Happy Birthday Jen!

Today is Jen's birthday and therefore this week's Less is More challenge is to make a birthday card she would like http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-125-happy-birthday.html

What to put on my card was easy - it had to feature butterflies - and that made me think of the sketch this week at CASe this sketch which had 3 little elements that would suit 3 little butterflies  http://casethissketch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/case-this-sketch-33.html  I also LOVED this week's colours in the Play Date Cafe so decided to throw those into the mix too  http://theplaydatecafe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/one-zesty-color-combo.html and this is the resulting card - hope you like it Jen and are having a fabulous time in Istanbul.

I started with the small butterfly die from clearly besotted and die cut 9 from a pale orange card.  I inked each with spiced marmalade distress ink to warm up the colour to match the colour scheme.  On 3 of the butterflies I stamped one of the butterflies from CB's butterfly additions in potters clay ink.   I folded those 3 in half, plus 3 of the others and then layered them up to give me 3 dimensional butterflies using lawn fawns lawn trimmings between the layers to make antennae.  I mounted them onto a lime green panel embossed with my new SU folder and mounted that onto some teal washi tape torn to give a rough edge.  The sentiment is from CB's Spring Blooms stamped in teal zeal.

As I mostly used Clearly Besotted products on this card, I'll also make this a last minute entry to their first challenge - which is anything goes - and you still have just over a day to play along if you fancy http://www.stampingsharing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/clearly-besotted-challenge-1-anything.html

Snippets and itty bitty pieces

Happy "summer" solstice evening - hope everyone is making the most of the long day even if its not that summery in the UK....   I had a long day at work and then came home to find a faulty door lock which I couldn't open from the outside so once I finally managed to get inside was in desperate need of a little play time!

The daring card makers had a really intriguing challenge today called the itty-bitty jar - you know, that little box/jar/drawer on your craft desk where you put all those teeny-tiny pieces that "might just come in handy" one day.  Well the dare this week is to use at least 5 items from that jar to make a card.  http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/itty-bitty-jar.html  That also reminded me that I haven't played in Di's snippet challenge for ages so I decided it was time to show my face in the playground and to make a card only with snippets and things from my itty bitty drawer and this is how it turned out.

I decided to triple challenge myself by having a go at the "freestyle collage" technique which is quite a stretch for me, so I spent a lot of time after finding my "bits" taking them on and off the card to try to get a pleasing arrangement.  This card has taken 2 hours to make but I am very pleased with it now its done. 

The DP and two shades of pink card stock were from my snippets drawer and I used an old martha steward loop punch on the darker shade and rounded the corners of the DP.  The butterfly, brown heart strip and label die were all from my "die cuts drawer" and were all leftovers - I tend to use up scraps as I'm die cutting and save them there.  I inked up the butterfly with 3 shades of distress inks and spritz with gold pearl water.  The large gold heart is cloud clay pushed into a heart mold and then embossed in gold.  The smaller hearts are die cuts - the pink ones are washi tape covered card.  All the hearts are from the super-itty-bitty box which sits on my desk for the really tiny bits that would get lost in my itty bitty drawers.   I finished with some butterflies stamped over the DP and an anniversary sentiment both from PTI Round and Round Anniversary set.

Dogs like cake too!

 
I needed a card for a friend's birthday this week so decided to use the sketch at seize the birthday as my jumping off point http://seizethebirthday.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/seize-birthday-19-sketch-by-jen-nelson.html and as I do like a bit of bling, I opted to use this week's paper players CAS with bling challenge for further inspiration http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/challenge-150-anne-maries-cas-challenge.html

I used an older stamp cos I love him and think it will appeal to my friend too - he's from whimsey (I think) and I coloured with warm grey copics, added teal to his party hat and some glitter to the frosting then fussy cut him out with a thin white border.  I used some teal DP to form the basis of the sketch, and then used my star border die from memory box die cut from purple to mount the dog into.  I finished with a matching banner and some teal bling.

Woof, woof, yum, yum!

Waltzing in the sunshine?

So, it's waltz day over at Waltzingmouse Makes and this month's theme is summertime fun  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/june-blog-partylets-have-little.html and I think Claire must have decided on this theme a while ago as there certainly hasn't been much sign of summer on this side of the pond so far this year!

