Play Date Cafe

Hi there.  Today’s little card for the latest Play Date Cafe Challenge was a real challenge but in the end I think/hope I got there.  You will have to let me know what you think.
Combining set colours and set goodies can be really tough at times but I’m a girl that likes to rise to a challenge so here’s what I came up with.

I received this gorgeous little cat (Halloween Kitty) from gel-a-Tins, (thank you gel-a-Tins!) our sponsor for this week and knew straight away that it was going to be really good fun to colour.  I then checked our gallery for the weekly colours and we have this beautiful bird and some lovely colours, but how to combine??


This cat stamped beautifully and it’s a lovely image to colour. I used the two pink shades for my cat, the teal for the hat and I needed a touch of green for some grass.  With a little bit of thinking outside of the box I managed to get it sorted.  Anyway, I have to keep reminding myself we are a challenge blog, and that’s how creativity often happens, don’t ya think?  It’s good to push ourselves to create outside of our normal boundaries and see where it takes us.  What was great too was that I have hardly ever used those Copic colours so finally they got a dust off!

I really hope you join in too, it will be fun to see what you come up with.  Don’t forget to check out the main PDCC blog for the DT creations and also for all the details of the prizes up for grabs.

Thanks for popping by!

Daislies

Hi there.  Today’s card for Make The Day Special was a result of a colouring session that I had. I was colouring while watching a film and just couldn’t stop once I started!  The set I used is called Daisies and Paisleys but for some reason I always end up calling it Daislies, hence the title!


I used this sketch from Unscripted Sketches as a starting point but as I got creating I kind of forgot about the squares and got a bit carried away!

For all the details pop on over to the MTDS blog.

Have a great Tuesday!

Play Date Cafe Colour Splash

Today is colour splash day over at The Play Date Cafe and the splash is lime green.  Our colour splashes are always really popular.  I hope you join in the fun.

I created this little card using stickers from our sponsors..



We are being sponsored by SRM Stickers, they sent a fabulous little package over for me to play with and this is what I created.  Thank you SRM!

The little cupcake sticker actually has a lovely red cherry on it but because this challenge is all about just a pop of colour I used a little black gem to cover it up.  I have to be honest I'm not normally a sticker fan but these have totally changed my mind, you can't see the edges of the stickers at all and they are all such fun designs.  I'm a convert!

Pop on over to the main PDCC blog for details of the prize up for grabs and the DT inspiration line up.

Have a look at SRM too to see what I mean about the fun designs, they really are lovely and so quick to use when you need a card in a rush!

Thanks for popping by!

Pucker Up over at MTDS

It’s time to pucker up over at MTDS!


Pop on over to the MTDS blog for more deets.

Have fun!

Colouring Blacks…eeek!

Hi there, today’s new challenge over at Color Me Creative is to colour your image using blacks or dark greys.

We are being sponsored by the lovely Milk & Coffee.

My little image is called ‘Cutie Button Girl’.  She looks so cute with her little bunny, doesn’t she!  Thank you Milk & Coffee for such a cute image!

I chose to colour a few elements of the image in black, as you can see.  I always thought the blacks would be harder to do.  You just use a range of greys, not black itself and that way you can get the appearance of black and also achieve some dimension.  If you just use black it looks very flat.  (I sound like I know what I’m talking about, don’t I?!  It’s all what I learnt on Suzanne’s fab Copic classes.. she is the best at breaking it all down and making it a lot easier than you think).  If you didn’t see my post the other day about her new hair colouring class click here for the details.

I paper pieced her umbrella and then added some glossy accents to give the appearance of rain drops.  I also added glossy accents to her little buttons but sadly neither are showing up on my photo.  I left the card blank so that I can put a message in at a later date. Her little pink coat looks red on here, but it is a perfect match for the pink on the patterned paper, weird how it shows differently here, grrrr.

I used the following colours…


For the pink I used RV19 and RV17 with the blender, using the tip-2-tip technique.  the R29 was just used for the little bunny’s tongue! I was trying to be all artsy with my background by using my Orla Kiely book but I couldn’t get the right angle lol.  Hope you can make out the numbers, let me know if you need any more info.

Don’t forget to visit the rest of the CMC team to see what they’ve cooked up for you, lots of different ideas to get your creative juices flowing and you’ll also find all of the challenge info there too.

I’m entering my card into the following challenges..

4 Crafty Chicks – Circles, circles and more circles
In the Pink – Use pink
Paper Pretties – Square cards

Have fun!

Caught a Bug?

Hi there, as I write this it is pouring rain and looks like an Autumnal day, not Summer!  Hopefully this card will brighten my friend’s day…


Now this card was going to be a get well card.  As soon as my friend saw it she wanted it but she’s not sick lol.  However, at the early part of this week she was telling me how she keeps having to catch spiders that are taking up residence in her new home so I thought this would be a perfect card to send her and make her smile!! Now I much prefer the idea of being able to send her a card for that than having to wait for her to get poorly!!

The colours are from our Play Date Cafe colour palette for this week.

At first I thought uh-oh that’s going to be tricky but then when I started rummaging for papers I found this sheet from Bo Bunny and eventually a design came together.  The blocks in the top left corner inspired the square trio design and I added a pop of black to give it a bit of a lift.  The added pearl was my friend’s idea!

I really LOVED making this card, the image and word were so fun to colour in with my Copics and the whole card just makes me smile.  I want to make loads now in different colours, I can feel a little gift set coming on!

The stamps used are by Paper Smooches, Word Up and Healthy Vibes.  The little die cut frames are by PTI.

Our sponsors this week are Momenta.  For details of the prize and some fabulous projects to inspire you to create with our beautiful colour story pop on over to the main PDCC blog.

