Elephant Frenzy!...

Hey,

Remember when Tiffany (part of the Craftgang) had a baby shower earlier this year and I got the days wrong? And then her baby Sophia was born the next day?

I made her this card and I posted it on Instagram.. Since then I have made approx 50 of them for people that have reached out and asked me if I will make them one?!

It is lovely, but I am still a bit baffled by it's popularity.

Today's version is for a good friend, whose wife recently had a baby girl. I love making these cards, the mixing of the patterns is so fun and a bit different for me.

Making these cards is also a great way to use my patterned paper stash.

Cx

Happy Birthday Momma Bear!

Hey,

So I landed in London yesterday and today I have the day off, so I can spend it with my parents and celebrate Momma's birthday with her.

I always make her a completely elaborate card, as she appreciates them.

I found a great Silhouette cut-file for her card this year. I die-cut it using white cardstock, as I wanted to blend the top portion (as seen above).

Below is a little video that shows you what it looked like before the blending and the additional papers.

I love how it looks all finished.

Also because I had Ben with me and had to race around a bit, I completely forgot to add a 'Happy Birthday' sentiment, but I think she'll forgive me, as my suitcase was HALF full with all her gifts :)

Cx

New Home...

Hey,

Happy Monday to you!

I have had a fun 4 days squiring my Godson Ben around NYC. We fly back to London tonight.

Today's card, I made for a friend that recently bought a house, I had some stuff to send her too, so I thought a new home card would be fun.

It's a Silhouette cut file and super easy to use, all I had to do was resize it and add the spotty paper behind the cut-out house.

I always forget all the fun things I can do with my Silhouette, I actually long for more space, so it can be out and plugged in at all times.

My next post (Weds) will be live from London..

Cx

Ahoy Matey!..

Hey,

Happy Friday.

So I am not sure what Ben and I will be doing today (weather dependant) but yesterday was a lot of fun. We shopped until we dropped, but before that I have a friend who works at the Empire State Building and she got us passes, so we got to go to the observation deck - skip all the lines, it was awesome!

My card today was made last Sunday when I broke out the Silhouette Portrait to have a play. I wanted to make a fun birthday card for a friend's Son.

Recently Hubby blew away my craftroom computer and so I had to reinstall the Silhouette Design Studio, which meant I got to go through all the files I have bought over the last 5 years and I found this awesome 'Ahoy Matey!' card.

All I had to do was get the size right and add that shimmery blue panel (that I thought looked like sea).

I forget sometimes how much fun I can have with the Silhouette, I really have to remember to break it out more!

Have a great weekend, Ben, Hubby and I will be hanging out before Ben and I fly to London on Monday.

Cx

Craftgang Baby...

Hey,

So I promised you I would tell you all about my weekend!

One of the Craftgang (Tiff) was having a baby shower over the weekend and I thought it was on Sunday. So I spent Saturday morning frantically finishing off her baby quilt....

After it was finished, I patted myself on the back and got my clothes ready for the shower on Sunday.

I noticed that my phone was going nuts and it was the Craftgang asking me where I was..yep, totes got my dates wrong and the baby shower was on Saturday!!

Cue, me getting washed, dressed, make-up on, gift wrapped and in a taxi in 15 mins flat!

I am so glad I checked my phone and made it in time for at least part of it...

Then we all wake up on Sunday morning to the news that Baby Sophia made her entrance into the world at approx 8am on Sunday morning LOL!!! I am guessing she 'saw' all the beautiful clothing she had to wear and decided to get on with it!

So on Sunday I made the new baby card - which is the main photo today. I decided to do something a bit different and broke out my Silhouette Portrait and used a Lori Whitlock Elephant card template.

It was so much fun to make. You cut the card blank, the x2 elephants and the trunk hearts and ears. Super easy to assemble and I added brads for the eyes. The papers I used are by American Crafts and I have had them for years and only used 1 sheet!! I also used a purple cardstock for the card blank, ears and hearts, because Tiff loves purple.