Like many people who've linked up already, I naturally turned to My Island as my set to play with when thinking of sunshine and summer and I decided to use it to make a first anniversary card for my friends who got married in the Caribbean last summer.  I stamped the sunrise with 3 colours of ink onto a scrap of yellow card and then added some silhouettes from the set in black.  Once I cut it out, I selected some blue DP for the background and stamped the palm trees onto it so I could line them up with the yellow scrap so the trees were spilling out of their frame.   I distressed the edge of the blue paper with my ranger tool and then added versamark ink and yellow embossing powder to add to the beachy feel.   I finished with an anniversary sentiment from the Frame It set.

Let's hope that a gallery full of summer images persuades the sun to make an appearance this week.....

Fathers

A day late I know as it was Father's Day yesterday but I couldn't share my cards until now as I'd submitted them to the recent call from Paper Crafts magazine - these two were rejected so I'm free to share them now but I do have one that will be appearing in their special masculine issue in November so watch this space :-)

I made these cards for a friend to give to her kids for their daddy - one teeny-tiny girl (just 3 months old) got the pink hand print and the slightly bigger girl (8) got the hero card.

For this one I cut the hand print on my cameo, and used the negative to ensure the fingers were fixed in the right place, before stamping one of the fabulous sentiments from Waltzingmouse stamps "Man of the Hour" set - which I had to buy even though I don't have my Dad to make cards for anymore as I just loved all the fabulous sentiments.

For the second card I think I was influenced by my hubbies comics and superman in particular with the red and yellow.  I die cut yellow stars using a MFT die and placed them behind a red and black mounted panel onto which I stamped another one of the great sentiments.  I filled the "HERO" bit in with yellow liquid pearls.  A black dotted line around the edge brings it all together.

I'd like to enter the following challenges with these cards:

http://micassucas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/challenge-20-jongenskaart-mannenkaart.html

http://creativecraftchallenges2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/challenge-12-we-love-you-dad.html

Yellow & Hexagons

I've made a couple of cards this morning for this week's hexagon theme at Less is More http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-124-theme.html but the first one is also my "yellow" entry for this week's CASology challenge http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-48-yellow.html

I used the cute bee set from There She Goes and stamped one of the honey comb stamps in peanut brittle onto yellow card stock and cut it out to create a corner.  I stamped the big bee from the set direct to the card and coloured with copics.  Simply finished with one of the sentiments from the set.

For my second card I wanted to do some dry embossing - I love this spellbinders folder it's double-sided and does chevrons on the other side.  I opted to play with greens and oranges, so I decided to add more hexagons over the top of the embossed design using a MFT die using a dark green for the frame and orange dotted paper for the inside.  I finished with a die cut umbrella from clearly besotted and a sentiment from their April Showers set.

Friendly sheep

I've had a stressful week and not much sleep, so needed a little crafting to wind down before bedtime tonight so I decided to play along with this week's challenge at There She Goes Stamps which is based on this inspiration photo http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/tsg211-inspiration.html

As soon as I saw the photo, I knew I had a sheet of DP that was the exact same pattern as the wall paper in the house so I immediately wanted to use some of that and I liked the bright pink with it so naturally I decided to add a pink sheep.......

I used a 3cm strip of the DP (fancy pants - park bench collection) down the side of the card and then added a layer of white card over the top which overhangs the DP slightly and is popped up on dimensional foam.  I stamped the sentiment onto this panel.  I stamped 3 sheep onto copic colouring card and coloured 2 grey and white and one pink and fussy cut them out.  To finish the card I simply created a sheep tower by sticking them just to the white raised panel.

Wouldn't the countryside be pretty if we had pink sheep?  Just putting that out there...........

Blooming Marvellous!

I've not had much time for crafting this week as we spent a day in Leicester yesterday stalking my favourite comedian Daniel Kitson as Leicester was the closest we could get tickets for this current tour despite the fact that he is actually coming to Sheffield....

So now I've had a bit of time to play, I really wanted to play along in Stephanie's first ever challenge for her stamps - Clearly Besotted - which if you visit here regularly, you know I love - and the first challenge is anything goes http://stampingsharing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/clearly-besotted-challenge-1-anything.html  but anything was too wide a remit for my creativity this week, so I decided to have a look at some other challenges and see if any fit with my CB stamps and I found a few so have combined 3 more challenges into my card tonight.

