Simply Stampin' Baby Baby!

Good morning,

Yes that's right I'm back in action (I think!!) and my crafty conservatory is all sorted out!

This week's challenge over at Simply Stampin' is a theme challenge, and the theme is Baby Baby!

I had no idea when me and Kirei came up with these challenges at the beginning of the year that by the time this one came arouind I would be 5 months pregnant expecting mine and my boyfriends first baby, this may explain why I have been dipping in and out of challenges for a while!

I had my scan just over a week ago and we found out that we are having a little girl so I had to make my card in pinks!

I didn't want to go over board on the pink so I have kept my card pretty CAS, hope you like it!

I started with a Crumb Cake base, matted with Pretty in Pink with Whisper White over the top, I spritzed the left hand side of my card with my Pretty in Pink marker pen, and ruffled some Crumb Cake seam binding to go over the top, then I die cut the scalloped heart in Crumb Cake using the heart embosslit, and punched a Whisper white heart with my full heart punch, stamped with A to Z in Pretty in Pink, I wanted to add a splash of bright pink so I topped this off with a bright button. The congratulations greeting also stamped in Pretty in Pink is from the Delightful Dozen set, oh so useful!

Well I hope this has inspired you to get making baby crafts!! Don't forget to check out the rest of the design teams projects!

Happy stampin'

Vintage Simply Stampin'

Good morning!

It time for another challenge over at Simply Stampin and as you can tell from my title this week is vintage week. When I think of vintage I always think of distressing, so I knew I wanted to do some distressing which in my case always involves my spritzer tool, I love the light speckled effect you get on the paper with this tool, so that's where I started.

This card will be my mum's birthday card, it's not her birthday until the end of the month, but she is a complete techno-phobe so I'm pretty safe putting this up now.

I used quite a lot of different stamp sets on this card, I wanted to make a vintage style post card for my topper, so I started with the post card stamp from my christmas Winter Post set (love this stamp set so much!!) and added the sentiment meant for mothers day from my Delightful Dozen set, it may be for mothers day but works perfectly for my mum's birthday card!

Next I pulled out my mum's fav stamp set of all Baroque Motifs, she loves the swirl so I wanted to use that along with the the small flower from the same set. I also used the ink splatter from the French Foliage set another go to stamp for a vintage card.

I'd love to see what you come up with for this weeks challenge,
Happy stampin'

Simply Stampin Sketch Challenge

Good morning,

I hope that everyone is not too wet from all the rain we are having I never mind the rain it's a great excuse to sit indoors and make cards!

Now onto this weeks Simply Stampin' challenge which of course as I have already mentioned in my title is a sketch, I'm sure you will all love this one!

I really love sketches, especially neutral ones like this one, there's so much you can do with it!

Here's what I came up with for it

Now this card may look simple but there were a lot of different techniques that went into it.

I started off by using my crimper to give the Sahara Sand layer texture, I also spritzed it with my Blushing Bride marker pen, Next I cut sections of Blushing Bride and Basic Grey CS, I used a sponge dauber and some champagne shimmer paint to give it a bit of sparkle, before using my mat pack to punch holes around the edges for my faux stitching. Next I cut a tag out of Sahara Sand CS, and sponged Sahara Sand and Blushing Bride ink around the edges again adding faux stitching around the tag to tie it all in together and stamped the Young Vermilion Bird stamp in Basic Grey ink. Finally I added three different ribbon  strips to the top of the tag.

I hope you like what I've done, and that maybe I've inspired you to join in the challenge! Don't forget to check out this weeks fab inspiration for the Design Team and this months Guest Designer Lynne Fahey!

Before I go I have to say happy birthday to my partner in crime at Simply Stampin' Kirei, I hope you are have a brilliant birthday!! and I'll be back later to share the card I made for Kirei with the rest of you!

Happy stamping,  xx

Christmas In May!

