Retro Rubber Challenge #253 - Tic Tac Toe

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we have a tic-tac-toe board for you.

These are always so fun, as even if you chose the same row as someone else, your cards are totally different!

I went with the 1st vertical row - green/ribbon/thank you.

I love this stamp set by Taylored Expressions 'Cherry On Top' it was a gift from my friend Lisette in 2022, she knows I have a thing for cherry stamps, but dislike real cherries!

I added a small strip of green cardstock to my mini slim card blank. I wanted it to act as an anchor for the postage strip. I love using these blank postage strips, they are so impactful.

I created a little cluster at the bottom for my cherry stamp, sentiment and the cute little ribbon bow I found in my stash! I literally have not been in the drawer where the ribbon bows live in about a year!

Cute card, I can't wait to send it!

Which row will you choose? Don't forget to pop over to Retro Rubber, and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends May 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 5 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

4 cards, 1 stamp set: Making Cards Mag Freebie

Hey,

So having a little challenge gap day today :)

I wanted to show you x4 cards that I made using a freebie stamp set I got in the UK.

I love the stamps, they are a great addition to my stash.

I stamped x4 of the girls onto watercolour paper and used distress inks to colour them.

I decided that I would cut the main stamped images as tags and go from there.

I had a LOT of fun, I used so many scraps from my stash - including all the ribbon. Basically I never ever buy ribbon, I just save it from gifts I get given and recycle it in my crafting!

Fun cards that came out even better than expected.

Cx

Snarky Sketch: This Could be Vodka..

Hey,

It's so nice to be home and back at my desk.

I thought I would combine two challenges today. I loved the idea of the Sunday Stamps sketch and tag challenge combined with The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers 'C is for Cat'.

I thought my newish papers by Craft Sensations would work really well with the sketch and I love tags and thought it would be great to use one of my all-time fave dies - Lil Inkers dotted tag die.

I really like The Cat's Pajama's stamps and the set I used here 'It could be Vodka' always makes me smile. I stamped the cat onto the tag and coloured it using copic markers. I stamped the cup again onto a scrap of patterned paper and die-cut it and arranged it so it hangs slightly off the tag.

I keep ALL the ribbon that I get on gifts, this particular piece was from my Christmas gifts from my in-laws 2 years ago.

I love the sentiment - I mean who knows what the Cat is sitting in!

Cx

CASology: Dragonfly..

Hey,

Happy Friday to you!

I have the day off today, my Goddaughter Amy is here and we are going to be spending a day doing fun things, ahead of the first of my birthday weekend events!

I wanted to play along with the currently CASology challenge..

I actually thought I had a couple more Dragonfly stamps, but turns out I only have this teeny tiny one, which is by Pink Fresh Studio and is from their 'Itty Bitty Elements' set.

I love Dragonflies and one of the great things about living in NYC is that I get to see them flying around all Summer.

For some reason, I have had a hankering to play with a tag! So I used a Tim Holtz 'Mosaic' stencil with Spiced Marmelade and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxides to create the background on my tag,

I stamped, coloured and die-cut my little Dragonfly and after I figured out where I wanted him to sit, I stamped the sentiment onto the tag.

I then used foam tape to mount the finished tag onto my card blank.

Super happy with this, it came out just like I pictured it..that so rarely happens.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #103.. Ribbons of Love..

Hey,

Welcome to another awesome Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we are combining love with ribbons (for some of us that is the same thing LOL)...

Inspiration hit me the minute I saw this one and I dug out the Heart Confetti set by Clearly Besotted, that I have had since 2017. It comes with tons of different hearts and I used 7 of them to create the top part of my card.

I die-cut a red heart and added a little ribbon bow, but before I affixed it to the white heart stamped panel, I stamped the sentiment by Unity Stamp Co. that I have had since 2015.

This came out so well that I gifted it to my work colleague to use as her Valentine's Day card for her Hubby.

Show us your ribbons of love and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends Feb 8th.

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

Catch The Bug GDT: Wednesday Tutorial..Lipgloss Holder

Hey,

So part of my GDT stint with the Catch The Bug team means I get to create a tutorial!

I thought it would be fun to show you a project that I make all the time and I've even made them with my non-crafty Mother!

I seriously make these little lip balm / gloss holders A LOT. They are a super easy and inexpensive little gift to give and I like to have a stash on hand.

You will need the following supplies: image, white or coloured card, colouring medium, scoring board, single hole punch, glue dots, ribbon and a lip balm / gloss (I get mine in bulk from Amazon)

Step 1 - I chose to use 'I will accept' colouring page by Bugaboo. Print it out at letter size and it should look like this -

Step 2 - Cut your 'panel's' to size. 7cm deep by 17.5cm wide.