I started with the big blooms on Therese's card at the MUSE challenge http://musecardclub.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/muse-challenge-21.html  and switched up the colours using this week's Colour Throwdown http://colorthrowdown.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/color-throwdown-246.html and finally switching it up to a more CAS design to fit the theme of CAS Flowers at Make it Monday  http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/cas-flowers.html

I used the two solid blooms from "You Are" and cut them with the matching die and then did the same for 2 leaves in both sizes.  I added dotted centres to both on dimensional foam.  The sentiment is from "Make a Wish"   I finished off the design with a frame cut from DP with a pair of nesties stuck together with washi tape.  CAS and quick but hopefully you can still see where I took my inspiration from.

New Blog on the Block

Today is the day I can finally reveal the secret I've been keeping for a couple of months - I am going to be joining the Clean and Simple Team over at the brand new challenge site House of Cards.

This is a genius of an idea for a new challenge site created by Mynnette and Ruth where each month we will have either a sketch, a colour or inspiration photo for you to play along with for the whole month but each week we ask you to interpret it in a different style:

Week 1 - Fun and Cute
Week 2 - Clean and Simple
Week 3 - Classic and Elegant
Week 4 - Shabby & Vintage
Week 5 - Anything goes

You can either just play in the week that suits your style or choose to stretch yourself play each week in a different style.   Our first challenge goes live on Monday 1st July and then I'll be popping up on the blog on the 8th July along with my CAS teamies to inspire you with our clean and simple interpretation of this months theme.

I hope you'll check out the blog http://houseofcardschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/  and sign up to follow us so you can check out fun challenges.  Each challenge goes live on a Monday and you have until Sunday each week to play.  I can't wait to see what you make of our challenges!

Baby Banners

I needed a congratulations on your new bump card and this weeks' challenge at CASual Fridays to incorporate flags and banners sparked my inspiration for it http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/cfc104.html

I used this cute little pregnant lady from Magnolia and coloured and paper pieced her before fussy cutting her out.  I then stamped the gorgeous little heart banner from WPlus9 in pink and black onto DP from Basic Grey Kneehighs.   It was finished with a Kirsty Wiseman sentiment stamped in pink onto some white card embossed with a PTI texture plate.

Speedy?

It's one layer week again at Less is More (is it just me or does one layer week seem to come round really quickly these days?!?!?) and this time the added theme is the need for speed  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/one-layer-week-123.html

I could have gone the fast route with a car or plane, but despite having masses of cards and therefore no excuse to be late, I do still miss the odd birthday so having a belated card in my stash is always handy.  So I decided to make that my take on the need for the speed and turn it on it's head with something really slow that ought to have gone quicker.......

I used one of the new digi's from Pollycrafts called Garden Friends and printed it into the bottom corner of copic card along with a sentiment using Word.  Then I just coloured the animals with copics and folded the card - very quick but rather cute.

Wheels

The cue word at CASology this week is WHEELS and when I looked at my stamps I actually have a lot of stamps with wheels on, but most of them are already in the gallery for this week's challenge http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-47-wheels.html

So I decided to take a different approach and I started to think about other types of wheels - spinning, steering, roulette, and then a colour wheel popped into my head and this is how I turned the wheel into a card in a sort of wheel of fortune styleee.

I cut a colour wheel with a spinner on my cameo and coloured the segments with copics in rainbow colours and fixed the spinner with a white brad so it can actually turn.  I decided to use a sentiment from a cake set from CC Designs and embossed it in white on the black background and then stamped the word cake into every section of the colour wheel to ensure that whoever spins it is indeed assured of sweet things on their birthday!  I used an old elzybells alphabet to stamp cake so I could get the letters to follow the curve of the wheel.

I did make another wheel card - for a cycling mad friend - but it's not really CAS so not an entry in the challenge but I'll share it here anyhow.  I used one stamp from a Hero Arts bicycle set and repeat stamped in grey for a background before embossing the same again in black on a strip of DP.

