Happy Birthday to me..2020 style..

 

Hey,

Well, we all know that I love to wish myself a Happy Birthday and write a little post.

2020 is a bit of a different one right?!!

With the global pandemic, this year hasn't been quite what any of us expected.

I won't be out partying this year or traveling somewhere to celebrate, but the truth is I am actually ok with that. I have actually had a really nice 6 months since the lockdown. Hubby and I found a new normal being in our tiny space all the time and we have tried out new recipes and the cake eating has been off the charts. Summer was wonderful, I spent a large amount of it, just sitting outside on a bench in our complex, reading and watching the world go by.

All of my family, chosen family, and friends are safe, happy, and as healthy as they can be right now, so to be honest that is all that matters.

I have learnt how to be at home, I am not always running from thing to thing and that is a really good thing for me. I have also become a digital scrapbooker - because I had time to teach myself Photoshop and it has been very therapeutic to go through my photos and scrap about me and my people. It's also been a great way to revisit fun times and memories, keeping me attached to what is important.

Here is one of my latest layouts - 

I have embraced wearing a mask, it is the right thing to do and I actually like the fun little twist the patterns add to some of my more somber outfits! Note that I had to show you a photo of me in a leopard print mask - if you know me, you know I LOVE Leopard print.

This week I will be at home with Hubby enjoying my week off and turning 47 quietly but happily.

I also have some awesome news to share with you on Thurs..so come back then for an update.

Cx

Christmas Cards 2020: Let's Prance...

 

Hey,

Happy Friday!!

I am super excited as it is my birthday on Monday AND I have the week off!

Continuing on this week with my Clearly Besotted posts - accidentally a themed week..

I love the Let's Prance set by CB. I have had it for 4 years since I saw Debby Hughes make these cards with it. I use it every year and I follow the same idea of creating a background and making a bunch of cards (as shown in the main photo) from that background.

This year I thought I would show you what my backgrounds look like once they are stamped and after they are watercoloured.

Stamped backgrounds - 

Watercoloured backgrounds - 

I always love the different cards I can make from one background. It's a thing I actually do quite a lot.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

You Are Amazing...

 

Hey,

Looks like it's going to be a Clearly Besotted week on my blog :)

I really like rainbow stamps and this cute set by CB creates lovely painty edge rainbows.

I added the stars from a Taylored Expressions rainbow set and the sentiment is by MFT.

This was a great way to play with my newish Concord & 9th inks, I'm not sure if I love them or not. I do like the colours, but the mini pads leave marks, so you can only use a certain kind of stamp.. more investigation needed methinks!

Anyway, the end result was a pretty, simple very CAS card.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #144 Anything Goes...

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

I am counting down to VACAY!! I have my birthday week off next week, there is gonna be a whole lot of eating and crafting!

But before then, we have everyone's fave Anything Goes..

By now you should not be surprised to see a Monster pop up on most of my cards, I LOVE Monster stamps and I am so lucky that my friends are constantly gifting them to me. To date I have not had a duplicate, which is amazing.

I chose this Hero Arts 'Eat Cake All Day' set (I've had it since 2017) deliberately because it was given to me by my friend Cheiron, who I was introduced to by Jenn Shurkus who was the previous owner of the MFT Birthday Speech Bubbles set (Jenn bought it in 2016).

I love these ladies and I thought it would be fun to make a card that combines things from them :)

As you know I am a big fan of Altenew inks and I used x3 of them to stamp the bubbles here - Starlight, Tide Blue and Sea Breeze.

It felt like the Monster needed something and so I hunted through my dies and came up with a bow-tie for him from the Elizabeth Craft Designs 'Party Accessories' set. Perfect!

Your turn to dig out something neglected and show us what you can do with it. Also, pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends October 2nd.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Christmas Cards 2020: Clearly Besotted CASE

 

Hey,

Happy Monday!

I hope you had a great weekend.

Hubby and I are getting used to the NFL being back, we love it, but it does take some adjusting our lives to fit in 10 hours of football on a Sunday!!

I realised that I hadn't shown you all the Christmas card makes for 2020.. It all came together so quickly! I am now just making the 'special/fancy' cards.

This card is a CASE of one I saw on the Clearly Besotted website with their cityscape stamp. 

I didn't have that cityscape stamp, so I used a different one from my stash.

I stamped it in x3 colours, grey, navy and black to create the pretty skyline vignette you see. The Reindeers are by Clearly Besotted and I had already stamped and watercoloured a bunch of them, so I just fussy cut them out for using here. 

I didn't have the same sentiment as the card I was CASEing, so I used these great sentiment strips by The Ton Stamps.

Final touch was to die-cut the entire panel using Tim Holtz deckle edge dies.

Then I went over them with a nuvo aqua flow glitter pen, so IRL they are SUPER sparkly!!

I love them, I don't really want to send them to anyone LOL.

Cx