You will also need a piece of white or coloured card (not shown) and you will need to cut that to size - 8cm deep by 17.5cm wide.

Step 3 - Colour your panels. I use Promarkers, they are my fave markers. I always choose 4 colours, no idea why, I just do and I don't colour the entire image, I like to leave some parts white. This is the fun part :) Colour your panel however you like.

Step 4 - Affix the coloured panels to your plain panel, leaving a small border either side (not shown, but you will see what this looks like in the step 5 photo).

Step 5 - Place your panel on your scoreboard. Sadly we now have to work in inches! Your panel should be 6.5inches long. You need to score at 3 inches and 3.5inches, this will leave enough space for your lip balm.

Crease at the scorelines. And it should look like this -

Step 6 - Now open up your folded panel and add two glue dots to the central panel -

and then add your lip balm / gloss.

Step 7 - Fold the 'card' so the edges meet and then using your single hole punch, punch a hole for your ribbon. It is important that you DO NOT do this step until after you have added the lip balm / gloss.

Final step - add the ribbon, tie into a bow and voila! you are finished..

Aren't they cute?

Super easy to make, but feel free to leave me a comment here or on the Catch The Bug blog if you have any questions.

Cx

Catch The Bug GDT: Saturday Challenge - Bingo

Hey,

Happy Saturday to you!

I'm back with the Catch The Bug team for their Saturday challenge.

This week we have a great Bingo grid for you..

I chose the first vertical line - Die/Punch / Bugaboo Image / Ribbon.

The new Flower Garden images are a lot of fun to work with and I especially liked the sentiment that comes with the set.

For my die element, I used two different sized stitched rectangle dies (MFT) for my panels - I love stitched dies, so very versatile.

The ribbon was a gift from a friend and I thought it coordinated quite well here with colours in my image and the background paper.

A lovely, elegant card, that I used to thank a friend for inviting me to an event.

Hope you will be playing along too. Which row will you choose? Upload your makes at the Catch The Bug blog and check out the rest of the DT makes.

Cx

Bugaboo Birthday Bash: Day 6..

Hey,

Happy Friday to you!

I didn't manage to post Day 6 yesterday, I ran out of steam after the gym, errands, etc.

I've really enjoyed this week playing along with the Bugaboo 8th Birthday Bash, it's made me dig through some old favourite stamps and make friends with newer purchases :)

Here is the theme for Day 6 -

Easy peasy..we all know I love bold colours, so I added my other fave thing to this recipe - Monsters.

Another really easy card that was actually all about the colouring of the Love Monsters stamp (I have Monster Birthday too).

I coloured the stamp using Promarkers and Nuvo Aqua Flow pens in bold colours, then die-cut it to shape using a stitched rectangle die.

To fit the recipe I used a kraft card blank and added the bright blue strip of paper to add a bit of interest before I added a piece of precious We R Memory Keepers glitter ribbon..I have two rolls left (approx 9 years old) and it is seriously rationed..

Final touch was to stamp the sentiment, I love these vertical greetings from Stampin' Up, they are really useful.

Hope you all have a nice weekend, gym, food, hangs with hubby and NFL divisional playoffs are on my agenda for the weekend.

Cx

Sketch Saturday #492 Christmas Flamingos..

Hey,

Happy Saturday to you, Hubby and I are landing in London as this goes live!!

Welcome to the latest sketch for the Sketch Saturday challenge.

Our sponsor this week is Sasayaki Glitter and they are offering a prize of 1 digi from their store.

Here's the sketch...

I love Flamingos, so when I saw the Winter Flamingos image it was an easy choice!!

I rotated the sketch and printed the Flamingo image onto a piece of stripey digital paper. My border is a very, very glittery piece of ribbon and instead of a bow, I used a gold glittery heart. I combined x3 sentiment stamps to create my sentiment, as I really wanted the word 'warm' in there!

To add to the extreme shine of my card, I added gold stickles here and there.

I can't wait to see what you do with the sketch, but first check out what the rest of the DT have made over at Sketch Saturday.

Challenge ends 5 January 2018 at 7pm GMT / 2pm EST

Cx

Sketch Saturday: #452 Bugaboo Birdie...

Hey,

Welcome to another awesome Sketch Saturday.

Our sponsor this time is Bugaboo and they are offering a prize of four digital stamps.

Here is the sketch.

As you can see I rotated the sketch, I felt it worked better with my image. I won a LOAD of images in a Bugaboo challenge at the end of last year and so decided to use one of those.

I chose Bugbdaybird4 I love this cute Bugaboo range of birdies.

I coloured the stamp with Promarkers and fussy cut it out.

My papers are by American crafts and are part of a 6x6 stack, I added a piece of glittery ribbon to separate the papers and instead of an embellishment, I die-cut a stitched oval (MFT) and stamped the sentiment onto it.

