Monday Moments

Today I'm playing along with the Calling All Sistahs current challenge.

Love that photo and the beautiful colours - an absolute dream to create with!

I stamped and coloured the blooms using copic pens and stamped the sentiment onto a die cut stitched rectangle.

It isn't necessary to use CASual Fridays supplies, which is just as well as the flowers aren't from them, but the uplifting and encouraging sentiment is definitely CASual Fridays.

Supplies:
Stamps: Woodware, Long Tall Flowers; CASual Fridays, Truth Is
Inks: SU, smoky slate
Pens: copic, YR15, YR16, R22, R24, RV04, RV09
Die: MFT Dienamics, double stitched rectangles

Thanks so much for dropping by today, it was wonderful to have your company.

And keep crafting!

AAA Cards Challenge #114 - Tic Tac Toe

Today I'm sharing my DT card for AAA Cards new challenge. Lots of opportunities for creating different cards with this Tic Tac Toe board - all you need to remember is to stay CAS (clean and simple).

I went straight down the middle column and chose friendship, one layer and blue. And as STAMPlorations are sponsoring this challenge I used their stamps.

I started with pale blue card stock and stamped the pretty and delicate dragonfly and a greeting in dark blue ink. I then added a little more colour to the wings using copic pens.

Supplies:
Stamps: STAMPlorations, Fond Expressions 2 & Winged Things
Ink: SU, night of navy
Pens: Cpic, B00, B23

There's lots of wonderful  DT CAS inspiration using the Tic Tac Toe board to be found on the AAA Cards blog - HERE. Do go take a look and then get crafting.  Looking forward to working out which was your winning line!

Huge thanks for spending some time with me today, I really appreciate it.

And keep crafting!

Saturday Spot

Today I'm sharing a card I made using the sketch from the current CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge.

Here's my card:

The circle on the skrtch reminded me so much of a balloon that I went with it and used the Uniko stencil and some blue and green oxide inks. Love the intensity of colour that the oxides give.

I then finished off with a fairly generic sentiment as I'm not sure where this card is destined to go to yet.

Supplies:
Stamps: Uniko, Birthday Sentiments
Inks: Ranger distress oxide, salty ocean, peacocok feathers, cracked pistachio; Versafine, onyx black
Stencil: Uniko, Balloon Bash

Thanks for dropping by my blog today, it;s been lovely to have your company.

And keep crafting!

Friday Focus

I'm playing along with MUSE today and have been inspired to try something a bit different by the Guest Designer Ishani's beautiful and bright card.

      

Here's how I've interpreted it:

I picked the brightest green cardstock I have in my stash to echo Ishani's base card and then stamped and cut round the chameleon to pick up on her white layer.  I tried to follow her layout and placement of elements too.

The punched orange flowers were inspired by the Uniko Originally Organic blooms that Ishani used and I stamped some trios of circles from this set and coloured them orange too.

Supplies:
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, Colour Chameleon; Uniko Originally Organic Additions
Ink: SU, mint macaron, cucumber crush, baked brown sugar
Pens: Promarkers, soft green, pine, umber; Copic, YR16
Punch: Tonic, small flower

Thanks so much for dropping by today, it's been great to have your company.

And keep crafting!

Thursday Thoughts

One of favourite things to do when creating cards is to let the words take centre stage. So joining in with the April Challenge at STAMPlorations was a bit of a no brainer.

And this particular quote is one I often have to remind myself about - you know when you've said 'yes' a little too often and then you wish the word 'no' figured in your life a bit more!

I started by brushing on some distress ink in some of my favourite colours - and I tried to keep going long enough to get a good depth of colour. Then I simply stamped the quote on top using my misti to get a clearly defined and deep result.

Supplies:
Stamp: Visible Image, Keep Going
Inks: Ranger distress, mermaid lagoon, picked raspberry, mustard seed, peacock feathers; Versafine, onyx black

That's me done for today. I hope you've enjoyed your visit to my blog and I thank you for your time.

And keep crafting!

Guest Designer - The Male Room

Today I'm delighted to be Guest Designing with The Male Room.  The theme is Anything Apart From A Card - no surprises about what I decided to create then!

Yes, you guessed - a scrapbook page.

So the instructions on the new sofa said it would need plumping up after being squashed flat for delivery. Mmm, someone had their own idea about how to do that!

I stamped and splattered paint in a diagonal and used arrows and stickers to draw the eye down the page.

Supplies:
Paper: Bella Blvd, Secrets of the Sea
Stickers: Doodlebug, Dragon Tails
Stamp: precious Remembrance Shop, Positive thoughts
Ink: SU, smoky grey; Mr Huey's Color Mist, opaque white
Alphas: AC tickers, Wild
Die: MFT Dienamics, double stitched circle
Punch: Woodware, 1.5"
Embellishments: enamel dots from my stash

I'm wondering how you'll interpret this theme and hoping to get loads of ideas for future projects. You really need to go and check out the TMR DT creations, they have so much imagination and I was really impressed.

Huge thanks for dropping by today, your visit was greatly appreciated.

And keep crafting!

