Books, Coffee and a Birthday Headband...

 

Hey,

Happy Friday!

It's been a bit less brutal at work this week, which is great and means the weekend will be way more fun.

The card I made today uses one of my fave Waffle Flower sets 'Books and Coffee', I fell in love with the Bear and the Birdie holding a teacup the first time I saw it!

This time I did a fun thing and added the 'headband' from the Flora & Fauna 'Love Bug Dress Up' set (another fave and retired). It's the kind of silly thing I would wear on my birthday (yes, I am 47 going on 4..)

I kept the whole card very simple, as I wanted to add a Lawn Fawn, scalloped, and stitched frame, so I didn't want the actual imagery to be too fussy.

I popped the frame up using foam tape and mounted the whole thing onto a 4bar kraft card base - yes he is pretty small only 3.5x4inches.

Have a great weekend, hope you are doing fun things.

Cx

CTD: Word...

Hey,

Happy Saturday!

I had a nice morning, leisurely stroll to the bagel shop with Hubby and then we sat on a bench, enjoying the sunshine and our bagels.

I loved the Color Throwdown colours this week -

I thought I'd use a Zebra for the black and white part of the swatch. I smooshed some Broken China distress oxide ink and picked it up with acetate to get a more precise smoosh onto my white panel. I added some black ink splatters, which sadly were not dry when I put my card together (sigh).

The white panel was die-cut using a stitched, dotted, scalloped rectangle die from The Works in London. The Zebra is ancient (circa 2016 and he was second-hand then..), he is from the Waffle Flower 'Monochrome' set and I really should attempt to buy the dies, as I hate fussy cutting so very much!

The sentiment is by Recollections from their 'Creative Chaos' set and I felt like my Zebra would totally be saying this LOL.

I'm pretty pleased with him - I really need to use this set more!

Cx

Fairytales..

Hey,

Happy Monday!

Hope you had a good weekend?

Hubby and I had a fun staycation here in NYC and a really nice relaxing weekend hanging out together.

Today I am sharing a card I made a couple of weeks ago for a colleague.

I loved the 'Midnight Shoe' stamp by Crafter's Companion the minute I saw it when I was in London last.

I love the fact that it's making me question Cinderella's story now LOL - I mean was she just tipsy and lost her shoe?!

Anyway, I stamped it onto white card and die-cut it using a Spellbinders nesting fancy shape die. I wanted to use one of these random neutral card-blanks that I have, so I coloured the shoe to match and added gold metallic pen dots to it for some shimmer.

Very happy with the end result and my colleague loved it too.

Cx

Oh for Fox Sakes..

Hey,

Happy Friday to you!

I am looking forward to the weekend, loving having the NFL back.

I am hoping I can workout on Saturday, the foot has flared up again..ugh.

Not my usual style of photography today, but I thought it had come out well and decided not to retake it for my blog.

I remembered that I had this great set by Unity Stamp Co and dug it out to make a card for the pun set that I am making.

I love the simplicity of the Fox and the little details included around him.

I stamped the sentiment that came with the set and die-cut it out using a stitched circle die.

He pops on the kraft card blank - my all time faves that JT gifts me all the time.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Be the Sunshine...

Hey!

Happy Friday.

Can't believe it is nearly July!!

This year is flying by.

Showing you a couple of cards I made recently using some newish goodies from Unity Stamp Co.

The main card today made me smile a lot! I sent it to a friend who, like me, loves a large glass of wine!! She saw the humour which is good.

I love this second stamp set, the image is gorgeous and I love the sentiment that comes with it.

I love the idea of being the sunshine..I have need to embrace that thought this week!

Have a great weekend, I am off to craft class tonight and then will be playing at my desk, gyming and sorting out my closet this weekend.

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

Splattery Birthday...

Hey,

Happy Monday.

Well that was a weekend and a half!!!

I went out with the girls on Friday night and did not get home until 3am and then had PT at 10am. Man that sh*t was HARD!!

Then I hung out at home and played at my desk, making all kinds of fun things.

Today's card, I made as an experiment, sadly it didn't photograph very well, because you can't really see the pale pink watercolour wash behind the sentiment.

The sentiment stamps are by Studio Calico and I stamped them over my watercolour wash and then added some blue ink splatters.

I love the simplicity of it, brought alive with the awesome card blank.

Have a great week, I am going to be working out a LOT this week, ahead of my crafting weekend away with Lisette, we are going on a road trip to do a couple of Jenn Shurkus classes in Conneticut.

Cx

CASology: Girl

Hey,

I hope you have had a fun weekend so far?

I have had a really nice time, hanging with Hubby, shopping and playing at my desk.

I wanted to play along with a challenge this weekend, so I had a look at a couple of my faves and picked out a few to play with.

