Retro Rubber #90.. Colour Challenge, Red, White & Blue

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

As it's 4th of July tomorrow, we have a suitable Patriotic theme for you...

I decided not to make an actual 4th of July card, but to use the great Liberty Girl stamp by Unity Stamp Co to make a fun card for an American friend! I have had the stamp since 2016 and last year I used it to make 4th of July cards for my friends.

I stamped onto watercolour paper and used distress inks and a paintbrush to colour the image. The sentiment stamp came with the set and I added a little bit of blue bling to her hair.

Super simple, but fun and a bit cheeky!

Let's see what the photo and colours inspire you to make, pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends July 13th.

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.

Have a great 4th of July, Hubby and I are doing some pre-4th marauding...

Cx

Get on the Bus...

Hey,

So I had a great time over the super long holiday weekend, I had brunch with friends and Hubby, went on a Macy's rummage with a friend and then Hubby and I hit the boat party. It was a lot of fun and I felt totally relaxed yesterday.

I also managed a couple of long sessions playing at my desk, which was nice after the 6 days away from it! I broke out old and new things to play with.

Today I am showing you two cards I made using my new Avery Elle Birthday Bus stamp and die set.

The main card is a bit of a CASE - I really liked the card Elena made and I have the cover plate die, so thought why not!

I watercoloured the bus and the presents, I made a mistake, so I had to fussy cut out the windows - ugh, but it does look nicer, I wish dies would do that..

I thought a piece of red spotty paper in the aperture would be a great foil for the blue card blank and the red bus. I stamped the sentiment from the set onto a piece of red cardstock and affixed it at a jaunty angle, to give the bus a bit of movement.

I stamped and coloured two of the bus and present stamps, so I thought why not make a similar card, using a different cover plate (I don't have as many of these as I'd like..)

I love the Hexstar cover plate by Neat and Tangled, it makes everything look good. The only different with this card really is the lack of fussy cutting, it probably would have looked nicer, but I just couldn't face it!

I love how they both turned out, giving me a couple of fun cards for my stash.

Cx

Belated Happy 4th of July...

Hey,

So back to work for me today. It has been a fun long weekend.

I wanted to share the 4th of July cards that I made. I only made 12.

They were a lot of fun to make and I have been itching to use the Liberty Girl stamp by Unity Stamp Co. since I bought her late last year.

I stamped onto watercolour paper (thank god for the MISTI), then I watercoloured all the stamps - I did all the red, then all the dark blue and then finally all the light blue. This took a very very long time.

To speed it up I used a messy style and to compliment this, I tore all the edges of the stamped / coloured panels, giving them all a bit of a rougher feel.

I don't know who the 4th of July stamp is by, it's a wooden stamp I have had for a while. I thought affixing this with a staple added to the edgy feel.

Hope you had a Happy 4th of July.

Cx

ICAD17: Week Four

Hey,

Happy Monday, I have today off, as we will be off for the 4th of July holiday tomorrow and tonight Hubby and I will be off to the Annual Louie Vega boat party, so I thought why not have an extra day!

I can't believe it is July already and we are mid-way through week 5 of ICAD! Gallery of all my cards to date is here.

Week 4 was fun, I came up with all kinds of crackpot ideas for the prompts, some of my photos are a bit iffy, as I took the cards with me and photographed them in my hotel!

My fave choice this week was again hard, serious competition between Green and Farm, I went with Farm because it is so weird!

For some reason I decided to create a 'Llama farm'. The background paper is ancient and by American Crafts, JT gave me the Bee and Llama stickers, I printed, cut and coloured the Cacti and the other Llamas are Gerda Steiner stamps.

I love it, it's so weird!!

Cx

Happy 4th of July..

Hey,

Happy Independence Day everyone!

I had a play in my journal in honour of today.

I am really enjoying this art journal thing..its weird and fun.

Today's spread was easy to make.

I started by stenciling the words onto the pages, that helped me figure out how to build out the rest of the flag.