Have a "wheely" great weekend everyone ;-)

CAS Camera

The challenge this week at There She Goes Stamps is to make a CAS card and as I love their stamps and CAS is my style, I had to join in  http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/tsg210-cas.html

I decided to use this weeks' sketch from CAS(E) this sketch http://casethissketch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/cts-31.html  and the colours from Play Date Cafe http://theplaydatecafe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/gorgeous-great-impressions.html   and this is what I came up with when I combined all 3 challenges into one CAS card.

I went with a favourite stamp set - Oh Snap - and my favourite of the camera images from it coupled with a film canister.  I coloured both with copics and did a bit of layering of the camera and lense to add dimension adding a little glitter and glossy accents cos CAS doesn't have to be bland.  To follow the sketch I used a little striped DP (fancy pants) and a strip of really fun film cell washi tape.  I finished with a sentiment from the same set in versafine deep lagoon.

Musing on bows....

 
I was instantly attracted to Laurie's card over on the MUSE Card Challenge this week - I adored the colours and layout and the lovely big bow http://musecardclub.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/muse-challenge-20.html  but I have a problem with bows - I really can't tie them even with the help of on of the 3, yes 3, "easy bow" tools I've bought (yes i was the kid in nursery with buckle shoes as I took ages to learn to tie them!!!).  I have some success with soft organza ribbons but the more solid types never come out right so I decided to case her lovely card but change up the ribbon treatment somewhat.

I used a strip of yellow DP and then added my ribbon over it folding over another small section of it where the bow should be.  Instead of score lines I cut two more very thin strips of the same yellow DP and secured them in place just slightly wider than the image I wanted to stamp.  The stamp is from My Minds Eye Collectible collection and is stamped in tide pool shadow ink, starting the middle for balance, and finished with a square gem in the centre of each image.  The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse's Big Day Additions set - it has a very swirly end to the y but that didn't fit on my card so I masked it off.  Finally popped the front panel up onto a teal bassil background before mounting onto a white base card.

I think the lack of the bow does give my version a more linear feel which isn't as soft and pretty as Lauries but as this is going to a couple for their anniversary tomorrow I'm going to pretend it's a nod towards the fella and not the girl for a change ;-)

Schwarz

I do like a black background on a card so joining in with the new KIS challenge which required just that was a no-brainer  http://kis-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/kis-15-schwarzer-hintergrund.html

I went for something simple but with strong colour to match the bold background (do excuse the awful photo - I think I need to give the card another wipe to remove excess embossing dust!)   I used a CTMH set which I won on ebay as I love the big bold sentiment - and embossed everything in either vanilla white (my new fave colour) or red.  The yellow was coloured with copics over the white and finished with yellow stickles as my yellow embossing powder wasn't opaque and didn't show up on the black.

Furry Kisses

I've been trying to come up with something "furry" for the CASology challenge all week that wasn't simply a furry animal but I couldn't get a unique angle on the challenge so wasn't going to play.  But today, I was inspired by my cat's fur so decided to try something out.  I am a cat lover obviously as I have one, and I have lots of cat stamps, but I always colour them grey as Lottie is a calico and that's too hard to do with copics!

So, when she was sitting by me on the sofa today, I took a close up of her fur, and then printed it a couple of times onto colouring card rather than photo paper so I could use it for paper piecing one of my cat stamps - which seemed an interesting idea, but I'm nos sure it was wholly successful in reality.

I used a couple of Simon Says Stamp exclusive sets designed by Kristina Werner (and based on her cat Mannie) and embossed and fussy cut them out before arranging on a pink starry hill.

Must link it up quick as the challenge closes in a couple of hours  http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/week-46-furry.html

Knock Knock

No, I'm not going to leave you with a bad joke from the 1970s - it just seemed appropriate to start with a knock as today's card was inspired by my front door.   Now my front door isn't the most inspirational thing you've ever seen, in fact photographing it has shown that it needs to be washed a painted rather badly.........

