Retro Rubber Challenge #235 - Colour Challenge

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

Time for a colour palette challenge! If you know me, you will recognise these as my fave colours lol!

I love Gracielle Design, she makes amazing digital stamps. The one I used here is called 'Tea for the soul' and I have had it since 2019. I printed the cup and the sentiment and coloured the cup using Altenew markers. I created the fun lemon background using stamps by Avery Elle 'Funny Faces' from 2022.

I really love the colours on this card.

I hope you are inspired by the colours, can't wait to see what you make, pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends July 26.

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

Sketch Saturday #468 Carrot Lover..

Hey,

Welcome to the latest sketch for the Sketch Saturday challenge.

Our sponsor this week is Scrap n Dipity and they are offering a prize of 1 digi stamp from their store.

Here is the sketch.

I loved the I Love Carrots too image, I love Bunnies, but I am not a fan of Carrots!

I broke out my fave Hexagon dies for the central shape and because there is a Carrot involved I went with orange as my theme colour. The background was made with Distress Oxide inks.

The awesome sentiment is by Sweet Stamp Shop and is part of a bigger sentiment that I masked off. I added a little piece of blingy washi tape and a gem to finish off my card.

A very simple but fun card.

Your turn to show us what you make with the sketch, but first check out what the rest of the DT have made over at Sketch Saturday.

Challenge ends 22 June 7pm GMT / 2pm EST

Cx

Here comes the bride...

Hey,

Happy weekend to you!!

One of my fave blogland buddies Cara of Crafting Bunnies, is on the design team for Penny's Paper-crafting Challenges and I thought it would be fun to be supportive and play along with the current challenge.

The current challenge is 'Anything Goes' and one of their sponsors is All Dressed Up.. I really like the digital stamps by All Dressed up, so it seemed like a perfect time to break out my new The Gorgeous Bride stamp.

I have absolutely no need for a wedding card, but I love making them and someone always needs one..

I coloured the stamp using Promarkers and kept the colours soft and all tonally the same. I wanted to keep the background soft and so used a die-cut piece of patterned vellum that a friend sent me. Here is a close-up because you have to see this gorgeous vellum..

Randomly, I found a scrap of pale pink spotty ribbon on my desk (my desk is a hovel right now) and thought it worked really well on my card.

I love the sentiment, by American Crafts, it fits the image so well, as this card feels more like a girlfriend to bride on her Wedding Day or Shower.

Both the bride and the sentiment were die-cut using MFT stitched dies (regular rectangles and rounded rectangles).

I am super happy with my finished card, it came out exactly as I had pictured it in my head - well bar the additional piece of ribbon..anyway that totally never happens, so it felt good!

Cx

30 Days of Colouring...a little glimpse

Hey,

So I am now in London for the next week, which will be nice as it's Momma's birthday on Sunday, so I get to celebrate with her this weekend.

I thought as I am travelling I would give you another peek at what I have been colouring / making for the latest The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge..they are not in any particular order :)

The main photo today is Day 16, I love the digi stamp by Dearie Dolls..how cute is the bunny and her Carrot dress (I totally need a Carrot dress), it was so much fun to colour this image and turn it into a card.

The next card is Day 21..I was very tired post yoga and so opted for the bare minimum colouring..I love these new Avery Elle fish, they are so ugly and fun.

The sentiment stamps are by Snarky Stamps and they have some stamps in there very suitable for my potty mouth. I made the background for the card using a Tim Holtz mini stencil and texture paste. When it dried I laid the stencil back down and blended distress ink over the paste, to kind of get a sea effect for my ugly fish :)

Finally Day 10, I love these great watercolour panels by Suzy Plantamura for Simon Says Stamp.

I got a whole bunch of them in a cardkit and they are so easy to colour using distress inks and an aquabrush, they make super easy and impactful cards.

I will put all of the cards up onto Flickr when the 30 days are up.

Have a great weekend, my posts will be mainly scheduled this week, so I'll see you live a week on Monday :)

Cx

Papercrafter's Corner...Magazine Cover Challenge #153..

Hey,

Happy Weekend to you.

So I am playing along with the Magazine Cover Challenge again - over at Papercrafters Corner.

Last week was my first time playing along and I won!! How awesome is that.

This week's magazine cover made me smile -

The little girl is so cheeky!

I remembered that I had an ancient digital stamp by Birdie Brown that kind of reminded me of the girl and the puppy.

I printed two versions of the stamp, one plain and one with the girl's coat in Blue Check..to match the cover ;)

I fussy cut the coat out and paper pieced it over the blank version and then coloured and stickled the rest of the image.

As you can see I used red accents for the girl and her puppy, just like the Magazine cover.

I used a cream card blank, to replicate the background and I chose a sentiment that was big and bold, just like the Magazine title.