As I applied the paint and the tissue paper for the stripes, I covered over the words slightly, but they were visible enough for me to position the cut-out letters / numbers.

The stars were punched out of a dictionary page, that I found in last weekends $1 bin bookstore rummage. These were actually very fiddly to apply to the page..I like to use a regular glue stick to stick things to the page (easy to remove if I change my mind) and then go over them with a Matte Medium Gel (I use Liquitex).

I'm really pleased with how it came out and it was fun, because I hadn't planned on tissue paper for the stripes, I was going to use white paint, but it was a bit flat and I realised I had all these strips of tissue paper that were exactly the right size for stripes!

Here is a close-up, so you can see the stars and the tissue paper -

The tissue paper was from my fave random bookstore chain in London and was a totally random buy that I seem to be using everywhere!

Have a great day..back to work tomorrow kittens - boo..

Cx

Sweet Succulents...

Hey,

Happy Saturday and whoop whoop to fellow US dwellers who are enjoying the long weekend.

I love nature / tree / flower stamps, so the Shopping Our Stash theme this week got me all excited. The SOS team are asking us 'How does your Garden grow'

I am actually quite green fingered, but I've never had an actual garden, always pots or a pot or two in my Ma's garden...one day.

I LOVE succulents - this is because of my Ma, she has always had them and I love the weird shapes and sizes they come in, so this meant my choice of stamps was a no brainer.

I had to use the Simon Says Stamp Cups and Succulents set. Imagine my delight when I went to the set to discover I had a whole batch of stamped and coloured items, that I had done during the last 30 day colouring challenge, its fun to go to stamp sets and find things that are ready to go ;)

The succulent part was watercoloured with Distress Inks and the pot was coloured using a Promarker.

Because the stamp is so detailed I wanted the card to be pretty CAS in feel, so I opted to emboss the background, using a free flower embossing folder.

I added the scalloped circle a) to cover something..I reused an oops panel and b) because I didn't like how the pot looked against the embossing!

Final touch was to add the SSS Sketchy Banner sentiment.

This is earmarked for a friend, who like me loves Succulents.

Cx

Retro Rubber #41...Red, White and Blue Colour Challenge..

Hey,

It's time for another superb challenge over at Retro Rubber. 

As it is close to 4th of July, we are getting a bit patriotic with our theme - 

I thought I had made the perfect card for this challenge and then the next morning I came back and thought - ugh..what a mess. LOL.

So back to the drawing board, pretty pleased with the final card, even if I do say so myself!

I used a great Hampton Arts Hexagon stamp that JT gave me as part of the Thanksgiving $20 challenge in 2014 - I love this stamp and I use it a lot for mixed media makes.

I inked up the stamp (it's pretty big) in red distress ink, spritzed it with water and then laid my paper on top of the stamp. I got a pretty clean and centered impression, so decided to stick with the white border.

I punched some hexagons in Navy blue scrap paper and stapled them together to create a kind of border. I used foam tape to pop the border up a bit.

The celebrate die is so gorgeous, I wish I used it more, but celebrate is a tricky sentiment in my opinion.

It looks great here in white, it really pops against the blue hexagon border.

Your turn to show us your interpretation of the colours, but first go over to Retro Rubber and view the great makes by my teammates.

Challenge ends on July 1st. Don't forget to use a stamp a year or older and tell us about it that's part of the fun. Also, please limit your entries to 10 challenges including ours.

Thanks

Cx

Happy 4th of July!

Hey,

Hope you are all good.

If you are celebrating Independence Day, I hope you are having a great day.

Hubby and I are chilling, after a fun boat party last night..it was also my first session out of the boot and all is well - yay!

My card was made using a Hero Arts stamp, American Crafts papers, MFT stitched rectangle dies, SSS starburst stamp and Memento dewdrop inks.

Cx

Retro Rubber #17..4th of July - There is still time to play...

Hey,

There is still time for you to play along with the current Retro Rubber challenge..

