I'm amazed, after going thru all my stamps and dies, that I've amassed so many sets which have some sort of coffee theme or image. I have no where near as many as some people but I love how stamp companies have jumped on the band wagon with 'coffee madness' and slipped in coffee cups here and there.
This being my second entry for the 2017 Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone a bit and create a scene using some cute critters. I love cards like this but sometimes I'm not good with my colouring or my critter placement, so I lose confidence. However I decided that I have way to many cute critter stamps that needed to be used and loved, so who cares if its not perfect:
I started off by using my mini-blending tool and Distress Ink 'Salty Ocean' to create a sky background. Using a green paint chip, I die-cut the grass strip and adhered it across the card. On white CS I stamped the bear, rabbit, cup and flowers, coloured them all with pencils and fussy cut them out. I used double-sided tape to hold them in place. The sentiment (which I think goes perfectly with this scene) was stamped twice with black Versafine ink and some clear and blue sequins were added for a bit of sparkle.
The grass die is from My Favourite Things. The coffee cup and flowerpot stamps are from Waffle Flower 'Big Bear and Bird'. The sentiment is from Altenew 'Coffee Love'. The bear and and rabbit stamps are from Mama Elephant 'Woodland Gifts' and the sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I'm hoping to get one more coffee themed entry created before the cut off tomorrow, so fingers crossed I can fit it in somewhere. Since Max is back from camp I promised him a night of McDonalds for dinner and to watch a movie or two with him, so will see how tired I am after that.....
I've loved seeing all the amazing entries for the hop and as I type this there are 1019 entries.....woo hoo!!! Amy must be so proud about how popular the hop has become, as she certainly puts so much time and energy into each one. She's a machine, I don't know how she does it all!!
This first entry came to me the other day when I was making another card using this stamp set. I thought it would be great to show colourful 'Spring' flowers coming from the stark, white coffee pot, just like Winter. It wouldn't let me create anything else until it was made, so I had to get stamping...and fast:
I haven't made a one-layer card for a while, so it was nice not to have get out the foam tape etc!!. I used my MISTI to stamp all of this so I could make sure I got everything in the right place.
I stamped the coffee pot first and then followed on from there, stamping them all in Versafine black ink. Once the ink had dried I coloured only the flowers with pencils and glued on some co-ordinating sequins for a bit of shine. It turned out just like the picture in my mind!!
The floral stamp is from Waffle Flower 'Big Bear and Bird'. The rest of the stamp images are from Altenew 'Coffee Love'. The sequins are from Neat and Tangled.
Max is back from his school camp and I'm in between loads of laundry. He had a fantastic time and is very tired. Think it will be a quiet weekend at home, which suits me perfectly!!
Happy
Friday everybody and its also the last day of March...eeek! This year
is flying by faster than last year, what's going on??? Its also the
start of a new challenge week for Just Add Ink and we have a really cute theme idea for you:
Critters are any living creature, so you can go crazy with all the cute little animals etc you have in your craft stash!!
While I had the flu a few weeks ago, it gave me a chance to catch up on some of Jennifer McGuires videos and this one really caught my eye, so had to try it out:
Jennifer's
video was all about creating a window with tuille stretched across it
(instead of say vellum or acetate). Do you think I could find tuille in
my little town?? I thought it would be easy to get my hands on but it
wasn't the case, so I ended up with some ribbon that was see-through but
also had a shimmer to it, so it wasn't a bad second option!!
I
started off by die-cutting the rectangle from the panel of kraft CS. I
then put it over the card front, used a pencil to mark the window and
then die-cut it from the card, so they would match perfectly. I added
strips of double-sided tape to the back of the craft window and put the
ribbon in place. More tape was added around the card front window and
the kraft panel was pressed on top.
I
stamped the images in black Versafine ink, coloured with pencils and
added some white gel pen details. The bear/bird image was stamped on
white CS twice, coloured with pencils and fussy cut out. I then stuck
one on to the ribbon front (with double-sided tape) and one on the
inside of the ribbon so they matched up. This meant there was an image
on the inside of the window instead of looking at the back of the front
one with tape on it.
The
sentiment was simply stamped on a piece of white CS, popped up on foam
tape and some sequins added for a bit of shine. I'm so happy with how it
turned out and hopefully at some stage I can find some tuille to do it
properly!!
The
stamped images are all from Waffle Flower 'Big Bear and Bird'. The
sequins are from Neat and Tangled and the rectangle die from Couture
Creations.
