August Pajama Party

It's PJ party day again at Waltzingmouse stamps and who doesn't like to party in their pjs with their crafty buds?   Well I'm in for sure. http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/invitation-to-wms-pajama-party-on-30th.html

There are 4 challenges this month that you could pre-prepare, plus the bedtime story sketch which will be revealed later.  I've had a go at all 4 this month (although I have combined two into one so I hope that's ok!)

The first challenge was "Tie a Knot in it" and I just adore the new knot set.   I decided to make a wedding card with it.  I embossed the frame onto a scrap of kraft card in gold and then masked the edges so I could stampt the heart into the middle.  I then used picket fence distress ink dauber and rubbed it all over quickly buffing it off with a damp paper towel - the white has come up really harsh in the photo but irl the kraft shows through much more.  Once dry, I stamped the sentiment over the white above and below the heart and cut the frame out by hand.  I stamped the straight rope onto a kraft base card and embossed in gold and then lined up the frame so the lines matched up.  The frame is popped up on dimensional foam for added interest.  I finished with the twisted rope embossed in gold at the bottom.  I think this would be a great card for a natural beach wedding.

The second challenge this month is "Get Naughty" which was the perfect opportunity to play with the new ocean bound set and I knew instantly which image I wanted to play with first - the life preserver ring!

I divided a 3x3 inch card into 9 boxes with very light pencil lines and then stamped the image 8 times to fill the card - although I left the central ring empty.  For the central image I stamped the ring twice onto 300gsm card and fussy cut it out.  I left some extra length on the "red bits" on the top image and totally cut off the rope - this allowed me to replace the rope with some bakers twine which I thought would make the central image a fun stand out embellishment.  I used glue dots folded over for dimension to stick the top image the bottom one and used the rope image on the bottom one as my guide for my twine, folding the "extra" card around the back to keep it place.  Once I was happy with the twine, I carefully cut the rope off the bottom image and my embellishment was complete (hope that makes sense - it reads more complex than it was to make!)  I finished with a simple folded banner sentiment to bring out the red.

For the final project I decided to combine the colour theme challenge with the Golden Oldie challenge:

For the golden oldie element I decided to use the first stamps I ever ordered from Claire - I found her brilliant company after doing a google search when I bought my spellbinder labels dies to see if there were any stamps to fit them and came across the genius that is Rescue Remedies!   So I decided to use one of the stamps from that set combined with the colours from the inspiration photo to make a quick and easy wrapper to go around a bar of chocolate - doesn't it make it look so much prettier - the perfect little pick me up for a colleague having a tough day!

 

I used the labels 4 die from spellbinders to cut a piece of white card stock and then inked up the stamp with the black, red, blue and one of the greys from the colour combo (I use the small momento dew drop pads so the points are perfect for multi-coloured inking if you do it carefully!)  I then used a piece of blue DP and some paler grey velvet ribbon to mount the label onto and hey presto - a pressie for a quid in less than 10 minutes which can only be a good thing!!!!

So that's the end of my PJ party projects for now - but I just wanted to hijack my own post for a minute to make sure all you Waltzingmouse Fans at the party are aware of the new challenge that starts next Saturday (7th September).   Deborah Frings and I are both HUGE Waltzingmouse Fans and we really missed the weekly sketch challenge so when we met this summer we cooked up a plan of launching our own challenge just for Waltzingmouse Fanatics like us - so with Claire's support and blessing (and even a prize for the first winner - shhh it's a secret!) we're launching http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ just next week.   It will run fortnightly, not weekly, and will be a mixture of challenge types not just sketches - the only rule is that whatever you make has to use Waltzingmouse products somewhere.  

So if you haven't already checked us out - click the image below - select whichever "follow us" option suits you best and you'll get to see the first challenge when it goes live at 8am (GMT) next Saturday!   Don't forget to like us on Facebook too - the links to all our social media feeds are all on the blog.   We really hope you'll enjoy our new challenge - we're really excited to get started and to see who comes and plays with us :-)