one of the loveliest stamp sets, all of the images are really special and the sentiments will be uses again and again. The floral clusters that make up the butterfly and the dragonfly are stunning.

At first glance I thought the butterfly was going to be too time consuming to colour in but it really was so much fun. I have used some of the Happiness Lives Here papers and Blue Belle ink. These photos are from Easter last year, when we were in lockdown due to COVID 19, so there weren't any family get togethers to celebrate Easter. My nieces sent me these photos of their kids with their Easter goodies. The butterfly is a symbol of new life, so I thought it was perfect for Easter. 

 

I love the sentiment "wishing you the happiest of birthdays" and I wanted to create a pretty card to go with it. I used this paper from the Perfect Match pack, the flowers are from a discontinued stamp and thin cut set but of course any flower stamp would work. The flowers were stamped with Candy Apple ink and coloured with the pink Spectrum Noir marker, for the leaves I used Mink ink. The flowers and leaves were adhered with 3D foam tape. Pearls make everything look elegant.

 

The Creative Design Team (a group of CTMH makers) have been making a video a day for February  with the theme of love your stash, showing some great ideas on how to use up the stash of past products that we all have. So I thought I would have a go at using up some of my stash of embellishments and papers. The papers and embellishment are from the Florence collection. Check out their videos on YouTube here is the link for the first video (13) Day 1 Love Your Stash | Pocket Scrapbooking Cards | Process Video - YouTube there are links to all the other videos.

  

I heat embossed the dragonfly and the sentiment, then fussy cut the dragonfly. I love how pretty it looks. I am waiting for another photo from a friend to complete this layout. I have been friends with these lovely ladies for a very long time and when we catch up we always have a great time. Here are are some close ups of the embossing.

 

Thank you for stopping by, to see more great ideas hop along to Maz's blog I am sure she will have something wonderful to share. 

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Happy crafting! 

Sweet Safari Blog Hop

 Hello and welcome to the Australasian CTMH Sweet Safari Blog hop, if you arrived here from Shaunna's Passionate about Pages you are in the right place. If you arrived by chance you can join in the hop, just click on the link at the end of this post.

Don't think this paper pack is just for kids projects, CTMH have paired some beautiful pattern papers with the whimsical designs of clouds and cute animals. This means there are lots of options for using this collection. 

My next door neighbour's have a beautiful kitten that loves to come and drink from my bird bath, of course the birds don't like it when she visits. Thankfully I haven't seen any evidence of her catching any of the birds. Her name is Mitzi and she is the spitting image of one of my cats that has gone to heaven. The letters are the white alphabet foam stickers Z4088 that I have coloured using a black marker.

 

For this card I have used the smallest square stitched thin cut, a plain circle and a scalloped circle then some twine and a few red gems to decorate. Birthday cards are always needed as I have a large extended family and I need at least one card nearly every month. 

I thought the title Sweet Safari was perfect for this layout. My local shopping center had a display of jungle animals the same week my grand niece was visiting for a few days. I love that the shopping centers put on these sorts of displays during the school holidays. This set of leaf thin cuts is no longer available but there is a new set with even prettier leaves Z3692 why don't you check them out.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you found some inspiration in my projects for this great paper pack. To continue the hop go to Doreen's blog  and see what wonderful project she has to share.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they re always appreciated.

Happy crafting!