Good afternoon,

A few months ago I found a Christmas challenge called 52 christmas card throwdown, each week a new challenge is set so that by the time Christmas comes around you'll have most of (if not all of) your Christmas cards done! I had to tell my friend Ruth, who started to join in the challenge straight away. I kept telling myself that I should join in, but I never seemed to get around to it.

I was reading Ruth's blog the other day and she had posted her entry for this weeks challenge, and at the bottom of her post she had completely called me out on my lack of joining in, well I couldn't have that so here is my very first (I hope of many) entries into the Christmas card challenge, and is definitely the earliest I have EVER made a Christmas card.

This week the challenge is a sketch, and I'm just squeaking through, the closing time is within hours!

Now I found the hardest thing about starting my card was deciding on a colour scheme, firstly I pulled out Razzleberry, then old olive, but then in a flash I decided to go for a Scandinavian feel card and went with Cherry Cobbler and Crumb Cake, I also found a bit of retired  Christmas DSP from last years catalogue that matched my theme perfectly. I have decided not to add a sentiment as I wanted to add a crumb cake seam binding bow and didn't want to over power the card, I hope the ladies won't mind.

So here we are Ruth, I have joined in and I'm really glad I did! Why not start your Christmas cards now too?!

Sketching with Aviary

Good morning,

It's Saturday morning, so that means we have a brand new challenge for you over at Simply Stampin', and this week we have a sketch for you.

Don't forget that the sketch is just a jumping off point, so you can stick exactly to the sketch and keep it simply or you can use it as your starting point.

I decided to use the layout as my background and added some extra details. I wanted to use my Aviary stamp set, I loved these stamps as soon as I saw them, it must be my love of owls that drew me to it, plus I love all the different cage shapes.

I pulled out a colour combo from my trusty Colour Coach, I went with Calypso Coral, Riding Hood Red and Basic Grey, believe it or not they work really well together, check it out!

See what I mean don't those colours look pretty together!! I made my own DSP using the Aviary cages and my stamp-a-ma-jig, plus the Basic Grey marker and my Spritzer tool. there is a small strip of DSP from the Domestic Goddess range running underneath the greeting, topped off with the Lace Ribbon border punch, which I threaded some ribbon through. I also added a few flowers from the Boho Blossoms punch.

I hope that my card has inspired you to join us this week, and have a go with our sketch! Can't wait to visit you to see what you've come up with!

Need For Speed!

Good morning,

Today I'm sharing a card for a young man who is mad about cars!! I don't have the Need for speed stamp set (yet! It's now at the top of my NEED list!) but a fellow Simply Stamper Kirei was kind enough to share her set with me (thanks Kirei), I knew the car image would be perfect for Stan!

I decided to go for 3 cars, why have one when you can have 3? The colours I have used are Pumpkin Pie, Lucky Limeade, and Pacific Point, I used the same three colours with my spritzer tool, to make the background I wanted it to look like graffiti, it kinda worked, I think.

I hope Stan likes the card and has a wonderful birthday!!

Concord Crush Aviary

Good morning,

I thought I would share another of the cards I made last Sunday before I start on today's craft marathon, I was asked to make several cards for the same person, I always find this more challenging, so here is the first of a series of cards I made for Maddy who turned 18 on Friday!

I started by making the background paper, I stamped the various birdcages in different directions using my stamp-a-ma-jig to get them placed correctly, them I used my spritzing tool to give some texture (if you click on the photo you should be able to see this better) I sponged the edges before mounting onto Concord Crush CS, I used a piece of retired DSP for the stripe in the middle called Lap of Luxury (I'm trying to use up some of my beloved retired stack of DSP's!) I added three cages with birds for my focal point, popping up the central cage on dimensionals, I love the little owl, he's so sweet!!

I couldn't help myself, when I cut out the sentiment I had to add a couple of birdies here to.

