Going Floral

Hi there.  If you’re in the UK and it’s half term I hope you’re having a fun week!

Here is a card that I created for my Make The Day Special blog post.


I was inspired by this featured card by Therese Calvird over at Muse ..


Pop on over to the MTDS Blog see what Copics/stamps I used.

Have a great week!

Perky Plants

Happy Spring!  I hope you had a delicious Easter and got spoilt by the Easter Bunny with lots of chocolates!

I’m sharing this little card over at Make The Day Special today.

Pop on over there to see what Copics and stamps I used.

For my card I used the following sketch from Retro Sketches…



I seem to have lost my mojo so if you find it could you send it back to me please.

Have a great week!

One Cool Chick

Yay, it’s Tuesday.  I love my MTDS Tuesdays!  I’ve been really busy working on my website for my coaching business that I haven’t had a whole lot of time to play. It’s nice to squeeze in some creative time.

What’s your weather like?  I hope that if you’re having snow you’re keeping safe and warm. We’ve apparently got more coming tonight so who knows I may get stranded and have to do some crochet!  Did I tell you I’ve been learning to crochet?  It’s been on my to-learn list for-ever. So far I can do a flower and a granny square!  I might share with you when I’m brave enough!

So onto my card.. Today’s card is for a lovely lady I haven’t known very long. She is such a generous, kind, knowledgeable and fun person. I feel really privileged to have met her. She has been giving me lots of her time recently so I wanted to make her a little thank you card. I thought this proud peacock was up to the job!


For details of what I used to create it then pop on over to the MTDS Blog for more info.
I used this latest sketch from Retro Sketches.  It’s lovely, isn’t it!



As you can see I rotated the sketch and moved my sentiment around a tad so that he could show off his feathers proudly! Hope you like.  He makes me smile!

Have fun, stay safe and cozy!

Needs more added?

Hi there, it’s that time again when I share a card over at MTDS.   I needed a few simple thank you cards. I’ve always liked stamps that have a mixture of words based on the same theme.


My hubby took one look at it and said, ‘It doesn’t look like it’s finished’. He then tried to redeem himself by adding, ‘Well it doesn’t, you normally do that layering thing with your pop dots’. I have been trying my hand lately at CAS, it seems to be what I am more inspired to do. Oh well, it’s at least another one of my thank you cards made lol.

Pop on over to the main Make The Day Special blog for more details of the lovely stamp set I used.

I'm entering this into the Retro Sketches challenge with this sketch.  I kind of used my artistic licence a bit as you can see lol.  I LOVE Retro Sketches and their DT cards are consistently fab :o)

 

I'm also entering this into the Our Creative Corner colour challenge.  I saw one of the DT had used peach so hope this counts :o)

Hope you’re having a fab week! 

Glad I Mitt You

Hi there, happy Thursday!  I am back today with another Play Date Cafe challenge card and this week we have a luscious colour palette for you.



We are being sponsored by The Alley Way Stamps this week and I got this gorgeous little kitchen set called Kitchen Gadgets 2 to play with.  Huge thanks to the Alley Way Stamps, I LOVE this set!

I wanted to make a little thank you card for someone and thought this would be perfect.  I stamped the background on the white label using one of the tiny stamps in the set (the stamp just under the heart) and then stamped the oven mitt over the top of it before paper piecing it and adding some glossy accents to finish. 


The DT girls have created some wonderful projects for you so pop on over to the main PDCC blog to get lots of yummy inspiration and see the prize up for grabs.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with for these colours.  Put down what you’re doing and get creating, these colours are fab to work with!

Have a great week!

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!

Stamp Attic

Hi there

I recently ran a workshop over at the Stamp Attic where we were making card shapes with Nesties and looking at different ways of layering them.

This is one of the simple cards we made..


For all of the details please visit The Stamp Attic.  I’ve got more cards to share with you and I’m hoping to run another workshop over there soon, so watch this space.

I'll be back tomorrow with a card for Etsy Inspired Challenge.

Flower Power!

Hooray it's the weekend!  I hope you've got a good one planned.  We are having a lazy one,  catching up with people but overall just relaxing, what weekends are all about.  I'm hoping to get some more practice in with my Copics and some time in my studio too if I can.

What do I have for you today?  Well, Wendy over at The Stamp Attic very kindly let me loose play with lots of Hero Arts goodies.  How lucky am I?!  You all know how much I love my flowers!

I ran a workshop there a few weeks ago and thought I would share one of the cards that we made.  This is a mini card, 11.5cm x 9cm.  Using Bazzill cardstock we cut a chocolate card base and attached it to the base card.  I rounded mine here, but in the workshop we left it just cut as a rectangle. 


