Retro Rubber Challenge #189 - Gnarly...its the 80s...

Hey,

Welcome to another awesome Retro Rubber challenge.

It's time for another fun colour challenge - this time 80s colours!

I love these colours!!

I used pink, mauve, blue and grey. I stepped out of my comfort zone with a little bit of paper piecing!! The background stamp is 'Looped Flower' by Hero Arts and I bought it second-hand from Jenn Shurkus around 2015!

I stamped the girl from the 'Jane Girl' set by Unity Stamps that I have had since 2018. I masked her off and added Altenew inks in my chosen colours to the background stamp and stamped it onto the white panel, over the masked girl. I then coloured her with copics and stamped her onto the grey chevron paper for my final colour choice. The chevron paper is 'Calm & Cozy Chevrons' by My Favorite Things.

The sentiment is one of my favourite go-to Taylored Expressions sentiment strips, I have a container of these and they are so handy.

How will you use the colours? Pop on over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT has made.

Challenge ends August 26th.

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

Stamping over a background..

 

Hey,

Happy Friday!

Well, I don't know about you, but I am glad that the first week of work is over and passed easily, now I get to enjoy the weekend.

I got this great Spellbinders stamp from Jenn Shurkus' destash last year. But as you can see it is quite big! So I decided I would stamp over some fun backgrounds.

Creating the backgrounds is simple. I used a zigzag background stamp I have, inked it up using distress oxide's and spritzed it with water, I laid my watercolour paper down on the stamp and then dried it and repeated the process until all the ink was gone. You only need to ink the stamp once.

As you can see when you stamp over it, the zigzags show through, but the majority of that is hidden once you colour in the stamp. I kept the colouring simple and used Copics for the bigger areas and Sakura Gellyroll Starburst gel pens for the smaller areas to add a bit of sparkle.

I ended up with a bunch of fun cards.

Have a great weekend, I will be watching NFL wildcard weekend, trying not to be too sad about the end of the NFL season.

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

Connecticut Road Trip..

Hey,

Happy Monday!

Hope you are all staying safe and well. Hubby and I are now WFH for the next few weeks.

At the end of Feb, Lisette and I went on a little road trip to Connecticut to do Jenn Shurkus classes at the Papercraft Clubhouse.

I love Tracie's store and it's always a great space to do classes.

We did both classes on the Saturday, so we ended up with x10 cards. I always love Jenn's classes, she is a great teacher and I also get to play with all the Lawn Fawn. I loved playing with the flipbook style die and the magic iris die. I am considering buying the flipbook die..but we'll see.

Obviously, Lisette and I did a fair amount of shopping at the store after x2 months of no-craft supplies diet.

We had an absolute hoot on the Saturday night, as we hit our fave local Michael's - it has the most amazing sale section, we were in there for quite a long time!

Our plan on the way home on Sunday was to hit the Outlets at Foxwoods - we ended up getting there so early that we hit the casino at 9.15am!! Which was cool, as we both won some money, aiding the outlet shopping!

I included a photo of my $57 haul from the Cosmetics Store outlet - to put it into perspective, the Tom Ford palette is $88 regular price..

Fun road trip, love a craft road trip.

Cx

Creative Chick Classes..

Hey,

Happy Monday to you!

I had a great weekend. Lisette and I went on a mini roadtrip to Conneticut, to attend x2 Jenn Shurkus classes at the Papercraft Clubhouse.

We had a ton of fun, eating, shopping and creating.

It is always awesome to be taught by Jenn and play with the super cute Lawn Fawn stamps. Jenn always mixes up the sets and that helps me to remember to do the same with my stamp sets. I am getting better at it, but a reminder is always great!

It was my first time at the Papercraft Clubhouse. Tracie and her team are AWESOME and they had an off the hook clearance section, so there was a fair amount of spendy spendy..

Here are a few of the cards close-up.

If you haven't done a class with Jenn before, check out her blog to see if she is coming to your local store, even if Lawn Fawn cards aren't your style, it is SO worth it, for all the great things you will learn from Jenn.

Cx

The Paper Players: You're how old!!!!

Hey,

So it's going to be another 2 post day today, as I really wanted to play along with the current Paper Players challenge -

I was delighted to make the Cut Above last week, it was a nice way to start my craft year!

I love the colours this week and I thought they were quite 'male' and so would make a nice card for my brother-in-law.

