Fusion Card Challenge - Front Porch...

Hey,

Welcome to another awesome Fusion Card Challenge.

This time we have 'Front Porch' for you! As always both the sketch and the inspiration image are awesome.

Which will you try?

I loved the inspiration image, as I have a front porch and I love sitting out there. But I didn't have the right stamps for the image in my head.

The weightlifting monster stamp is by Whipper Snapper Designs and is ancient and one of my all-time faves, I always smile when I use him. I used one of my many on-hand smooshed distress ink backgrounds and added a strip of glitter paper to mimic the sketch. The little sentiment banner I created using planner stickers. I think these little stickers are so handy when you want a small sentiment.

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

Challenge ends on September 27th.

Cx

Fusion Challenge - Front Porch

Hey,

Welcome to another wonderful Fusion Card Challenge.

This time we have 'Front Porch' for you! As always both the sketch and the inspiration image are awesome.

Which will you try?

I was planning on fusing the sketch and the photo, as I have a front porch and I LOVE it!!

But I couldn't find the stamp to create what I had in my head. So I went with just the sketch.

The weightlifting monster is one of my all-time fave stamps by Whipper Snapper and it always makes me smile when I use him. I used one of my many on hand smooshed backgrounds and added a strip of glitter paper. The little banner I made using x2 stickers that are for planners, but I like to use them as small sentiments on cards.

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

Challenge ends on September 27th.

Cx

Colorado Craft Co - Happy New Year Mice...

Hello!

I love Colorado Craft Co stamps. I am not a big fan of mice IRL, but they make them SO cute.

This set is called 'Happy New Year' and what I really love about it, is that it is one long stamp that comes with x2 dies, so you get 2 cards in one

I kept these super simple, as I really wanted the mice to shine. They were both coloured with distress inks and a paintbrush (I don't like aquabrushes).

And I added the cheeky Tim Holtz snarky stickers for a bit of fun.

Cx

Motivational glaze...

 

Hey,

So I don't really use large stickers that much when I am crafting.

But this set of motivational stickers from Target for $1 were too good to walk away from, but what would I do with them..

As the stickers have gold text I thought it would be good to co-ordinate my backgrounds. Cue a bunch of backgrounds that I had ready-made (see Monday's post). I just cut them to size and added a little black square to made the sticker pop a bit more!

The backgrounds were made using Picket Fence Paper Glaze in Golden Rose, through stencils. SO pretty and I really like working with this glaze, it's very smooth, but not runny.

I made a bunch of cards, but only photographed x2 of them!

Always happy when a crazy idea comes together perfectly...

Cx

Shopping Our Stash: Sticker Lion..

Hey,

Happy Monday!

Hope you had a good weekend?

I am starting the week off with another challenge entry, I had an epic challenge playtime at my desk on Saturday.

I was lucky enough to get a top 3 spot over at Shopping Our Stash from one of their recent challenges, which was a nice surprise. I love their current theme 'Stuck on You' - use your stickers!

I have been saving the awesome Lion sticker, for something, I was never sure what and then SOS came along with this challenge and I felt it was time for him to shine.

I bought a random pack of Project Life stickers ages ago on sale and I have used quite a few of them, but most are just sitting around needing a home..

I die-cut x2 panels using scalloped, dotted, stitched rectangle dies from The Works in London. I went with a yellow palette as I felt it coordinated nicely with the Lions crown.

I stamped part of the sentiment onto the yellow panel and the other part I stamped into the speech bubble and fussy cut it out. The sentiments and the speech bubbles are both by Avery Elle (Rawr and Speech Bubbles sets).

He came together so well and it makes me so happy to see the sticker finally on a card.

Cx

Good Luck...

Hey,

Hope you are all well?

I had a fun weekend in Florida with my girlfriends, a few makes from that trip will be posted soon.

Today's card I made for a work colleague that was leaving.

He is a copywriter, so it made sense to use the awesome pen stamp that I have - it's from a Technique Tuesday set 'Man Day' and the pen has never actually been used before this card!

I kept it super simple and used glittery Thickers for my sentiment.

Love it when a card in my mind comes to life so well.

Cx

Sticker Magic...

Hey,

So I lied..here is a bonus post for you whilst I am on vacay..

I really wanted to show these cards, but sadly my photo is a bit washed out.