Such a cute way to say thanks.

Your turn now, but first go over to Sketch Saturday and check out what the rest of the DT have done with the sketch.

Challenge ends 3 March 7pm GMT / 2pm EST

Cx

Grungy Tag Cards..

 Hey,

At the start of my Christmas break I decided to step out of my comfort zone and play with some tags, stencils and paint.

I bought these great tags on sale at Paper Source as I thought they would be great for Ranger distress techniques.

Turns out they are and they aren't..they take the ink and paint perfectly, but they rumple a bit whilst you are working..that annoyed me a bit!

Anyway...moving past my brat like behaviour..

I used distress inks to colour both the tags and then I stamped and stenciled various things onto them before adding some distress paint splashes in white, black and blue.

I was pretty pleased with how they looked after even those few steps.

I used grey card blanks and stamped directly onto these using distress inks and I spritzed them a teeny amount for a bit of blur. I added washi tape to both bases for a bit of interest.

I had been planning to make both cards Happy Birthday, but I had a spare 'Hey Girl' on my desk and it seemed to fit the card below perfectly.

I really like them and they are a bit different to my normal style, they feel a bit like my art journal, which is a world apart from my cards..not sure why that is..

Cx

Bugaboo Holiday Chaos Day 7...

Hey,

Happy Friday.

I have the day off today - whoop whoop.

Sadly Hubby and I should be in Copenhagen with my entire company, but due to some health issues on my side we had to opt out.

But I still get the day off and shortly I am off to Hoboken to lunch and craft with two of the Craftgang (Ava and Jamey) yay!!

I had SO much fun playing along with the Bugaboo Holiday Chaos challenge..So sad this is the final day.

It was fun to dig out all my fun Bugaboo Christmas images and it also reminded me how much I love digital stamps.

Today the Day 7 theme is Freebie Bingo..

As it is Friday, it is freebie Friday over at Bugaboo, so you could use the gorgeous free stamp.

I opted to use my latest Bugaboo purchase Voluptuous Valerie and combined her with the bottom bingo row.

I coloured Valerie in non-traditional Christmas colours, using Promarkers and Stickles and used the same colours for my layers and ribbon.

I broke out PEEL OFFS!!! I haven't used those in like 2 years...That was fun to look through that folder :)

I added some Nuvo drops around for some extra sparkle...I mean it is Christmas right?!

Cx

Sketch Saturday #440

Hey,

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

Hubby and I had an awesome time with Cheiron and her family..so grateful for friends that welcome us into their homes.

I'm back with another great challenge from the Sketch Saturday team.

This week's Sketch Saturday challenge sponsor is The Paper Shelter

I decided to use the great 26 December stamp..I like the idea of Santa having a snooze after all that hard work!

I printed him onto watercolour paper and then coloured him with distress inks and an aquabrush, I added the sentiment from an Avery Elle stamp set.

I found a great piece of patterned present paper in my Christmas stash and thought that worked well here. Instead of banners I used ribbon, wrapped around 3 times to match the sketch.

I used one of my fave glittery stars to complete the card.

I like how it's come out and another great addition to my Christmas card pile.

Your turn to join in the fun - go over to Sketch Saturday and be inspired by the rest of the DT makes.

The challenge ends 2nd December 7pm GMT / 5pm EST.

Cx

No peeking...

Hey,

I'm on a craft related roll right now. I got featured stamper over at Color Throwdown this week and that means I am the guest designer for next week's challenge. WHOOP WHOOP.

Anyway..back to my post :)

I thought I'd show you the card I made for this week's Unity Stamp Co Facebook Challenge.

It's a Christmas theme this week.

So I thought it would be fun to play with the Pretend You Like This set a bit more.

I used Salty Ocean distress ink on my tag and the background panel and then I stamped the Snowflake from the set in Faded Jeans. The smaller snowflake lives by my desk at this time of the year and is by Simon Says Stamp.

I stamped and die-cut one of the sentiments from the set and die-cut a snowflake to pop under the sentiment.

I added some ribbon and mounted the whole tag onto my background panel.

I like the variation in colour and the slightly smudged sentiment, makes me feel like someone has indeed been peeking and shaking it!

Cx

Exciting news...

Hey,

Happy Monday everyone.

So remember last week I said I had exciting craft news?

Well I made the Sketch Saturday Challenge DT - YAY!!!

I couldn't believe it when I found out 2 weeks ago, I love sketches and I have played along with Sketch Saturday a lot. So I am super excited to be joining this talented team.

So to celebrate this great news today I am playing along (but obvs not entering!) with the current challenge.

This week's sponsor is Digi Stamp Boutique, they are offering a £10 gift certificate.

I used one of the images from the Bailey Reindeer set and coloured it using Zig Clean Color brush pens.

