Thursday 28 July 2011

The Play Date Cafe #92 & The Scrapbooking Studio

Soft and elegant – our colours over at The Play Date Cafe.  I really enjoyed making something a little bit different this week.

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Our suggested colours for this challenge are;

Coral, Petal Pink & Antique Gold

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I didn’t have quite the right petal pink so I used a slightly stronger pink.  I needed to make a gift card for someone from a few of us so decided to pull out my Go-To-Sketches mag that a very dear friend gave to me, thanks Sav!!!  I just LOVE this magazine, as you probably know I’m a bit of a sketch girl.  They just give me the mojo that I’m looking for and trigger lots of ideas for me.  I made the gift card so that we could put a gift token inside attached to the tag and then write the message inside the card.  I hope the rest of the girls like it!

It’s been a funny week this week for me, a bit up and down.  We had a lovely weekend with family visiting and we visited friends too, which was beautiful, but the downside of that is my back pain flares up, so while I’ve been trying my hardest to keep a happy, smiley face I just want to snuggle up under my duvet and only come out for coffee and chocolate lol.  I do find it frustrating sometimes that I can’t do ‘normal’ things, but then I also remember how bad I was at one point when I could hardly walk at all. We were reminiscing the other day, Tinks, Ian and I, about how I used to take so long to cross the road that it was debatable if I would make it to the other side of the road before the traffic lights changed, that’s about 3 minutes to cross the road!!  You have to see the funny side of it really.  Now I do deal with being in pain all the time, but I’m kind of used to it, you do just get on with it.  Every now and again though, like after a busy weekend, I go into flare up and to be honest it sucks!
Anyways, you’re not hear to listen to me moaning (thanks if you got that far though lol), it sometimes nice just offloading.  I don’t tend to share much personal stuff on here, I’m never sure if you would all be interested!

I seem to have loads of things to do right now but don’t know where to start, so I end up not starting at all!  I’ve decided that I need to take action!  I’m a girl on a mission again!  I’m trying to find a great way of organising the tasks that I need to do, but something creative rather than just a plain old diary.  How do you keep organised?  I’d love to know!  When I worked in an office job I was the most organised person, I guess I have a more creative head on now lol

Today we are being sponsored by

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They have a fun prize for you, if you pop on over to the main blog you can see what it is and also check out the fabulous inspiration my teamies have for you.  Be prepared to be impressed!  I love being on this team, the girls are so talented, and all such lovely people too.

We are also welcoming two new designers soon, Denise January and Julie Day, they will start officially with us on 4th August, so watch out for them too!

Supplies:


Stamps: PTI |Signature Series Dressform, Friendship Jars
Papers: Prisma Fairy Flora, Bazzill Cardstock
Dies: Friendship Jars, I've misplaced my PTI Dressform die :o(
Accessories: SU! ribbon, Petaloo Flora Doodles (white flowers)


Wednesday 27 July 2011

Thanks, you’ve been wonderful!

I have a quick card to share with you today for The Shabby Tea Room challenge.

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The challenge was to use the inspiration picture below and include yellow, pink, green and any neutrals.  I have yellow in my bird, pink in the butterflies, green in the foliage and neutrals in the background.  The flowers on the towels look really similar to the flowers on my patterned paper.

Photo inspiration #72

I would actually like to thank all of you that read my blog, those that just read but don’t comment and those that leave me wonderful messages that encourage me to keep creating.  You truly are wonderful!  I aim to pop by to everybody’s blog that comments, but occasionally it’s not possible.  Please know that I appreciate each and every one of you!
I’ll be back tomorrow with a post for the new Play Date Cafe challenge, so watch this space!  Don’t forget if you haven’t played along with us over at the Color Me Creative challenge yet there’s still time.  The colours are SCRUMMY!

Have a great day!

Supplies:
Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps ‘Say It Loud’ & Musical Backgrounds
Papers: Bazzill cardstock & Prima ‘Paradise City Collection’ paper, Island Party
Accessories: Martha Stewart ‘Monarch Butterfly’ and SU! stripey grosgrain ribbon, pearls from stash

Sunday 24 July 2011

Color Me Creative–Aqua, red & white

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today it’s time for the latest Color Me Creative challenge.  This challenge is all about using the colours, aqua, red and white (or cream).  We are being sponsored by The Paper Shelter who very kindly gave each of the DT a digi image of their choice so I chose this scrumptious looking cupcake!  Oh to have one of these right now, mmmmm!