I bought these great stickers by American Crafts on sale in February.

I love stickers, but sometimes I get a bit stuck with how to use them and I saw a great idea on Pinterest that used a masked and blended circle, sentiment and a sticker.

So I made a ton of these using my sticker pack, the x6 cards here are my fave from the batch.

By just using a coordinating colour, the blended circle brings the sticker to life! I added simple sentiments that I thought worked well with the stickers. I created the mask using a circle die and one of the card backs that come with stamp sets, I keep these for masking, because they cover your whole card and you don't accidentally get ink anywhere and you can create one for each colour and get a few uses out of them.

Fun and super easy peasy to do and a great way to use a random purchase!

The white panel was die-cut using a Tim Holtz and Sizzix deckle edge die, I LOVE these dies and I bought them on sale because I saw them and had to have them, they are going to be super handy for Christmas cards I think.

Cx

Hello Winter Baby..

Hey,

At the end of January our friends had their first baby, after a really difficult set of stillbirths. I think it's ok for me to reference that, as they are advocates for talking about it and support several charities, that bring this subject to forefront of people's minds.

To celebrate the arrival of Baby Rowan, I went baby stuff crazy and sent them a flat rate box of goodies and I am working on another project for them.

I also made today's card to go with the box of goodies.

As Rowan was born during the Winter, I thought it would be fun to make a Winter focused baby card.

I started by smooshing some distress ink onto watercolour paper. Then cue much fussing and fiddling trying out all of the background elements!

The Polar Bear stamp is by MFT and is one of my all time fave sets (Polar Bear Pals).

I love how it came together and is a really nice twist on regular new baby cards.

Cx

Fishy congrats...

Hey,

So before my vacay I heard that my Godson Ben (who was here in July) passed his exams with flying colours!

YAY!!

I wanted to make him a card but ran out of time before I left for Tampa. So I made this card when I got back last weekend.

As I always play along with The Daily Marker colouring challenges, I generally have fun things coloured and ready to convert into cards.

I had stamped all the fun ugly fishes from my all time fave Avery Elle set 'That Bites' onto watercolour paper and coloured them using distress inks and a paintbrush. The smaller fishes are by Simon Says Stamp.

I added sparkly alpha stickers (purchased in a RIDICULOUS craft haul in Tampa).

I love how weird it is, totally perfect for a card from me to Ben.

Here is a photo of Ben, Charity and I at the top of The Empire State Building (Charity works in the building and got us free passes..whoop).

Cx

FMS: OMG! How Old?...

Hey,

Happy Monday.

I had an early start this morning..6am PT session - UGH.

Over the weekend, I didn't really get to spend that much time at my desk, but I did find the time to make a card for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge -

Love this sketch, super versatile.

I found a Monster already stamped on my desk, so decided he should be coloured and go on the card.

I started with a black card base and used a coverplate die (Lil Inker) on a piece of white cardstock. I stuck this piece to the card base and then added my red piece of paper.

I wanted the sentiment to kind of look like it was coming out of my Monsters mouth. But I kind of mis-judged it a bit, so it looks like he is swallowing the stickers LOL.

I heat-embossed the fun sentiment onto a piece of black card... I love this sentiment, it is by Create A Smile stamps and was a set I bought with a prize I won.

I'm pretty pleased with the ONE card I managed to make this weekend.

Cx

CAS-ual Fridays: Heat Embossing..

Hey,

I wanted to play along with the current challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays, because I have been heat embossing quite a bit lately and I'm feeling it!

I thought that one of the stamps from the awesome CAS-ual Friday's 'Flower Power' set would work really well heat embossed.

I heat embossed 'Rock' from the set in white and used picked raspberry and wilted violet distress oxide inks to watercolour over them - love this resist technique.

I added some splatter of the two colours and then added a Tim Holtz sticker for the rest of the sentiment.

Super simple and pretty CAS too..

Cx

Sketch Saturday #518..Scrap N Dipity..Ice-Cream Mountain..

Hey,

Happy Saturday to you and 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 from their store.

Here's the sketch...

I loved the fun Ice-Cream Mountain stamp, it looked like it was going to be a lot of fun to colour and it really was.

