Hi there everyone!! I wanted to let you know that I have the honour of being a Guest Designer this week to help Sindhu of Paperminty celebrate the 5th year of her blog!!!
I discovered Sindhu's work mainly from the Little Tangles challenge, where she has wowed me each challenge with her incredible entries using Neat and Tangled products. She is such a sweetheart and I couldn't be happier helping her celebrate this milestone!!
This is the card I have over on her blog:
Since I discovered Sindhu thru her use of Neat and Tangled products, I decided to use only their products for this card. And its also their birthday month too!!
And guess what my inspiration was:
That's right, another tissue box!! Tissues have come a long way with their designs since the 'plain cardboard' days!!
To find out how I put this card together and have the chance to win some prizes, pop over to Sindhu's blog here.
I am so very lucky!! Why do you ask?? Because not only did I discover this amazing card making community 4 years ago, I've also made the most amazing friends who have spoilt me with their support and generosity!! So when I saw the cue word for this weeks CASology Challenge I knew I wouldn't have any trouble making a card for a friend.
'Bud' can be interpreted in so many ways i.e. the bud of a flower, a 'budding' relationship or my husbands suggestion 'smoking a bud' as in smoking a marijuana bud. Hmmmm, not quite what I was going for Dave.....
Anyway, with all the lovely cards, gifts and well wishes I received for my birthday, I immediately thought of 'best bud' as in best friend or friends in the making. One of my wonderful friends Aileen of Colour and Sparkle sent me a package last week of stamps and dies. She is such a sweetheart and is the one who came up with The Flower Challenge idea, which I love being part of. One of the stamps immediately caught my eye and I knew it would be perfect for this challenge:
Unfortunately I don't know what brand this stamp is. Its a red-rubber stamp and if anyone knows it's origin, I'd love to know!! Isn't it the cutest??!!
I wanted to keep this super simple and let the image speak for itself. I stamped it on the card front using black ink and coloured using my pencils. I then found this fantastic Reverse Confetti stamp from the 'Fancy Word Co-ordinates' set which suited it perfectly. Nothing sweeter than a child and their pet!!
I have two other challenges I would like to enter:
Its raining today so no gardening for me. However it does mean I probably should do some housework..yuck! Maybe I can squeeze in a card or two between cleaning the toilet and vacuuming????? Or instead of???
Its another warm day here today but the clouds are beginning to arrive and its supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. I'm going to take Bella for a walk shortly but wanted to get this card on my blog before I forgot!!
I mentioned in yesterdays post that August has been a big month of birthdays and I'm using the current Seize the Birthday challenge as a chance to build up my card stash!!
The card I created yesterday used a lot of Whimsy Stamps products and while I was making that card, I had this design come to mind:
A bit of a crazy design I know but I just had to try it out!!
I started off by using Waffle Flower ink pads and a balloon image from Whimsy Stamps 'Happy Everything' stamp set. I stamped the top blue row first and then went down from there. I then decided to fussy cut around the balloons, put them on lots of foam tape and adhere to the card front. This gave them a lot more dimension.
For the sentiment I die-cut the Whimsy Stamps 'happy' 3x from white CS, glued them together and painted on lots of Wink of Stella. After gluing to the top of the balloons I put on lots of Glossy Accents for shine.
I cut a strip of white CS, fishtailed both ends and heat embossed the 'everything' with silver powder. This was put on foam tape, along with some pink and clear sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I've also just found out about the monthly Whimsy Stamps challenge and this months theme is 'Anything Goes'!!
Best get my walking shoes on and take Bella before the clouds break open with rain. I wonder how muddy she will get today and how many holes she will dig looking for those pesky rats????
It is the most stunning day today, so warm and sunny with a slight breeze. Perfect for gardening and getting all the washing dry!! I thought I would take a quick break and show you all my entry for the current Seize the Birthday challenge.
August has been a very busy month for birthdays and I've used a lot of my 'Birthday Card' stash, so this 'Anything Goes' challenge is perfect to get me creating again!
This card was inspired by a rainbow of fireworks I saw on tv the other night. I wondered if I could try to capture their shape and colour, so gave it a go:
I love a pastel coloured rainbow, especially with gold, it really seems to make the colours even brighter!!