We used Ranger Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo) and Versamark with Stampendous Detail Embossing Powder (White) and Hero Arts Layered Flowers stamps using a watercolour effect to create the background.

I really love creating background papers, it’s so rewarding.  The little leaf makes a fantastic fill in too where it’s solid and small enough to squeeze into gaps. When I first bought distress inks I only used them for distressing and ageing edges, I hadn’t realised all of the different things you could do with them, they are SO versatile.  I will be sharing another card with you soon using them as watercolour paints, fun!

We heat embossed the flower on different coloured Bazzill to create a layered flower, using pop dots for dimension and adding a little ePearl in the flower to finish.  Before attaching the main panel we tied on a bit of chocolate twine.

Finally a stamped sentiment using the Hero Arts Find Joy set finished everything off.  I love the simplicity of just stamping a sentiment onto a piece of white card,  sometimes it just doesn’t have to be fancy, does it?!  This sentiment set is fab with all of the go to sentiments and this ‘Thank You’ is one I know I will use over and over again!   

I am running another workshop there on Monday 13th June, it would be great to see you there!

I’m back tomorrow with another Etsy Inspired challenge.

More pink!

Hi again!

My Florence Nightingale duties continue, but I am still managing to make a few cards in between my nursing ;o) My man is now on the mend, home safe and sound, which is the main thing. He just needs to behave, and know that it's ok just to rest! Mind you, I think he has lost the plot actually.  I was typing at my desk earlier and I saw a fairly small (but too big for me to get rid of) spider run up the wall.  I asked if he would remove it for me, and because he couldn't see it he said, 'Are you sure it was a spider?'  Hmmm, now let me think... it was black with lots of legs, it moved.  Umm, yes it was a spider lol.  Funny! 

I've had a bit of time to look at some of the tutorials I'd saved for reading. I've learnt how to make spiral flowers thanks to Rae Barthel's tutorial, ruffled ribbon thanks to Ashley Cannon Newell's tutorial, layered and looped ribbon thanks to Nichole Heady, and many other little bits and bobs. I've had a few of those, 'why didn't I think of that, it's so obvious' moments, which have been quite funny!  I've yet to make a card using Nichole's ribbon technique, but I will :o) Thanks so much for the inspiration ladies!

Ok, so what do you think of this card?  It's not my normal style, but I was asked to make a pink card, with butterflies and bling, very girly and I guess romantic because it was from a partner to his girlfriend.  I can't make my mind up if I like it or not.  Ian and Tink think it's lovely, so does my Mum, but do they count?  They all think I'm amazing (well, why wouldn't they?!! ;o) ) so I'm not sure.  Would love to hear what you think about it!  I've shown you the inside of the card too.  I don't normally do much with the inside, and in actual fact at the beginning of the year I did say I would start doing something, so I just kept it quite plain and simple.  Another thing off my to do list!  I am in LOVE with those yummy spiral flowers though!  They are fun to make and pretty too!

I also made this card for the Clean and Simple FTL #89 sketch this week, where I played with Ashley's ruffled ribbon technique, that was great fun to do too, quite therapeutic actually! 

Have a fun evening!

ps - just in case you were wondering - he did find the spider, and very nicely removed it for me!

Happy Sunday!!

Hi everyone

How has your day been?  We have had a bit of a crafting day today, some of which I will share with you as the week goes on.  Today though I thought I would enter the CPS Challenge.  I often look at the sketches with the intention of playing along, but it never quite happens somehow.  The weeks seem to fly by.  I wanted to get out more of my Cosmo Cricket papers and fancied a bit of cheery red and green, but not in a Christmas kind of way!

This is the sketch.  I think this is a sketch that I will come back to again and again.  For some reason it seems to spark off loads of different ideas for me.  Don't you just love it when that happens?!

As you will see I have played around with it a bit, but hopefully you can see how the sketch has influenced the design of the card!

My cousin took the photo of this card for me, but I'm sure you can tell that as it's of a much higher quality picture than I would ever take!  I keep wondering whether to take a course in photography to learn how to do it better, but to be honest it doesn't interest me enough because I simply want to learn how to take better pictures of my cards and nothing else really.  Does that make sense??

I just LOVE these papers, they are so cheerful.  What is it about fruit that works so well with card making?  I love some of the fruity stamp sets you can get at the moment, and recently ordered some from Sarah-Jane over at Cards and a Cuppa.  They came through so quickly, it was great!  If I tell you that I've got them then I might actually get around to making something with them to show you lol.  There is method in my madness!

Anyway, I'd love to know what you think of the card.