The floral paper is by American Crafts and is ancient and I don't have much of it left, I paired it with a co-ordinating green square. I added a thin piece of red ribbon for a bit of extra interest and finished off with a snowflake and wooden heart.

The sentiment is by Papermania and both my stitched circle and square dies are by Simon Says Stamp.

I love it, such a sweet image.

Hope you will play along too challenge ends on Friday 11th of November and I'll be back on Saturday 12th with my first DT make for the team.

Cx

Playdate Part 2....

Hey,

Happy Friday...

So this is part two of the playdate at JT's house posts.

So now we get into the part where a fair amount of food, booze and gossip had been consumed..so the cards might be odd..

LOL.

Not the headliner though, I really love it, it came out so well.

I used the same stamp that JT has been procrastinating about for ages (see her version here), I covered it with x2 distress inks, spritzed it with water and then dried it. I love the result.

I then die-cut it to shape and added some ribbon from JT's HUGE collection. The die-cut sentiment I added when I got home, as I could picture it working.

The next two cards are hilarious and use a new set called Monochrome by Waffle Flower, I got it on super sale because it was damaged.

I packed it when I was leaving for London, as JT had just used the 'Rad' from the Recollections set that has Voila! and Word! in it as well and seeing her card sparked an idea.

The first card had green hexies added to cover the green ink splodges that were already on the white cardstock, waste not want not..

Of course a Zebra would say Word. I was a bit upset that the Zebra hadn't stamped well and JT said it made him look more like a Zebra, she was right. I added a red scrap (cut off the card above) and a zebra print candi - love it.

Always way more fun to play with friends, hence why I am off to Hoboken tomorrow to have a shoebox make day with all the wonderful ladies I met at the Inkpad - they rock and keep me sane..

Cx

I love stripes...

Hey,

Happy Friday...

Hubby and I are off on our holibobs to Mexico tomorrow - YAY!!

So continuing on from Thursday's post I am showing you more of the cards I made using the Stampin' Up brushstrokes stamp, distress inks and a spritz of water.

I made tons of these backgrounds last week, I found it very therapeutic after a busy day at work!

I also have a big thing for stripes and this stamp was NOT cheap, but I had to have it...

I love the main photo today, so simple, but really impactful - I added a strip of red paper to my cardstock and then added the stripey background slightly over that.

I have a safety pin that has scraps of ribbon attached to it, hanging from my pinboard and I found the red ribbon there.

I stamped the sentiment after adding the ribbon, as I couldn't decide what it should say...

The 'It's your day' stamp jumped out at me and works really well here, it's from Birthday Bisque by Jillibean Soup.

Obviously I made another card using these fun backgrounds..

This one was super simple and the brushstrokes background was smaller - no trimming, I trim all the watercolour paper to size before I go crazy with the ink and the spritzing! So they look really natural.

I love these textured card blanks and I can ONLY buy them when they are on sale..

I die-cut the Ellen Hutson 'Treat Yo Self' in a contrasting blue and popped it out with foam tape.

Whenever I use this die, I stamp '..it's your birthday' inside..

I love making backgrounds, so much fun and super handy for when your mojo escapes you.

My posts will be scheduled for the next 10 days whilst I recharge my batteries with my boy, cocktails, good food and sunshine.

Cx

Retro Rubber #46.. Its Critter Time..

Hey,

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

This theme asks you use a critter -

I love this theme, I have WAY too many critter stamps..I can't resist them..

Now get ready because I am going to show you how I made this card, end to end, so there are a few photos;)

I made this card for my Ma for her birthday, not only did I dig out older stamps (Mama Elephant Three Amigos from July 2015), but I also dug out an ancient folding tag card blank - I bought this from the Little Claire stand at a craft fair I went to with JT in 2012!!

I started by adding texture paste to my card through a Tim Holz 'scribbles' stencil, which I swear looks like roses -

Next put the stencil back over the paste and add 2 colours of distress ink over it (once dry) - 

Then stamp, colour, die-cut and stamp the critters and add them along with the ribbon to the card..stamping before mounting onto the card is best (yes a few critters were lost..) - 

Pretty cool right? The little patterned paper piece that the card is balanced on is actually the custom envelope I made for the card using my Martha Stewart scoring board.

Here is the final panel -   

I wrote my greeting on the 'plain' side, so it wouldn't show and then Momma can frame it, if she wants to. She really loved it, so I am super happy :)

Seems complicated, but it was super easy to do, partly because the card blank was already cut to size and shape...

Show us your critter makes, but first go over to Retro Rubber and view the great makes by my teammates.

Challenge ends on September 9th. 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.

Cx

p.s As of the 3rd of Sept I will be in Mexico, so the fabulous RR ladies will be commenting and voting for me :)