I rotated the sketch and made the background using various scrap pieces of paper from my stash and a rectangle stitched die and a square stitched die. After colouring the stamp, I fussy cut it out (ugh) and mounted it onto my background using foam tape. I added a bit of Nuvo crystal clear dots for some sparkle.

The sentiment sticker is by Tim Holtz and it made me laugh, as I always want a crazy tower of ice-cream and Hubby says NO because I always spill it, drop it, etc..

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 22 June 7pm GMT / 2pm EST

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #87 Feeling Sketchy..

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

We have a sketch for you this time, created by me!

You know how much I love a sketch!

I decided it was time that a Monster stamp set got featured on one of my Retro Rubber cards, I swear that I haven't used one yet..which is so rare for me!

This Monster drummer comes from the 'Silly Monsters Rockstar' set by Your Next Stamp.. I love their monster stamps and I have had this one sine 2016 and sadly, I don't believe the drummer had been inked up yet.

I coloured him using Promarkers and then die-cut him using a stitched oval die by MFT. I decided to go for clashing papers for the background and border/banner strip. Weirdly they are from 2 different companies, but coordinate so well.

I decided to stamp 'on' onto the drum, so that (well in my head..) the sentiment would read 'Rock On! Do what you love, love what you do'. The sentiment stickers are by Tim Holtz.

Final touch was the large piece of bling and a handy masculine card (why are male cards so difficult..).

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

Challenge ends June 1st.

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

Retro Rubber Challenge #86.. May Flowers..

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we have another fave of mine -

I have SO many flower stamps, every year when we do this theme I suffer the same indecision about which one(s) to use.

This year I chose my all time fave flower stamp by Concord &9th (Hello Lovely), I think it was the first stamp I bought of theirs. I had used it in a class and fell in love. I have had it since 2016.

As this stamp is so beautiful, I really didn't need to do much. I stamped it onto watercolour paper and used distress inks and a paintbrush to colour it. I added Nuvo Crystal drops here and there and stamped 'Hello' from the same set, added a sticker for friend and 'beautiful' is by Paper Smooches and from 2015.

Even though this is my all time fave flower stamp, it hasn't been out in a while, so it was good to get it all inky and make something.

Show us your flowery makes and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends May 18th.

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

Pink Fresh Studio: April Challenge...

Hey,

I love Pink Fresh Studio, I discovered them last year and I can't stay away from their stamps.

I thought it would be fun to play along with their Monthly challenge for April -

You can follow just the sketch or just the colours OR combine them.

I opted to use just the sketch, but sadly until I started cropping my photo I didn't realise that I had got a bit of flare on the gold sentiment sticker and the card has already left my desk.

I decided to get creative and I KNEW that a couple of my Simon Says Stamp kits have a few PFS items.

I finally found the papers I was looking for, the black and white patterned piece, isn't it gorgeous! I added a duplicate size die-cut rectangle in black.

For the border I used a piece of pink embossed cardstock and added the great gold dot banner by Recollections.

I added a Squirrel die-cut because why not and I think he is by PFS..but I can't be sure. I added a fun stamped branch, this is a new to me stamp from 'Itty Bitty Elements' by PFS - which is going to be totally over used this weekend!!

To finish my card and turn it into the thank you I wanted I added a gold sentiment sticker from Hema.

I really love the card, it's not my usual style..but next month I'll be using more PFS items.

Cx

Circles and Dots..

Hey,

Happy Monday!

I had a great weekend in Long Island, with old and new friends.

It was so nice to be out of the city and blow away the mental cobwebs.

Today I am showing you a fun card that I made with a couple of new sets that I have.

The smaller patterned circles (Full Circle) are by The Ink Road stamps - if you have not bought any of their stamps yet, you have to, they come so beautifully packaged.

The bigger sketchy circles that have the bigger black dots (Bokeh Dots) are by Ellen Hutson / Julie Ebersole and strangely enough this is my first ever EH stamp set.

I wanted to make a more male focused card and thought these circles would work well.

I added a die-cut Awesome by Neat and Tangled and the word stickers are by Tim Holtz.

I added some stamped dots for a bit of interest - loving these new teeny tiny dot stamps from the EH set.

Cx

Catch The Bug GDT: Saturday Challenge Anything Goes..

Hey,

Happy Saturday everyone.

