FUSION 5th Birthday Celebration...

Really enjoying this fabulous New Year - hope you are too! 

For those of you craving some crafty inspiration, check out the double dose of inspiration from our Design Team and our special invited guests who have dropped in to share the FUSION 5th Birthday celebration.

This fortnight I was inspired to do some multimedia crafting using my NBUS Gelliplate with a selection of blue, teal, green, navy and white acrylic paints, to create the background panel, the butterfly panel and the base colour of the large butterfly, using this gorgeous Heidi Swapp butterfly stencil, Tim Holtz butterfly stamp, Ranger black archival ink, and adding the super cute MFT Stitched Daisy and Kaisercraft sentiment. 

My guest is the fabulous Jenny Martin from My Paper Epiphany. 
Check out her gorgeous watercolour interpretation of the FUSION inspiration, then head on over to the FUSION blog for some more super inspiration from our fabulous Design Team, and their special invited guests...

Betty J. - Jeanne Jachna - Jen Mitchell

Karren Johnson - Linda Callahan - Michelle Leone

Michelle Lupton - Michelle Williams - Wanda Cullen

Hope you can join in the fun this fortnight @ FUSION.
Can't wait to see what you create!

Also playing along with
More Mixed Media Challenges Anything Goes (optional Blue),
 Mix it Up Anything Goes and CAS Stencil Challenge

Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

Had so much fun creating this card, using Heidi Swapp butterfly mask on Tim Holtz tissue paper, overlaid with Distress Oxides in a rainbow of colour. Freehand outlined around the butterflies after the mask was removed and added this gorgeous rub on from my stash.

Joined in a little late for FUSION, but this is where I had my inspiration.

Christmas JOY...

Inspired by the gorgeous MUSE Christmas Club reindeer, I found this left over sparkly reindeer diecut in my stash on the weekend (I think it is WPlus9), and paired it with the "Joy" and tag diecuts from Winnie and Walter, together with two impressions of Tim Holtz Vintage Snowflake embossing folder strip to make this very simple CAS Christmas card.

Also playing along with 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Dies and/or Punches, CASology CAS, Jingle Belles - Banish the Holiday Blues (No Blue) and 

CAS on Sunday Sparkle Challenges 

  

Happy Mother's Day FUSION...

As we have Mother's Day coming up next weekend in our corner of the world, I thought I'd create a FUSION Mother's Day card this fortnight, inspired by the FUSION sketch and floral inspiration.

Patterned papers from Prima and American Crafts, super sentiment from Verve and stitched tag diecut is by Paper Smooches. I broke out my Tim Holtz Tiny Tattered Florals dies to create these gorgeous flowers. The set comes with its very own quilling tool - a fabulous little tool which proves invaluable in rolling these flowers after you have die cut them. These flowers were created using a sheet of stiffened fabric paper - which was all the rage about 10 years ago. If you don't have any handy, you can always use fabric stiffener/glue applied to any ribbon or fabric to create the same effect, or you could use cardstock or paper if you prefer!

This month at FUSION we are also lucky enough to be joined by special Guest Designer, Bonnie Sharp so make sure you stop by for some extra fabulous inspiration from Bonnie and the FUSION team!

Betty J - Deanne K - Jeanne Jachna - Julia Aston - Katie Brooks

Karren J - Kimberly Wiener - Lynn Mangan - Michelle Folland

Michelle Lupton - Sandie Munro - Shannon Jaramillo - Stephanie Severin

I would LOVE if you could join in the fun @ FUSION too!

Playing along with the Card Concept Spring Flowers - Clean and Layered 
and Simon Says Anything Goes too!

Simon Says... Ombre Art Journal

Had a fabulous time away crafting for the long weekend! 

Here's a peek at my very first Art Journal page, created using Gelatos and a brush over a layer of gesso for the background together with Donna Downey stencils with modelling paste for the flowers, and Unity stamps for the background text and Tim Holtz stamps for the sentiment, and butterfly, stamped over Twinkling H2O, and heat embossed.

Playing along with Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Ombre
Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes and
Virginia's View All things Coloured

 

This makes me SMILE...

Discovering... FUSION

Time to discover... this fortnights FUSION!

I thought this may be my last FUSION contribution on the Design Team, but after having a massive clean out of my crafting space, I am feeling totally re-inspired! Combined this fabulously versatile FUSION sketch and gorgeous photo inspiration, rotated the sketch 90 degrees anti-clockwise and used this beautiful over-sized butterfly as the star element. Had a blast getting inky with a range of Distress Inks in Squeezed Lemon, Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade and Picked Raspberry, together with this gorgeous Prima Cherry Blossom mask. Butterfly coloured using Mr Heuy's spray mist in Heirloom Blue. This fabulous over-sized butterfly stamp and sentiment are by Tim Holtz.

Hop on over for more gorgeous butterfly inspiration

from the rest of the fabulous FUSION DT

Amy Tsura - Betty J - Deanne - Deepti 

Jeanne Jachna - Julia Aston - Katie Brooks

Kelly Griglione - Kimberly Wiener - Lynn Mangan

Michelle Folland - Michelle Lupton - Stephanie Severin

Hope to see you playing along, can't wait to see what you create! 