So that was my Saturday and Sunday was spent at my desk pretty much going 'what happened yesterday?' LOL.

Cx

You're Crazy Awesome...

Hey,

Today I am off to Cheiron's with the rest of the craftgang to have a epic playdate / baby shower.

I know that JT's card has arrived, so now I can share it with you.

I love this set by Concord & 9th, but there are no dies and that central stamp is a beast!!

So recently I used my Silhouette to cut a bunch of them.

I have used this stamp a ton of times, but I have never used it with the flowers, I've never really been that keen on them, so this was an experiment!

I love how it turned out, I think using similar colours to the ones in the central stamp worked better.

I decided that I would not try and add a birthday sentiment here - telling JT on her birthday that she is 'crazy awesome' seemed to be enough.

I coloured all the elements on the card using distress inks and a paintbrush.

I'm glad I cut a bunch of the central element, so I can now experiment with other colours.

Cx

Crazy in Love..

Hey,

Happy Monday.

Still no work permit, so I continue to be on a forced hiatus.

So far it's been pretty good because we had the epic Bomb Cyclone snow storm, so I've had no choice but to be on house arrest.

One of my work colleagues in NYC got engaged over the Christmas break and her and her boyf are firm friends of mine, so I wanted to make them a fun card.

I actually don't have a lot of 'engagement' stamps and so I had to improvise.

I thought that the "Crazy Awesome" set by Concord & 9th, could work as an Engagement card, but then my heart sank a bit, because there are no dies for this enormous stamp and fussy cutting it is a pain in the arse.

So I broke out my Silhouette Portrait..scan in the stamped image and die-cut a bunch of them - yay!

Because the stamp is so in your face I opted for a simple background (Paper by Lawn Fawn).

I love it and I hope they do too.

Cx

WOYWW #448 - It's total chaos...

Hey,

Bit late to the party today, but still managing to play along with WOYWW.

Today is my last day at work - I am having an enforced hiatus, due to my work permit not turning up in time (sigh). I have decided to not be a slob and have early morning gym sessions planned and lots of crafty projects to keep me alert and out of mischief.

Yeah, so my desk is a hot mess...this is the result of an epic playtime on Monday!

So what can you see? Me!! My computer, my keyboard - which is covered in bits of scrap papers and papers I have pulled out for something else. To the left of my keyboard is a planned out card teetering on top of all the stamp sets I pulled out for my DT makes over at Retro Rubber. At the front you can see punches, cardstock, small trimmer, scissors, some silhouette couple cards I am mid-way through, stamp block, headphones, mouse and pens. That disgustingly coloured pot to the right is my waterpot..sometimes when the things start to grow out of the top I empty it..

Obviously with my first day off tomorrow I'll be trying to tame this beast.

Here is a different colourway of the silhouette couple..I'm thinking Anniversary cards.

See you later for a nosy.

Cx

P.s - any WOYWWers going to Crop on the Cape in March? Because if you are I want to smooch you and buy you Gin!

Happy 30th Birthday..

Hey,

Happy Monday.

I wanted to make a fun card for JT's sister to celebrate her turning 30.

I made the card when JT and I were having our playdate a week ago.

The cover plate I used is new-ish and is by Avery Elle. I stamped a piece of white card using a Hero Arts tiny heart background stamp before I die-cut it.

I am loving the new Papertry Ink number dies that I got from Cheiron, they are proving to be most handy.

I also needed a gift card holder, so I pulled out my Silhouette to see what I had in my library and I came across this fun Pineapple gift card template.

Isn't it fun? It was super easy to put together and adds a touch of fun to a boring old gift card.

Hubby is back tonight..FINALLY and I am very excited to see him - sad that it's only for 3 days, as I leave for London on Thursday.

Cx

Sketch Saturday #450...Drawn With Character

Hey,

Welcome to another superb Sketch Saturday..

This week our sponsors are Drawn with Character and they are offering a prize of 3 digital stamps.

Here is this week's sketch -

If you know me, you know I LOVE Monster stamps..

