Kelly's Stamping Friends Blog Hop - Goodbye Special Reason, sniff sniff

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Hello, good evening beautiful crafty friends ~

Welcome to a special blog hop celebrating Kelly's five year anniversary with Stampin' Up!  Kelly has invited a bunch of her fabulously talented friends to share her happy event, and I'm super excited to be a part of it.

If you're following the hop in order you will have arrived from the lovely Martha Groeger.  If not, you can start here and continue hopping by using the Next button at the bottom of each post.  If you get lost or come across a broken link just head over to Kelly's blog for a full list of participants.

On the cusp of a brand new Annual catalogue launch, and the end of the current Occasions catalogue I just had to use Special Reason before it officially retires.  It is probably goodbye for many demos, but I love this stamp set so much (yep pretty late to the party on this one) that I'll be keeping it a whole lot longer.

What doesn't show up in the pic is all the gorgeous shimmer on the flower :(

I've used a Very Vanilla card base, a little Urban Underground dsp, a strip of Copper foil and a fun technique to colour my bloom and leaves - see tutorial shared by Alisa Tilsner here.  In keeping with Kelly's hop theme of celebration and happy I chose a sentiment that makes me happy - my friends mean the world to me and make me very happy! I love the funky fonts and sentiments from the Oh Happy Day Card Kit (which is carrying over to the new catalogue - yay). Ink colours are Soft Sky & Pacific Point, Pear Pizzazz & Old Olive.

Thank you, Kelly for inviting me along to celebrate your stampin'-versary!  I am so lucky to work alongside you on a couple of design teams, and to have met you in person at On Stage Live in Brisbane (we do live on opposite sides of the country after all).  You are amazingly talented, such a kind soul and a lovely stamp friend - congratulations on this milestone and best wishes for five more fabulous years.  See you back here at the ten year mark for another hop? Lol.

Now click on the button below to see what beautiful creation/s Sandra Collett is sharing with us. Enjoy the rest of the hop!

Patrice x

Just Add Ink #360 - Just Add a Sketch

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Happy Friday ~

Narelle has given us an awesome sketch for the new Just Add Ink challenge kicking off today.  I loved it so much I've made at least four cards using it!  I'm sharing my favourite with you today.  A gorgeous card kept popping up on my Pinterest feed so I finally followed the link...which took me here.  I just love it and was completely inspired to add Copper elements to my own card, and who can resist the gorgeous blooms from SU's Special Reason?  I used a technique (shared by Alisa Tilsner on Facebook) to colour them using my Watercolour Pencils and an Aqua Painter. Lots of fun.

Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White and Copper - what do you think?  I've also wrapped some copper thread just above the Washi banner, can you see it?

I have a feeling this sketch is going to be super popular.  If you'd like to join the fun, head over to JAI and get all the details.  You're sure to be inspired by the design team creations, I think they're all extra gorgeous this week.

Last week I mentioned that I was planning on baking a Chocolate Raspberry Cream cake for Mother's Day.  Well I did.  The family loved it.  So here it is, a quick snap on the kitchen bench before it was devoured so please excuse the lighting and shadows.

My kids & hubby spoiled me rotten and we all had a lovely day together.  Hope you had a fabulous Mother's Day too!

Patrice x