Supplies used;

Cosmo Cricket - Early Bird papers 
Red Bazzill cardstock
Prima flower
Polka dot ribbon from stash
Martha Stewart Arch Lattice Edge border punch

 Happy crafting!!

Ruffle Flowers

Happy Weekend everyone!!

It has not long gone midnight here and I just thought I would blog a couple of cards that I've been playing with today.

Dawn McVey made this card using some GORGEOUS ruffle flowers, and the minute I saw them I just knew I needed to play!  The cards are totally CASED, because there was absolutely nothing that I wanted to change about them.    If you scroll down the post a bit you will see that she has done a brilliant tutorial on them. The flowers are such good fun to make, you have to try them!  I can't get enough of them!  I keep looking at different variations of papers that I could use for the backgrounds lol.   (Now I'm hoping that it's ok to copy a card and then link it, so I'm going to hop on over to Dawn's blog and leave her a comment to let her know. I'm still not totally familiar with what you can/cannot do in the world of blogging, so if anyone thinks I'm doing anything wrong please would you let me know!!)

I used double sided DP for the orange card which made it even easier to decide on the combinations!  The back of the October Afternoon paper was dotty too but I decided to use the blue to tie the whole card together.

 I can't decide whether I like the bigger flower/card or the smaller one.  What do you think?  

I have so many thank you cards to make, it was nice to be able to do a few quick ones without having to think too hard about it. You should never work your brain too hard on Saturdays, it's the rules lol.

I'm not sure if you can see in the photos but for the centre of the buttons I was going to use string, but realised I hadn't got the right thickness, so I just cut a slither of the DP and used that instead.   You have to be quite gentle with it because it snaps but you can  make a little knot and it looks quite effective.  As you can see I still can't photograph my cards properly but hopefully you get the idea!!  

Supplies used;

Blue-Brown Ruffle Flower;  

October Afternoon DP - 'Weathervane - Chilly Mornings'

Basic Grey - 'Figgy Pudding - Glacier'

Blue Bazzill cardstock

Button by Doodlebug design 

Fiskars 'Treading Water' punch

Orange Ruffle Flower;

October Afternoon???  (there was no labelling on it, sorry)

Terracotta Bazzill cardstock

Button from stash
Fiskars 'Treading Water' punch

I am hoping to make a card or two tomorrow, depending on how the day pans out, so I will be back then.  Enjoy the rest of your day if it's still daytime for you, and sweet dreams if it's not!

Hippie Chick & My News!

Have you seen the new challenge site, The Corrosive Challenge Blog? I've used their sketch for this card and guess what... I am going to be on their next design team. I'm SO excited! Woohoo!

I wanted to do a fun Thank You card for someone using this Penny Black stamp called 'Hip!' Something not many people know about me is that my cousin used to call me 'Hippie Chick' when we were younger, so this post entry just had to have this name! I love these little characters too, they're great. Firstly, I stamped the image and coloured her in using Copics. I didn't have the right dark green so used one of my Tombo pens which seemed to work ok although took a bit of blending! I still need to play around with the Copics to get the right effect, but I think I'm slowly getting there.

I paper pierced the edges of the image and layered it onto s.e.i paper, then onto the K & Co paper. This paper is double sided so I turned the corner over and added a brad. The inspiration for the folded corner came from Crafts by Louly (she does fab cards by the way, you should pop over and have a look!), but instead of loosely folding the paper over I did a firm crease because I'm posting it. I then mounted it onto a big piece of the K & Co , stuck down a strip of the dotty side of the paper, and then added five little brown legless brads down the strip. Now, tell me who wouldn't buy these - they're called 'chocolate drops' - mmmm, good enough to eat!! Did I tell you I'm a chocolate addict? No, well I'm sure you've guessed by a couple of my postings!!

Stamps: Penny Black 'Hip!', Personal Impressions, 'Thanks'
Paper: EK Success 'Chocolate Fun Dots/Green Mini Dots', s.e.i. 'Garden - Petite Pop'
Pens: Copic Y17, Y11, E93, R00, RV06, RV02, YG03, Tombo 158
Accessories: Craftwork Cards Chocolate Drops' legless brads, American Crafts dotty brown ribbon (sorry no actual name on spool), K & Co 'BW Neopolitan Flower Brads'

Survey update... So far K & Co are winning, but I've only had a couple of comments. That's the trouble with being a new blogger I only have a few followers so not many to survey lol. Thank you to those of you that are following me, it really makes my day to think people like what I'm doing, makes it worth it! I'm aiming for 10 followers by the end of next week, what do you reckon? Will I do it?!!!