Remember you can play along by being inspired by 

the photo, the sketch or BOTH.

Please check the linky for the days left to play with us.

Also playing along with Card Concept The Butterfly Effect (Mixed Media) and Happy Little Stampers CAS Mists / Sprays

Mixed Media Card Challenge with Wings...

Had super fun getting messy for this months Mixed Media Card Challenge. First up I ripped a couple of pieces of printed Tim Holtz tissue paper and gessoed these onto cardstock, then oversprayed with Heidi Swapp bronze, didn't like the drippy effect so much so I used a baby wipe to spread the colour more evenly. Coloured the moths and butterfly using a variety of teal, green, brown and white gelatos. Stamped the Paper Smooches Party Posse "birthday" sentiment and die cut the Winnie and Walter "happy" sentiment from pearlised cardstock (in lieu of the optional foil element!) layered with Kaisercraft textured patterened paper. Swiped the edges of the background piece with Distress Ink and mounted on pearlised cardstock base.

Hop along to visit the fabulous Winged Mixed Media Card Challenge
creations from the rest of the DT.

Can't wait to see what you create!!!

Also playing along with 
Seize the Birthday Make Your Own Background Challenge.

Do the things you never thought you could do...

 

Inspired by the The Color Room and CASE Study colours and use of thread, Wida's CASE Study offset angles, teal blue sentiment and large stamped image, and the Take a Word "Book" Collage Challenge. I so wanted to add some machine stitching to this collage, but my machine didn't want to play, so I went with a flight line of thread instead.

In case you are interested, the process went something like this (with drying in between each step):

• Used gel medium to stick down the old fairytale book pages;
• overlaid with whitewash;
• gel mediumed the Cosmo Cricket Junk Drawer strips;
• laid the Tim Holtz mask letters in place and spread a layer of modelling paste over the top;
• stamped this gorgeous Darkroom Door butterfly on tissue paper and gel mediumed in position; 
• once dry, repositioned the masked letters before overspraying with Prima spritzes in soft gold, soft teal and soft red;
• coloured the butterfly with the soft teal spritz then decided it needed a deeper colour;
• infilled the butterfly and "Fly" letters with gelatos; and
• added the thread butterfly trail.

Playing along with All Crafts Challenge Anything but a Card 

and Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge The Artsy Stamp too.

This made me smile

There She Goes on a Mojo Throwdown...

Had so much fun getting messy with inks last week, thought I'd have another go!  Inspired by this gorgeous photo from There She Goes, this lovely pastel palette from Colour Throwdown, and fab Mojo Monday Sketch.  Papers are a combination of Prima Songbird Collection (fussy cut and pop-dotted), Echo Park This & That and MME Miss Caroline, My Favourite Things scalloped border and hearts die-cuts, love this birdhouse die-cut from Marianne Design and the gorgeous sentiment is There She Goes Day or Night. Got inky with Tim Holtz Distress Ink Vintage Photo and twine is The Twinery Buttercup.

We're off for a short change of scenery - have a GREAT weekend!

Trigger Tuesday Retro Colour Throwdown...

Loved the colours and repetition of design elements in this weeks Man-tastic Trigger Tuesday, and with all those leaf shapes I had to make a heard you're leafing "we'll miss you" card of course!  Loved the vertical design element from this fabulously versatile Retro Sketch too!

Thought it appropriate having a "miss you" card based on negative space, so I created the leaf circles using a Heidi Swapp leaf mask and Tim Holtz Distress Inks Frayed Burlap, Fired Brick and Broken China - as close as I could get to this weeks gorgeous Colour Throwdown Challenge colours.  Sentiment is stamped using the same combination of inks and The Alley Way Jibber Jabber - just had to slightly alter the "well" to "we'll" with a well placed apostrophe (or was that we'll placed!)  Added some leafy texture with Craft Concepts Christmas Vine embossed background, and pop-dotted the leaf circles.

Many thanks for stopping by!  If you didn't I'd miss you ;)


This made me smile :)

Favourite of the Week

CAS-ual Colour Throwdown...

Second post for the day!

I thought I'd better make good on my lack of crafting yesterday, I had got the idea for this on the way home from the crop yesterday (as you do, lol!)  Inspired by this weeks funky Colour Throwdown, CAS-ual Fridays Happy Birthday Challenge and this versatile Card Patterns Sketch.  I created the coloured background behind the butterflies using Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Broken China, Shabby Shutters, Old Paper and a smidge of Wild Honey.  The butterfly dies are all My Favourite Things :)  The background has been embossed using Cuttlebugs Jamara, and the Happy Birthday stamp is from Heidi Swapp.   I have to laugh because I've just realised that after thinking there was no way I could create a card only using cardstock for this weekends Paper Smooches Challenge, I have done exactly that - but I haven't used any Paper Smooches stamps!

Hope you have a great week, and your little ones are planning a great Mother's Day for you.