Sketch Saturday #464..Vicky Gets Blue Hair..

Hey,

Welcome to another super Sketch Saturday.

Our sponsor this week is Crafty Sentiments Designs and they are offering a prize of 3 digis from their store.

Here is the sketch.

I decided to use Vicky and Violet, for some reason I really wanted her hair to be bright blue - I combined 3 shades of blue Promarkers to get the tone I had imagined!! I am very pleased with it, even it is a bit out there!!

I decided to use the colours from Vicky to choose the colour scheme for my card, I went with another piece of the great textured Dovecraft paper and die-cut coordinating blue strips, using Sizzix border dies. I stamped my sentiment (by Papermania) onto one of the strips and mounted them behind Vicky.

It was such a simple card to make..another accidentally bright 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 26 May 7pm GMT / 2pm EST

Cx

Super quick playdate...

Hey,

Hope you are all having a good Sunday.

All is well here in NYC. JT and I had a brief playdate today. We had planned on making a challenge entry and had something specific in mind, but changed direction on the call!

We went with Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches -

I am really happy with my card, the simplicity pleases me, as do the colours. I really love the SSS hey friend stamps. The papers are all by DCWV, the frame is by Dovecraft and the bling is from my stash.

What you can't see is the slight mistake...I made my card the wrong way round, so it opens incorrectly..no matter..I am sure it will make the recipient smile.

As I am heading home next week, JT and I will get to see each other, but we won't be having a real life playdate..there just isn't enough time sadly.

JT has been working with her Big Ben stamp and as she gave me a scan of it, I am going to have a play too.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Cx

A new craft crush...

Hi,

Happy Weekend to you all.

I recently came across the work of Marion Vagg on Pinterest and fell head over heels in love.. I really loved the chevron paper piecing she did and wanted to have a go.

Here are a couple of examples of Marion's work -

As I don't have a chevron die, I decided to enlist the Silhouette to help me cut some chevrons. I cut a bunch of them - all the same size in 4 colours.

You can see my favourite example of how I used them in the main photo. As I was limited to just a few chevron strips I tried to use them in unusual ways to maximise the white space.

It was so much fun to do and I am going to cut a few more this weekend in different sizes and maybe even patterns and see what I can make out of them.

Here are a couple more of the cards I made.

Chevron Alien

Chevron Flower

What did I use? All papers by co'redinations, card blanks from Craft UK, frame by Dovecraft, flower from the Range, Alien from the Works - all UK based craft stores or manufacturers. The Alien has a peel off sentiment, the flower uses a Woodware stamp and the frame uses a Hero Arts stamp.

A fun way to start the weekend if you ask me! I am now off to brunch :)

Finally I have already thanked Marion for inspiring me with her beautiful work, but I just want to say it again 'Thanks Marion...you are my latest crush'

Cx

Birthday wishes..

Hey there!

After a nightmare day at work yesterday I decided I would make a couple of things to cheer myself up! One of the things I made is a birthday card following the Retro Sketches #94 challenge this week -

I needed to make a birthday card for a friend, who has an early January birthday.

I settled on green as my main colour and then used patterned papers to fit the sketch - a mix from American Crafts and Pink Petticoat. I love these huge flowers by Dovecraft, they are so easy to use, but it has to be the right card for them, as they are so big. Button is also by Dovecraft and the twine and blingy bits are from my stash.

I had a really hard time finding a 'Happy Birthday' that worked in the space for me..I finally settled on the one you see, which is from a free set. I went with it because it has a bit of a combination of elegance and funkiness. A bit like my card I think :)

Oh and finally spot the obvious mistake......the grid paper is not on the card straight?! How did that happen!

Cx

Moving Along With The Times - Girly, But No Pink!

Hi,

Yes it is indeed that time again, how quickly the weeks are flying by now!

Team B are up this week over at the Moving Along With The Times blog and Sarah has given us a great theme of 'Girly, but no Pink!' this week.

I was feeling a bit stuck with this one..then JT sent me a little care package and in it was the lovely black and white chevron paper and voila! Inspiration :)

The layout was also inspired by a card JT had made for me earlier in the year!

Ingredients are -
Yellow spotty paper is by Pink Petticoat.
The black spotty flower and the yellow button are by Dovecraft.
The stamp is by Kaisercraft.
The Candi's are by craftworkcards.
The sentiment and bakers twine are from  my stash.

I love this card, it feels very girly to me, the splash of yellow and the enormous flower make me smile.

Head over to MAWTT and join in the girly fun. The DT makes are impressive and inspiring as always :)

Finally - Happy Thanksgiving to those of you that are in the US. Today Hubby and I are in DTown with JT and her folks, celebrating Turkey Day!

Cx

It's been one of those weeks..

Jeez..it's been a really intense week! I am most overjoyed that it is nearly the weekend..

To celebrate I bring you this beautiful Color Throwdown #267 entry..

I love these wintery colours. As we all know I love a thank you card and Turquoise..I think it is no coincidence that I happened to have the wonderful Thank You die cut on my desk...in Turquoise :)

The 'Thank You' was made using my Silhouette Portrait, loving the amount of amazing things I can create with this machine.

The rest of my ingredients are -
Crumb Cake and Vanilla - backing paper by Dear Lizzy
Old Olive - card stock (DCWV) and one pearl by Dovecraft
Always Artichoke - a pearl by Dovecraft

I am totally 100% head over heels in love with this card, it feels really modern and fresh..

