Thank you!

... to everyone who sent me birthday wishes and cards on Friday - I was so touched! I had a lovely day and received some gorgeous handmade cards from some of my blogging buddies so I'll show you them when I've got them photographed.

Speaking of photography...lookie lookie at my new toy:


I've always been passionate about photography but as a hobby it's slipped recently so it was a new years' resolution to get back into it again. A few years ago I took some photography classes and would love (and need!) to take more. While I totally embrace the digital revolution I'm glad I learned the traditional darkroom methods and was able to experience the deeply satisfying creative process of taking a photograph and carrying out the whole developing process by hand.

I hope those skills stick around, but for me now it's all about the digital! So here's introducing my new SLR - I'm so grateful to my family who helped me to buy it and I can't wait to get cracking with it! As a kickstart I started on Friday a 365 project - I know most people start these on Jan 1st but mine will be a personal photographic document of my 35th (eek!) year starting from my birthday. Don't worry I won't bore you with them all hehe!

I'm fascinated by the power of images to tell a story and often think had I not chosen to be a journalist and tell stories in words I would have liked to have told them in pictures. Re-awakening this hobby is also making me more interested in how we can combine our images with our papercrafting so am planning to do more scrapbooking and photo-cards in the future.

Ok - to today's card. Another valentine's with an old Splitcoast colour combo which I just love - Real Red, Basic Black and Kraft. I love love Kraft - projects take on such a different feel with it, I really must use it more!

I used a Julee Tilman sketch for this and again used the hearts from Stampin Up's Best Wishes and More set - cut them out by hand and mounted them on the circles which were created using nestabilities. The kraft circle and the upper half of the kraft background layer are embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder (can't get enough of it!).

I used the paper piercing tool from the Crafter's Tool Kit to pierce along the bottom of the card and top and bottom of the red layer. The brads are from the Hodgepodge Hardware kit and mounted onto circles of basic black cardstock punched out with the 1/2 inch circle punch. The sentiment is from the Best Yet set.

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!


Recipe:

(All supplies Stampin' Up)
Stamps - Best Wishes and More/ Best Yet (Level 1 Hostess set)
Ink - Real Red
Cardsotck - Kraft/Basic Black/Real Red
Other - Hodgepodge Hardware/ circle nestabities/Cuttlebug/Swiss Dots embossing folder/Crafter's Tool Kit/Dimensionals/Stamp-a-ma-jig