So it should be no surprise that I decided to use the awesome Valentine's Monster Love 2 digital stamp and I imported it into my Silhouette library and die-cut the two monsters out. I coloured them with Promarkers and stamped the sentiment onto the balloons.

I decided to dig around in my stash for fun things to accompany the Monsters. The grid paper is ancient and the last piece left, I bought it when I first started crafting around 2009... The groovy purple background piece was made using a gelli plate, purple paint and a scraper.

Unfortunately I don't think you can see how glittery my ribbon strip is! I added some staples here and there for a bit of interest.

Fun card that I love and is going to make an awesome Valentine card.

Your turn to show us your sketch interpretations, go over to Sketch Saturday and see what the rest of the DT have been making.

Challenge ends Friday 17th February 7pm GMT / 5pm EST.

Cx

The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge..end of the current challenge..

Hey,

So as it is sadly the last day of wonderful Kathy Rac's The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge, I thought I would show you some of the things I have made with my colouring over the last couple of weeks.

I love the colouring challenge, it makes me dig out either NBUS or older stuff that I haven't coloured in a while.

The main card is a Hambo digital stamp, that I cut out on my Silhouette. I coloured the monster with Promarkers. The background stamp is by Echo Park. The sentiment is a mix by Simon Says Stamp and The Alley Way Stamps.

I really love the next card, I recently started tracking down stamps by The Alley Way Stamps, they are no longer in business. This set is called Gotta Bug? I loved those weird germ / bug stamps. All coloured with distress inks. In a way, I wish I had left the monster off...

The card below is another digital stamp, by Dearie Dolls, also cut on the Silhouette. I coloured the cute bunny using Promarkers and added some Stickles for sparkle. The card blank is by Lawn Fawn and the sentiment is by SSS and was already to go and on my desk - love desk scraps.

Here is a NBUS stamp, I have had this birthday monster stamp by Unity for over a year and just never found an appropriate place to use him! The background was already made and in my 'ready made background' folder. The sentiment came with the stamp.

Finally another piece of NBUS, but a new one..I bought this stamp from Joann's on super discount bargain sale and it is by  WhipperSnapper Designs. I love the birdies on the line. The stamp is called The Flock. I kept it simple and coloured it using distress inks and an aquabrush and added a die-cut hello by Simon Says Stamp.

Fun to see a lot of my colouring from the 30 days all together, I really should make a 30 day collage...

And in other news, I have been having a great craft related few weeks, I got an Honorable Mention again over at CASology and I won first place in the Bugaboo Bingo Challenge - AWESOME.. 

Cx

Bugaboo Thanksgiving...

Hey,

Happy Monday.

Hope you had a good weekend, can't believe it is nearly Thanksgiving already!!

I really want to enter Bugaboo challenges more, but I always forget!!

This weekend I saw the Bugaboo Catch The Bug November Bingo Challenge and I really liked the bingo card -

I went with the embossing, thanksgiving theme and bugaboo image line.

I started by importing my image (Autumn Jar) into my Silhouette Portrait, so I could cut around it. There were a few Bugaboo images that I wanted to do this with, so did them all at once. I'm fine with fussy cutting, but sometimes it is nice to do it with the Silhouette.

I coloured it using Promarkers and Nuvo Crystal Drops.

The embossing folder is a basketweave one by Sizzix and is one of my faves, I used the reverse side here, as I wanted it to be a bit flatter.

I heat embossed the sentiment onto a coordinating piece of the brown paper, I love this sentiment stamp, it's so detailed and heat embosses really well. So that it had a bit of stand out from the brown, I added a small strip of glitter paper underneath it before affixing it to my card.

I also added a piece of twine under the main image, again to make it pop a bit more.

So glad I played along, this is a fun card and I know where it's heading!

Cx

Retro Rubber #49..Boo! It's Halloween..

Hey,

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

We are not that far from Halloween, so we thought it was a great time for you to get digging around in your older Halloween stash..

Last year I explained how Halloween is a bit lost on me as I am English and it also just happens to be my Wedding Anniversary..

