Ink & Inspiration - Focus on Tools

Hello everyone and welcome to my first Ink & Inspiration Blog Hop post. I was so excited to be invited to join this group of fabulous crafters and look forward to taking part in this blog hop each month. 

The theme for this month is "Focus on Tools" and when creating my project I focused on using die cutting and embossing tools. 

It's very hard to go past the stunning colour and shading on the Bird Ballad Designer Series Paper but for this project I chose to add a little extra texture using the Subtle 3D embossing folder. The Subtle 3D Embossing folder is such a great tool for adding a little extra detail without detracting from the main focal point of your project. 

Another great way of adding detail to a project is by using dies than feature a stitched element, like the Pool Party Circle from the Stitched Shapes Dies or this gorgeous label from the Stitched Nested Labels Dies. Once again the subtle detail of stitching add an element of texture to your project without drawing the eye away from the hand-coloured bird and flowers. 

Thank you for joining me today. Be sure to click on all the links below to see what the other Ink & Inspiration Design Team Member have created

- Tan xx

Blog Roll

Just Because | Be Inspired Blog Hop

Hello everyone and welcome to another Be Inspired Design Team Blog Hop. You are currently visiting Tanya Rees in Central Victoria, Australia. If you are following the hop, you may have arrived here having just visited Louise Sharp. If you are just joining us be sure to click on the "Next" button at the end of this post and hop all the way through to see all the inspiring shared by the Be Inspired Design Team using this month's theme, Happy Mail/Just Because.

Who doesn't love getting happy mail! I once heard a fellow Stampin' Up! demo say "A card is a hug with a fold in the middle" and while its great to receive cards on your birthday and Christmas, finding an unexpected "Just Because" card in your mail box really is like receiving a hug in the mail. 

I've had the Beautiful Bouquet stamp set and coordinating dies sitting on my shelf for a couple months now and just haven't had a chance to play with them, so they were to obvious starting point for this project. I also wanted my Happy Mail project to be bright. I had a special person in mind for this card and when I think of her, I think of bright colours so I've gone with a combo of Melon Mambo, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green and Night of Navy. 

I did, however, encounter one small problem when putting together my card. I had envisioned Night of Navy and White stripes behind the cluster of flowers and sentiment panel and had my mind set on using this stripe pattern from the Come Sail Away Designer Series Paper pack, but since it has been my favourite pattern in the pack (I always have one fav) I didn't have a large enough panel to fill the card front. After trying (and ditching) other alternatives, When I turned to Instagram for some inspiration I came across a few projects by the Just Add Ink Design Team and their sketch challenge this week solved the problem for me. Following the sketch below I was managed to cut what DSP I had left into some strips and layered them on the card front with a small gap in between each one.

Well that is it for me. I best be off to the post office to send this "hug" to a very special person. I hope I've inspired you to create and send some happy mail yourself. Next up in the hop is Janneke de Jong with a super special project. 

- Tan xx

Be Inspired Design Team Blog Roll

LouiseSharp

Tanya Rees (You are here)

Janneke deJong

Jackie Aitken

ManuelaGeiswinkler

CarolynnSander

Brian King

Emma Goddard

Stesha Bloodhart

One Sketch. Two Cards | Let's Get Hopping #21

Hello and welcome back to another Let's Get Hopping Blog Hop. This months challenge was to select a one sketch and create two projects and here is what I came up with.

This week I had two people that I wanted to create a card for, but time at my craft desk was limited, so the challenge of creating two cards from the one sketch made it easy to create to two different cards. Following a sketch is always a great way to kick start the design process of a card and as you can see above, a good sketch can be used over and over again to create unique projects

The sketch that inspired the layout of these two cards is this weeks challenge sketch from the TGIF Challenge Blog (#TGIFC216)

The first project I created with the sketch uses imagery from the Mosaic Mood Speciality Designer Series Paper. This beautiful patterned paper features a shiny textured finish on one side of each page and the hummingbirds on one of the designs are perfect for fussy cutting.

For my second project I stepped it up little. The banner section was created using the tile pattern stamped from the Verdant Garden, stamp set. The flower embellishments came from the Botanical Bliss stamp set and coordinating Botanical Tags dies. When creating the background I used an Alcohol Dip technique that I picked up from the fabulous Krista Frattin of Stampin' Dolce fame

Thank you for joining me today. To continue on the hop click the Next button below to hop along to Linda Handford's blog. I can't wait to see what Linda has created.

Stampin' Up! Artisan Blog Hop - Come Sail Away Suite

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stampin' Up! Artisan Design Team Blog Hop. This month myself and my Artisan colleagues have been having a lots of fun playing with the nautical themed range of products in the Come Sail Away Suite from the new 2019-2020 Annual Catalogue.