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Now this card looks like I’ve done very little work with the colouring, but I have..honest!  Where you can see white on the cupcake I’ve used BG10 around all of the outlines so in real life there is a pop of colour.  I’ve outlined the entire image in C1 to give it some definition.  On the little red sprinkles I’ve added some sparkle using a red spica pen, and again with a clear spica pen on the candle.  

I never forget when Suzanne issued us our ‘white’ colour challenge a while back and I panicked thinking how on earth will I manage that?!  Now, it’s just so simple.  Her course makes you pick up those pens and actually start to use them properly.  I used to be scared to even try feathering, now it’s become one of my favourite techniques. I’m on class 2 now, although I haven’t done much yet, but that’s the beauty of the classes, you have access to them for a year, so you can go at your own pace.  If you need more than that you can get an extension too, I’m hoping I won’t need that though!  Having looked through the class 2 content I’m really looking forward to all of the new things that I’m going to learn.  It’s great that you can come along on the journey with me too.

Well, it’s time for me to stop talking now and get you to visit all of the other DT girls to see how they can inspire you with these gorgeous colours..Happy looking!

Charlene Randall
Brook Guinn
Anary Baumgarth
Melanie LaBelle
Marie Gamber
Ruby McGuire (that’s me!)
Pat St. Martin
Jenn Cochran
Michele Spera
Sandie Dunne

I'm going to link my card up to Paper Issues.  If you haven’t played along yet then you really should join in, it’s simple, you just link up one of your creations, this challenge is ‘Life is Sweet’ so my little cupcake should fit in a treat.  The challenge is running until 30th July so you still have time to play along.  Here’s a few more that I’ve linked up from old blog posts…

CPS211PDCC 66LFSCP7EIC 126

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges; Paper Cutz and Craft Us Crazy - both 'anything goes'.

So to win a prize make up a fab card using our challenge colours and you could win


A Prize from The Paper Shelter
$15 Gift Certificate to spend in their online store!!

Supplies:

Stamps: The Paper Shelter digi stamp, ‘Inked Birthday Cupcake’ 
Papers: 
My Mind’s Eye ‘Life of the Party’, Echo Park ‘A Walk in the Park’
Accessories: Fiskars Threading Water, white ribbon from stash
Copics:

CMC 711-2CP

Thursday 21 July 2011

Play Date Cafe #91 & The Twinery

Hello there!

Sometimes there are just some really lovely people in the world.  My card this week is for one of them!  This friend of mine is always happy, a pleasure to work with and so very helpful and kind.

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Last week she made me some wheat free chocolate orange chip cookies (yes Sarah, I mean you!), so unexpected but a delicious surprise (SO my kind of friend!)

I may/may not have shared with you that I find negative people really difficult to be around.  I like to see the positive side of life and actually feel physically drained if people are really negative around me.  That’s what I love about Sarah, she’s full of life and full of fun!  You truly are one of a kind Sarah, I’m so pleased to have met you and to be able to call you my friend! (On a side note she has a great place in Cornwall that you can rent if you are ever down that way, so let me know if you need a break lol)

This week we say goodbye to our lovely Fiona :o(  She is such an inspiration and I will really miss her.  I love seeing what her latest creation will be.  This was one of my favourite pieces of hers, she'd based it on something she'd seen over at the Etsy Inspired Challenge when I was on their DT.  Do pop over to her blog and leave her some love, I'm sure she would love you to visit.


 I had seen it in the Etsy shop and I thought ooh to be able to make one of those would be fab, and then .. she did!!!  I'm so in awe!  Look after yourself Fee, keep in touch and I promise I will surprise you one day and make that crochet flower ;o)

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So.. my card.. well this week over at The Play Date Cafe it’s ‘Color Splash’ week and you get to pick your own colour splash!  Isn’t this picture fun?!  I have to say I always find our Colour Splash Challenges a .. challenge!  I like my colour SOOOO much it pushes me into a corner when I’m only allowed to use a ‘pop’ of colour!!  Anyway, I’ve been wanting to play around with this Lawn Fawn set for a few weeks, and thought that seeing as Sarah had made me ‘orange’ cookies I should use orange as my colour splash!