I recently had my Silhouette Portrait out, so I cut out a spider and web and let that dictate my card LOL.

I decided not to make my card too scary, so went with a grey backdrop. I remembered that I had some great Halloween washi tapes..somewhere..luckily I managed to find them and used them to add colour and text to my card.

I stamped, die-cut and coloured the MFT Mummy (from 2015) and mounted him/her onto my card, just slightly overlapping the spider.

I love it, such a fun card and I think my Niece and Nephew will like it too.

Show us your scary Halloween makes, but first go over to Retro Rubber and view the scary things my teammates have made..

Challenge ends on October 21st 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

Hello Summer!!

Hey,

Hope you are having a nice weekend so far..I am sad..the Brexit was not a good result in my opinion and makes me worry for the future of my land...

But moving onto brighter things it means that my Hubby is not working at all this weekend for the first time in 12 weeks, so we get to hang out - yay!

Gerda Steiner gave a freebie stamp this week, so we could all play along on Instagram using #surfingducky

Such a great idea.

I broke out my Silhouette Portrait for the first time in A LONG time... I used it to print and cut the ducky stamp and to cut the palm trees.

I decided to mount the trees and the ducky directly onto the card blank, as the colour fit my idea.

The sentiment stamps are by Papermania and Simon Says Stamp.

A super easy card to put together and it has already left in the post winging its way to a friend..

Cx

Designer inspiration...

Hey,

Happy Friday..

So Hubby and I are now in Melton Mowbray with his family, before we go to a good friend's wedding tomorrow.

We have had a great holiday, it was awesome to go back to Amsterdam.

I wanted to show you another stamp that I made using the Silhouette, like the Thank You stamp I showed you last week.

When I was making my own stamps I decided that two stamps would be good to start with. I decided that a word stamp and a nature stamp would be useful for me.

So I searched for inspiration and I happened to be in London at the time and saw quite a bit of Orla Kiely's work. I've always loved her signature ferm, partly because she does so much with it and because of the colours she uses.

I decided that a fern stamp would be a great one to make with the Silhouette.

The main photo today is of one of the cards that I made with the stamp.

Because I tried several different colour variants, I decided to create a chart that I could file with the stamp, so that I didn't have to re-invent the wheel every time I use it!

I used a random stamp and the Distress Inks to create the chart, I also added numbers, so I remember the order of the colours. The random piece of cardboard is recycled - I recycle as much card / paper as I can and if it's not going on a card, it doesn't really matter.

Here are the rest of the cards I created -

I am really happy with this stamp and I can see it getting a lot of use. I bundled this batch up and gave them to my MIL as a gift.

Have a great weekend. No posts from me - wedding, travel to London = not enough time to blog.

Cx

Make your own stamp...

Hey,

Happy Saturday!

I am now on holibobs!! And this post will be up before I land in the UK..

Several months ago - I'm talking like before Thanksgiving... I saw a blog post on the Silhouette blog about using it to make clear stamps..

What?! What kind of witchcraft is this!!

I promptly bought some of the stamp material and a special stamp cutting mat for the Silhouette and had a play.

Sadly a few of my creations were an epic fail..but I managed to create two beauties.

Yes, the main card today uses a stamp I MADE...

I love it!!

Due to the nature of the stamp material, you get a kind of splotchy effect, so for these cards I decided that I would use different distress inks, spritz the stamp, stamp it onto watercolour paper and then dry it..

They all came out so different.

Fun times..

I wanted to show you a photo of the stamp, but it didn't come out too well.

I don't use my Silhouette as often as I 'should' but I stopped beating myself up about this, because when I do use him, lots of magic happens - yay!

Have a great weekend, I'll be back tomorrow to show you the other stamp.

Cx

Fun times..

Hey,

Happy Friday.

I am counting down the minutes until I leave for Jenn Shurkus' loft art retreat...

I am a super lucky lady as the amazing Cheiron is giving me a lift AND a bed for the night - blogland really is the best land..