Tuesday Talk

Today I'm playing along with the card challenge at Scrap the Boys. There is a sketch to use and the theme is black, white plus one other colour.

Here's my card:

I very nearly got carried away and forgot the colour restrictions, but put away those extra pens and stuck with the orange!  I die cut the circle and popped some happy birthday card stock behind it. Then I stamped and coloured the pirate, hand cut it out and placed him instead of the star from the sketch.

I pretty much followed the rest of the sketch exactly, using some orange gems for the tiny spots - I thought they looked like pirate gold.

Supplies:
Stamps: MFT, Party Like A Pirate
Ink: Memento, tuxedo black
Dies: MFT, Inside/Out stitched circles, stitched fishtail flags; Lil'inker, stitched mats long & skinny rectangles
Embellishments: gems from my stash

I really appreciate you taking the time to visit my blog today, thanks so much.

And keep crafting!

Monday Moment

There's a really interesting challenge going on at Less is More at the moment - Bring Something Back.

Well I don't know about you, but I have a whole load of stash that hasn't seen the light of day for a long time, but somehow I can't quite bring myself to ditch it.  And now I know why - I need to keep it for challenges like this!

My first ever really big purchase when I began card making was my trusty Cuttlebug Machine and I'm still using it for die cutting on a daily basis today. Yes I've got a fancy eBosser, but that needs to be plugged in and works beautifully but slowly, so it's always my Cuttlebug that I go to.

And I have a feeling this embossing folder was probably included in the bundle that came with it. So my 'bring it back' is embossing folders that once upon a time I used on nearly every card I made, but now rarely get a look in.

In fact I was feeling so guilty about showing so little love to my embossing folders that I made a second card.

And then I remembered why I stopped using embossing folders - I can never get a clean look without those tell tale creases where the edges of the folder hit the card. So this one got trimmed down to cut those ugly bits off before being matted onto the pink strip.

Supplies:
Embossing: Cuttlebug folders
Dies: Lawn Fawn, large stitched square stackables; Spellbinders, classic large squares; Lil'inker, stitched mats long & skinny rectangles

It's been great fun to share my 'bring it back' with you today. Thanks so much for dropping by.

And keep crafting!

Friday Focus

Such pretty colours at MFT this fortnight, just had to make a card to use them!

Here's my card:

I randomly stamped the flower heads from MFT's Springtime Blooms and then coloured them using Copic pens. I die cut a base strip and then added some doodled stitches round each of the flowers.

Supplies:
Stamps: MFT, Springtime Blooms
Ink: Memento, tuxedo black
Die: MFT Dienamics, stitched basic edges
Pens: Copic, R32, R35, Y13, Y35

Thanks a bunch for dropping by today, it's been fun having you visit my blog.

And keep crafting!

Thursday Thoughts

Today I'm sharing a card I made for a birthday bunny hop celebration. Happy birthday wishes are winging their way over to Gail - ionabunny  from Crafty Nomad - in Norway.

Here's my card:

I started by inking up a little background sky and grass and then stamped, coloured and hand cut the bunnies.  As this is going in the post I needed to keep everything as flat as possible, but just had to pop a couple of the bunnies up on foam pads which will hopefully squish down in the envelope.

I matted the card onto some matte gold card and added a stamped sentiment.

Supplies:
Stamps: clearly Besotted, Woodland Kisses
Ink: Mememnto, tuxedo black; Ranger distress, cracked pistachio, faded jeans
Pens: Copic, E51, E55, E57

Thanks for looking today, it's been great to have your company for a while.

And keep crafting!

Wednesday Words

The current challenge at Time Out is asking for Spring cards. Well any excuse to colour up some tulips - my favourite Spring flowers - suits me perfectly.

Here's my card:

I stamped and coloured the tulips and sentiment and then die cut a stitched rectangle and inlaid it back into the aperture. My intention was to go with the one layer optional twist, but I felt the card just needed a little something more. So I matted it onto green cardstock and left a border showing at the bottom.

Supplies:
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, Spring Tulips
Ink: Memento, tuxedo black
Pens: copic, Y13, Y17, RV02, RV04, Y02, BV000
Die: MFT Dienamics, double stitched rectangles

I really appreciate you taking the time to visit my blog today, huge thanks winging their way to you.

And keep crafting!

Tuesday Talk

Mmm so I went to a craft show - yes I bought new goodies! And today they get their first airing as I'm playing along with the sketch challenge at MFT.

Here's my card:

He is just so irresistibly cute and reminds me of each of my grandsons when they used to love to jump in puddles - two of them still do! A bit of col0oring and die cutting and this card whizzed together.

Supplies:
Stamps: MFT, Puddle Jumper & Rain or Shine
Ink: Memento, tuxedo black
Dies: MFT Dienamics, Puddle Jumper, Rain or Shine, Inside/Out stitched circles, Stitched Fishtail Flags
Pens: copic, E51, E57, E59, Y18, E000, R20, C1, C5, C7, BG32, BG34, YR16; Promarkers, poppy, cardinal red, denim blue

So pleased to have had your company today, thanks so much for dropping by my blog.

And keep crafting!