Here’s the how to..
  1. Stamp funky leafy image several times to create the background.  I used Versafine (my new favourite black ink - it's SO black!)
  2. Cut rectangular panel in white cardstock, and a larger one in orange
  3. Stamp sentiment on the white panel and mat onto the orange panel using pop dots
  4. Round the top corners on both panels
  5. Wrap some black saddlestitch ribbon around the lower edge of the panel, attaching with scortape
  6. Wrap orange baker’s twine around the panel.  Tie on an additional triple bow
  7. Add prima flower to the centre of the bow
  8. Attach the completed panel to the base card to finish
  9. Stand back, look at the card and think to yourself, uh oh that might be just a tad more than a ‘pop’ of colour, oh well!
Our sponsors this week are The Twinery.  I really love their twine, it's so soft and it comes in lots of gorgeous colours, especially this orange-y one (or Mandarin as it's officially known!)  The green one is another of my favourites.

Our colour splash challenges are normally really popular so keep creating to give yourself more chances to win!

For more information on the prize and to see what pops of colour the other girls have chosen visit our main blog here.

If you use an online gallery, please use the keyword PDCC91, and remember to stick to black and white as your main colours with just a splash of colour to be eligible to win this week's prize!

I will be back with some more Summer Card Camp fun tomorrow.  I’m gonna miss that course!

Ciao for now!

Supplies:

Stamps: Lawn Fawn 'Blissful Botanicals', PTI 'Signature Greetings'
Papers: Bazzill Cardstock
Accessories: The Twinery baker’s twine, Prima rose, black ribbon from stash


Thursday 14 July 2011

Summer Card Camp Week 3

Hello!

If you're looking for my Play Date Cafe card please click here.

Have you been joining in on all the fun over at the Summer Card Camp?  I hope they run another one soon, it’s been great fun.  For those of you that haven’t seen it, basically it’s Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire running card making lessons, techniques and videos, along with some colour inspiration for four weeks. 

I thought I would try my hand at different styles in the same colours…

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This week’s colours are monochromatic with the addition of red and white.
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For my first card (above) , I used one of Kristina's sets with Lawn Fawn’s Critters on the Farm set, plus some brown thickers for the sentiment, a MS punch, strip of chocolate cardstock and some MME Stella & Rose patterned paper all adhered to the kraft card base.  I used Copics to colour in the cow and if you look closely you will see I gave her eyelashes!  I just LoVe it when you can add a bit more whimsy yourself!!


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For my second card I used Hero Arts Flower Swirl Vine stamp.  I wanted to create an older style so I simply stamped it in Ranger Distress Ink Vintage Photo and mixing the distress ink with a bit of water I coloured the outer edges of some of the larger flowers.  I added some Ranger Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap to age it up a bit and I then added pearls to random centres, matted it onto red cardstock and then mounted that onto brown cardstock which I attached to the base.  I stamped the sentiment and then tied around a piece of twine before attaching the panel to the card base with pop dots.  To finish I spritzed the whole card with water to try and give it a bit more ageing.  I think if I was doing it again I would stamp the sentiment after spritzing so that it looks more crisp rather than a spider crawling across the page look that I have!

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Finally a very quick and simple card using Tonic butterflies that I got from over at The Stamp Attic, a sentiment from Waltzingmouse Fancy Phrases, some Copics and some little silver pearls.  I simply coloured some punched butterflies with my Copics, alternating the colours so that I could layer them as shown.  I think they’re quite effective and SUCH a quick card to make too!  No more stressing if you run out of time to make a card, this is a definite quick go to card design!

That’s it from me for today.  If you’re doing Summer Camp let me know, I’d love to pop by and see how you’ve interpreted the colours this week!

Play Date Cafe #90 & Our Craft Lounge

Hello!

Wanna join in some colourful fun with us over at the Play Date Cafe this week?!  We have a great DT, great sponsors and great colours, what more could you want?!!  I’m really excited to share my card with you today because I got sent the ka-utest of stamp sets by our sponsor, Our Craft Lounge.  I know that a lot of thought went into the choosing of sets for our DT girls and I was over the moon when my happy mail arrived, so thank you Our Craft Lounge!!

PDCC 90

We have some gorgeous rich colours for you this week.  Jax describes them as eggplant, fuschia and orangesicle. 

Here is the colour story…
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Aren’t they gorgeous!!  Our Jax is also over the moon to have made it into the Gallery Idol top 20!  How clever is she, you just have to go and check out her first round entry here, she is SO creative.  Well done Jax, you totally deserve it!