It's a very cute card that is going into my very mini Christmas card stash (I really need to start making Christmas cards..)

Another fun Magazine Cover Challenge..I will probably miss the next two - boo! As I am heading to London late next week..

Cx

Best Fishes..

Hey,

So I'm heading home today, after an epic night out with Lemon :)

I will be sleeping on the plane.

I've been sharing things that I made using the colouring I did during the 30 day colouring challenge over at The Daily Marker...so much fun.

I love this card, it was super simple. The stamp is a digital stamp and I can't remember where it is from. I coloured it with Promarkers and added the sentiment using a mixture of Simon Says Stamp and Hero Arts sentiment stamps.

The card blank is by Recollections at Michael's and I love the green edge.

See you in NYC tomorrow.

Cx

Retro Rubber #29..Ho Ho Holiday...still time to play...

Hey,

So it's nearly Christmas and I am in London enjoying the last week of the year with my colleagues.

I am doing a faux Christmas with my parents on Saturday before I fly back to NYC to spend Christmas in Vegas with Hubby!

There is still time for you to join in with the final Retro Rubber challenge of 2015 .

This time around, we have a fab Holiday challenge..

I'm showing you a different holiday card today, I thought it would be fun to show one more of the millions of Christmas cards that I made :)

This one uses a digital file that I got from the lovely Tam Hess over at CardMakingArtists. It was her Christmas freebie for last year.

Show us your holiday projects, but first pop over to Retro Rubber and check out the fab creations by my talented teammates.

Remember to use a stamp older than a year and the challenge ends on Dec 18th  - we will be back on January 19th, following a break for the holiday season.

Cx

Tic Tac Toe challenge..

Hey,

I really wanted to use one of my many new Bugaboo stamps this week, they are retiring some items and so they were a bargain!

JT has already used some of the ones that we bought :)

I also needed to make a New Baby card, so The Paper Players challenge this week was perfect -

I went with Any shade of yellow, Sequins and Polka dots.

I used Recollections yellow polka dot paper, my new Lawn Fawn stitched square dies, a Fiskars stamp and the Raccoon by Bugaboo.

I added some ribbon and inked the edges of my stitched square in Squeezed Lemonade distress ink.

For a bit of fun, I printed the Raccoon's tail onto a grey polka dot Pink Petticoat paper and paper pieced him onto the printed Raccoon - love this, it adds a little bit of dimension and fun.

Final touch to complete the Tic-Tac-Toe was to add sequins from my stash, I keep these to a minimum.

I'm visiting my friend at the weekend to meet her new Daughter, so I'll be giving her the card and it's matching Raccoon babygrow (onesie) that I made :)

Cx

Moving Along With The Times - Inspired by your Fave TV Show

Hey,

It is time for another great challenge from Moving Along the Times and Team B.

This week Hazel is up with a great theme Inspired by your Fave TV Show

I had a few ideas, but then remembered about my as yet unused birthday gift from JT. A great Kenny K stamp that fit 'Nashville' really well.

I think she has the Country music glamour look.

I started out by colouring the image, using Promarkers and a Copic marker and a dsash of Stickles glitter glue. I am loving the new Copic skin tone marker..I might buy a few more..

The background paper is by American Crafts and I used a scrap of brown paper to make a kind of wall/shelf for her to sit on. Finally I punched a tag and stamped a sentiment by Simon Says Stamp. Securing it to the front of the card using a mini staple  worked well. Loving mini staples right now.

Now it's your turn to show us what TV show you are inspired by. Before you do that though, go and check out the fun creations over at MAWTT from the rest of my lovely teammates.

Cx

Pink Petticoat Laurels...

Hey,

As you know I have been making a 'selection box' of cards for our personal Christmas cards.

I have been using as much of my Christmas stash as I can. My stash got a little boost this week, as both my MIL and SIL bought me things from the UK for my stash that are Christmas related - so nice of them.

I love Pink Petticoat, especially the Christmas items. I used the Christmas Laurels for the cards I am showing today.

As per Liz's wonderful examples, I didn't colour them in perfectly and I used a few pinks and blues that are a bit non-traditional. I added lots of lovely bling to them.

They have turned out so pretty, I don't want to give them up :)

Here are a few more examples and a close-up of the bling.

I am really enjoying making lots of different cards. I've also decided to take them to Mexico and start writing them out.

Cx

WOYWW #269...I told you...

Happy WOYWW..yep, a week has already passed and it is time to join Julia over at her blog Stamping Ground, for a weekly reunion and desk nose..

I told you I wasn't an outdoor kind of girl last week and I was right...following the hike and the rafting, it would appear that I now have a hairline fracture of my right 5th metatarsal..

So I am officially over outside and officially over the pain in my foot!

