4 cards, 1 stamp set: Taylored Expressions..

Hey,

Well, I lied.. there are actually 5 cards!

And I am essentially entering ALL of them into the current Use Your Stuff challenge - which is 'Anything Goes'.

Basically, I have been hoarding the papers that you see, all from a 6x6 DCWV stack that I have had a few years.. naughty, naughty.

I bought the awesome Taylored Expressions 'B is for Birthday' set early on in 2019, but never used it. So I decided to break it out along with the DCWV papers and do another one of my 4 from 1 posts.

I love how the cards came out and I got lucky, because I didn't plan my colour choices when colouring, but fortunately found papers in the stack that coordinated really well.

My 'recipe' was pretty simple, I used Copic sketch markers to colour the stamped images and I added some details using a white gel pen. Then I die-cut them out using either a circle or small rectangle stitched die. Added a teeny bit of glittery washi tape to make the white panels pop a bit and voila! 5 finished cards.

Cx

Pun Card Project..

Hey,

Back to normal now with Christmas and my trip to London done, I go back to work tomorrow..

I had a fun trip, it was great to spend so much QT with my folks and I got to hand over my pun card project to our friend Polly.

Polly is a big fan of my cards, which is lovely. Last year she made a comment about one of the cards I sent to her and it sparked an idea.

What if I made a pun card from every single pun set I have?! 

Well, 5 months (Aug to Dec) and 48 stamp sets later, I ended up with 55 pun cards and to be honest there are probably about 10-15 more sets I could have used, but I just ran out of time.

I used all the techniques for these cards - stencils, heat embossing, dry embossing, smooshing, watercolouring, gelli plate backgrounds, die-cutting, masking and marker colouring.

It was so much fun to do though and here are the majority of the cards!

Fun right?!

I might consider a similar project later this year - like all birds or something?

Cx

Welcome to 2020..

Hey,

Happy New Year from London!

Welcome to a brand new decade!

Hope you had a great NYE - I spent mine with my Parents and it was a fun day / night.

Today I am showing you the cards I made on Boxing Day - I had a bumper 10hr session at my desk and it was wonderful to just play and not have Christmas things to make.

I had an offcut of a smooshed piece of paper on my desk and it sparked an idea. I used the 'Flamingo Sunshine' stamp by Flora & Fauna - they have been my fave new to me stamp company of 2019..

I stamped the Flamingo onto the smooshed background and coloured the details in the few glitter gel pens I had - this was a new to me thing and I LOVE how much sparkle you get - cue me the next day in Blick with Cheiron buying more of them (Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust gel pens). I liked it so much, that smooshed x2 additional pieces of watercolour paper and cut x5 more squares from them so I could create x6 cards.

I die-cut the frame from patterned grey papers - the frame is by MFT stamps. I thought they looked a bit flat on the white cards, so I added a black piece of paper to make them pop.

I decided the sentiment's should be black and I used dies by Lawn Fawn, Taylored Expressions and Heffy Doodle. I was planning on them all being thank yous, but I needed a couple of birthday cards so switched it up a bit.

Love how they came out, I hope the recipients will too.

Cx

Zini Holiday..

Hey,

This is probably my last post of 2019 and in fact the decade!

I started my blog in 2010 at the start of this decade and it has been a source of great pleasure for me.

When I moved to New York, I decided that I would make more of an effort with my blog and posted more and was invited to a few design teams.

But last year I realised that I was 'competing' with myself to post almost every day and to outdo my total posts per year!

I decided last December that I would take my foot off of the gas and only post what I really wanted to and not because I felt I should - basically putting the fun and pleasure back into my blog posts.

It has worked, this year I have posted 173 times v 305 last year! And it has been a much more pleasurable and not stressful thing.

My card today was made for a good friend, using a gifted Zini from another good friend. I love how shiny and fun it is. The gold dots were created using Indian Gold Nuvo Mousse through a Clearly Besotted stencil.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your family and that 2020 brings you much happiness and laughter.

Hubby and I are heading to London tomorrow to spend some serious QT with our family and friends.

See you in 2020.

Cx

Christmas Cards 2019: Translucent Paste Dots...

Hey,

Well it is almost Christmas, my cards left a long time ago and have been slowly landing with their new owners!

Today's cards are accidentally gorgeous!!

I had stamped and masked off the frame with the banner and added the stenciled dots. Then I coloured and fussy cut the cat and dog to sit in each frame.

I decided that it all looked a bit bland and flat...

Cue the translucent paste. I put the frame/banner mask back down and the stencil and applied the paste through the stencil. I was worried that I was going to smudge the dots, but it was fine and once the paste dried, the dots ended up with this amazing shine. Yay!

Now I feel like a genius, even though it was a random idea and I was crapping myself a bit as I did it, worried I might ruin my perfectly fine card because I was a brat!

Oh and the wonderful set is 'Seasons Greetings' by Lil Inker Designs and the stencil is by Clearly Besotted.

Cx