Pop back tomorrow for the next instalment of last weekends crafty day, xx

Colour Blocking

Good afternoon,

I have had a busy morning finishing off a few projects that I had started earlier in the week but hadn't gotten round to finishing. Earlier this week I was checking out challenge blogs that I like and Hand Stamped Sentiments had technique that I had never heard of before called colour blocking, now I hope I have this right, I masked of areas with post-it notes and using my spritzing tool I added colour blocks. Masking each one off before I did the next so I didn't get a brown mess where they overlapped. I used Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, and Lucky Limeade.

I wanted to use a large sentiment over my colour blocks, so I pulled out an old retired set called Happy Everything, I wanted to add a bit a glitz so I went round the edges of the coloured blocks with a glitter pen, before stamping and punching out a cupcake, from the create a cupcake set. If you look closely you should be able to see it sparkling in the sunshine.

See you again soon I hope! xx

Sketch Time At Simply Stampin'

Good morning,

Another freezing one, but I suppose we should be grateful that we don't have snow down here!

Anyway onto today's Simply Stampin' challenge, as the title says its another sketch, and it's a goody!

I have been busy lately making commission cards for a friend, and this is another that I have made for her.

It uses my favourite DSP of the moment Spice Cake, and I combined it with the Lovely as a tree set for my image, here's a close up

I coloured onto stamp directly with my markers and then stamped the image, I water coloured  the rest of the grass and then added a little more definition with the fine end of a marker over the top. To distress a little I used my Spritzer tool, a torn corner, which I stamped behind using A to Z, before sponging the edges of the whole panel.

I hope you can join me and the rest of the Design Team for this weeks challenge, I do love to see how everyone interprets the sketch differently.

Happy crafting, xx

Simply Stampin' Colour Challenge

Good morning,

wow, we had some fab entries for last weeks Simply Stampin' challenge, you really did pull it out the bag ladies!

This week we have a great colour combo for the men in your life! Although it would work equally well for the ladies too.

I have another commissioned card to share with you this week, and I thought it was a great excuse to break out my Forever Young set, which I am ashamed to say had not seen ink yet?!

I went for the distressed feel with this card, and pulled out my spritzing tool, and tore away the edges.

I can't wait to see what you come up with for these colours, don't you just love what the rest of the DT came up with? Don't forget to give them some love, we all love hearing your comments!

Hope to see you over at the challenge, xx

Colour Combo Time

Good Morning,

This week over at Simply Stampin', your challenge should you choose to accept it (I hope you will!) is a colour challenge.

Now those of you who know me will know that I have an orange phobia, and my first thought as I found out which colours we were working with this week was eeekk!
But I calmly sat down with the colours in my lap and started to look through the catalogue to find colour matching stash that I have ( I find it easier to look through the catalogue than search through my craft room), I wanted to use my new Young Vermillion stamp, so I also had that in mind.

Here's what I came up with, I started by stamping my Young Vermillion birdie, I got the Many Marvelous Markers for my birthday just over a week ago, so I HAD to use those! Water colouring, that's what my birdie needed, this was soooo much easier than I thought it would be any any detail that I lost I roughly drew back in with the fine end of the marker, perfect! Next he was cut out and popped up onto dimensionals, to be layered over a piece of Vanilla CS stamped with images from the Nature's Walk stamp set, and then I used my spritzing tool with all 3 of the colours to give an aged effect. The DSP used for this card is called Domestic Goddess, and this card just goes to show that you can use the DSP with any of the stamp sets, so think outside the box.

I hope you'll pop over to see what the rest of the DT have come up with, and give the colours ago yourself! Can't wait to see what you come up with!! xx

Halloween at Simply Stampin'

Good Morning!

Well it's my first week as a new design team member with Simply Stampin', and for our very first week the challenge set is Halloween!

My first thought was, I don't have any Halloween stash, but then I thought maybe I can make some. So I pulled out my punches and started to play, I have seen loads of great things made with the owl punch like reindeer, ghosts etc so that seems like a great place to start, I punched out a Basic Black owl body, then using my Word Window punch I punched one of the ends along the side of a piece of Black CS, before using the oval punch to make cool wings, my bat was taking shape, then I thought I needed something for him to sit on, originally I wanted to make a tree branch to hang my bat from but, as my word window punch was already out, I decided to punch out a fence, inking each piece to give depth.