I started off by getting my Waffle Flower ink pads together and a panel of white CS. Using the two different sized shapes from Whimsy Stamps 'Happy Everything' I stamped all over the panel in a random pattern and alternating the colours. I used my MISTI so I could stamp each image twice to get good coverage.
Once I was happy I used a waffle-edged die from Winnie and Walter 'Essentials: Audrey's Cutaways' to cut the panel and adhered to the front of a card base. For the sentiment I used a Whimsy Stamp 'Happy' die on some gold foil CS and also cut two extra from white CS. These were all glued together and then to the card. The rest of the sentiment (from the same Whimsy Stamp set) was gold heat embossed on white CS, fussy cut out and glued in place.
Instead of using sequins I decided to add dots of Nuvo Crystal Drops in 'White' to all the images not covered by the sentiments. This gives the card some dimension, interest and the dots become the same colour as the ink they are put on!!
I have three other challenges I would like to enter:
Okay, back out into the sun for me. I've been going around my garden looking where all my peonies are planted, looking for signs of life. So far I have about 7 that have popped up, which is so exciting. Hopefully I will get more than one flower this year!!!!
Hi there!! Its been the most stunning day here today, t-shirt and shorts weather in the coldest month of the year.....crazy!! It was a fabulous day for gardening too!!
I'm popping in today to remind you all about our current challenge at TIME OUT. We have a rather interesting theme for you this time:
AUTUMN: with optional twist of speed stamping
Basically we are wanting to see if you can create a card in 10 minutes or less. It doesn't include getting all your tools together thank goodness. I can take hours or days to create one card so this was a huge challenge for me!
Our Sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers and they are giving the winner of this challenge a $15 gift voucher, lucky thing!
To create my card in under 10 mins I thought I better stick to one-layer so I didn't have to fiddle with foam tape etc. It took me 9 minutes 45 seconds so I nearly failed, thank goodness I didn't add more images which I had wanted too:
So funny to be doing an Autumn card when we are running towards Spring!!
I started off by stamping the tree using Altenew 'Dark Chocolate'. I then inked up the leaves and used three different ink cubes: Altenew 'Peach Perfect' and Hero Arts 'Soft Cantaloupe' and 'Soft Vanilla'. This gave the leaves the multi-coloured look of Autumn. I then stamped the sentiment ink black.
For the grass I used my mini-blending tool and Distress Ink 'Mowed Lawn' and for the sky I used (for the first time) a cloud stencil and Distress Ink 'Salty Ocean'. A few orange and gold sequins and I was done!!
The tree, leaves and sentiment stamps are from Simon Says Stamp 'Giving Thanks'. The cloud stencil is from MFT Stamps and the sequins from Neat and Tangled.
You have until Wednesday 31st August to link your projects to the TIME OUT challenge and if you would like to see if the Design Team and our fabulous Guest Designer Elaine managed to finish within 10 minutes, pop over to the blog. Can't wait to see you in the Gallery!!
Hello there, so nice to see you!! Thanks for popping in to see my CAS-ual Fridays Stamps 'Girl Friday' blog post for this month. I was going to say 'its my time of the month' but that didn't quite sound right, if you get my drift.....lol....
I had (what I thought..) to be a great idea for a card for this post but of course it turned to custard. I wanted to use the ballerina and make a spinning card so it would look like she was twirling. To do it I needed to 'mirror' the stamp image but no matter how much I tried I couldn't get a good enough mirrored image. I think it's because there is so much solid area on the stamp. Maybe if I had some of the special 'mirror' stamps it would have worked.
However, it lead to this idea and I think this looks just as pretty:
Way back in February this year, Jennifer McGuire had a post where she created 'Tulle Window Cards'. I tried it once, using a white, sparkly, see-thru ribbon and loved the effect. Since I couldn't get the ballerina to spin, I thought maybe I could have her floating in the air instead, so I tried this technique again!!
I started off by stamping the ballerina from Tutu three times with Waffle Flower 'Safe Choice' ink and then fussy cut her out. I grabbed one of the Bubble Box Fri-Dies and die-cut it from the card front. I then cut a smaller panel of white CS and cut it from that as well.