 
...but Chrissie and Jen over at Less is More wanted us to make a card based on the colour of our front doors  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-122-colour.html

My door is dark wood with a somewhat faded green trim so I decided to start with a wood veneer paper which was a good match for my door and die cut and embossed a circle from it.  I didn't have quite the right shade of green but this is closer to the colour I originally painted it!  I used it to cut a portion of a hill from a memory box die and stuck to the circle.  I then went for one of my favourite sentiment for when I don't know what purpose the card will have - this "wishing you" from PTI is very useful cos you can put anything on the inside once you know what you want it for!  I embossed it with vanilla white from WOW which I just love the colour of.  I then felt like it needed a little border so punched some hearts from the same two papers and overlapped them and finished with a little dotted line border around the circle.

After 5 hours with no power - I can finally get this linked up now too - I can't believe how programmed I am to electricity - a walk around the house in a power cut quickly shows you just how many things with a plug you rely on and how little you can get done with out it.  Thank goodness for the nice engineer who had to work on a Saturday to get us all back on the grid!

Circular thoughts

This seemed like an appropriate title to tonight's blog post as I have been going round in circles all week trying to join in the circles challenge at There She Goes stamps  http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/tsg209-circles.html  I tried a few of my favourite character stamps but nothing was really working when I tried to fit them in circles, so I took a different approach with a couple of the first ever sets I bought from them going back nearly 3 years now and I think it works quite well and there are LOTS of circles!

I used "Branches" as my focal point, coupled with what is still one of my all time favourite sentiment sets - Sentimental - don't you love that big curly "you".   I die cut a circle from some DP which also features circles (in fact I'm not sure I could have shoehorned any more circles into this card if I'd tried!) and used it back to front as a mask whilst I stamped my branch twice in black.  I secured the DP in place the right way round and then stamped the sentiment into place.  I filled the circles in the stamp with petal pink and hydrangea liquid pearls and finished with some dotted lines with a pink glitter pen.

Are you dizzy with all the circles???

Happy Birthday Ardyth (a little late....)

Yesterday was Ardyth's birthday and Darnell through her a surprise party on her blog where she is asking us to CASE an Ardyth card (gulp) and make a birthday card for her based on it http://www.djkardkreations.com/2013/05/happy-birthday-ardyth.html

I selected this happy dotty one layer creation and set about trying to do it justice.  I think I started with a base card that was a little too small, but other than the fact that my design doesn't have quite enough space to breathe, I am quite pleased with the rest of it.

I pulled out my favourite of the moment quilt pattern stamp from WPlus9 and stamped it twice side by side.  I masked off the edges so I could get a nice straight edge finish and then stamped a rainbow of colours to the diamond pattern as nothing says Ardyth to me more than a bright and happy rainbow!  I finished with a big (perhaps a little too big) sentiment from PTI.

It's Ardyth's week to host OLW too and she wants a card she'd like - hopefully this fits the bill - and it helps keep the birthday celebrations going a little longer!  Happy Belated Birthday Ardyth!  http://ardythpr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/olw-142-happy-birthday-to-me.html

Button Blooms

So, the tidying thing isn't going very well - my desk is clear and my unit is in situ, but the stuff that needs to go in the unit is still in a mess - but what's a girl gunna do - as soon as you start to tidy up you find something fun to play with and get distracted....

Isn't this inspiration photo from Just Us Girls delicious?  http://justusgirlschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/just-us-girls-190.html  I do love yellow and grey as a colour combo, yes I can make cards without teal sometimes ;-0  I also realised I needed a special card for an upcoming birthday and this inspired me to play with my newly rediscovered stash to make this:

I chose a couple of papers from the park bench collection from fancy pants design to cover the card base using shades and patterns from the inspiration image.  I decided to separate them and wanted to add some texture like on the middle layer of the cake so I used a strip of my embossed felt.  I stamped lovely bubble flower from woodware twice onto thick card and fussy cut it out, colouring up the leaves on the second image with grey copics and layering them up on the main image for a little dimension.  It was then simply a case of going to town with my button box and adding rhinestones and faux pearls to the bubbles.  The sentiment is from the same set stamped in smokey grey versafine.

I must quickly link it up to the challenge before it closes in a few hours.

Donkey Humour

Just a quick post today - I'm desperately trying to not be distracted by crafting whilst I try to re-organise my craft room.  It really is a mess and I still haven't managed to organize everything into my new storage unit that I got for my birthday before Christmas!  I thought I'd get it done over the bank holiday but I haven't even started yet - good job I got an extra day off.....