First up is the CASology challenge - here is this week`s cue card -

I liked the idea of making a `Girl` focused card, I have a lot of girls in my life.

My card actually combines three stamp sets. The main girl stamp is by Unity Stamp Co `Today I am Happy`, I stamped it onto my watercolour cardstock and used distress inks to watercolour her, I added some sparkle with Spectrum Noir sparkle pens.

I built the sentiment using two stamp sets - I masked off part of the `Girl Boss` stamp, from the Sweet Stamp Shop `Girl Boss` set. The second part of the sentiment is from the Jillibean Soup `Friends` set.

I always default to blues or purples...

This little card will be winging it`s way to a good friend shortly.

Have a great Sunday, I am heading to the gym and then planting myself on the sofa for NFL Sunday!

Cx

Get on the Bus...

Hey,

So I had a great time over the super long holiday weekend, I had brunch with friends and Hubby, went on a Macy's rummage with a friend and then Hubby and I hit the boat party. It was a lot of fun and I felt totally relaxed yesterday.

I also managed a couple of long sessions playing at my desk, which was nice after the 6 days away from it! I broke out old and new things to play with.

Today I am showing you two cards I made using my new Avery Elle Birthday Bus stamp and die set.

The main card is a bit of a CASE - I really liked the card Elena made and I have the cover plate die, so thought why not!

I watercoloured the bus and the presents, I made a mistake, so I had to fussy cut out the windows - ugh, but it does look nicer, I wish dies would do that..

I thought a piece of red spotty paper in the aperture would be a great foil for the blue card blank and the red bus. I stamped the sentiment from the set onto a piece of red cardstock and affixed it at a jaunty angle, to give the bus a bit of movement.

I stamped and coloured two of the bus and present stamps, so I thought why not make a similar card, using a different cover plate (I don't have as many of these as I'd like..)

I love the Hexstar cover plate by Neat and Tangled, it makes everything look good. The only different with this card really is the lack of fussy cutting, it probably would have looked nicer, but I just couldn't face it!

I love how they both turned out, giving me a couple of fun cards for my stash.

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

U need hug?...

Hey,

Hope you are having a good weekend.

Hubby and I are off out to lunch today up on the Upper West Side at a place we have been to once before and liked.

My card today uses the Tim Holtz crazy cat stamps..

They all look so worried and so I thought the Mama Elephant small talk 'U need hug?' sentiment worked really well.

The stripes were stamped using a stamp from the April Simon Says Stamp card kit.

I mounted the die-cut panel onto a card that has a gold trim - simple but effective.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Cx

Ugly Sweater...

Hey,

Do you ever get that feeling that your conversations are being recorded? No..just me then?

Well several weeks ago JT and I had a Skype playdate and she showed me some cool papers that she wanted to make into Christmas sweaters / jumpers for cards. Only problem was she didn't have a die and didn't want to handcut them.

So I looked around for her to no avail.

Then after my birthday SimonSaysStamp released their 2014 Christmas range and these beauties were part of it -

So I bought x2 sets - one for me (thanks to my in-laws bday gift) and one for JT (currently somewhere over the Atlantic). It's like SSS overheard us and granted our wish.

As you can see from the main card, I have been having fun with this set. I got my colouring inspiration from Audrey @ Pink Originals - the tags she made with the set are awesome and fun.

Here are a couple more (I made 12 in total) -

Ugly Sweater + Star Brads

Ugly Sweater + Wreath stamp

These cards were fun to make and really make me smile and I hope the recipients feel the same way.

Hope you have all had a good week, one of my high points came when I discovered Gayatri Murali's blog and now she's sending me one of her gorgeous cards!

Have a great weekend! Hubby and I are most excited as his Mum and Sister arrived tonight for 5 days, so it's going to be an action packed one!

Cx

New Technique...

Hey,

As we all know I am a technique / tool junkie..its an addiction and I need help :)

Recently I was on YouTube watching videos (enabling me to purchase more!!) and I came across this video -

It blew my mind..

I have been spending my birthday money on lots of new goodies - alcohol inks were on the list, so I thought I'd have a go.

I am really happy with the 2 cards I made, the inks look awesome on the acetate and it made me brave enough to play with them on other paper as well - more on that later in the week.

The headline card today was made by cutting a 3x3 square section of my acetate creation and attaching to the card with mini staples. I die cut fabric circles and added a blingy fabric flower, that I removed from a paperclip (image below shows what they normally look like) -

I am pretty pleased with the die cutting of the fabric - this a new one for me - finally putting the Big Shot to the test!

Here is my second card - very simple - in part because I LOVE the patterns that I ended up with.

They are a little bit weird / unusual, but I think they are fun.

Cx