I bought this Hero Arts stamp in Jenn's destash last year and I LOVE the numbers, colouring them is a dream -

I used Promarkers that were the right colours for the challenge to colour my numbers. I really wanted to add a cheeky sentiment to the numbers and finally settled on 'you're how old?' Considering my BIL is 2 years younger than me, this is quite cheeky!

For some interest I added some enamel dots and teeny tiny gems. I added a gold one, as I thought it worked well and we are 'allowed' another colour.

I actually stamped a bunch of these when I was making this card, I like the 3 colour look. I left off a sentiment, then I can decide how to use them in the future.

Cx

Craftgang I love you..

Happy New Year.

I hope you had a really nice Christmas and New Year break, Hubby and I really chilled out and it was lovely to just stop and hang for a while.

I thought a lot about how to start my 2018 blog journey. At the end of 2017 I deliberately took my foot off of the blog gas and I think it will be a lesson for 2018 to not put so much pressure on myself. Especially about something that is supposed to be fun for me.

So I decided that I would start 2018 with a post about The Craftgang...

They are in alphabetical order (because we be competitive ladies..) Ava, Cheiron, Jamey, Lisette and Tiffany.

Thanks to Jenn Shurkus for encouraging me to take a class at the Inkpad NYC, because if she hadn't I wouldn't have met these awesome women.

They are my NYC family, they look after me, support me, teach me, craft with me, eat with me (we like to eat), drink with me, roadtrip with me, shop with me and laugh with me (sometimes at me) and most of all they just get me.

2017 was hard as hell, but they were there, every single step of the way and I'm eternally grateful that I found them and that they love me too.

We are all a bit different, have different things (good and bad) going on, but we never lose sight of each other and how we can be there for each other. It's a rare large group friendship and it's awesome.

So ladies, big smooches to you, I wish you love, happiness and unlimited craft goodies for 2018.

Cx

Wishing for Flip Flop Weather...

Hey,

So a while ago I saw someone on Instagram / Pinterest use this great stamp by Your Next Stamp..

I had to have it (Instagram / Pinterest hurt my wallet).

I love it, as you know JT and I have a crab thing..long long story. I figured I could get some milage out of this bad boy.

I stamped and die-cut him out, I coloured him using Zig Clean Color brush pens. Love the shading I do so easily with these pens.

This card was the inspiration for my background -

Card by Kate at Small Bits of Paper

I liked the idea of using just 2 inks to get the background.

For a bit of interest I chose to use a wood line stamp by Prima Marketing for my background and used Salty Ocean and Mustard Seed inks for my sky/sand. I spritzed the stamp with water before laying down my paper and I just LOVE the effect I got. I die-cut it out using stitched rounded dies by MFT.

This card didn't actually go to JT, it went to Queen of the Flip Flop - Jenn Shurkus..she loves Flip Flops and the sea and summer, so it was naturally a card for her!

Also I got another Honorable Mention over at CASology for my Embrace entry, how nice is that, what a wonderful start to the holidays.

Cx

Moving Along With The Times..Leaves and Trees

Hey,

Time for another great challenge from the Moving Along With The Times Team B.

Today our hostess is one of my best friends in the whole wide world JT and she is also my fave craft buddy. Her theme is Leaves and Trees.

I thought this was the perfect time to break out a stamp and die set by Sizzix that I bought way back in 2013 and I think I have only used it once, I've struggled to get it to work for me!

I stamped, coloured and die-cut the tree. The colours I used to colour the tree informed the background I created.

I used Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Picked Raspberry distress inks to create the blended background, then I overlaid a Tim Holtz mini stencil onto it and spritzed it with water. A superb technique that JT and I learnt earlier this year when we went to Jenn Shurkus' Loft Art Retreat.

I added a freebie sentiment by Clearly Besotted that I got from a magazine eons ago and mounted it all onto a kraft card blank.

What will you make? Go to MAWTT and check out all the creations from the rest of Team B.

Challenge ends on October 26th at 6pm GMT. Remember you can enter a maximum of 3 times.

Cx

1,000th Post...the ramblings of a crazy crafty 40something..

Hey,

So today is a big freakin' deal for me...

It is my 1,000th post.

I actually can't believe it..

I started this blog in 2010 having no idea what I was doing or what I wanted to achieve with it and here we are six years later.