Initially, when I first saw this suite my first thoughts were, "Awesome! A great range of products to create masculine cards." But when I opened the Come Sail Away Memories & More Card Pack that are featured in the suite, I was inspired to create something to document an upcoming family holiday on the coast.

This sentence, "Let's go Somewhere and do Something", from one of the Memories & More cards, is the exact thing my husband said to me when we realised we had a sport-free weekend coming up. So of course it was the perfect element for the cover of the album. The design of the album was kind of made up as I went along and the first challenge I came across was how to keep the album closed. My solution was to use secure one of the cute little silver trinkets to the cover with some hot glue and then wrap some of the Night of Navy/Sahara Sand Bakers Twine around the album to loop around the trinket.

As I mentioned earlier, I've created this album to fill with photos that will take when we go a family holiday in a few weeks, so at the moment my album is without photos, but I figure this way I will be even more determined to capture moments on our holiday so I've got photos to fill little framed pockets like this.

To be able to include lots of photos in the album I decided so go with a tri-fold layout with a extra pages secured to the inside. As you can see in the following photos I've used a combination of stamped images, diecuts, Designer Series Paper, Memories & More cards and stickers to embellish each page and have included a photo mat or frame where a photo can be attached.

One this page I wanted to include another of the Sail Away trinkets and I thought it would be fun to attached it to the page using a "Sailors" knot. My beautiful friend, Jennifer Frost, taught me how to do this Carrick Bend knot when I first started attending her classes over 5 years ago. To learn how to tie this knot yourself pop over to Jenn's blog here to see her step-by-step instructions) 

The font used in the Memories & More cards features big calligraphic swirls and to help them stand out a little more on both of these pages I cut the frames a little smaller so that the fussy cut swirls could sit out of the border.

One of the inclusions in the Come Sail Away Memories & More Card Packs are six printed laser-cut cards, one of which features this intricate seaweed design. Admittedly I was a tad hesitant cutting this piece from the card because it was sooo pretty but I think you'll agree the cutting looks great on it's own too.

Another awesome new Stampin' Up! product in the Annual Catalogue are these Stitched Nesting Label dies. Don't you just love the delicate stitched detail?

Another cute little discovery I made when I first opened the Smooth Sailing dies was this compass needle die. Teamed with compass image in the Sailing Home stamp set creating your own compass embellishment is super easy.

In this close up of the compass you can see I've used Copper Foil for the outside case and needle and I've sponged some StazOn Jet Black ink to give it an aged look.

On the final page of the album I've carried over the cover DSP pattern but added a little extra detail with some inlaid diecut anchors.

Next up in the hop is by beautiful Kiwi friend, Angela Meiritz-Reid. Click on the button below to continue on the hop.

Thank you for joining me today.

- Tan xx

Supplies used

Stamps: Sailing Home
Card: Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Soft Suede, Balmy Blue, Come Sail Away Designer Series Paper, Come Sail Away Memories & More Card Pack, Copper Foil

Ink: Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Soft Suede, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso, StazOn Jet Black
Accessories & Tools: Smooth Sailing Dies, Stitched Nesting Label Dies, Rectangle Stitched Dies, Subtles 3D Embossing Folder, Night of Navy/Sahara Sand Bakers Twine, Sail Away Trinkets, Metallic Pearls

Bird Ballad Designer Series Paper - a Fussy Cutter's Dream

Hello and welcome. Well the new Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue is finally live and we can now all get our hands on the beautiful new products. One of my favourites from the new catalogue is the Bird Ballad Suite, particularly the Bird Ballad Designer Series Paper. As paper crafters we all have a bit of a tendency to hoard our beautiful patterned papers and not want to cut into them but for me that wasn't the case with these papers. The minute I opened my packet I couldn't wait to start fussing cutting the gorgeous bird images.

The layout for this card was inspired by this gorgeous creation by Charlet Mallet which is the focus for this week's Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge.

When CASEing Charlet's card I was inspired to combine both the dry embossed background and the offset banner element and tryout a partial dry embossing technique with the Lace 3D Embossing Folder. This technique is great for embossing a portion of your background and makes your embossing folders more versatile. My beautiful friend (and fellow Artisan) Mikaela Titheridge shared this technique on the Stampin' Up! Corporate Instagram page earlier this year. Follow this link to see  her instructions on how to achieve this partial embossed effect - https://www.instagram.com/p/BsJkzxnlpvC/?igshid=dlk3hl38bdkr

I hope you like my project and that I have inspired you to try out some partial dry embossing or to get out and cut up your DSP

Happy crafting

- Tan xx