Don't forget Cheiron is teaching at The InkpadNYC on Oct.23 if you haven't taken a class with her yet and Jenn has dates for the November mixed media retreat.

To celebrate all these fun things that are happening I am entering the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - CAS Christmas..

My card came together really easily.

I recently found the green spiral (Silhouette die cut) in amongst a stack of paper and thought it would make a great backdrop for my new Poppy Stamps tree die.

I embossed the white background paper with a Sizzix swiss dots folder, stuck down the spiral, added the tree and the sentiment banner (sentiment by Lawn Fawn).

For the final touch I added some tiny bling to the spiral.

I love it so much, I am going to make a bunch of them, to add to my personal Christmas card pile.

Have a great weekend..

Cx

60th Birthday..

Hey,

Hope you had a good weekend.

I had a lot of fun hanging with Hubby and playing at my desk..last big session before I go home.

As Ma's birthday has been and gone and she now has her card, I can show it to you.

I wanted it to be fancier than normal..so I broke out the Silhouette.

I opted to use a Lori Whitlock A2 flip card file - it came with a 60th cut out, so it was perfect for my needs.

I chose American Crafts papers that I thought Ma would like.

I'm pleased with the end result, despite how fiddly it was to put together.

Cx

Online Card Classes - A Cut Above: Part 2 - Day One

Hey,

So a couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to doing Day One of my Online Card Class - A Cut Above: Part 2 Electronic Die Cutting.

It was a lot of fun and I learnt some new tricks and manged to use a few cut files that I've had for a while.

The first part of the class is about using background files (my main photo). 

I had this fun background that I bought ages ago, but found it a bit much every time I tried to use it. In the OCC I learnt that keeping everything else simple (including colours) helps.

I added a red Happy - cut with my Silhouette and some mini gold glitter letters for Birthday - keeping it all very simple, but effective.

The next part required you to use a cut file supplied with the class. It teaches you how to scale and how to get these fiddly beasts off of the cutting mat!

I decided to use a spotty background and heart button to bring my cut frame alive. I like it, simple but also effective.

Layering shapes is one of my crafting staples. So I loved this part of the class and got to use the layered butterflies that I have had forever and never used!!

I switched it up a bit here and cut 2 of the butterflies in fussy papers, adding a bit more drama to the layers. The button with it's gold ribbon knot was already on my desk - perfect! I added an embossed background, a sentiment sticker and some bling.

Fun class, I am looking forward to Day Two..when I find some time..

If you haven't taken an Online Card Class yet, you really should - they are fun, easy and the best bit is that they are ALWAYS there. So you can do them at your leisure, great idea and means I don't get stressed about trying to keep up with a live class.

Cx

WOYWW #304...Calmer times..

Hey,

Happy WOYWW and welcome to April everyone.

As you can see my desk is much calmer this week..

I'm happy to be joining Julia and the gang for another fun WOYWW - the day where we all join up at Julia's blog Stamping Ground for a global desk nosy. Join in the fun...

My desk is calm, because I was away in Providence, because I went to a Jenn Shurkus loft art retreat. It was AWESOME. I met so many great and talented crafters - including Kymona. I earnt a whole host of new techniques and discovered some fun products too.

I'll be showing the 15 cards we made on Friday - crazy fun times.

I've labelled my desk for you. The new MFT hybrid ink was purchased at the retreat..it is really great and works so well with my Promarkers. I am colouring some digital stamps for a friends birthday gift.

I wanted to show you the lavender sachets I made for Jenn, I know a few of you mentioned that you would like to see them -

Lavender Sachets

Wrapped and ready to go

I loved making them - easy and fun. They smell so lovely..next time I'm going to put some of the Lavender heads in the bag.

Final piece of show and tell this week is the card I made to go with the gift. Jenn loves nautical items - 

I love American Crafts patterned card blanks, they make things come alive. I am also loving the reasonably new rounded rectangle stitched dies by MFT.

Hope you have a lovely day, see you for a nose later.

Cx