Anyhow, I did manage to make a quick humorous for this week's Less is More Challenge http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/week-121-recipe.html for our nephew's birthday today

I used my favourite donkey from There She Goes Stamps - coloured in copics, fussy cut and then paper pieced his clothes and hair.  You get a whole range of sentiments to fit on his t-shirt but this one fit the humour level for the recipient!  I used a few scraps of DP and a new embossing folder I picked up at a fair in Lincoln on Sunday.

Right - that's the fun over - back to tidying!

A jar of flowers

Combining challenges is often quite tricky and you can end up with something a bit "meh" but then other days, like today, everything just aligns perfectly and challenges just combine themselves.  Today is one of those days.

I'm joining in the blog hop at papertrey ink and I picked the second bouquet for my colours http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2013/05/may-2013-blog-hop-.html  and as the theme at a passion for papertrey is all about nature - flowers fall nicely into place for that challenge too
http://apassionforpapertrey.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/challenge-inspired-by-nature/

Then for my layout, I followed Lesley's photo inspiration at Fusion challenge http://fusioncardchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/fusion-card-challenge-hypothesis-8.html

So I pulled out "The Sweet Life" stamp set and matching dies along with inks as close to the pti colours as I could find in my supplies and this is what I made....

I stamped and cut 3 large roses and one small one in pinks and oranges and then some leaves in olive greens.   The little mason jar is actually a clearly besotted die cut from white striped vellum and then coloured with copics on the reverse for a watery look.  I stood the jar on some grey dp which I ran through my new stampin up fancy fans embossing folder.  I finished with a large PTI sentiment across the jar.

Red White and Blue

I'm squeezing in a super quick post in a final pitch for the new Pollycrafts DT team.  In my first two cards I used a lot of layering and wasn't as CAS as I normally am these days so I thought I'd colour up one of the new Candy Floss Crew - in this case Ebony as I love the wink - and make something more my style.

I printed her 4 times onto copic colouring card, coloured her and layered her up using pinflair glue for a little dimension.  I took my colours from this week's CASual Friday challenge - red white and blue http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cfc102.html

I used 3 strips of washi to the side and then popped the coloured base panel up on foam.  Adding a happy birthday strip (Elzybells) down the edge.

Do go and check out the new digis - they're all adorable!

Happy Birthday Jessica!

It's Jessica's birthday today and I'm thrilled to have been asked to join in the surprise Birthday Blog Hop that the DT and There She Goes Stamps fans are throwing for her today.

I used this week's sketch as my inspiration and pulled out one of my older TSG sets - A Little Treat - as you can't have enough cake on a birthday right?  http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/tsg208-sketch-challenge.html

I stamped and paper pieced the chef and cake and added lots of sparkly red gems to bling up the cake on top of the glittered icing.  A couple of layers of DP behind complete the sketch layout, but there just wasn't enough cake for me so I repeat stamped the cake all over the base card in grey ink.



Hope that's a suitable amount of cake to help you celebrate your birthday Jessica - have a fabulous day!

Feathery trigger

Kath's provided a stunning trigger image this week that had me jumping for joy as it gives me another chance to play with what is possibly my favourite Clearly Besotted stamp set ever (and yes I have a lot of "favourites" amongst Stephanie's stamps I know!) as the image features feathers ;-)  http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2013/05/tuesday-trigger-feather-weather.html

I was inspired by the colours of the birds - even though they are some sort of tit I believe, the colours in them screamed peacock to me so I inked up the lovely peacock feather in the stamp set using all the little bits to build it up and came up with this:

I used peacock distress ink and cottage ivy mixed directly on the stamp to get the two tone effect on the feathers and then used 3 inks for the "eye" plus sakura glitter gel pens to get that subtle shimmer you see in peacock feathers.  I stamped the same image 3 times in a fan, the way a peacock does when he is showing off and shaking his tail feathers!  I used a little gross grain ribbon to separate the sentiment which is stamped in peacock DI and Paris Nights momento ink.