I wanted to add some tiny flowers around the edge of the die-cut but didn't want them to be uniformed in their stamping. So.....I used my largest stamp block and the Full on Floral stamp. I used the same pink ink pad and just inked the corner of the stamp. I masked off the rest of the area and stamped with the corner. I kept doing this, masking as I went and alternating between two corners for a bit of variety. I love how it turned out!
Now I could adhere the ribbon across the die-cut on the card front and then stick the top panel in place. I stuck the ballerina on using very thin strips of double-sided tape and used thin strips of foam tape for the sentiment (which is also from the 'Tutu' stamp set). I wasn't too worried about how it would look from the back.
For some sparkle I added some of the Sistahood Sparkle Limited Edition Sequin Mix and for some dimension some Nuvo Crystal Drops in White to the middle of all the flowers. And just incase I've completely confused you with my instructions (I'm not the best at explaining things sometimes....), here is what the card looks like standing up:
It is slightly see-thru so you will see the writing inside the card but its opaque enough so when its standing, the words won't be so visible.
If your thinking about purchasing any of the items I've used today or any others from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps don't forget to use my special 'Girl Friday' code to save yourself 15%!!
Thanks again for stopping by and I hope the rest of your week goes by smoothly and that the sun shines brightly!!
Its been a beautiful but chilly day here today and I finally finished a HUGE rose pruning job, so feeling very pleased with myself!!
A few weeks ago I purchased some die-cut pieces by Rosies Studio 'Pink Lemonade'. I was instantly drawn to the pastel colours and they reminded me of the current The Heart Desires challenge. I've never used pre-cut and coloured dies before but they are so pretty I couldn't help myself:
Now you can see what I mean about the colours!! And having gold embossed words on them is even better!
I started by cutting a panel of black CS slightly smaller than the card front and adhering to the card. I then used a stitched-rectangle die on some patterned paper. I glued the balloons in place so they would over-hang the top of the card (also putting some foam tape underneath for support) and then added the word die-cuts on foam tape.
The whole rectangle panel was then put on foam tape and I added some pink, yellow and gold sequins for a bit of shine. I really love how this turned out, however for some reason I feel slightly guilty about this design. I think because everything is already coloured and cut, I feel like I didn't do enough myself, does that make sense? On the other hand though these are amazing for whipping up a quick card and also if you don't have access to heat embossing, watercolours, die-cutting machine etc.
The stitched-rectangle die is from Pretty Pink Posh. The patterned paper is from American Crafts - Dear Lizzy 'Happy Place' and the sequins from Neat and Tangled.
Right, I need to go and set myself up somewhere quite now so I can work on a garden plan. One of my clients would like some ideas on what to plant in their HUGE garden, so I went to the garden centre the other day to get some ideas. Hopefully they will find something they like from my suggestions and we can fill up some areas instead of letting the weeds take over. Fingers crossed!!
Hi everyone!! Its 9pm Friday night and I've just finished re-watching (probably for the 6th time) Season 2 of Veep, one of my all-time favourite shows. The writers are so clever and the acting incredible. And I've even learned quite a bit about American politics along the way, so there you go, watching tv is educational!! Its been a wonderful relaxing afternoon and now its the weekend with nothing planned....yippee!
I purchased a new stamp set over a week ago and finally had time yesterday to sit down and create with it. It has the cutest birthday sentiment, so I knew I wanted to create something for the Seize the Birthday challenge:
Isn't this bear image amazing??!! Its by a company Rosies Studio from their 'Twig and Twine' collection. It only costs $5 and its not the best quality of clear stamps however over the years they have gotten so much better with their polymer, this set is the best I've ever used. And for $5 its freakin' amazing!!
And yes, that is patterned paper you see on my card. The collection comes with a 6x4 paper pad and the papers are stunning. Lots of florals, wood and natural patterns. I really wanted to push myself and use them both.
I started off by stamping the bear with black ink on some white CS. I coloured him with my pencils and fussy cut him out. Using a Studio Katia 'Stitched Oval' die, I cut the floral paper and adhered straight to the card front. I wanted the bear to have something in his hand so I grabbed some flower dies from Paper Smooches. I die-cut the stalk from a dark green paint chip and cut off the leaves. I wanted to have the flower in similar tones to the paper, so found some light and darker peachy/pink paint chips and die-cut the flowers from them. I held the middle of the flower in place with some washi tape behind it.