You have until Wednesday 5th April to link your projects to the Just Add Ink challenge
and if you need any help with ideas, pop over to the blog to see what
the rest of the Design Team have created for you. Can't wait to see all
your cute critters in the Gallery!!
That's right, 6 new stamp sets that are going to knock your socks off!! If you haven't seen the sets from Day 1 - 3, pop over to the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog to check them out!!
I'm very excited to give you a sneaky peek of the new 'So Pretty' stamp set, which has the most fabulous sentiments to cover many occasions. And the font is exactly like the set name, so pretty!!
I wanted to create a background that would compliment the font of this stamp, and thought one of the Lovely Links Fri-Dies would be perfect!!
I gathered some paint chips in soft, pastel colours and die-cut the link from them all. I soon realised that I had (what seemed like) hundreds of pastel hearts left over, so decided to use them in my design. I cut a panel of white CS slightly slimmer than the card front and adhered the die-cuts. I was then able to glue in the hearts in different positions. The panel was then popped up on the card.
For the sentiment I cut a strip of plain vellum and heat embossed the 'Happy Birthday' using Ranger Queens Gold embossing powder. To adhere this I put little strips of double-sided tape behind the words and pressed on to the card. And for a bit more shine I added a few of the Calling All Sistah's 'Sisterhood Sparkle' Limited Edition sequins.
To see more of this new stamp set, pop over to the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog. And mark on your calendars Friday March 31st to hop along with us to celebrate this new release!!
Hi there everyone! This is my second card this week, so glad to finally be feeling well enough to craft again. Especially since I thought about card making 24/7!! This post is to remind you all about our current challenge at TIME OUT.
We are asking you to 'CASE' a card for this challenge. Above is the card to inspire you all by the amazing Jenny of Crafting in the Country. She created this fabulous card to inspire you all and already there are some fantastic cards in the Gallery inspired by this design.
We are also very lucky to have a Sponsor for this challenge, Verve Stamps!! They were very generous to give the TIME OUT DT a stamp set each (which was extra exciting for me as I didn't have any of their products) and will also give a stamp set to the winner of this challenge. Woo hoo!!
I was very lucky to get my hands on the 'New Beginnings' stamp set which has some fantastic floral images and sentiments for Spring. I really liked Jenny's card layout so based my card on that idea:
I started off my creating a panel of white CS slightly smaller than my card front and blending 'Salty Ocean' Distress Ink over it. I then lightly splattered some water on to it and dabbed with a tissue to remove the colour. After working out where the flowers would sit, I stamped the flower stems with green ink. I also stamped the flowers on some white CS, coloured with pencils and fussy cut out.
A panel of kraft CS was adhered to the card front, and then the coloured panel on some foam tape. Instead of having something going across the top of the card (like the branch) I decided to have it going down the side. I die-cut this CAS-ual Fridays Stamps 'Lovely Links' die from some wood veneer and glued to the card front.
Two of the flowers were popped up on foam tape while the other was glued to the veneer. The sentiment was stamped on a strip of white CS, popped on foam tape and I added some sequins from Neat and Tangled.
You have until Wednesday 29th March to link your projects to the TIME OUT challenge. And if you need any help with ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our fabulous Guest Designer Izzy have created for you.
Hi there everybody!! It's an exciting day for me because after having the flu for the past two weeks I finally felt well enough to make a card. And it was so glorious to be back in the saddle again!! My card is for the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge where the theme for this week is:
For a 'Clean and Simple' project we are looking for designs with minimal layers, embellishments and images. A lot of white space is fantastic and one-layer cards are a brilliant example. I was very lucky to recently get my hands on some new Waffle Flower stamps. I was part of a monthly challenge team last year for Waffle Flower and Nina gave us all a voucher at the end of our term. I forgot all about it will a few weeks ago and thank goodness it was still working!! They arrived last week and I couldn't wait to ink them up:
Isn't that little girl just the cutest?!! All of these images are from Waffle Flower 'Enveloper Hello'. I'm just in love with the design of all the images (by artist Helen Dardik) and you can expect to see them used a lot on my cards! This was going to be a one-layer design but I realised that I could still get a bit of dimension and keep it CAS.
To start with I stamped the images on white CS and fussy cut them all out. After working out where they would sit on the card front, I used Distress Inks 'Salty Ocean', 'Picked Raspberry' and 'Fossilized Amber' and my mini-blending tool to add patches of soft colour. The images were then all popped up on foam tape and I added some sequins from Neat and Tangled for a bit of extra shine.
You have until next Wednesday 29th March to link your projects to the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge. And if you need any idea's for a CAS design, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created to inspire you. Can't wait to see what you come up with in the Gallery!!