I sponged a punched circle in More Mustard and Pumpkin Pie for a spooky feel, and spritzed the Rich Razzleberry background before layering on Pumpkin Pie and Pear Pizzazz CS.

Why not grab your punches and see what you can make? xx

Colour Q 100

Good afternoon,

Last week I was looking for colour challenges and found Colour Q, they are celebrating their 100th challenge, I was a little sad that I have only just found them but excited at the same time because the challenge is to combined a sketch with any of the past colour challenges I have written down some of my favourites and will try to get at least one more card done for this challenge because I had so much fun looking through the past colour combo's.

Here's the sketch they have posted to follow

and I finally decided on the colour combo #88

I knew exactly which stamp set I wanted to use, when the retiring list went live, I sat down to go through my catalogue and mark all the items that were retiring, I became more and more sad as I realised that 12 of the sets in my collection are leaving so I decided that I would have to use them. This set Sense Of Time is one of my favourites, its great for masculine cards and retirement cards I have even made a card just using the sentiment as the focal point because they are so beautiful.

If you click on the image you should be able to see the details more clearly, I have used a piece of the Newsprint DSP form the main section, it had lines printed on it like a note pad, I have turned the DSP so that the lines are vertical and stamped over them, in Soft Suede and Early Espresso, I then scrunched up the paper flattened it back out and swiped my ink pad over the top for the distressed look. This should qualify my card for the challenge over at Our Creative Corner, which is stamping onto patterned paper. I also got my spritzing tool out for the clock face and cogs, and added final dimension with some linen thread.

Don't forget if you want to get your hands on this set, it's only available until the end of the month or while stocks last!

Pop back later to see another card I'm working on, xx

Distressed Nature

Hello,

No I haven't been out bothering birds and butterflies, I'm sure my cat Salem is doing enough of that for the whole road! At our old house we only had paving, no grass so you didn't really see butterflies around much and he thinks that they are amazing.

I made a distressed anniversary card a couple of weeks ago and I enjoyed the process so much that I decided to give it another go with the Nature Walk stamp set. Now I know at the weekend I said I would try and use DSP in every card until the new catalogue launch, but for this card I made my own DSP form the row of eggs. That is one one the many fabulous things about Stampin' up! The stamp sets are put together so that you needn't use loads of extras if you don't want to.

I love the rough edges, and spritzing, it's so much fun to do! I tried to keep this card free from gems and pearls so it could be used for a masculine card if needed, but I thought a little ribbon would be ok as it is grey ribbon!

See you again soon, I hope. xx

Top Note Make and Takes

Hi,

It's dull, raining and miserable here this morning so I thought I'd share my Wednesday night workshop make and takes with you to brighten up a dark morning.

I got my hands on the top note die in May and I'm in love. The shape is just gorgeous, so this had to be the centre of my workshop, there were six fabulous ladies, one of which was completely new to the world of paper crafting, but still got stuck in and made the cards, I hope she loves them as much as I do!

So here is the first

A shaped card, all you have to do is make sure that the folded edge of your card blank doesn't go all the way to the end of your shape and you have yourself a great curvy shaped card. The top note also has a dotted line just inside the edge (which you can see at on the inner part of the card) which makes it easy to cut a perfect fit for layering. I got the ladies to do this with a black layer and then emboss with the vintage wallpaper embossing folder, isn't the pattern fab! I thought that the embossing was so pretty that it only needed a quick bit of ribbon (this ribbon is so great, you can colour tint it with your ink pads)
and a glittered butterfly, and viola!

The second card is a great way of using up those scraps of paper you just can't part with.