To put together I glued the stalk to the paper and put the flower and bear on foam tape. I stamped the sentiment on white CS, adhered to some black CS and cut around around it. This was put on foam tape as well and I added some peach and gold sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I have three other challenges I would like to enter:
Now I have to work out what tv series to watch next. I have about six different shows I'm halfway through watching on Netflix so I better finish one of those. But I also have so many shows saved on my MySky (like TiVo) box that need to be watched or deleted. I've always loved tv and there seems to be a new series coming out every week at the moment, especially on Netflix....and they are all so good. I need to take a week off and just watch tv 7 days straight to catch up but I think I would go nuts without getting my hands dirty or being outside. Maybe if it rained non-stop for 7 days.......
It was my birthday yesterday and it was also pouring with rain. Sounds like a bad mix but I had planned to take the day off and make cards anyway, so with all the rain I didn't feel so guilty being inside!!
I recently made a watermelon card for the CASology challenge and Taheerah left me a msg on Instagram saying 'this would have been perfect for The Gossip Column if I had used a Winnie and Walter product'. Why didn't I think of that?? My brain forgets so many things these days and I'm usually able to combine different challenges, so this bugged me and I was desperate to sit down and make a card for The Gossip Column Challenge - Summer Fruits!!
After going through my Winnie and Walter stash many, many times, I came to realise that I was going to have to 'think outside the square' with regards to a fruit theme and as usual it lead me down the die-cutting path:
I know its not exactly a 'fruit' but I'm hoping with my use of the different colours you can squint your eyes and think your looking at watermelon......what do you think??
I sat down for a while with my big box of paint chips and spent ages going thru all the different shades of pink and green, trying to replicate the variation/layers on a cut piece of watermelon. Once I was happy I grabbed the tag die from 'Essentials: Audrey's Cutaways' and cut one from each paint chip. I adhered the dark green one to the card front at the top and then layered them on top of each other to the bottom.
I wanted to keep the sentiment simple but also with a link (somehow) to it being a fruit, so I stamped the 'hello' from 'The Big, the Bold and Happy' and 'my sweet' from 'The Big, the Bold and Friends' using black Versafine ink and heat embossing with clear powder. I fussy cut around the 'hello' and cut a strip for the rest and put them both on foam tape.
To finish it off I somehow had to incorporate the black seeds, so I tracked down these black beads that are flat on one side, and glued them in place. Ta da!!
I've got four other challenges I would like to enter:
Its been a much nicer day today and managed to get a few hours of gardening in. Max has been home sick unfortunately and will have to miss his basketball game tonight. Every Winter I think is this the year he grows out of constant colds, flu's and croup but not yet it seems. Fingers crossed for 2018!!
Hi everyone!! I'm popping in with a quick reminder about our current challenge at The Flower Challenge.
This month its all about 'background stamping', which could be one big stamp or lots of images stamped on top of or around each other....its completely up to you.
The card I created at the beginning of this challenge had lots of solid stamps layered all over the card front. This time I decided to go with one big stamp and do some colouring:
This is one card that nearly got the better of me but I kept at it and finally was happy with the end result!!
To start with I stamped the floral background stamp on some Strathmore Bristol Smooth CS using black Memento ink. This way I was able to colour in some of the flowers using my Altenew Artist Markers. Once I had finished I fussy cut down each side of the panel around the flowers.
I decided to die-cut the sentiment into the panel and used this large one 'Big Hugs'. Once I had done that I adhered a piece of white CS behind it so I could inlay the pieces again. To add some variety to the layers I also die-cut it from some black CS and some white CS which I coloured with the light pink/peach marker I used to colour the flowers. I inlaid the black layer first, then the peach and then the floral die-cut on top but slightly over to the right so you see a hint of peach underneath.
This is where I had a problem. The sentiment die-cut was so well 'disguised' you couldn't see it at all. So I first decided to use the darker blue marker and colour the top die-cut layer around the flowers. It was very hard to do with it already in place but I finished only to find it looked bloody awful. So I then took a risk and used a black marker (from the same Altenew marker set) and coloured around the flowers. It was incredibly hard to do it cleanly but it worked. It covered up the blue and made the sentiment stand out so much more. Whew!!