So what are you waiting for, get those fab colours out of your stash and get playing.  I wonder what you will create based on this week’s colours, can’t wait to see!

Big thanks to Our Craft Lounge for sponsoring us and the prize winner too.  For more information on the prize and to see what the other girls have come up with for this week’s colours pop on over to the main blog here.

Our Guest Designer this week is Kendra Wietstock so pop by and see what beauty she’s created for you! If you use an online gallery, please use the keyword PDCC90, and remember to use our inspirational colours to be eligible to win this week's prizes!

Supplies:

Papers: Polka dot paper from stash (sorry, not sure who!), Bazzill cardstock
Dies: Nestabilities circle and scallop
Accessories: The Twinery baker’s twine
Copics: As shown below
PDCC 90 (2)

Monday 11 July 2011

Quick Mini Butterfly Card

Hi everyone

I hope you've had a great weekend!

I have a couple of quick cards to share with you that I made using my gorgeous Prickley Pear butterfly set.  It’s very similar to the ones I posted recently, but I wanted to switch it up a bit by using a funky patterned butterfly and some mix and match patterned papers.



I also made this one using some of the Summer Camp Colours for week two, but with a slight variation.  I just LOVE these happy colours, they make me smile, very 'Ruby' colours!!


For more information please pop over to The Stamp Attic.

Have a great day!


Saturday 9 July 2011

Color Me Creative – Favourite Colouring Technique

Yay, it’s the weekend, I LOVE the weekends, time for a bit of laziness and some serious cardmaking too!

We have a new challenge over at Color Me Creative, to use your fave colouring technique.  Now being a newbie I don’t actually have that many under my belt yet, but I really like blending and feathering.

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I started my flower with the intention of using the feathering technique, but as I worked from the dark colour one side into the centre, and then from light into the centre on the opposite side I started to really like the accent that the white space created and decided to leave it.  I  guess I’ve just really blended! Below is a close up of the flower.. ok so it’s not technically correct but I really like the effect of it.  What do you think?

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Do you like that stunning flower image?  It’s by Tiffany Doodles, our sponsor for this challenge, her digi images are just fabulous.  I used to be on Tiffany’s design team so it was really lovely to get the opportunity to play with some of her digis again.  I’ve missed her!





Original Digital Stamps



As soon as I was asked to choose an image and saw this one in her shop my face lit up, isn’t it just gorgeous!  What’s fun about digi images is that you can resize them too.  This particular digi stamp also comes with a Nestie compatible border, see image below, which I would have used if I hadn’t wanted to try out this technique from Jennifer McGuire where you create a little window using acetate.  I haven’t tried this technique before, but it’s so lovely seeing the reflection of the little pearls on the inside of the card inside, I love it.

succulent-2

For my card I used Week Two’s colours from the Summer Card Camp series which I’m thoroughly enjoying.  We are already half way through the camp,  it’s fun having something in your inbox each day to inspire and motivate you into action!

week2-colors

Now these are my kinda colours!  YUM-EE!!! 

So pop on over to each of the DT to see what they’ve chosen as their fave technique, there’s LOADS of loveliness to see!

Charlene Randall
Brook Guinn
Anary Baumgarth
Melanie LaBelle
Marie Gamber
Ruby McGuire (that’s me!)
Pat St. Martin
Jenn Cochran
Michele Spera
Sandie Dunne

Supplies:

Stamps: Tiffany Doodles ‘Succulent’ digi image, Lawn Fawn ‘Blissful Botanicals’, PTI ‘Damask Designs’ 
Papers: Bazzill Cardstock, Cryogen
Accessories: Prima ePearls, Signo Uni-Ball White Pen
Copics:
CMC 711-1CP


Thursday 7 July 2011

PDCC 89 & The Craft’s Meow

It’s Thursday, which means time for another great week of colour inspiration from The Play Date Cafe!

You are the fairest of them all!  Yes, you!  Go take a look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how gorgeous you are lol

Now that you know you’re gorgeous come and check out one of these fabby stamp sets from The Craft’s Meow!  The design team were really fortunate to be sent some free stamps from them and I got one that I can colour, which as you know is my new favourite thing! 
This week’s challenge colours are pastels, a real challenge for me personally with my bright colour preferences, so I had to work a bit harder with it, but it gave me the chance to use some of my pastel Copics.

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This is the colour palette that we got to work with.  Now I know you’re all going to ooh and aah over it because it truly is very pretty, but for some reason I just struggle with pale colours.  I wonder if personality is linked to colour, if so I must be really loud!!