Have a great weekend, I am going to be doing NOTHING..

Cx

A different kind of playdate...

This week has been a strange one, for both JT and I. I thought that if we did a kind of playdate, that we might both perk up a bit!

So I set us a challenge - combine 2 challenges, this week's Freshly Made Sketches #108 and Color Throwdown #264

CTD #264 colour swatch

FMS #108 - sketch

JT posted her card yesterday...I love the set she has made and the colours work really well.

Mine is the main photo today and I am very pleased with it, bar the minor hiccup (sentiment slightly stamped on the flower). I am going to add it to the 40 for 40 pile.

I used Hippy Chick papers for the striped background and the navy blue paper (which I embossed using a Cuttlebug large dots folder), the pale blue and the coral are random bits of paper from my stash, the flowers are by Dovecraft and I punched 2 contrasting mini flowers to layer them up. The sentiment is by Stampin' Up and the silver paper is left over from a birthday card I made earlier in the week.

I decided not to cut the silver bits into banner points, as I liked the bluntness of them as they are!

I am busy stenciling today, as I have all these ideas for 40 for 40, so I am trying to execute as many of them as possible today.

Happy Sunday.

Cx

Now that's what I call a weekend!

Oh, I had such a great weekend, it has put a big fat smile on my face.

It was fun to hang out with Amy on Friday and I was stunned by just how much she got out of our trip to Amsterdam just over a year ago. My evening with JT, was THE most fun, it was hilarious and too messy for public consumption :) On Saturday we made a lot of Mother's Day cards (coming to the shop soon) and we also made these bunnies!!

How hilarious are they?! They were made using a kit from Poundland, you should be able to make x3 bunnies, but...well what do you expect for a £1. Anyway, two bunnies was quite enough fun for one day.

Hubby and I just hung out on Saturday night and Sunday. He had to work on Sunday evening, so I managed to get into the craft room to use my new Stamping Bella stamp (I won one via the Kenny K challenge, so invested in some more..naughty). The main photo is of the card I made to enter the MAWTT Sketch challenge this week - here is the sketch.

I think my card is a really good interpretation of the sketch and I love this stamp, the new foam pads I bought work much better with the Candi. I used free papers, Candi, a scalloped rectangle die to cut out the stamp, a chalk ink for the sentiment to make sure it was softer and Dovecraft Cerise glitter glue for the little touches on the stamp. Here's a close-up..

I am very happy with this card...now who do I give it to?

Cx

p.s JT's gift finally arrived, so go over to her blog and see what she made using it.

Time to breathe a little..

..It's all been rather hectic over the last couple of months, but now I am gearing up for my birthday and a well deserved holiday.

I've been making cards, writing text and taking photos for the new website, making cards for Christmas (more about that later), making entries for National Cardmaker 2012 and generally working like a dog!

So where do I start...

Well today's main picture is of one of the Anniversary cards I made for various friend's anniversary's. I am so pleased with how they came out that I have used this idea as one of the new Ham'n'Mule website staples!

Here are a few more examples - I am loving the Woodware heart punch right now, the spotty backgrounds are my old favourites by Pink Petticoat.

I worked like a crazy person in August before I left for NYC to get all of the entries done for National Cardmaker, it was fun, as I got to try lots of new techniques. It was also the first time I worked with A5 cards and now I am hooked!

I entered lots of the categories, so fingers crossed..... The rules are you have to use at least one item from the  category on your card. Here are my entries.

Craftime

Craftime was fun, I cheated a bit with card 3 - as I only used ribbon... I loved working with the little dresses and I tried a new card format with card 1 and card 2 has a pull out at the top of the red die-cut.

Dovecraft

I did make 4 cards for Dovecraft, but my Ma felt one was lame and so I listened to her as a 'consumer' and the other one I didn't get to post before I went to NYC! My fave is the Union Jack Anniversary - notice the Woodware hearts again...

Paper Cellar

Unfortunately, I didn't find that many items locally for Paper Cellar, but the glittery shoes and bags worked well and I still have some left to play with at a later date.

Sizzix

At first I thought I was going to struggle to enter this category, but then I remembered - embossing folders! I have always loved the Thank You folder, but it's so big it's hard to work with. I used a coredinations card to emboss it, so I could sand it back to make the words pop. I really love the button and the ribbon. The blue/green card was fun as I got to use a new technique that I saw at the crazy craft fair JT and I went to. Basically you emboss an image, ink a brayer and then roll over the embossed image - voila! I like the tinge of  excess ink, it looks a bit shabby chic to me.

Stampin' Up

You can imagine my delight when I saw the Stampin' Up category! What a great opportunity to use the  Birdie, Owl and Bunting punches. I love these entries - apologies for the blurry joyfold Owl - I did take these photos every morning before work for a week! I love the birdie, it looks like a melon! I wish I'd made more for this category, but time was limited. Next year I will start earlier :)

Tonic Studios

Only one card in this category, but it was by no means the easiest! I used a geared punch and punched every strip on the front of the card individually and stuck them down individually! But I think the end result is a really wonderful card. I got the heart cards on sale at Craft Superstore and really wanted to use them some how and I had this idea to have an extra message on the front, which works I think. Obviously as this is Valentine's themed the Woodware punch came out again...

Well, that is the end of this epic post.

More later in the week, before I head to Tenerife for a week!

Cx