My baby turns 3

This month my baby girl turned 3. Her birthday was in the school holidays just after we went away for a couple of days to Mooloolaba so timing was a bit off. I had seen this fabulous Rainbow Cake on one of my favourite blogs The Idea Room and I thought it was so cute I just HAD to make it! Well I did, (I didn't put as much effort or icing for that matter, into mine as she did!) after staying up late the night before her birthday, I only have one cake tin so it took a while to finish. Each layer only cooked for 10 mins but then I had to wait for it to cool, turn it out, wash the tin and start again!!! I was really excited about the finished product and I was so excited for my daughter.

HOWEVER......little Miss M wasn't feeling too great when she went to bed and woke several times in the night, then she woke in the morning with a temperature. By the time we planned to have her cake with some family friends after lunch, she had to be woken up from her nap and she was not interested in eating cake at all...didn't even taste it!!! Poor darling, I couldn't stop loving it though and the bright colours just looked so fun.

How cool does this look?

No birthday cards can you believe it?????

My daughter was invited to a birthday party and me being me left it to the last minute to buy a present and I thought I would just grab a card from my stack of cards..........well to my great amazement I had no suitable birthday cards!!!!!!!! Plenty of 'friend' cards or 'happiness' cards or 'christmas' cards or even birthday cards for older people but nothing suitable for a little girl. So I had to buy a birthday card (being rushed and all I had not time to whip one up), it was a simple sweet card that I thought shouldn't cost that much........$4.95 later I decided then and there I was going to go home and make a stack of both boy and girl birthday cards. I chose a simple design that I could just run off lots of and I used a 1/4 of an A4 to make it even quicker and more cost effective - especially for kids.

Here is the boy card using my favourite "Bugs & Kisses" stamp set, Kraft, Whisper White and Soft Suede cardstock and Soft Suede Classic Ink Pad.

Here is the girl card using the Butterfly Punch (which, by the way you can still purchase even though it was in the last mini catalogue - contact me if you would like to know more) with 'Cottage Wall' Designer Series Paper and Pale Plum cardstock and the 'happy birthday' stamp comes from Teeny Tiny Sentiment p.26 in the current mini catalogue and stamped in Rich Razzleberry. I cased this design from Amy Waters, I loved how she sewed down the middle of her butterflies so I did a quick version!!!

I hope this inspires you to go and make a stack of birthday cards and never pay $4.95 for 1 card again!! (just think...that's almost half the price of a classic ink pad, or half the price of a pkt of 24 sheets of cardstock in which you could make 48 cards this size, or the cost of a giant block of cadbury chocolate from Big W......the possibilities are endless LOL)

Sketch Challenge...

Hi everyone, The wonderful Stampin' Up! demonstrators of Australia and NZ have put together a fabulous website/forum to communicate with each other and to share ideas and inspiration for what we do. They have regular challenges for all sorts of card making to 3D items to scrap pages. Last week I entered my very first challenge.....and I won!!! There was a small entry I must admit, but non the less, I am pretty chuffed LOL.

This was the 'Sketch' that you had to get inspiration from:



and this was my entry:



Let me know what you think. If you are interested in looking at or competing in more challenges, Makeesha Byl's Inkspirations are are fantastic starting point. Have fun.