Hi there everyone and welcome to the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Calling All Sistah's Blog Hop for the month of March!!
This blog hop was started as a way of reminding us all to do our self breast checks every month, as it can make such a difference to finding any problems early on. If its something you've never done before, I have a link here from You Tube showing you what you need to do and look for.
As this is a blog hop you should have arrived here from Ceals' blog where I'm sure she wowed you with her amazing project. If you've gotten lost or would like to start at the beginning of the hop, pop over to the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog for the full hop list.
Unfortunately I've been very sick with the flu the past two weeks and don't seem to be able to shake it. I haven't made a card for so long and wasn't able to make one for this hop but I didn't want to break the 'hop chain' and let people down. I also like to be able to spread the word about self-breast checks as much as I can and I promise I will have a new card for next month!
So you have something to look at I decided to show you one of my favourite 'hop' cards from last year, from the November 2016 hop:
One of the only times I've used patterned paper in months!! Please pop over to my blog post for details on how I put this card together!
Your next stop on the hop is the incredible Lori who will have something amazing to show you I'm sure!!
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you can grab a coffee, hop along and then take a few moments to check those breasts. You will never regret it!
Hi there! Another apology from me in this blog post being late. This should have gone out last Thursday 9th March but I've been too sick with the flu to get it organised, so I'm very sorry about that.
This has been a very exciting challenge for us at TIME OUT as we are celebrating our 3rd birthday!! The time has gone by so quickly and we have grown so much over this time, with our popularity and our team size. Thank you to everyone that has joined and supported the challenge over the years and here's to many more!!
We have lots of exciting things for you to win with this challenge too, so make sure you check out the TIME OUT blog for all the details.
The challenge theme is:
Love and/or Friendship with the
optional twist of 'spotlight stamping' where you add colour only to one
raised area of your image
This is quite a popular technique and one I quite enjoy to do myself. And I must say that the Gallery is bursting with so many incredible examples of this!!
For my card, things didn't quite go to plan but I managed to keep it together and create a simple card for a friend:
I started off by stamping the My Favourite Things 'Bundles of Blossoms' background stamp in black ink on a panel of white CS. I then used the large circular tag die from Winnie and Walter 'Essentials: Carlys Cutaways', snipping off the tag part at the top. I was then able to die-cut the W&W 'In a Word: Friend' die from the middle of it. My idea then was to colour the die-cut word portion with pencils but I managed to drop all the pencils on it, lead side down, from the pencils case and it was ruined!
So, I cut a piece of white CS and glued it behind the circle. I die-cut 'friend' twice from white CS and once from a pink paint chip, glued them together and then inlaid into the circle. The circle was then popped up on lots of foam tape. The rest of the sentiment (from W&W 'The Big, the Bold and Happy') was simply stamped on a strip of white CS, put on foam tape and I glued on a few pink and clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.
You still have just under two days to link your projects to the TIME OUT challenge and if you need any ideas with the 'spotlight colouring' technique, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our amazing Guest Designer Ardyth have created for you.
Hi there everybody!! I'm so sorry this blog post is very late, I developed the flu last Tuesday night and it completely knocked me for a six! I'm slowly getting better and can now look at the computer screen without it hurting my eyes!
For the past week at Addicted to Stamps and More the challenge theme is the very popular 'Make your Mark'. Which means you need to create a project where you have done some sort of colouring yourself. Maybe with Distress Inks, Copics or some water colouring....its totally up to you. And the Gallery is already full of some gorgeous creations!!
I just love these images!! I don't own this stamp set but was very lucky to have my friend Michelle (of Craftcradle), send some stamped images to me so I could colour them in. I coloured them all with pencils and fussy cut out. I held a piece of scrap paper over the card front so I could blend Mama Elephant 'Mojito' ink to create a small hill. I then blended some Distress Ink 'Salty Ocean' for a sky background. The images were simply adhered in place, with the teddy on some foam tape. And I then stamped the sentiment along with adding some sequins.
The stamp images are from Neat and Tangled 'Better Together' and the sentiment also from N&T 'Big Bold Brew'. The sequins are all from N&T as well!!
You still have around 13 hours left to link your projects to the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge. And you really should pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team created for you, their projects are fantastic!
I'm back with my 5th and final entry for the Winnie and Walter - 3rd Birthday Bash! Thank goodness my cards are all done as I can feel myself becoming sick with the flu/cold that Phoebe, Dave and Max have had over the last three weeks. I haven't been sick ages, so looks like its now my turn. Oh goodie!!