My desk is very tidy right now, as I had a clean up to help me focus. It's only 2 weeks until we leave for London and I have a list to tackle!
Then as I was editing the photo I realised I could have fun with the barren nature of my desk by adding words! It also prompted a little Pinterest idea...

Most of what you see on my desk is left over from 3 fun sessions at my desk and there are a couple of 'newish' purchases kicking around.

As usual, here is a little card for you. I came across this stamp on Hambo Stamps and it made me smile, so I bought it. I do dream of cupcake rain (the name of the stamp), unfortunately it hasn't happened yet!

I dream of Cupcake Rain...

Have a great day. Hubby and I are going to eat large quantities of Chinese food with our neighbours tonight - yums!

Cx

Playing in the Craft Room...

Hi,

I've had a few cards to make for friends and family recently and so I dragged out some new kit, some old kit and sat down to have a play..

The main card today uses a new Gorjuss stamp that JT kindly sent me :) I had wanted it for ages. She mentioned that I was lucky she posted it, as she fell in love with it.

I coloured her with Promarkers, stenciled the background to match her dress and added some ribbon and a hexagon for the sentiment. As you can see it started life as a Hello..it has now been modified to be Happy Birthday.. The stencil is by Simon Says Stamp, the spotty paper tape is from The Works in the UK and the gold ribbon is from Target..love craft supplies for $1

The next 2 cards use my new Big Eared Bunny stamps by Zlota..I love these bunnies and tracked them down, after seeing a few crafters using them.

Big Eared Bunny - Balloon

This is my second attempt at paper piecing...such a clever technique and one that has always terrified me a bit! But I really love the results here - this card is actually an OWH make, that has a duplicate for a friend. The balloon paper is by Pink Petticoat.

Big Eared Bunny - Rocket

I used a precious piece of Bo Bunny 'Blast Off' paper for this card, I love the little mini rockets around the big one. Once again this is an OWH make that has a dupe for a friend..the other card has glitter glue in the flame, which I can't do for OWH.

I love the variety here. I will show you more cards that I made using my 2 new Gorjuss stamps next week.

Hope you have a Happy Friday and a lovely weekend. I am off to Atlantic City with Hubby this weekend, the Nixon Seniors were coming, but their plans have had to change..due to some fantastic news. 

Cx

Good Luck...

Hi,

Boy, am I glad it is Friday!! Despite the 4 day week it has been pretty crazy at work..felt like a 7 day week!

It has had fun parts though - WOYWW 5th Anniversary, was lots of fun and all my ATC's are ready to post now. Watching a colleague's jazz band was very cool. Best bit though is that I won a prize...can't tell you what until it arrives (disclaimer) but I am super excited...

Today a colleague is leaving us and I was asked to make her leaving card. I have already given her a little gift and card from me..so wanted it to be different to that.

She is pretty stylish, so I decided to use a fave digital stamp - well it's actually a designers sketch that I cleaned up.

I hope she loves it!

The paper was a freebie, the pearls are from The Works in the UK, as is the card blank and I coloured the image using Promarkers and added a touch of glitter glue, so the dress would shimmer.

Hope you all have fun plans for the weekend. I am taking it easy on Sat, going to try and do more of the Online Card Class. Sunday I am off to my first Bikram yoga session - which is Hubby's idea of hell - exercise in a hot room?! I must be a bit mad.

Happy Friday.

Cx

Rain & Shine...

Hi,

Hope you all had a good a weekend. Hubby and I had a great weekend with the Nixon seniors, always fun when we hang out with them..

For the last couple of weeks, I have really wanted to enter the Card Concept #8 use an Umbrella.

So when I got home last night I decided to make a card for the challenge.

I decided that I would go with Clean & Graphic as my style..

The image is a free digital stamp. I put it all together on my computer, I created the sentiment and added a frame, to create the clean / graphic style.

I liked the idea of using 3 colours, as I already had black and white I opted for red. The umbrella was coloured using Promarkers, I added a little bit of glitter glue to the rain drops, to add a little shimmer.

I really like the way my card has come out. It's pretty sharp..now for a recipient!

Cx

Moving Along With The Times - Birthday Boys...

Hello there!

It seems like no time at all since the last MAWTT for Team B.

It is Team B's turn over at Moving Along With The Times this week..and the theme is Birthday Boys, as chosen by the talented Susan.

I decided to use a new Bugaboo Stamp (RockStar Boy) and some of the paper that I got at Thanksgiving from Michaels. I die-cut the stars using my Bigshot and xCut star dies. The yellow and the green stars are actually thin paper mounted onto card, as the colours worked really well, but the paper wasn't heavy enough for die-cutting. I love corrugated card it adds texture to things. The sentiment is by Studio G (I think) and not obviously birthday, but it suits the card and I can say 'Happy Birthday' inside.