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Jax describes these colours as mint, buttercream and taupe.  This card is pretty self explanatory so I won’t go into much detail other than to say I did my first bit of ground work.  I used three different shades of tonal colours, T1, T3 and T5 and then used my blender to remove some of the colour.  I’m due to do a lesson on this at some point soon so it will be interesting to see what definition can actually be added.  Her socks look a bit yellow in this picture but they are actually more of a vanilla colour in real life, you will just have to take my word for it Smile
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Big thanks to The Craft’s Meow for sponsoring us and the prize winner too.  For more information on the prize and to see what the other girls have come up with for this week’s colours pop on over to the main blog here.

Our Guest Designer this week is Nicky Hsu so don't forget to check out her lovely creation too! If you use an online gallery, please use the keyword PDCC89, and remember to use our inspirational colours to be eligible to win this week's prizes!

Supplies:

Papers: MME Stella & Rose 'Mabel', Bazzill cardstock 
Dies: Nesties
Accessories: Buttons from stash, twine, white Signo pen
Copics: As shown below





Sunday 3 July 2011

Summer Card Camp Week One & Lots of Catching Up!

Hello there everyone!

This is a long post so feel free to just look at the pictures lol.

I’m back today to share a few things with you, firstly a card that I’ve made for the Summer Card Camp being run by Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner.  It is so much fun!  The camp started on Monday and we were set a colour challenge, see pic below.  This card is for week one’s colour combo..

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week1-colors

Using my Copic markers I coloured in some butterflies using the feathering technique where you blend two different colours together.  Kristina taught a technique for using 6 x 6 paper across a wide card so I thought as I had the same papers I would give it a go.  Such an easy technique and as she said it was one of those why didn’t I think of that moments!
I got to play with goodies from The Stamp Attic. The butterfly die and matching stamps from Prickley Pear are just GORGEOUS!  This is my set

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There is also the set below that matches the die too, which is on my wish list.  I also LOVE this birdcage set.  YUMMY!

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I have another card to share with you that got published in Through the Craftroom Door Magazine recently.  I thought I’d posted it but now realise I hadn’t.  Quite a simple card, I used Madeline Prima papers, oval nesties, a Pure Innocence digi and then some luscious pink ribbon to finish it all off.

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The lovely Marie who’s on the DT with me over at Color Me Creative gave me this ‘sweet’ blog award!  Thank you Marie, that’s really sweet of you to think of me.

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There are three things that you are supposed to do to accept this "Sweet" award.
  • Thank the person who nominated you for this wonderful award and make a link to their blog…. check
  • Name 7 random things about yourself …. see below… check
  • Pass this award on to 8 wonderful cyber friends … hmmm a toughie!
I really have no idea who to pass this onto.  I have made so many wonderful blogging friends, but I would love to pass it to everyone that follows my blog.  It is such a treat seeing new people adding themselves as followers or to see that more people have subscribed to my feeds, it truly makes my day!  If it wasn’t that people read my blog I probably would have given up ages ago, so THANK YOU!!

Ok, so the promised 7 random things…

I hate the way I speak, I think I sound really common but others tell me I don’t

I dislike tins/packages being put in my cupboards the wrong way round.  They have labels on for a reason, so the labels should be showing lol

I am besotted with my little dog, Lulu, and take her with me wherever possible, I like teaching her new tricks when I can. She is very clever but cheeky with it, she still thinks she’s a puppy despite being three in September so we’re often chasing her around the house where she thinks it’s funny to run off with socks and slippers!

I love to visit cities. So far I’ve been to Dublin, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, and obviously living in the UK .. London, but I would love to visit more

I love 6 x 6 mini pads.  Wendy over at The Stamp Attic calls me the paper pad queen!

I love scented candles, there is nothing nicer than having an aroma of perfume in your home

I love making up fun words, like muchly, yumdiness, hambalambas (ham), lulloo (love you), that kind of thing.  Sad, but true!

Oh, one more thing before I go

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Do you like reading?  Suzanne over at Color Me Creative is setting up a reading group soon,where reading and crafting come together!  She will be sharing all of the details soon, watch this space!

If you’ve signed up for Summer Card Camp I hope to see you over there.  I’m looking forward to seeing what this next week brings.  My favourite day so far was when Kristina taught us some graphic design principles… fascinating!!!!

 
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