For this card I am entering the Ink Smooshing Challenge with Heather H. I really enjoy this technique because its totally uncontrolled and different every single time. Nice to make a mess instead of keeping everything clean and tidy!!
I cut a panel of water colour CS and using Distress Ink 'Mermaid Lagoon', water and my ink block, I smooshed the colour over it a few times. Once it had dried I used the medium circle die from W&W 'Essentials: Carly Cutaways' to cut out a portion of it. I also decided to die-cut the bottom of the card with a stitched-curved die (from Pretty Pink Posh) just for a bit of a change and it went with the curve of the circle.
On a piece of water colour CS I stamped and heat embossed the flowers and leaves (from W&W 'In Bloom: Addies Garden') in white. I then used Real Color Zig Brush Markers to colour them in, along with a water brush. Once they were dry I fussy cut them out. The circle panel was popped up on foam tape on the card front and the flowers/leaves adhered with double-sided tape and foam tape. The sentiment was simply stamped in black (from W&W 'Happiest of Holidays with Evelin T Designs') and glued on with some blue/clear sequins from Neat and Tangled.
Thank you so much for getting through all my W&W entries and I hope you enjoyed them all. I feel absolutely dreadful now so will go back to the couch and hope someone will look after me.......yeah right!!
My first thought was to make a shaker card because you know I love a good shaker!! But I really wanted to try and create a background with sequins instead, which of course is even more fiddly:
I'm sure there is a much easier way to create the sequin background but of course I had to make it as hard and fiddly as possible!!
To start off I wanted to create a background with the box image from W&W 'Welcome to the Family with Evelin T Designs' by just stamping it by hand across a panel of white CS. As the image doesn't have straight edges it didn't stamp perfectly in a line but I didn't mind. I then die-cut the W&W 'Baby' from it.
Now the fiddly part. I used a pencil to outline the baby die-cut on the card front and arranged the sequins over it, constantly checking I had the right coverage by putting the die-cut over it. Once I was happy I made more pencil lines around the sequins and also took a photo with my mobile phone. I took the sequins off, rubbed off the 'baby' pencil marks and put on strips of double-sided tape. Using the photo as a guide, I stuck the sequins on.
The panel was put over the card with lots of foam tape. The 'hello' (from The Big, the Bold and Happy') was put on foam tape as well and I also adhered a pencil coloured elephant from the W&W 'Welcome to the Family with Evelin T Designs' stamp set. So happy with how it turned out!!
I've got one card left to photograph and link. And Max is home sick again today (and its now raining) so might get a chance to whip up a few more ideas floating around in my head. As well as do some bottle and marker flipping!!
As you can see, this mood board has so many amazing photos and colours to choose from. The first thing that caught my eye was the black and white butterfly and the black/white strip along the bottom. I decided to create a floral panel but with black and white only:
I had no plan when I started creating this panel, other than the fact I wanted it to radiate out from the middle and contain some solid black images. I also wanted the images to be as close together as possible.
All of these images are from W&W 'In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet with Joni Andaya'. I started with the large flower in the middle and then added three images at a time around it, turning the panel as I went. Once the panel was full of larger images, I filled in any holes with tiny images and added the detail stamps to the flowers. Once I was happy I die-cut the panel using the large die from W&W 'Essentials: Audrey Cutaways'.
I decided to add in one other colour (apart from black and white) and thought pink would go with this beautifully. I added a panel of deep pink CS to the card front and put the floral panel on foam tape. The sentiment (from W&W 'The Big, the Bold and Happy') was stamped twice with Hero Arts Shadow Ink 'Bubblegum' and fussy cut out. The 'hugs' was put on foam tape, while the rest of the sentiment was glued to the panel, along with pink and clear sequins from Neat and Tangled.
For the past week I seem to have made so many rainbow coloured cards. I thought that nothing beats a bright rainbow mix of colours, so why not make my final rainbow of the week:
I've become rather obsessed with the 'block' stamp image from the W&W 'Welcome to the Family with Evelin T Designs' stamp set. I can see it in my mind being used for so many different patterns (as you will see on one of my other entries...). For this one I kept imaging brightly coloured building blocks with a white fluffy bear sitting on his own.
I used six different Distress Inks and my mini-blending tool to colour a panel of white CS. I then stamped the block image on to each one and fussy cut it out, removing the top part of the stamp image. I gave them all a quick flick with water and soaked the droplets up with a tissue to add a bit of interest. The blocks were then put on foam tape, with any overhang being trimmed off.