Hope you get some time to create today!

Hi there!  No project from me today, just a quick note to let you know about a fantastic new online class that Suzanne Dean (Copic Colouring Queen!) is debuting on August 31st at CMC.  It's called All About Hair so if you ever wanted to know about hair colouring this is the place to go.

The class is $45 for pre-registration right now, it focuses 110% on all hair types, styles and colors.

There are a few spaces left on the CT class in Stafford Springs the weekend of the 22nd.  It's not far from Boston area or NYC area AND she will be teaching the All About Hair Class in person there as well.

Sweet Sunday Sketch

Hey there, today’s card is my attempt at CAS style.  It was soooo hard not to add more to it and to keep to the whole ‘clean and simple’ idea.  What do you reckon? Did I pull it off?! 


I was inspired by this Sweet Sunday Sketch that I inverted and used a bit (ok a lot) of artistic licence with! …

The little clock is from Paper Smooches Perpetual Bliss, isn’t it cute!  Pop on over to the Make The Day Special to see some fun designs from our DT girls and if you want to pick up the Paper Smooches stamp set then visit the MTDS Shop.

That’s it from me today, short and sweet.

Have fun!

Splatter Fun

Hi, it’s time for some more fun over at The Play Date Cafe this week and we have some luscious colours for you to play with.

I needed a batch of really quick cards and had recently bought some shimmer misting sprays so thought I would have a play at splattering.  It’s messy but a whole lotta fun!

Here’s my very quick CAS card…


My card is a mini card that I splatted with orange and pink mister sprays.  The sentiment is PTI Communique Curves which I’m sure by now you know is one of my favourites!  The butterfly is from PTI (Beautiful Butterflies) too and the ribbon is just from my stash.  The little flower was white and I coloured it in with my Copics to match my ribbon.  It was really fun to play around with these and very quick too when you need something quick to send.

Look at these… aren’t they luverly!

Suggested colours are Pink Carnation, Orange Sherbet & Lemonade… mmmm

This week we are being sponsored by the fabulous Simon Says Stamp and we also have some good news in that Jen Cuthbertson is joining our team so a big welcome to you Jen!  For more information on the challenge deets pop on over to the main PDCC blog and see the delicious projects there from the team.  They are fab!!

I forgot to mention last week.. do you like my new PDCC watermark?  Our very own Jaclyn Miller created them for us, aren’t they fun!

Have a great week.  We are supposed to be getting some sunshine here, so fingers crossed!

Some Gradient Fun

As I write this post I am falling asleep over my computer keyboard so you will have to forgive me that it’s shorter than my usual posts.  It’s time for another fun challenge over at Color Me Creative, this time it’s all about backgrounds so check out the main  CMC Copic Challenge Group for all of the fun details.

I have to be honest I struggled with this one, I’m not great with Copic backgrounds, that must be a video I haven’t seen yet!  I came up with a technique that I’d seen over on Nichole Heady’s blog where you use your pens to create a gradient of colour by blending each ‘striped’ section with the next.  I used this technique on the circle behind my little cupcake, hope you can make it out.  I will definitely try it again another time, it would be fun to do in different colours, especially rainbow colours.


Here’s what Nicole did with hers …

My gorgeous little cupcake image is from Squigglefly, our sponsors this week.  This image is called Cherry Cupcake Cutie!  I love her little smiley face (because obviously she's a girl with all that pink around her lol)!  Thank you Squigglefly, I had fun colouring her in and I'm sure she will be used again and again!

For my card I used the following colours;

Cake case: BG15, BG13, BG11
Cupcake: E31, E33, E34
Cherry: R59, R37 and used tip to tip method to blend the two colours
Background: RV29, RV25, RV23

I hope you give this technique a try, it’s really fun to do!

Check out the rest of the DT girls’ projects, they pulled this challenge off a whole lot better than I did!
I’m entering this card into the following challenges..

Crafty Cats Weekly Challenge – to use pink
Inspire Me Fridays – anything goes
Pause Dream Enjoy – Cupcakes or baby

I hope you join along with us for our fun challenge.

Have fun!

Grab a Cuppa..

* Edited to update link*

It’s time for our new challenge over at The Play Date Cafe.  I’m not sure if you’ve heard the news but we have a whole new group of girls joining us.  Check them all out over on the main PDCC blog, you will not be disappointed!!

My project today is a little mini card.  I just LOVE these colours, thanks Jax.  The images sparked off lots of ideas too, love it when that happens.  I might just have to create a Rolodex card for this week’s colours too!  I can see a trend starting here!


You can’t tell from the photo but the cup is actually really glossy, I used Glossy Accents to give it a bit more interest so it’s nice and shiny in real life.

I created this card using all borrowed papers from my friend, in fact I think it was from a Christmas pad.  I had been over at her house, brought lots of pads with me but still didn’t have what I needed so she bailed me out.

I found this little PTI frame set that I hadn’t used (shame on me!) so thought I’d better put it to good use.  I teamed it up with my Paper Smooches Hot Concoctions stamp set. You can never have too many thank you cards, can you?!

Our sponsors are StopandScrap.com and they are offering up a $20 shopping spree!  For full details visit our main PDCC blog.

Enjoy checking out the yumminess this week from all of the team, you’re in for a treat!

Here’s the full list of us…

The Play Date Cafe Design Team

• Alicia Thelin
• Amy Tsuruta
• Angi Barr
• Anya Schrier
• Donna Bowman
• Jaclyn Miller
• Jocelyn Olson
• Julie Ranae ~ Boss Lady!
• Lynn Adams
• Stacy Rodriguez
• Veronica Zalis

Have fun.