One on 1

Another OLW update is coming .... join in the fun tomorrow.

See you tomorrow

Nikki

x

Beautiful Butterflies

 I made a promise at the beginning of the year to send a card to everyone I knew who was having a birthday this year.  So far - three months in I don't think I've missed one!  But .... making cards for other demonstrators is always a little more challenging I think to making cards for someone else.

These two cards are currently 'postal' ... for two lovely friends I have met through Stampin' Up!  If it hadn't been for this lovely company and our passion for all things ink, card and ribbon, we would never have met.

Happy birthday lovely ladies - enjoy your day and I hope you like your cards.

Happy Stampin!

Nikki

x

Blog Hopping with a Sketch!

Another blog hop, this time a group of us have got together and we each have the same sketch .... wonder what we will all come up with?

You may have arrived from the wonderful Amy Buchanan's site or you may be starting here - you know the drill .... its a hop so grab a cuppa and jump on board to be inspired by one very talent bunch of lovely ladies .... a reminder of the sketch:

And my contribution to the hop - a scrapbooking page of my lovely mother-in-law.  We 'think' Pauline is about 18 years old,(she's in her late 70s now and I can tell you that because she doesn't read my blog so I am safe LOL),  she looks so lovely, almost majestic, it is my most favourite photo of her.

I've used the soon to be gone Sale-a-bration set Bliss - the colours I chose were Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Cake Crumb and Cherry Cobbler.

I created the background by stamping the flourish in Cake Crumb, then the butterfly in Cherry Cobbler.  To get the faded image I stamped off onto scrap paper five times before I stamped the images onto my cardstock.  I then used the Spritzer tool with a Soft Suede marker to  add more texture and some sponging around the edges.

The patterned paper is from the neutrals paper pack - this I have wet a little with water and rolled the edges around a kebab skewer ... just wanted to roll the edges a little.  This paper was also lightly sponged and spritzed here and there.  

The paper in the middle is a piece of the soon to retire Speciality cardstock - love this stuff and haven't used or shown nearly enough of it .... its so cool, here I have again sponged and spritzed.

Another retiring product (sniff sniff) is the lovely lace which I have embellished with little adhesive pearls and a floral fusion flower.  I cut these using the Big Shot, and then scrunched them up so that I could separate the layers of cardstock to make some vintage-y embellishments.

Finally a close up of the photo - this is a photo of the original which hangs in Paul's mother's hallway - everytime we visit she reminds me that a long time ago some of her son's friends thought it was a picture of the queen - I love the story and I hope one day to hear it again ... and once I have the dates I'll document it to go with this page so that my children and their children can see what a beautiful grandmother / great grandmother they have.

Right time to hop along to the lovely Di Dunk - she is sure to have something that will inspire all of us.

Pop back next week for the final examples using the fabulous free Sale-a-bration sets together with the final few days of the Summer Mini goodies.

Til then

Happy Stampin!

Nikki

x

Happy Birthday Tess

Yes the littlest of our Sadler-Petrie family celebrates her birthday today.  Happy Birthday sweetheart.

 We hope you have a lovely day with your family and look forward to our Sadler-Petrie event.

Love the Sadlers

x

MIA and Faux Silk

Sorry - yes it is true there is a lot of dust settled in here .... been MIA for over a week .... where have I been?  Nowhere special ... just here .... but now that Paul is away it is taking some time to adjust to the new routine - oh and I've broken the washing machine so I have washer woman duties to add to my list of tasks ... but it will be fixed soon!

I've managed to make a few things (in between the normal day job, being a mum and now a stand in dad ... I even cut the grass this week, pruned the roses and helped my neighbour by mowing her nature strip too) .... so posting will return to the usual frequency I promise ....  I am sure that I will soon get into the new routines and be back to normal :)

So what have I made?  Well an old and trusted technique - a real workshop wow ... Faux Silk.  The lovely Sue Madex reminded me of this lovely card and here is my version.

With Sale-a-bration almost over I am giving my favourite stamp set Bliss a good work out this week.

Here's a close up - its so easy ... just stamp your images onto white tissue paper, screw it up into a ball, unravel and adhere to a piece of white cardstock. Easy and looks good every time.