There will be two posts from me today, as I am April Guest Designer over at Bugaboo challenge blog - Catch The Bug.

Super exciting for me, as I LOVE Bugaboo Digital stamps and I am really honored to be in such talented company.

This week's challenge is Anything Goes - everyone's fave right?

I loved the new BugAKVBFlies image and it was perfectly suited to creating a square card.

I coloured the image using Promarkers and then die-cut it using a stitched square die. I die-cut a piece of purple patterned paper (that was one of the first papers I ever bought as a cardmaker!!) using the same die and arranged them jauntily!

I decided that the girl looked like she was having a fun adventure chasing butterflies and chose the sentiment stickers by Tim Holtz as my finishing touch.

Hope you are inspired to play along, go to Catch The Bug blog and upload your make.

I'll be back later with my Sketch Saturday Challenge post and back next week with the Catch The Bug team for another great challenge.

Cx

Shopping Our Stash: No Ink...

Hey,

Happy Good Friday,

I saw Lauren Bergold's card for the current Shopping Our Stash challenge and I was intrigued by the idea of no ink!!

I mean, no ink at all, no markers, no ink pads, no sprays, etc...

So I decided to rise up to the challenge and shop my stash to make a card.

The starting point for my card was the awesome Llama sticker from Michael's, I bought it a while ago and it's just been sitting on my desk staring at me!

Also on my desk were 3 scraps of paper that I also used on my card - the lilac strip, a pink piece (Happy die) and a green piece (Birthday die).

I embossed a piece of turquoise paper using a leaf embossing folder - also from Michael's - to use as the central piece of my card.

I love the crazy, bright, weird card I ended up with.

I am betting whoever I send it to is going to be a little bit surprised by it's craziness.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Alcohol Ink Playtime...

Hey,

Happy Monday!

I hope you had a great weekend. I did! Hubby and I great fun on Friday night and I got to hang out with Lisette on Sunday (obvs we hit Macy's...).

I am a big fan of alcohol inks, you can make amazing backgrounds. I always felt that I hadn't mastered them and then recently they seem to make a bit of a come back and it has been fun to watch various crafters videos with tips and techniques.

I have just found Rubeena Naz - thanks to Cheiron and she is the latest in my very long list of craft crushes. She did a whole series of playing with Alcohol inks and I found her tips to be really useful.

I also FINALLY bought some Yupo - why did I wait so long?

As Yupo is seriously expensive....like SO expensive. Seriously. I used 3 sheets and created x3 backgrounds experimenting with colours. The middle sheet I did something a teeny bit different. Instead of letting it dry naturally, I patted it dry with a cloth, hence the muted more mottled look, which I really like.

Once they were dry I die-cut the same size panel out of each sheet, which still leaves me with x3 more backgrounds for future use.

I really wanted to show as much of the backgrounds as possible, so kept my embellishing to a minimum.

I like the purple card-bases, they show off the backgrounds really well. I cut these myself using Simon Says Stamp cardstock and this colour is Blue Violet and is my default coloured card base stock.

All three cards are a bit different - the first one just has Tim Holtz stickers, the middle one uses a bit of Vellum, so that the sentiment die is legible and the third one uses a Avery Elle heart die and some fun labels - made using this Dymo Labeler (which I ADORE).

Here is a better shot of the anniversary card, which is already on it's way to it's new owner -

I love it when I get to play with older things and learn new tricks.

Cx

Sketch Saturday #502: The Paper Shelter..

Hey,

Happy Saturday.

Time for another awesome sketch for you from the Sketch Saturday team.

Our sponsor this week is The Paper Shelter and they are offering a prize of 3 digital stamps from their store.

This week the sketch is by me!!

I chose to use the awesome 'Snug But Stylish' stamp by TPS.

I coloured the stamp using Promarkers and die-cut it to shape. I embossed the background using a great folder from JT. All the grey elements are scraps and the squares were already cut and ready to go from the scrap box!

I decided that the Tim Holtz sentiment stickers would work well here and 'attitude is everything' felt like a fit for this sassy and stylish lady.

Now it's your turn to show us your interpretation of the sketch. Don't forget to go over to Sketch Saturday and check out what the rest of the DT have made.

Challenge ends on Friday 2nd March at 7pm GMT / 2pm EST.

Cx