A Colour challenge!
Can you tell? These are not in my usual colour comfort zone. Tracey, a fellow Elite Stamper (and talented stamper and friend!), set these colours as a colour challenge: Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red, Blush Blossom and Tempting Turquoise....I'm thinking she took the word "challenge" a little too literally!
This was not a "yes" card for me at all, but everyone on our forum said such nice things when I posted a pic there, that I thought I'd show the rest of the world too.
I've inked Paisley (what else!) in Pumpkin Pie and stamped off once, then used markers in Rose Red, Pumpkin Pie and Tempting Turquoise to colour parts of the Paisley stamp. Then I stamped onto blush blossom cardstock. I have to confess that I cheated and used Taken with Teal cardstock, because my turquoise marker came out very teal-looking. I also coloured flowery parts of the Paisley stamp, cut them out and used dimensionals to "pop" them up.

Just Add Water

I've uploaded this card in honour of the July Promotion "Just Add Water"
...have you checked out the SU! site? Mrs Sourpants is gone! Hooray!! This month, if you spend $50, you can get 25% off all Watercolour Wonder Crayons and Pencils! What a bargain. So now's the time to try them out if you haven't already, or to take the opportunity to buy a colour family that you don't have yet...I'll be getting the neutrals!
I'm also running my own promotion, and if you sign up with me during July, I'll give you a set of watercolour crayons in the colour family of your choice for FREE. Contact me if you have any questions about this.
This card is made using the set Fishy Friends, which incidentally I don't own...my darling talented friend Alisa did a watercolouring demonstration in our room at Convention, and left these stamped images behind. These little critters are great to watercolour with, and make great cards for all ages.
I've (well actually Alisa has) stamped on watercolor paper with Black Staz-on, and then I've used my crayons and aquapainter to colour him in. If you look closely, in the background there are faint versamark "bubbles" made using the circles in the Riveting Hostess Set (you can click on the image for a closer look). I've also used Riveting for the sentiment, and was inspired by my other dear talented friend Michele to finally pull it out and use it! I love the nautical "life buoy" touch it gives to this card. Colours are Tempting Turquoise, Cool Caribbean and Orchid Opulence.

....And they call this one Marelle's Famous No-Cutting Card!

LOL I've always wanted to be famous!
Some of my fellow-demonstrators have already seen this card, as have my customers who came along to Tuesday cardnights in June, but I thought it was time I shared it with the rest of you.
This is a great card design for those times when you need to make some cards and don't feel like cutting up loads of cardstock. It's a variation on the one-sheet wonder theme, and all you do is stamp up an A4 sheet (this will make 4 cards) and cut it into quarters. Then take your base A5 card, tear along the top, stamp your greeting and tie some ribbon, and stick down the flap! How easy, and even better (OK, I lied - there were 3 cuts) there's practically no cutting!
The colours I've used here are Marigold Morning, Vintage Violet and Old Olive. And the stamp set is Bodacious Bouquet.

...and this one?

Well, you were all so kind about the last card that I was unsure of, that you've given me to confidence to put up a pic of another one. I challenged myself to use this colour combo aaages ago, and have sent many cards to the card graveyard because of it! I wanted to do red and green that wasn't Christmas, and it's been a real struggle. This is Certainly Celery, Garden Green (yes, I've used it twice now *gasp!*), Rose Red and Regal Rose. Crayon Resist on gloss again. I'm loving the Ribbon Originals!

So, be honest (did I really just say that??? maybe I meant to say be kind..) What do you think?

What do you think?
I've been having a play with Mixed Bouquet over the weekend (I swapped stamp sets for a week with my good friend and downline Karen...can't wait to see what she's come up with!). Here I've stamped in Rose Red and Garden Green on gloss card, used a white crayon to highlight sections, and then sponged Rose red ink on top. I've been playing around with Garden Green for a while..it's not a colour I use very often (ie never!). I also wanted to try a different sized card (this is the size of Long Notes in the US catty).
Not sure about this one...what do you think?

Reason to Smile
That's what this set is called, and I hope this card makes you smile! Certainly Celery, So Saffron and *some kind of blue* seem to be getting a workout lately. I was playing around with my markers on the butterfly...what a wow effect that is! And I had a scrap of paisley that I'd stamped up a few days ago for another card and then rejected (yes, even I reject paisley sometimes!). Then the rest of the card just fell into place. Sometimes it feels like the card just tells me what it needs. I love it when that happens. Sometimes they like to be secretive and taunt me. When that happens I can try all sorts of things "this? ...or this?" and the card smiles smugly with it's hands behind it's back going "nup, not gonna tell". And to spite it, I put it together anyway, but it never looks like it's quite right.
I made a couple of these and gave one to a new customer and friend. Hope she likes it!
Details
Card: Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Bordering Blue, Brocade Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Brocade Blue, Whisper White Craft
Other: Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Bordering Blue, and Brocade Blue markers, Celery Grosgrain Ribbon, Rich Regals brads, Corner Rounder punch (for scallops)
To do the butterfly, just start with your lightest colour marker first (in this case, So Saffron) and colour in "patches" all over the butterfly. Then take your next colour (Certainly Celery) and colour mare patches, then finish with Bordering Blue and Brocade Blue. Then, stamp!

If you've been to a recent workshop of mine, you may recognise this card...I've been using it as a make-and-take. It's a really quick and easy card, even for beginners. It's also a great card for not-so-beginners, because they can vary it and make it their own. A couple of tags in the Terrific Tags Hostess Set co-ordinate really well with the Seeing Spots set. I've Rock'n'Rolled the tag, and the Organdy Ribbon and a bit of glitter on the centre of the flower add a bit a sparkle. Colours are Certainly Celery, Cool Caribbean, Tempting Turquoise and So Saffron.