Back in a day or two with a special person's birthday card, and a team blog hop on Saturday.  But for now I will leave you with a snapshot of our daily chats on Skype .... that's my husband who is currently in Orchard Hills in New South Wales on the big screen and the kids and I huddled around the computer in our kitchen on the little insert screen - its so cool being able to Skype, means even the dogs get to say hi every day :)

Happy stampin and see you Friday!

Nikki

x

No Time To Make a Card?

So you think you don't have time to make a card?  Well think again!

Conversation goes something like this ...

Olivia says 'mum could you please make a card for my friend's birthday?'  

I smile thinking that is so cute - she wants me to make a card for one of her friends .... I say 'of course sweetheart when do you need it for?'

Olivia says 'in about ten minutes time - its for the party you are just about to drive me to!'

I was going to say .... ten minutes, I can't make a card in ten minutes .... but thought what the heck - I like a challenge (and a kid who asks me to make them a card LOL). Big Shot here I come, one Top Note die cut, embossed though the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder, small snippet of Concord Crush patterned paper to make the Beautiful Wings embosslits butterflies, Perfect Punches for the sentiment and a Tiny Tag cos I can't make a card without one of those on it ... hey presto!

Just call me Super Mum :)

I love Stampin' Up! - matching papers, punches, ribbons and embellishments - just what you need when you need to create in a flash.

Love Nikki

x

Embracing Imperfection!

I have posted a layout today over at Stampamemory - check it out here .... I'm embracing imperfection ... I wonder how long it will last!

Happy Friday

Nikki

x

Baby Tees

Something weird happened to this post .... it was on Facebook but not here - so I've reposted it just in case you missed it.

One of the team had a little baby girl just over one month ago - there has been lots of clucking going on ... so cute that baby Ivy is.  Here's the card I made to welcome her into the world.

Pretty In Pink, the Baby Tees wheel and a bit of colouring in ... how cute is it.

And here's a close up of the ruffled Pretty In Pink satin ribbon - isn't it yummy.

Thinking I may be having to make another in blue for a lovely friend of mine who is having her third child in a couple of months.

With my youngest having just gone off to high school, I rather enjoyed making this baby card ... but don't panic .... I enjoyed making the card but having another baby?  Nah I don't think so LOL 

Happy Stampin

x

SAM Challenge - All Spruced Up!

This month's Stampamemory challenge is to scrap lift a layout from the current Ideas Book and Catalogue.  There are several pages that I want to recreate but decided to settle for the lovely layout on page 25 after seeing on display on our stand at CraftExpo last year.

The stamp set is Delightful Decorations which has a matching punch.  It so easy to make, the hardest part was placing the decorations in the right spots!

Having the punch made it so easy to make all the little decorations.  Here's a close up of some of them - it was great to tweak a few here and there - to create a 3d effect.  I used the smaller circle punches and the scallop edge punch to add some extra detail.

The title is from the Fun and Fast Notes set, I used an Early Espresso marker to colour just the words of the stamp.

A little sparkle and a Tiny Tag punch finishes the tree top.

Why not join in this month - scrap lifting is easy and fun and you are guaranteed to love your end result.

Happy scrapping!

Nikki

x

 

One Little Word - Blog Hop - February

"to become different in some particular way, without permanently losing
one's self or its former characteristics or essence."

Its been a whole month since our last blog hop - its going to be a monthly event - entitled One on 1 (isn't that a cool name - thanks to Margie), if you have arrived from Jan's blog hello - if you are starting here that's okay - this is a huge hop ... so grab a cuppa and hop on board.

I am very pleased I am taking the OLW classes because it would be so easy to forget that I have a chosen word - eight weeks in and already we are back into the monotony of the working week, school, after school activities etc etc.  So the OLW classes are helping me to remain focused on my word CHANGE.

A few of my close friends have commented on the first post (read it here) and said that I must make sure that I hold onto the person within whilst I go through this period of change .... and when I read the quote above - it rang true and I thought that it should be the focus for me during this journey.

This month's OLW task was to find nine photographs which represent your word ... easy you  might think .... I thought so when I started .... but so far I haven't found nine, I need help :)  Here's a selection of some of the photos I have so far.

This pair of well loved trainers and my pedometer have become my firm friends.  I attach the pedometer to my waist band every morning and off I trot - its amazing how far one walks in a day when you are reminded of how many steps you have taken ... and if it is an exercise free day I always make sure I have at least walked into the 'healthy' range - even if this means walking round and round the garden a few times.

