Designer Series Paper Love for GDP #134

Hands up all you Designer Series Paper hoarders. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who has sheets of DSP in their stash that they are "saving" for that special project that never seems to come along. 

I'm not sure why I think this way, what's the worst that can happen if I use up all my DSP? I mean if I run out I can always buy more, right? So in a bid to get over this I made a commitment to myself to start using up my DSP and this card is the first of what I hope will be many cards featuring my favourite DSP. 

This pattern from Delightful Daisy is my absolute favourite. The soft colours of Wisteria Wonder, Pool Party and Calypso Coral are so beautiful in this floral pattern. I'm also guilty of saving the pieces of the white wash woodgrain from the Wood Textures DSP stack but it goes so perfectly with the florals, don't you think?

My inspiration for this card came from this weeks Global Design Project sketch challenge (GDP #134)

This sketch is perfect for showcasing the beauty of the DSP. 

To see what the Global Design Project Team have done with this sketch head over to their blog here.

I also wanted to showcase one of my favourite retiring sets , Celebration Time. This cake image has been my go-to for many of my projects and I'm a little sad to see it go. 

 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Tan xx

Celebration time for TGIF #141 and GDP #120

New Years Resolutions. 

Have you made any this year? 

I'm not really one for making New Years Resolution but this year I have set myself a few goals that I hope to achieve. One of them is to push my creativity by participating in at least one challenge a week and another is to be more consistent with my blog. Last week I participated in a TGIF challenge and guess what, my project won!!! How exciting! (Click here to see my project)

So here I am in week 2 and today I'm participating in TWO challenges with this project. 

The colours for this project, Fresh Fig, Night of Navy and Island Indigo, were inspired by this weeks TGIF colour challenge and the layout was inspired by this week Global Design Project CASE the Designer Challenge. The card I chose to CASE is this gogreous card by Krista Frattin. 

I just adore Krista's work. She has an amazing talent of layering elements to create the most beautiful cards. Head over to her blog, Stampin Dolce, to see some more of her work.

Inspired by Krista I've layered this sponged and heat embossed cake from Celebration Time over some metallic thread, ribbons, sequin trim, punched out shapes and a metallic doily. 

I also want to give a shout out to another amazing demonstrator, Susan Wong who inspired the sponging on my background and the cake. I've not had a lot of success with the sponging technique but after watching one of Susan's Crafty Carrot Collective tutorials I picked up a couple of tips and I'm loving the technique now. 

I hope you enjoyed my post and I have inspired you today. 

 - Tan xx

Let's Get Hopping | Thrifty Crafting Tips

Today's post is a bit of a milestone post for me, my very first blog hop!

I've always been a huge fan of blog hops so when fellow Stampin' Up demonstrator (& my SU mentor) Jennifer Frost asked me to be part of the Let's Get Hopping blog hop, of course I jumped at the opportunity.

If you are not familiar with a blog hop, at the end of each participant's post you will find a "Next" button that will take you on to the next blog until you end up back here.

The theme for our first hop is "What is your favourite thrifty crafting tip?" and our task was to create a project using this tip. When I found out the theme I knew instantly knew exactly what my favourite thrifty tip was and this is the project I came up with. Can you pick what my tip is?

I love using layers of cardstock on my cards but when you can only see a small amount around the outside of the card it seems such a waste. But with this project I wanted to include a circle in the same Berry Burst cardstock as the second layer. So when I diecut the circle with the Stiched Shape Framelits I cut it out of the middle of the Berry Burst layer. Then I've layered the Whisper White cardstock over the top of the Berry Burst to hide the hole. Here's a picture of the Berry Burst layer before I've adhered the cardstock to the Whisper White cardbase.

However, while I was creating this project I became aware of other thrifty tips that I've been using in my crafting so I thought I'd also share a picture of the underside of the cake to show how get the most out of some other Stampin' Up! supplies.

Firstly, you'll notice that I've only used half a silver Metallic Foil Doily, the other half would have been completely hidden by the cake so I've cut a full doily so I can use the other half on another project.

Secondly, when using Stampin' Dimensionals I will often cut them in half, which stretches a packet just that little bit further.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope I've given you some inspiration for being thrifty while crafting. Next up is the amazing Cathy Caines I can't wait to see what thrifty tips Cathy has to share 

- Tanya xx