Thursday, 14 August 2014

Thursday Thoughts

A very quick and simple little card for a very quick and simple little post!

This week is One Layer Week over at Less is More with the focus of FOLIAGE.  So with Autumn knocking on our doors here in the UK I decided to go with the beautiful range of colours seen on the trees.

We'd love you to display our banner
Week 184
It's time for another One Layer Challenge and this time the focus is

FOLIAGE

I used my stampin' write pens to ink up the leaves and then made a second generation stamping slightly off to the side of the first stamping.  I then inked up just  a few odd leaves to stamp the fallen leaves on the floor.


Supplies:
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, Design A Tree, Say It In Style
Inks: SU, stampin' write pens, brights; Memento, rich cocoa 

Thanks for spending a little of your time here with me today.

Jane
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Wednesday, 13 August 2014

Wednesday Words

Today I'm sharing a scrapbook page.  Seems ages since I've got my scrapbook supplies out, think it's because I had my spot as guest designer over at The Memory Nest and those pages were done in advance of the publishing day.

Today I'm back as a player and using their current Make It Monday sketch.

 http://www.thememorynest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/make-it-monday-no-22.html

I'm sharing a page about a recent trip baby supply shopping. It was so much fun watching my oldest son and daughter-in-law experiencing a massive learning curve about baby retailing.  They started the day mere novices and ended it tired but very experienced and savvy shoppers. I'm so pleased I was there to witness it all!


This sketch has a lot of layers spread out over the whole page. So I adapted them a little to match my more CAS style a little closer.  I also kept the whole circle on view as I found it looked unbalanced without the bottom showing on my shrunken sizes.

I was considering missing out the row of banner flags under the title, but decided to experiment with washi tape. And I think it was a success, I'm rather liking the transparent and subtle look.


And as I'm now a stamper at heart I couldn't resist adding some relevant words to the blue block on the right hand side.


So after a bit of a tentative start and a bit of experimenting - you know unsticking things, tearing the paper surface and then needing to cover up the blotches -  I'm actually rather pleased with the end result.

Supplies:
Papers: Lilybee designs, pinwheel sprinkles; ep, country drive; Bazzill Basics, plain cardstock
Alphas: Websters storytellers
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, Journal It, Good Times; Technique Tuesday, Beautiful by Ali Edwards
Inks: Staz-On, jet black; Memento, tuxedo black
Die: Clearly Besotted, hello 
Embellishments: doodlebug sprinkles, bumblebee asst; washi tape from my stash

Great to get a scrapbook page done and now my grandsons are here for a week there'll be many more photo opportunities for a while. Expect to see some project life pages soon! (Oh, and fingers crossed, hoping to have an announcement about Project Life at the end of this month.)

Thanks for spending some of your time with me today.

Jane
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Tuesday, 12 August 2014

Tuesday Talk

And YES I've plenty to talk about today!

Some time back CASology asked for suggestions for future cue words and my immediate thought was MAGIC.  I knew I had loads of stamps to fit this theme and they were definitely lacking some love just recently.  Then I forgot all about it, until up popped an email saying my word had been chosen and would I like to be guest designer for this challenge.



No brainer! I accepted immediately! So this is a very exciting day for me and I'm very thankful to have been chosen!



So out came those neglected stamps and away I went creating some MAGIC on my card.  I used a watercoloured background in magicky colours and then waited a while - so hard - for this to dry. Two beautiful stamps from Lavinia created my little bit of magic and a 'believe' sentiment from Clearly Besotted - you have to believe to make the magic work!



The dragon was sparkled up with Wink of Stella and then the stars got even more sparkled up with stickles. 


I finished my card by mounting the watercolour card onto some rich razzleberry cardstock - a very beautiful, magical colour.  I know it sounds bold, but I'm really loving this card!

Supplies:
Stamps: Lavinia, small dragon & star cluster; Clearly Besotted, Journal It
Inks: SU, rich razzleberry, tempting turquoise, daffodil delight; Memento, tuxedo black
Embellishments: Stickles, diamond; Wink of Stella, clear

So that's my excitement shared.  Hope you have fun creating something magical - so looking forward to seeing where this word takes you!  Thanks for your time today.

Jane
 ***

Monday, 11 August 2014

Monday Moments

A new week on the blog - hoping to enter a few challenges over the next few days and an exciting share coming tomorrow.

Today it's a card for CAS Colours & Sketches. And hey my card was picked as a winner again last week. Always really exciting to see one of my cards popping up!

Winners Blog Button 

This week it's a colour themed challenge:

http://cascoloursandsketches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/challenge-86-colors.html

 And here's my card:


I chose three washi tapes for the red colour and then stamped three navy blue flowers onto vanilla cardstock.  I cut round the flowers by hand and added glossy accents to add dimension and texture.  Two of the flowers were mounted onto pads and a swirl of vanilla twine was popped behind.


 I stamped a sentiment, added a trio of navy blue pearls and my simple little card was complete.

Supplies:
Stamps: Uniko Studio, Flower Power #5
Inks: Memento, nautical blue
Embellishments: the Hobby house pearls, the blues; glossy accents; twine & washi from my stash

Thanks for looking today. Hope you week gets off to a flying start!