Come rain or shine you'll find me beating the pavements and tracks near my house with my husband and the two dogs - its been great fun and I feel so much fitter that I did when I started in early January.

Last week I achieved my first goal at Weight Watchers - 5% of my total weight gone ... disappeared ...have you ever wondered where it goes to?  Total weight loss since 7 January 4.7kgs.  I'll be honest with you - this progress is slow .... but slow and steady wins the race - and I WILL win this race this time around.

Having said that, I am still enjoying this part of the journey - the whole family are eating healthy meals and the shopping trolley is loaded with fresh fruit and veggies every week.  And for those nights when time is lacking - there is always a meal on standby in the freezer as I spend a few hours every Sunday making a few extra dinners.  I love to cook and organisation is the key for me - organisation makes me happy.

I bumped into a friend a couple of weeks ago and she told me that 2011 was going to be her year of Change - she told of how she was going to become a butterfly .... I loved that analogy and hunted through my photos of the butterfly house at Melbourne Zoo - what a beautiful way to embrace change.  She isn't one of my blog readers so our conversation did take me by surprise, it touched me and made me stop and think - and one day I'll own up to owning a blog and show her these posts.

And the biggest and most important change of them all in February was that my little boy (yes I am going to call him that because he doesn't read my blog so he can't tell me off) has finally gone to high school.  I am now the mother of two high school children which makes me feel a little bit old and a little bit sad.  But when I look at both of the children who are now taller than me, organising themselves with their uniform and their books, hopping on and off buses and trains and non stop texting and Facebooking - I am very proud of both of them, and I am looking forward to the next chapter in their lives - more changes that I need to learn and grow with.

And talking of new chapters ... March is the beginning of the real changes for the Sadler Family - my husband is finally off to trek around the country for a few weeks before he starts his new posting with the Navy.  Its been four years since he was away from home so March is filled with trepidation, worried children and more fresh new beginnings.  

Thank goodness I have OLW to keep me out of mischief :)

Thanks for visiting - it is now time to hop along to visit Amanda to find out how she is embracing her word this month.

Happy hopping ... and if you have any ideas for photos just leave me a comment -I'd really appreciate it :)

Nikki

x 

ps - just in case you get lost .... here's the list of the OLW-ers taking part today:

1.   Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com 
2.   Monica B http://scraplifters.blogspot.com
3.    Jill  http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
4.    Miranda  http://mirandasscrapsite.blogspot.com
5.    Donna http://www.donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com 
6.   Lynn http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com          
7.   Stacey http://www.TheAcornGarden.com/blog
8.   Lisa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog
9.   Cassie http://craftycassiescorner.blogspot.com 
10. Abbey http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com
11. Nicky http://seejanebake.blogspot.com
12. Holly  http://lovingrobots.blogspot.com 
13. Karen  http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com  
14. Claudia  http://creative-moms.com 
15. Rebekah  http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com 
16. Kimberly  http://foreverdaisies.blogspot.com 
17. Kat http://www.katswonderings.blogspot.com
18. Kristina  http://ciqis.blogspot.com 
19. Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com
20. Nikki  http://www.inkyart.com.au - this is where you are now
21. Amanda http://www.scrappnbee.blogspot.com 
22. Lisa  http://luluoz.typepad.com 
23. Sam  http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com 
24. Maureen http://cookingmylife.blogspot.com
25. Kristi http://theprojectofme.wordpress.com
26. Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com
27. Karen http://womenontractors.blogspot.com
28. Katrina http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com
29. Monica Bergler http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com
30. Mandy http://captureandcreate.wordpress.com
31. Lisa  http://makeyourownescape.blogspot.com
32. Chrissy http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com
33. Lee   http://linarstudio.typepad.com
34. Jen http://www.byjen.com
35. Sylvia  http://baxtersmom1.blogspot.com
36. Christianne  http://christiannemarra.blogspot.com
37. Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com
38.  Joy  http://www.undiscoveredjoy.blogspot.com
39.  Beth http://justbebeth.wordpress.com
40.  Jennifer L http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com
41.  Kathryn http://www.katlodesigns.com
42.  Heather http://www.scrappyhare.blogspot.com
43.  Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com