My Husband is a constant source of wisdom and he said a while ago that he thought it was cool that I had a blog that was an outlet for me, my makes and my chitty chat..

This blog has given me so much, that I actually don't know where to begin or how to explain what it means to me, but let's give it a go shall we?

I have met so many wonderful people via my blog, people that I wouldn't have met under 'normal' circumstances, they have become friends and in some cases daily companions (Sue and Cara, I love you guys..).

These are the people that helped and guided me through some tough times - when I was out of work, when we moved to NYC, when my Ma had Cancer.

They also celebrated the joyful times - becoming DT for Moving Along with The Times and Retro Rubber, when I turned 40, when I got a new job, when I won challenges.

There are also the wonderful people that have taught me and subsequently became my friends - Jenn Shurkus and Cheiron Brandon what the hell would I have done without you over the last 2 years!?!

Let's not forget the gift that is WOYWW (What's on your workstation Wednesday) - hosted by Julia on her blog Stamping Ground.  There are no words to express what a wondrous thing a WOYWWer is, you should join us on a Weds sometime and find out for yourself.

I also have to give a big shout out to my Retro Rubber family. What an amazing bunch of ladies they are - I love being teammates with them and our FB exchanges are comedy.

This blog has also given me the chance to constantly express my gratitude for JT.
I mean how on earth can I express how amazing she is?! Seriously though, she's as crazy as a bag of cats and she is my exact mirror image - so I guess that makes me crazy as a bag of cats too!  What I like, she likes, what she loves, I love, what I dislike, she dislikes, it's so weird, she is like an actual real life sister, born 12 years after me LOL.

So much joy has come from this personal piece of blogland and I never knew burping my life onto a blog could be so rewarding.

Anyway, as I wipe away my tears of joy, I want to give you something to say thanks. Send me a message via my contact form in the sidebar and I will send you a card and a little 1,000th post care package - who knows what it will contain, but isn't that part of the fun?

Cx

Distress Techniques....

Hey,

Happy Saturday to you all!

I am probably landing as you are reading this...

Right after the loft art retreat I used the left over tags from our project to practice some of the techniques that Jenn had taught us.

It's taken me until this week to get round to making cards with them!!

Here are the 3 tags I started with, I have labelled them with the technique I used, just enlarge the photo to read the details.

The main photo is the first card I made and I love the Studio Calico wooden word bubbles. They are a lot of fun. This year I have used a lot more wooden items, I used to be daunted by them.

I die-cut the friend using a Mama Elephant die and I die cut it out of Kraft card twice and layered them, to make it studier. I added a couple of orange enamel dots to finish it off.

I really like it, its fun and really shouts fabulous to me.

The next card uses Lawn Fawn wooden words and stars and to make it a bit different I coloured a Tim Holtz Gum Drop using Orange Alcohol ink and covered the tag hole with it.

Fun cards and the orange card blanks really make the elements pop. I made the card blanks myself using the cardstock from my latest Simon Says Stamp cardkit.

Have a great weekend, I'll be hanging with my family and the animals...

Cx

Distress Ink Recipes...

Hey,

So after extensive playtime, with Distress Inks last weekend at the Loft Art Retreat I really wanted to learn a bit more about which colours would blend well together.

I had a look around and came across this - a genius post by Shari Carroll on the SSS blog, she basically created Distress ink recipes, here are a couple for you to see -

They are awesome and totally inspired me.

I made 3 cards, using the recipes and CASEd Shari's card as the layout / design for each card.

The main card uses recipe 2 and a Hero Arts background stamp - I love how it turned out..super simple to make too..

Here are the other two cards -

Hero Arts background stamp, Tim Holtz dies, Recipe #6

Gina Marie background stamp, Tim Holtz dies, Recipe #10

I love working with a mix of colours, but I've always found it a bit tricky to match them up..so it is really nice to have 'recipes'

Cx

Mixed Media Loft Art Retreat..

Hey,

So I had a super fun weekend, as JT was here for the weekend and we went to Providence to Jenn's last loft art retreat - she is moving, so I believe there will be Art Retreats, but no more Loft.

We had so much fun and it was great to spend QT together that is not work related :) We managed to lose JT's phone on the way to Providence, but all credit to JT, she just waved it off and got on with the weekend. Bill the super helpful Amtrak guy helped to make it all feel a bit better too, so a big shout out to Bill where ever you are, you are the hero of the weekend.

