Card swap..

Hi,

WOYWW introduced me to the wonderful SuperStampGirl..I love her work and Crystal is a really nice person too.

She recently invited me to join her card swap - which restarts in September.

I have been looking around for inspiration for the cards. JT and I were discussing what she is currently making and pulled out her Big Ben stamp, which sparked an idea in my head!

I am very pleased with my cards (I had to make 5 all the same). I imported the scan of the stamp into my Silhouette studio, making it less work for me (tools make me lazy for sure). The chevron, wiggly pig tail and hello are all by My Mind's Eye, set is called 'Hello!'. I added some black bling from AC Moore and voila! completed cards!!

So simple. Thanks JT!

Cx

WOYWW #217

Hey its that time of the week again, where we all join Julia over at Stamping Ground for the weekly global desk nosy.

Thanks for all the lovely comments last week about my cards and OWH..I am still working on them, I have given myself until the October Christmas deadline to get my first batch of cards in..

On to my desk...meh! Today (Tues eve..) it is slightly staged, as I wanted to show off my goodies from JT - she sent me a craft care package, that has cards and some new goodies (birds, deco felt and stamps that I forgot to include, as they have already been used) for my stash!

The cards (Cupcake and Snazzy Crab) form part of our regular card exchange - email me if you want to play card exchange with me :)

She sent me this little pack of wooden birdies and I had this idea of how to use them, as they are a bit trixsy...

Wooden Birdies 

I wanted to showcase the bird, as they are so detailed. What do you think?

Finished Birdie

Kim from Happy Homeschool Room made a suggestion re: my winning stash from a couple of weeks ago, so I made her a card, as per her suggestion and it's complete and on it's way to her, but I can't show it to you until she gets it :)

I am really happy to be back at work, but one of the things that I really miss is being able to spend the majority of my day nosying at desks on a Wednesday :(

Cx

Having some fun..

Today is my last day as a Lady of Leisure, as I start my new job tomorrow (EEK), so over the last few days I have been having craft fun..

I've managed to make lots of things, so had to divide up the posts.

Today's post shows cards that I have made using all Bugaboo Stamps..I love Jodie's stamps and I have lots of them.

The main photo today uses the Monster Truck stamp...how can this not make you smile? The card is for my Nephew - I know he is only two, but I am sure it can't hurt if I send him the odd card every now and again to remind him of Auntie Claire..The background is a Pink Petticoat paper.

As JT is back from her holiday, we managed an epic Skype session yesterday and I showed her some of the stamps and she liked the one on the next card. I know she is a fan of the 'Happy Everything' stamp, so this card will form part of our July card, punch and goodie exchange.

Flower Jar..

I love this flower jar stamp, it's so simple, but very impactful when it's all coloured and glittered. The background is again by Pink Petticoat.

The final card is hilarious - I love the Party Pig Trio stamp...why a trio of pigs? Why not I guess! I used my new American Crafts Knockouts star border punch (on sale at TJMaxx $4.99...). I'm a bit unhappy about the sentiment, but it had to go there as I made a mistake....

Party Pig Trio!!

I am very happy with this little Bugaboo session...I also managed to have my last day time skype session with my Ma and catch up with Hubby who is still in the UK.

I'll see you nice and early for WOYWW tomorrow, before I leave for work.

Good Friends

 Hey there, I've been a bit distracted this week - I didn't even manage to participate in WOYWW :(

I have had lots of random things to do, but I have found time to make a few things and catch-up with some good friends.

I made the card in the main photo for JT, as part of our Card Exchange. I love this 1950's digital stamp - it's such fun to work with, I had to draw in a shoe, part of her face, her hairline and part of her belt, but this all made it more fun for me.

This is the card JT made for me -

Pinwheel Thank You

I love it, it's so me! I will be using it as a Thank You for my MIL. Here is a close-up, so you can see the glittery detail.

Pinwheel Close-up

I had dinner with JT last night and we had such fun, we are going to try and organise a stay-cation before Hubby and I leave for NYC.

I also had lunch with another good friend Suze, she placed a little order with me, so I thought I'd share a couple of things I made for her with you.

Dress Form Birthday

I keep the leftovers from the dress form die cuts and use them in various ways. I like this version, the 3 little pearls are a nice touch to balance out the card.

I had made a card similar to this one as a challenge entry and when Suze said she wanted Thank You's I thought I'd make another one and then she'd have a pretty almost matched set.

Butterfly Thank You

I really enjoy working with this sketch, it's so versatile.

Finally here is a Mother's Day idea that I had made and decided it was too much work for the website. So I modified it as a gift for Suze's Mum. I cut a contrasting oval scallop, stuck it over the original greeting, added peel-offs and had a set of 4 cards ready to go..I'll be rooting through my leftover special occasion stock and trying this again.

Flower Happy Birthday

It's fun to make things for people you know well :)

Cx

Working the sketch

I was a bit under the weather yesterday, so no dinner date with JT and I didn't trawl through the WOYWW blogs as much as usual :(

To make up for yesterday's inertia, I have been playing with this week's RetroSketches #54 Sketch.

It is really cool and reasonably straight forward to master. Because of this, I have made several versions - including the main photo. I thought I'd share them all with you.

But first here is the sketch -

The main photo uses my Range paper roses, I coloured the edges using a pro-marker, the spotty tape is part of the SMASH range and the sentiment I printed and punched using my fave tag punch.

Next up is another birthday version, this could have been a bit dull, but I think the corrugated card livens it up. The star was created using an Xcut star die and the stripy paper is from JT. This card is going into my personal stash and is actually my entry for the challenge :)

Blue Star Birthday

This card was inspired by the millions of scraps kicking around on my desk (incl the scallop punched sentiment), I figured that using a few of them would make me feel like less of a desk slob :) The red bling is leftover from my personal Christmas cards and I wish I had bought more of them, as they are really nice and unusual.

Red Bling Birthday

The final card is a little bit of a departure for me, I don't normally use 'ambiguous' sentiments, but I have this sheet of adhesive chipboard sentiments that I bought in Vegas a year ago and wanted to use one! Celebrate works here I think, as the card is neutral enough for you to be celebrating a whole host of things and I finally got to use one of the heart Candi's that I struggle to find homes for. I am going to put this card in with the rest of the cards I am giving to Ma for her to gift to her work colleagues.

Celebrate

Before I go, I wanted to mention that JT and I are doing card exchange via snail mail - basically you make a card for the other person to use and then send it to them (so no writing in it) this is week 2 and I just got my first card from JT - it is superb and about to wing it's way to my Auntie Connie. You can check it out on her blog. Stupidly I didn't take photos of either of the cards I made for her, must do this next time...

Anyway if you fancy joining us, let me know and we can exchange postal addresses.

Cx