Don't forget to use a stamp older than a year and tell us how long you have had it..it's a big part of the fun..

Pop over to Retro Rubber to see the fantastic creations by my teammates and link up to show us what you come up with.

Challenge ends on July 3rd. 

Cx

Retro Rubber #17...4th of July...

Hey,

It is time for another awesome Retro Rubber challenge..

This time we have a great theme for you -

Yes, 4th of July is just around the corner, so let's get in the mood for the holiday and make something fab. I am super excited about the holiday, as Hubby and I will be dancing the night away on a boat party with one of our fave dj's - foot permitting...

Don't forget to use a stamp older than a year and tell us how long you have had it..it's a big part of the fun..

I went with an old digital stamp from Bugaboo - I've had it at least 3 years..

I coloured the stamp using Promarkers and Wink of Stella brush pens, then I fussy cut her out. 

So that there was a bit of a halo around the girl, I drew a pencil line around her and only stenciled the parts outside of the line. The stencil is a grid by SSS.

The sentiment is a mix of stamps and glittery stickers.

Makes me smile and has already left in the post on its way to a friend..

Pop over to Retro Rubber to see the fantastic creations by my teammates and link up to show us what you come up with.

Challenge ends on July 3rd. 

Cx

P.s whilst writing this I realised my card matches the challenge image, how funny is that!

WOYWW #265..Looking forward to a 3 day weekend..

Hi,

It is Hump Day, but it's actually my Thursday, as it is July the 4th on Friday, so we are off here in the US. WHOOP WHOOP!! Can you feel my excitement? 3 whole yummy days off, crafting, hanging with Hubby, eating bad food..amazing!!

Back to today..here in blogland it is time for WOYWW - joining Julia, who I hope is well on the road to recovery now and the gang over at her blog Stamping Ground for our weekly global desk nose.

My desk is a complete tip..I am attempting to do the following all at once -
1- make a stash of cards for my Ma
2 - make all the July/Aug cards for work birthdays
3 - make 50 more OWH cards (at least) before I leave for London on Aug 14th
4 - make some cards for a friends birthday
5 - make some cards for the Mother of the Groom (from Sat)
6 - get my card book (personal birthdays etc) up to date
7 - do more of the Online Card Course that I bought for JT and I

Yeah..I know what you are thinking...but it is all possible...along with sewing x2 new dresses...

So on my desk, are some partially made fairy cards for Ma, 2 pairs of glasses..not a good sign (this means a pair are not they should be..), some Promarkers, a new set of AI stamps, tons of printed images for the list above..other craft crap stuff and a bonus shot of me!

Ugh! I hate my desk being this untidy.

Here is a little card for you WOYWWer's to say 'Happy 4th of July'

Happy 4th of July

Stamp is by Whimsie Doodles, stripey paper by DCWV, star paper by Bo Bunny, coloured with Promarkers and Stickles. Twine and button are from my stash, star punched with a EKSuccess mini star punch.

Have a great day, I'll be a late visitor today.

Cx

Happy 4th of July!

Hey everyone, it's Independence Day today here in the US, so it's a National holiday.

Hubby is off to the UK tonight for a week to attend a wedding and catch-up with our families and friends. I am a bit jealous, but I have plenty going on to keep me out of mischief.

The main photo today is off the 4th of July cards I made for my Yankee Doodle friends and family :) I used a Kenny K stamp, some Pink Petticoat papers, a tag punch and some twine. They were fun to make, even though I had an accident with one of the cards and had to discard it.....I dropped the Kenny K image on the floor, when it had its foam pads on and it stuck to the floor and ripped..not fun, after all the colouring, cutting and sticking...

They are all a little bit different - so here are some individual photos of them for you...

I am spending today with a new friend and his dog over in Astoria, then we are coming back into town to watch the fireworks - one of the cards is for him. Friday I have a date with another friend and then I am having a quiet solo weekend, as I HAVE A JOB!!! I start next week, it is temp to perm and I am most excited...

Have a Happy Thursday - holiday or not.

Cx