The collage, shows us getting inky, Mister Harley, our tags mid way through and some of the food that we ate - we ate and drank a lot, none of it was good for us and I am having to eat a LOT of vegetables to balance out the badness of the 3 days.

It was great to do the mixed media loft art retreat together because we were both a teeny bit out of our comfort zone and it was good to have my all time fave craft person with me, JT knows me so well, she just laughs when I get all weird...

JT used stencils for the first time ever and I managed not to freak out too much about my fingers being so dirty / inky..it was hard, but my new Ranger craft scrubby is going to help me deal with this moving forward.

It was a lot of fun, our table was a hoot. We learnt so many new techniques, which I'll be showing over the next couple of weeks, as I had a post class play at my desk on Monday - seeing if I had retained all that we learnt.

My fave new technique is the one where you create a blended distress ink panel, spritz a stamp with water and lay the tag onto it. It reacts and kind of bleaches it, like this -

I put my canvas together on Monday, because I didn't want it to get damaged on the train and I love how it looks -

I can't wait to hang it and visit JT and see her's hanging up too.

JT and I were lucky enough to win prizes in the raffle - I am very pleased with mine -

Fun times.

I just want to say to JT - thank you for coming all that way, you made me so very happy, hanging with you is always awesome and playdates are the most fun, especially when they involve Fried Pickles and Flower Monkey Sliders...

Love you man.

Cx

It's playdate time...

Hey,

Happy Friday.

I am super happy.

A) JT arrives today
B) We are off to Providence to do the Mixed Media Loft Art Retreat, hosted and taught by the wonderful Jenn Shurkus.
C) I have 2 days off
D) JT arrives today

I wanted to show you my card for last week's Unity Stamp Co. Show and Tell challenge on Facebook.

I just bought the great lemonade stamp - I am already in love.

This time the challenge was a sketch -

Super simple sketch - the best kind.

I used Lawn Fawn heart paper, from 'Let's Polka in the Meadow', the Unity Stamp and sentiment, 2 dies (MFT and SSS) and distress inks.

The lemonade panel looked a bit bland, so I added some tiny yellow stars - much better.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Cx

CAS(E) this sketch...

Hey,

Hope you had a nice weekend?

I had a very relaxing one and spent qt at my desk.

I am pretty excited, as JT arrives on Friday, so we can go to the Mixed Media Loft Art Retreat in Providence..yes hosted by Jenn Shurkus!!

Whoop Whoop!!

Today I am entering the CAS(E) this sketch challenge..I really like the sketch -

I was a bit undecided about what to use for my card, but then I remembered that I really wanted to have more of a play with this stamp set by Unity Stamp Co.

I stamped, coloured and fussy cut the teabag stamp. I used a freebie border stamp to create the pale pink background behind the teabag.

I figured out the perfect position for my sentiment and stamped it in a slightly darker shade of pink/red.

Once I had popped up the teabag, I stamped a few teeny tiny hearts around.

I love the soft colours and right now (being busy at work) I like simple CAS nature of the card..

Cx

Friendship has it's perks...

Hey,

So I am heading home today.

I loved the Punchinella stamp by Neat & Tangled so much when we used it at the Loft art retreat, that I had to buy it!!

I didn't full ink it up, as I wanted it to feel a bit faded. It's actually a bit bigger than the panel you see, but I die-cut it down, as I didn't want a border.

I love the Lawn Fawn Winter Fox stamp and thought it would look great against the background.

Because the Fox has a cup of coffee, I dug through my stamps (I need more coffee stamps LOL) and I found the sentiment in a Simon Says Stamp Set. The banner die is also by Simon Says Stamp.

I practiced a new tip from Jenn, to add glitter to things without covering myself in it. Super simple and it works!

Have a great weekend..I am looking forward to going home to Hubby and the kitties.

Cx

Hello Gorgeous Friend...

Hey,

I can't believe how fast this week in London is going ..Thursday already?!

Today I am showing you a card I made using a fun stamp set that I bought off of Jenn when I was in Providence. She was selling some of her older stamp sets.

I really liked the Hello Sunshine stamp set by Studio Calico, it was part of a cardkit I believe..

I decided to be adventurous and mask off the speech bubbles and then stamp the flower in 3 shades of purple around the bubbles.