Just arrange your paper strips onto a scrap of paper and run it through your big shot with your top note, and you have a great backdrop for your card, I have spritzed the background (not sure if you can see it) with marina mist marker, stamped one of the four frames stamps, I love the bird, but the great thing about craft is that it's individual so some of the ladies went for the polka dots, and some for the roses too. Now onto the bit I don't think they thanked me for, the boho blossoms punched flowers. I made them scrunch them, a couple of faces didn't look happy, but I asked them to trust me, and hopefully they like the finished effect, just topped off with some rhinestones.

Hopefully these make up for my week long absence?

Mojo Throwdown

Good Evening,

My USB stick is playing up and I didn't think I was going to be able to post this card in time for the challenges. Thank you Dan for emailing them to me!

This card combines the Colour Throwdown Challenge colours and Mojo Monday's sketch, I'm still not sure of the colour combo, what do you think? I think I went a bit OTT on the pink.

I'm still trying to stick to my personal challenge of using all my stamps, I have used this set before but this stamp had not seen ink, I also dusted of my crimper and spritzing tool for this card.

Here is the colour palette we have been challenged to use

and the beautiful sketch

Think I may have to give the colour combo another go and balance the colours better.

Have a great evening
xx

Beautiful biker

Hi there,

Well yesterday I promised to pop back today and post a card, as here I am, and here's the card

This is one of the samples that I made up for my demo party last week. It uses a brand new a la carte stamp caller Motorcycle, I have teamed this with another brand new product, glass glitter! This chunky glitter ages slightly with time to give it an aged effect, so it's perfect for men's cards and vintage styles too.

I have spritzed the background to give a textured look to the Real red base, and teamed this with Chocolate chip, and basic black. Also as an added extra I have applied glossy accents to the red sections of the bike to make them really shiny.

Hope you like it
xx

sentiment focus challenge

Well it's Saturday so that can only mean one thing, challenge time!

This mornings challenge was very tricky indeed I've found with the Less is More challenges that thinking of the idea takes longer than making the cards, or it does in my case, actually that seems to happen a lot!

Today's challenge is a one layered card, that's main focus is a sentiment. I instantly thought of the sentiment from the Sense of time stamp set, but I had no idea how I would make the card, simple without being plain.
Here's what I came up with

I don't know if you can see but I have used my spritzing tool to add a little texture to this card, however I didn't want it to distract from the main image so I spritzed from quite far away. I also used the gorgeous clock face and cute little cogs, as well as some chocolate chip satin ribbon. Hopefully I have not added too much, it is all stamped/spritzed on a single layer.

I was really nice to sit down and relax with a card today, as yesterday was spent frantically looking for my 7 month old black and white kitty Salem, who had decided that he'd wonder off. He hasn't ever been out for longer than a couple of hours without popping back to make sure someone is still here, however yesterday he decided to go missing at about 8.30am, and didn't turn up again until 4.30 this morning!

The naughty little munchkin is now fast asleep on the bed

Looking like butter wouldn't melt!

Anyway, here's what I've used on today's challenge card
Stamps, Sense of time,
Paper, Whisper white,
Ink, Chocolate chip,
Accessories, Early espresso marker, spritzing tool, chocolate chip satin ribbon, Stamp-a-ma-jig, (post it note for masking)

Happy stampin'

xx

Last chance

It's the last day to enter the draw to win a £10 voucher for Stampin' up goodies from me, remember your comment doesn't have to be about the cards, it could be what your favourite Stampin' up product is, or what you'd spend the money on, whatever you like. If you haven't seen the blog this week, it's simple join us a follower and leave a comment, then you'll be in with a chance. The winner will be announced tomorrow!

I've hardly slept all night, very excited. I'm off to my first regional training with Stampin' up today, finding out about the up coming mini catalogue, stamping, and having fun.

We have been asked to make 'swaps', these are A6 card fronts that display what you can do using current Stampin' up products.

Here's what I've come up with.

Thought I'd go for a masculine one made with the Sense of time stamps, I've tried to use different techniques including crimping and spritzing.
Hope the others like it!

Have a great weekend xx