Gotta Love Double-Sided Papers!

Here's a really quick and easy card that requires virtually no stamping (yes, sometimes that can be a good thing!) and is great for using up scraps of Scrapbooking papers (that's definitely a good thing!)
Take a piece of double-sided paper about the same size as your cardfront, and release some tension by ripping it down the middle. If you tear towards you, you get a nice rough edge that you can do some direct-to-paper with. I love the fact that SU inkpads have finger-grips on the sides, so I *hardly ever* drop an inkpad in my lap anymore! Then pull out your co-ordinating Bouquet flower punch and use up some more scraps of paper by punching out some little flowers (the 2-way glue pen has a nice fine point for adhering these). A piece of ribbon and a stamped sentiment, and you're done!
I've used:
"Spring Showers" Double-sided papers
Naturals Ivory cardstock
Chocolate Grosgrain Ribbon
Chocolate Chip and Creamy Caramel ink
Bouquet Flower punch

By popular demand...the faux eyelet!

I feel a bit silly posting this, because I'm just cheating really!! It all came about because I'm hopeless at setting eyelets and I hate all the bashing and squeezing that goes on! But let's pretend that you'd use them so you can have eyelets to match every colour of cardstock that you own, OK?
All you do is punch a little circle with your 6mm circle punch, and attach it to your image with your 2-way glue pen. When the glue is dry, use your 3mm handheld punch to punch a hole in the centre! How easy is that?? In the example above I added a little Crystal Effects to make a glossy eyelet (looks real, huh?), but you don't have to do that.
I'm running a class coming up (date yet to be announced!) on "The Art of Faking It" and we'll be learning lots of "Faux" techniques. I've given you a glimpse of one of the cards we'll be making, that incorporates faux eyelets and faux tearing. I'll show you the whole card after I've run the class....

Challenges!
Just a quick one to let you know that I've put a few new things on the Elite Challenges Blog lately. Rather than post them here, I thought you might like to go and visit there, and check out the work by all the other artists too!
It's http://elitechallenges.wordpress.com/
and the latest challenges (in "Categories" on the right) are Summer Galore, Sassy Stems and SC3.
I love a challenge! Post a comment here if there's a challenge you'd like to give me (as long as it's not something nasty like clean my house LOL)

We have Gumnuts!

I bet you didn't know that there's a gumleaf and gumnut stamp in the Stampin' Up! catalogue! Well, there's not really, but Bodacious Bouquet has saved the day again. My Aunt asked me to make some Australiana-themed thankyou cards for her to take overseas with her. My first thought was "Don't tell me I'll have to buy that ugly Australian animal set??", but then inspiration struck! So, do they look enough like gumnuts? And do you like my faux eyelets?

Always Paisley...

Yes, it THAT STAMP again... this was such a quick card to make! All I did was ink up Paisley in Cool Caribbean, and stamp off once onto scrap, and then I used my Elegant Eggplant and Certainly Celery marker to colour a section in the corner, and then "huffed" to re-moisten the ink, and stamped onto Whisper White. The word "Always" is from the discontinued Sell-a-Bration set Happy Harmony, and there's that Pewter Hodgepodge I told you I needed, and some Celery Grosgrain ribbon.

Sometimes I make a card and have a "yes" moment afterwards, where I've managed to capture what's in my head, and it looks even better in real life (these are balanced by "no" moments, which you don't often get to see on here!). It's always interesting to see whether my "yes" cards say "yes" to other people...let me know what you think!

Why did nobody tell me I NEEDED Watercolour Paper??
I was given a sample of Stampin' Up!'s watercolour paper to try. I love it! I used my watercolour crayons, and coloured the crayon directly onto the stamp, and then used my aquapainter to moisten it. Then stamp onto the watercolour paper. I'd tried this before with regular paper and always been disappointed with the muddy puddle that resulted, but the watercolour paper is much more absorbent, so it works a treat!
Yes, that's Bodacious Bouquet AGAIN, and Paisley AGAIN...can't help myself. You can do so much with them!
I also found another thing I NEED...silly me thought one set of Hodgepodge Hardware would be enough....until I was given a few bits and bobs of the Pewter Hardware (thanks Kirrily!). Well, duh! Of course one isn't enough! What was I thinking???

Heartfelt Thanks...
I've had some lovely emails and comments lately from people who read my blog. I just wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to you all....it just makes my day when someone tells me that I have in some way inspired them! So......thankyou
This card was made using the Set "Heartfelt Thanks" and markers. In case you haven't noticed the hideous woman on the Stampin' Up! homepage at the moment (I have dubbed her Mrs Sourpants), there is actually a promotion this month, where you get 30% off one of 4 stamp sets (this is one of them) when you purchase a set of markers! Just email me, if you'd like more information about the promotion...it finishes at the end of this month!
Cardstock: Sahara Sand, Mellow Moss, Whisper White
Ink: Whisper White Craft Ink (for the word "Heartfelt", which is much darker IRL)
Other: Moss gingham ribbon, markers (Ruby Red, Mellow Moss), Blender Pen, Paper Piercing Mat Pack

I'm Back!

If this looks familiar, then maybe you were one of the lucky people who had a chance to make one of these at the Papercrafts Festival on the weekend! It's a little Gift card wallet, and it opens up to hold one of those Gift voucher cards, or even a Scratchie, or some words of inspiration.

If you were there, I'd love to hear about what you thought of the Stampin' Up! stand, and answer any questions you may have about Stampin' Up! I can also subscribe you to my email newsletter, which has lots of tips and info about classes and the latest promotions. Just send an email to mail@marelletaylor.com

I hope you had as much fun at the Papercrafts Expo as I did!