I really like how it came out and the white space that is still left on the card. I used a wink of stella pen on the flowers, so close-up its all twinkly.

Sometimes it's fun to randomly play with one stamp set and see what you get.

Cx

Loft Art Retreat...number 3

Hey,

So as you know I attended my third loft art retreat last weekend.

I did show a photo of all the cards from the loft art retreat earlier in the week, but I wanted to show you a couple of them in more detail and tell you a bit more about the weekend.

Cheiron was my road trip buddy, she drove and organised the hotel, we had a lot of fun. We had the day off on Friday and left early, so we could shop and hang out with some of the ladies..
We pulled off the road near New Haven and did a taco crawl - we ate one taco every truck - well six of them..
Friday was busy, we shopped, had drinks, ate dinner with Jenn and another friend.

Saturday was great fun, we started the day with a trip to our fave diner and then off to Jenn's for a serious session..15 cards in one day is no mean feat, especially when they are as detailed as the ones we made. It was great to see some familiar faces and of course Mister Harley and Chris.
The class was excellent, I learnt a couple of new tricks including how to apply glitter to the card / object and not myself LOL. I also meant a few more cool people, that I will definitely be keeping in touch with.

We had a nice relaxed dinner and then after saying goodbye to everyone Cheiron and I popped to Target for a late night shop and then went bowling!! Ha ha ha.

Sunday, we took it easy, went for breakfast at Cracker Barrel because I have never been there and then we headed home..with a few coffee stops.

It was a fun trip and always lovely to spend quality time with Cheiron.

I chose to show you these cards because they stretched me a bit.

The adorable Lumberjack (stamps by Neat & Tangled) card is essentially one layer, all the wood circles are stamped directly onto the card blank - eek!

I never feel comfortable doing that..but this came out really well.

This next card was supposed to have a shaker element in the top right corner, but one of the ladies on my table messed up her shaker, so I gave her my frame, as I have the dies. My intention was to make it when I got home/

Then I thought I really liked it as it was, but was missing something, so I added some sequins.

It felt a bit naughty not finishing the card as Jenn had intended, so that was a stretch for me..I normally do as I am told when taking a class.

I love the Mermaid card..so glad I bought the stamp set by Newton's Nook...Mermaids..another thing I love.

Cx

WOYWW #358...Fun at the retreat and President Clinton...

Hey,

Happy WOYWW.

Yes, it is that time again..how quickly the week's whip by..

Wednesday's are when we join Julia over at her blog Stamping Ground for a weekly global desk nosy.

My desk this week is blah..because I was away all weekend, so it's just got my work keyboard and mouse on it..creating will be happening tonight - promise!

As some of you know, I spent the last weekend in Providence at Jenn Shurkus' loft art retreat. As usual it was a lot of fun, my companion for the weekend was Cheiron and she is an absolute hoot. If you are in NYC and can get to the Inkpad, she teaches there, you should check her out.

We made 15 cards...

It was a long day, but lots of fun, my table was a riot and as always I learnt some new tips and tricks.

Now about President Clinton. Remember that I was supposed to teach at the local community on Monday? Well..it was cancelled because President Clinton was visiting the centre?! So I waited, saw him, shook his hands and complained to him about the disruption to my plans..for which he apologised..Now that's how to spend your days off :)

See you later for a desk nosy.

Cx

Getting my teach on...

Hey,

Happy Monday.

Hope you had a good weekend, I had a fun, crafty, hilarious weekend, spent with Cheiron at Jenn's Loft Art Retreat. It was nice to get home to Hubby yesterday.

I am still off and I am teaching a cardmaking class at my local community centre..lots of elderly people and my friend's 10 year old Son LOL.

The cards you see here today are the ones I am teaching - with the flower I will let people choose which colourway they want to make. The more boy focused ones I made specially for my friends Son.

Fun times, I'm nervous, but looking forward to it, I hope it goes well and people enjoy it.

I will show you my cards from the retreat later in the week.

Cx

p.s lots of supplies used..

Paper Smooches flower jar stamp, Simon Says Stamp mixed sentiment stamps and banner die, Die Versions robot die, Neat & Tangled Everyday Labels stamps, Stampin' Up mixed sentiment stamps, Promarkers, Gina Marie stitched rectangle die, Hema starburst stamp, Hero Arts star stamps and Papertry Ink balloon dies..