i have always loved and admired the work by fellow creative and decorating guru keisha campbell. i haven't been around to see her blog in a while as i took a bit of a sabbatical from pocking around the www. but the other day i went there and felt so inspired by a frame she made. so what did it inspire me to do - well pull out some of those well loved stamps of mine and emboss. so emboss i did. nothing fancy, just plain good old silver and gold embossing. and the end result was fabulous. well the story starts before all of this really. i had finally gotten dh to hang the frames of the dog's layouts in the kitchen, which has been standing on the floor for months. then the layouts in them turned out to be way too busy for my liking and for the tiny kitchen area, so i had to make new layouts. and that's how it came to be a white on white layout.
plain and simple with loads of embossing and little details! and that's another reason i love working on white so much...it's clean and uncomplicated and the focus is on the photos.

some of these butterflies have been in my stamp collection for years, doing some real hard time. the butterfly visible here is from my design team kit from Scrapbook Studio - a classic.

the 'mom' stamp actually says moments. silly that i never realised it said mom when i cut it.

darkroom door stamp embossed in gold. a favourite set of mine. the bingo chip is by Crate paper and distributed by The Wholesaler.

an old frame from my stash with a Basic Grey tag inside also distributed by The Wholesaler.

please visit

Scrapbookstudio and check out their amazing stamp section.

The Wholesaler for some inspiration and Keisha Campbell for some classy inspiration all round.

i *heart* darkroom door! for the past fifteen years i have loved stamping, and nothing
compares to the awesomeness of good old red rubber with a totally brilliant and original design on it! so started my love affair with darkroom door stamps, images, printed matter and the totally awesome and generous Rachel Greig (a master when it comes to looking through a lens). so the time has arrived when i am honored to be featured as a guest designer on their blog this week! i am truly blessed in my creative journey as i struggle for my little ray of sunshine amongst the clouds that is the creative world. so please head on over to the darkroom door blog and check out what i have done using the awesome designs and truly amazing quote stamps! send Rachel some love and let her know if you are a fan!

thank you to Rachel for this awesome opportunity and for the wonderful products, her true and unconditional generosity and her creative spirit in general - you rock!

**PS i also used those same wonderful stamps in the little house projects below! so check it out and see if you can spot those awesome little stamped images!

house 1 above and 2 below in a set of four home decor houses. grouped together they make for an awesome little wall hanging filled with homely goodness.

way back when i started working on a set of four houses. i used some of the awesome resist paper by pink paislee for the backgrounds that i colored using distress inks and mists. i worked on 1 inch thick pieces of wood. love that lately** they were just fun to make and put together the four just makes an awesome room decor project. i used an awesome stamp set from darkroom door with various quotes and house images. i heart that set! the best stamp of them all reads
"i would sooner live in a cottage and wonder at everything,
than live in a castle and wonder at nothing"
have you wondered at something today ? or is your castle just so important and bigger than life! a castle can crumble at any time, but cottages are almost always filled with love only.

happy fathers day to all the dads out there!

ok..so the washing is hung and i found it to be warmer outside than what it actually is inside my house! so i took quick pics of the cards i made using some of the scraps on my table. i love how they turned out - and yes they look way better in real life! you may also have noticed that i am going through a pink spell in my work - what's up with that? maybe all the gorgeous paper designs or maybe my soul is at peace or crying out! not sure yet! anyhow...
gotta love those beautiful papers by Fancy pants, mme and pink paislee. how perfect do they match in colour and theme?

it's been a while since i have actually designed some cards - apart from those for classes - you know just for fun and for the sake of being creative and keeping the head busy. but since i was on a mission once again of throwing out and purging some stuff i found three printed collage butterfly images and they were really the inspiration behind the colours scheme and theme. and these cards are the end result...

i also found some of these small paper doilies while cleaning so they were on my table too. I did however pull out some distress stain to colour them. the patterned papers are all scraps from class layouts ...That awesome gold butterfly is by artchix studio and the words by darkroom door.

a few quick stitches around the edges of the patterned papers and they are totally transformed. gotta love how easy that is!

a couple of buttons and embroidery thread and you have more dimension and colour!

remember to finish off those buttons - a well dressed button is a button with thread through it's holes! it only takes a few second - but the end result is priceless. Have a wonderful weekend! and thanks for popping in.