I heat embossed the sentiment (from the same stamp set) in Rose Gold on a piece of vellum and adhered to the blocks by putting double-sided tape behind the words. The bear (which had been stamped on white CS and fussy cut) was put on foam tape and I glued on a few co-ordinating sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I've been a fan of Winnie and Walter products for nearly 3 years and I'm so excited to finally be sharing in their birthday fun!! All of my card ideas have been swirling around in my head for weeks but I wanted to wait for my newest W&W products turned up first before I dove straight in with creating.
As I mentioned this first challenge is all about 'cute critters' and their latest stamp release has the cutest stamp set 'Welcome to the Family with Evelin T Designs'. I've fallen in love with it, which is strange because I never make baby cards. I've always found them really hard to make but obviously I needed the perfect stamp set.....:
Told you the images were adorable!!! I really wanted these critters to be the stars of the card, so kept everything else clean.
I cut a panel of white CS and die-cut the small circle die from W&W 'Essentials: Carly Cutaways' twice from it. I worked out where the circles would sit over the card front and gently blended Distress Ink 'Picked Raspberry' so it would create a background for the animals. The animal images were stamped on white CS, coloured with pencils and fussy cut out.
I popped the panel up on foam tape and also added foam tape behind both of the critters. The sentiment (from the same stamp set) was simply stamped with black in, fussy cut out and put on foam tape as well. And I added some clear and pink sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.
As you can imagine I have a few other cards to enter and will try to space them out over the next 21 hours so not to overload you. But really, can you ever have enough W&W to look at??!!
Hello there!! Thanks for stopping by and seeing what I've created this month as a CAS-ual Fridays Stamps 'Girl Friday'!!
My Mum and I were talking about birthday's recently and I thought I could create a card for her to give to one of her friends, who has a similar humor. I always think its great to be able to laugh at yourself, sometimes I do the most ridiculous things I need to laugh or I would cry!!
I have been in a 'rainbow colour-wave' this week for some reason and I thought bright colours would lend themselves quite well to this sentiment:
Another one of my 'fiddly' designs but it made me realise that I need to add a particular glue to my repertoire....
I started off by die-cutting the Tic Tac Toe Fri-Die from some white CS. I really needed some of that glue where you can remove it afterwards but I didn't have any. So I grabbed some small fully-sticky post-it pads that had been sent to me by a friend overseas and used a few of them to mask off each square, which also held the die in place. That way I could use a sponge dauber and a myriad of Distress Inks to colour each square.
Once I was happy with my rainbow, I die-cut the Tic Tac Toe Fri-Die again from black CS and glued into place. I used the smallest circle die from the Ornament Tag Fri-Dies on some white CS, heat embossed the sentiment from 'Frankly'isms' in Rose Gold and popped it up on foam tape. All I had to do then was to add some colourful sequins from Neat and Tangled.
If you think you would like to purchase any of the products I used today or any other CAS-ual Fridays Stamps products, don't forget to use my special Girl Friday code to save yourself some money!!
Thanks so much for popping in and I will see you all next month on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog.
Hi there and welcome to The Flower Challenge for the month of March!! We have everyone's favourite theme this month:
This means the possibilities are endless with your creation. As long as you have something 'floral' as your main subject, you can make whatever you like!!
I was in a water colouring mood when I needed to make my card and I also wanted to use a background stamp that hadn't seen any ink yet. What a perfect pairing they were:
I used my MISTI to stamp the background stamp twice with Versafine black ink on water colour CS, and then heat emboss with clear embossing powder. I then grabbed a Kuretake Real Color Zig Brush marker in 'Light Violet', another small brush (with a bowl of water) and put the programme 'Suits' on the tv so I could settle in and colour away!!
Once I had finished and dried with my heat gun, I used a waffle-edged die to cut out the panel. I cut a panel of black CS, adhered it to the card front and then popped the panel up on foam tape. The 'love' die was die-cut 3x from black CS, glued together for dimension and then to the card. I also heat embossed the rest of the sentiment in white and glued this, along with some co-ordinating sequins to the card front.
The background stamp is from My Favourite Things 'Floral Fantasy'. The 'love' die is from Paper Smooches, the 'sending' sentiment is from Waffle Flower 'Balloon Messages' and the sequins from Neat and Tangled. The panel die is from Winnie and Walter 'Essentials: Audrey's Cutaways'.
You have until Saturday 25th March to link your projects to The Flower Challenge and we will be back with some reminder cards on the 15th March. If you are needing some help with inspiration, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created for you. I can't wait to see your projects in the Gallery!!