Pretty cool card for a boy (or a Man I have in mind) I think and super simple.

Pop on over to MAWTT and check out the rest of the team's designs and join in the fun,

Cx

Fusion...

Hi,

Happy Friday to you all! I am looking forward to the weekend, after the hideously cold and snowy week here in NYC!

I came across another new challenge blog, because I was looking at Kelly Griglione's blog and she happens to be on the DT. I really like the idea behind it, so thought I'd have a play...

The blog is called Fusion and this is the second challenge.

I spent a while trying to figure out what I should make and the DT inspiration was great, but I was at a bit of a loss.

So I decided to have a root through my digital stamps for inspiration and came up with three things..

1 - The woodgrain background in silver by Pink Petticoat
2 - The pretty potties stamp also by Pink Petticoat
3 - The table by SheryK

For a change, I thought it would be fun to piece some items together..I am very pleased with the end result..bit of a departure from my usual style, but I love it, I'll have to try it again.

I coloured the flowers and the potty in shades to match the photo using Promarkers and added a bit of glitter glue for shimmer.

The sentiment is from my stash of punched things!

Cx

Craft mash-up..

Hello there!

Hope you had a lovely Christmas. Hubby and I had a great one, it was very relaxing and despite being without our families and close friends it was lovely.

Hubby excelled himself gift wise this year and bought me a dressmakers adjustable dressform...she is gorgeous, I have wanted one for ever!! Such a thoughtful and lovely gift. This is why I married him :)

JT (aka Craft Buddy) and her husband Olly came and spent the weekend with us, we had a lot of fun and it was great to see them both.

The title of today's post is my take on what happens when JT, Dana and I colour a load of digital stamps (over Thanksgiving) and then I turn them into cards for Dana!

The main photo is my fave card of the batch.. I think the papers are a perfect match for the colours used in the stamp..I'm also quite pleased with the way I arranged the papers - vain I know, but sometimes I just can't help myself :)

There are 6 cards in total...here is a collage of them.

All the cards use either Pink Petticoat papers or American Crafts papers. The boats and huts are by Pink Petticoat and the Pixie is by Stamping Bella (scanned in by me). I also used Candi's and mini Pink Petticoat sentiments.

I sent them to Dana before Christmas and she has since told me she loves them, which makes me a happy crafter..

Cx

Spooky anniversary..

A bit early, but I loved the Kenny K challenge this fortnight - Spooktactular - and wanted to enter and it meant that I could use it to make my Wedding Anniversary card - yes we got hitched on Halloween!

It also meant I had an excuse to by one of the new Kenny K witches stamps :)

So I went to town a bit....

The main photo is of my entry, but because I have used a concertina fold card, I thought I would show you another photo so you can see the sentiment.

Spooky Anniversary - sentiment close-up

What did I use?
Shery K free Halloween paper
Promarkers to colour the Hella Enchanta by KennyK
Heart punch - black and green card from my stash
American Crafts punch - for the border and the sentiment
Sentiment - clear stamp by Hero Arts
Concertina card is by Papermania

I think my card is amazing, little bit complex and detailed, maybe I could have lived without the black/green hearts, but hey I still like it, not sure what Hubby is going to think!! He has already mentioned that I keep 'using him' to enter challenges...which might be a tad true..

I did have start with the intention of Hella, kinda looking like me...not sure that has worked, we'll let Hubby be the judge of that.

Have a great weekend, I have dinner plans with Hubby and some friends tonight, Saturday we are off to the jewelers (long story, to be told another time) and I have a Skype playdate on Sunday with JT and I can't wait!

Cx

Pinterest comes in handy..

I love Pinterest. It is so handy for inspiration and for lusting after new tools :)

I saw this idea -

And thought that it would be a great way to use all the wonderful Pink Petticoat Papers that I have.

So I searched for a free babygrow digital stamp (or a onesie as the American's call them) and I found one here.

I pasted it into Publisher and then created little boxes of patterned papers and overlayed the babygrow onto the boxes like so -

Example babygrow + paper

As you can see my main photo is one of the finished cards - I changed the layout, not just because I don't want to steal someone's idea, but because it's nice to have your own twist on something.

I am very pleased with the end result and as you saw on WOYWW yesterday I am in the process of making more of them.

Here is a yellow version -

New Baby - Yellow babygrows

All the patterns are papers by Pink Petticoat - I love their papers and I think this is a great way to use them - the ones I used are -
- Mr Moustache
- Marshmallow (the elephants and zebra stripe)
- Little Check
- Chevrons
- Lots of really big dots
- Really big dots

I did have to recolour some of these, as I have Chevrons, really big dots and lots of really big dots in the new colour collection colours only!! Really must purchase the complete Chevrons pack...

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.