The Royal Meow

For my first entry at Less is More I ended up with 2 dogs and 1 cat - now I'm definitely more of a cat person than a dog and I'm sure our Lottie has been particularly difficult this week just to show her disgust!   So I thought I'd better even up the score a little and this week's CASology cue word of "Royal" gave me the perfect way to do it.....   http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/week-45-royal.html

I used the sketch at this week's retro sketches for my layout and cut a frame from DP.  http://retrosketches.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/retrosketches-64.html  The focal image of the rather royal feline is from Elzybells (no longer trading) and I just love it.  I paper pieced her onto the cushion and used copics to colour and add shading to the paper piecing.

I added some washi tape to finish the sketch and then used a double sentiment from the same stamp set stamped directly onto the DP frame so this will be my entry to this week's CASual Friday's challenge too  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cfc101.html

More Pollycrafts

I said I'd got another of the lovely new Pollycrafts digi stamps coloured up ready to be made into a card and I've finally managed to get it finished tonight.

I used the sketch at Seize The Birthday as my starting point to create the card behind the super cute hippo I coloured with copics and fussy cut 

http://seizethebirthday.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/seize-birthday-17-sponsored-by-bugaboo.html

 I stamped and embossed in white ep the HA numbers background and then used 3 shades of distress inks to blend over it.  I selected some stripey DP in co-ordinating colours and layered it up as per the sketch.  I die cut a couple of balloons and coloured them with ink and stamped sentiments that came with the matching stamp set (whimsey) linking them to the hippo with some twine.

There's a new crew over at Pollycrafts now - the Candy Floss Crew - do check them out http://pollycraftdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/meet-new-crew.html  I'll be colouring them up asap.  I'm entering this to the DT call again  http://pollycraftdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/new-images-and-dt-call.html

Ho cubed

I was very happy with the theme at Less is More this week - nice and simple - just feature cats or dogs (or both) and in my case I opted for both http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/week-120-theme.html

For me it was a clear opportunity to start on my Christmas cards (yes I know it's only May but it's never too early!) with an image I got last year too late to make my cards as it's an exclusive from Simon Says Stamps in the USA.

I used a falling snow embossing folder on a 4" square card leaving the bottom clear so I could sit my trio on a hill of snow.  I stamped them onto coated card stock and coloured with copics and then paper pieced their hats and scarf before fussy cutting them out and gluing in place.  I know I fussy cut and paper piece a lot and I've had a few comments about it - my top two tips are to find some scissors you are comfortable with - I like Westcott's Titanium Ultra Smooth (I even do most of the "innie" bits with them as I'm not great with a craft knife) and then to move your image not your scissors and you'll get a much smoother cut.    I hand drew the hill and stamped the sentiment from the same set which I just love the humour of.   I'll be making a nice set of these for Christmas for sure.

Right - I need to get ready as I'm off to an art exhibition today - an one day event by our favourite local artist Pete McKee and this one is all about Sheffield so should be full of nostalgia!

Blooming Marvelous!

You'd think that the cue word of "BLOOMING" would be a blooming breeze - we all love flowers - have tonnes of flowers in our stash and loads of ways of using them right?  Well, it is the cue at CASology this week http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/week-44-bloom.html  and I've been VERY unsuccessfully trying to do "something different" with flowers all week for it.....

I played with felt, with masks, with stamps, with die cuts - you name it - I probably played with it - but everything was just bleugh!   I did spot this card by Maille as part of the new release for PTI this week though and I was really drawn to how she "squared off" the stamped and die cut images and I decided to try and case it.  I went with a die cut daisy which it turns out, is not the easiest shape to do this with - too much open space between the petals (hence the double daisy for the largest flower) but after a lot of messing around and taking things on and off about 2,638,452 times - I ended up with this.....

I used PTI embroidered blooms to add interest to the die cut centres and layered them up for dimension using the die cuts in the xcut daisy set (it has round and scalloped centres of different sizes to match)  The card stock is American Crafts Tropical set (another lovely bargain from TK Maxx) along with some spotty DP from my snippets draw.  I thought it needed quite a large sentiment to balance the flowers so went with one of my favourites from Many Birthday Wishes from Hero Arts

I'm also going to enter this into the simon says flower power challenge this week http://simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/simon-saysflower-power.html

and into Di's Sunday Snippets challenge - I didn't make much of a dint in my stash with this one - just half of a left over half sheet - but as the famous supermarket says "every little helps!"  http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/pixies-crafty-snippets-playground-week_12.html