Jane
 *** 


Sunday, 10 August 2014

AAA Cards Game 15 ENJOY & Ten on the Tenth

Well last week's watercolour challenge was really popular again and it's looking like it could well be a regular feature for the next few months' PLAY games. Great news!

This week we're asking you to ENJOY creating something with the theme of Summer Foods.  For me it had to be ice-cream - although it doesn't have to be Summer for me to enjoy eating ice cream!

http://www.aaacards.blogspot.co.uk/ 

This weeks winner 
will be offered an appearance 
as a Guest Team Designer for our next ENJOY game!

So out came stamps from one of my favourite companies - Clearly Besotted. They seem to have stamps suitable for just about any occasion and theme.



I started with a die cut banner and stamped the ice cream cone, ice cream and chocolate flake.  I then sparkled up the flake with Wink of Stella and glammed up the ice cream with micro beads. The micro beads and the stripy paper were both freebies from a magazine.


A couple of sentiment flags and sprinkles and my card was finished. Nice and easy, but I think bright, summery and eye catching.

Supplies:
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, So Sweet
Inks: SU, melon mambo; Memento, toffee crunch, rich cocoa
Dies: Clearly Besotted, Tag Along; Lawn Fawn, stitched party banner
Embellishments: doodlebug sprinkles, cupcake asst; Wink of Stella, clear; Micro beads from Ppaercraft Inspirations mag.

As today's challenge happens to fall on the 10th and I always share ten things each month I hope all you AAA Cards players will indulge me.  This month my theme is Summer - quite appropriate for the AAA challenge don't you think?

1.  Keeping with the Summer foods theme I was forced to eat this lolly so that I could get a photo - such a hardship!


2.  And of course eating outside is occasionally possible!


3.  My toenails get painted and manage to match the geraniums.


4.  My hanging baskets bloom and it becomes a daily task to keep then hydrated.


5.  Skies are blue



6.  And butterflies abound.


7. Sunglasses and hats are needed.


8. Sea, sun and sand.


9. Beach huts always fascinate me.


10. And for some reason I associate fair rides with the Summer - something to do with my hometown carnival and fair being in July I'm thinking.


Thank you so much for getting down here to the end of today's lengthy post.  Good luck and hope you ENJOY playing along with AAA Cards this week.  Can't wait to see what you all come up with.

Jane
 ***

Saturday, 9 August 2014

Saturday Slot

A double challenge card today.

The layout is from Freshly Made Sketches and the colours from ColourQ.

 http://freshlymadesketches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/sketch-148-sketch-by-jen-m.html  http://colourq.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/colourq-challenge-253.html

I decided it was time the Pretty Petals stamp set got another airing. So I went ahead and inked it up and stamped it with one of  its matching sentiments under the flowers. The flowers got my favourite Wink of Stella treatment.


I added a trio of hearts to frame the flowers and made them a bit 3D by adding Glossy Accents.  Love how your can actually see the Glossy Accents in the photo!


Finally the whole thing was matted onto Summer Starfruit card, then dark brown spotty card and my card was finished.

Supplies:
Stamps: Clearly Besotted, Pretty Petals & hearts from Design A Tree
Inks: SU, tempting turquoise; Memento, rich cocoa, nauticval blue, pear tart
Embellishments: Wink of Stella, clear; Glossy Accents

Just time to share my July envelope calendar contents. I thought I was going to have to give this a miss as I'm finding it difficult to find time to keep up at the moment.  But then I realised this was such a pivotal month in turning my life upside down, and probably changing it for some time to come, that it was far too much of a biggy to ignore. So here it is:


The weather photo:


The very apt quote!


 And my journalling:


Thank you so much for visiting my blog today. Your time is very much appreciated.

Jane
 ***

Friday, 8 August 2014

Friday Focus

A tag card to share today.

It's a double challenge at CAS(E) this Sketch this week as they've joined up with a new challenge blog at Tag You're It. So I've used their layout and a tag, but I'm also entering my card into CASology's theme of stripe and The Male Room's theme of using pink.

http://casethissketch.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/case-this-sketch-87.html           http://casology.blogspot.ca/2014/08/week-107-stripe.html         Grab our button for your blog

The first thing I did was to die cut a stitched tag and then out came the Gorgeous Grunge stamps again.  I double stamped them to give two tones of the same colour.

My pink element is the sprinkle of hearts using just one half of a Clearly Besotted stamp and once again double stamped. Can you see where I caught the edge of the stamp by the grey sprinkles? I decided not to re-stamp as I thought it sort of matched the grungy style anyway.


Next I stamped the sentiment thinking the 'me' and 'you' would represent the two figures from the sketch. I then stamped a trio of open hearts to highlight and draw your eye towards the sentiment.


I finished off by stapling a ribbon to the tag and attaching it to the base card with foam pads.

Supplies:
Stamps: SU, Gorgeous Grunge; Clearly Besotted, Design A Tree
Inks: SU, tempting turquoise, melon mambo; Memento, London fog
Die: Lil'inker, Anytime Tags
Embellishments: ribbon from my stash; mini staple

Thanks for dropping by today, your visit is much appreciated.

Jane
 ***