My next risk was something I saw Jennifer McGuire do recently. Once the floral panel would be in place there would be white CS showing on each side. It didn't look right so I grabbed the light blue Altenew marker and coloured strips on each side. It looked all blotchy and you could see the lines from the marker so I was freaking out but luckily it dried as one colour. Another whew!!
All I had to do now was add some sequins and I added some Glossy Accents to the die-cut word to give it more shine. Was so glad to be finished!!!
The floral background stamp is from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps 'Full On Floral'. The sentiment die and sequins are from Neat and Tangled.
You have until Friday 25th August to link your projects to The Flower Challenge and if your still needing any ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created for you. Can't wait to see what you made in the Gallery!!
Talk about a fast card!! Well, fast compared to my usual hours it takes to put a card together! It was raining today and Phoebe was finishing school at 1pm so I had 30 mins to whip up a quick card for the current CASology challenge.
When I saw the word 'Safari' for this weeks challenge I knew I just had to join in but I didn't have a chance to come up with any ideas till today. This idea happened super fast, if only my other cards were created this way:
Told you it was simple!! I was thinking about people going on safari and trying to catch a glimpse of a lion or tiger hiding in the bushes.
Firstly I stamped the leaves 3x with Waffle Flower 'Chirp Chirp!' so they were extra green. I then used the matching dies to cut them out. The little lion was stamped on white CS with Versafine black ink, coloured with pencils and fussy cut out. To ground the image I then used my mini-blending tool and Distress Ink 'Mowed Lawn' to create a rough circle of colour in the middle of the card front.
One leaf was adhered straight to the card front, the other leaf was slightly overlapped, leaving no adhesive under some leaves. This left me a spot to tuck in the lion so he was popping out and going 'roar'! All I had to do then was stamp the sentiment and it was finished!!
The green leaves are from Waffle Flower 'Leafy' and the lion and sentiment stamps are from Reverse Confetti 'Leaping Lions'.
I have three other challenges I would like to enter:
Its Butter Chicken for dinner tonight so need to go and make my Roti bread. After the last three days of very hot weather, Winter has suddenly made a return today so some nice hot curry is just what the doctor ordered!!
Such an exciting day!! The 'Girl Fridays' of CAS-ual Fridays Stamps and amazing designers from Cardmaker Magazine are joining together today for a blog hop with a 'Floral' theme!!
You should have arrived here from Nicole's blog Deconstructing Jen who I'm sure wowed you with some gorgeous floral designs!! If you've lost your way on the hop, you'll find the full list of blog's at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps or Cardmaker Magazine. There is a lot of inspiration to be seen and even a few prizes here and there too!!
For my card I really wanted to dedicate a design to my favourite colour blue/teal/aqua (or should I say colours....). I got the idea for this layout while scrubbing the bottom of the shower, at least I came up with something pretty while doing something gross...:
To start with I stamped the flower from Pretty Posies on a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth CS using Memento black ink. I then got comfy in bed and coloured it in using Altenew Artist Markers. The next morning I used the matching Posies Fri-Dies to cut it out and put it to the side.
To create some interest on the card front, I stamped the flower using Waffle Flower 'New Fish in Pond' randomly. I then grabbed the large circle die from Ornament Tag Fri-Dies and cut a circle from white CS. I then used the matching flower die again to cut the middle of it. After adding lots of foam tape to the back of the circle, I adhered it to the card front and then glued the coloured flower inside.
For the sentiment (also from Pretty Posies) I stamped it on a strip of white CS with black Versafine Ink and heat embossed with clear powder. I put the strip on some foam tape and added some clear and aqua sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. For a final bit of 'bling' I covered the coloured flower with lots of Wink of Stella!!
If I've tempted you to buy any of the products I've used today or any others from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps don't forget to use my special code to save yourself 15% on your purchase!!
Next up on the blog hop is the spectacular Diana of The Secret Life of Paper (such a cool blog name!!) who will definitely inspire you with some beautiful floral creations.
Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you enjoy yourself on the hop!
