Stellar Birthday

Sunday again which means only one thing - I'm bringing you inspiration on the Make the Day Special Stamp Store blog again today.

I decided to play with the lovely romantic inspiration photo over on the Mama Elephant January challenge but my screwed up brain saw romance and went for girly stars instead!

I stamped and embossed sentiments from Good Times and Say What first in silver and then with "vodka sparkle" embossing powders from WOW onto some pink cardstock.  Then I went to town with my die cutter and a couple of star shaped dies (MFT I think).   I used silver card, pink glitter and plain pink.  To get some very sparkly stars I embossed a couple of the silver ones with "bling bling" again from WOW.    Now I'm normally a CAS girl but clearly I didn't know when to stop with the stars and went for more is more this time!  I think it would be a suitable card for a tweenager though - they all love pink and bling right????

 http://www.mamaelephantblog.com/2014/01/me-challenge-january-2014.html

Joining a New Gang

I told you it was going to be a weekend of new and exciting things on this little ole blog of mine and today is the second new thing - I am thrilled to be joining a new gang - the wonderful and talented group that is the Make the Day Special Design Team :-)   From now on I will their new Sunday Girl.

Today I'm giving you a little look at some of the great sets from Mama Elephant which are available to pre-order now.  Make the Day Special is the only UK stockist of Mama Elephant so if you want their sets without the customs costs then you know where to go!  You need to be quick though as pre-orders close tomorrow.

For this little cutie I used 3 sets - Cosmic Stars, the companion set Starry Nights and Good Times.  Now if you're not into Astrology, you might initially think that the Cosmic Stars set isn't for you, but the images are sooo cute and don't necessarily need to have an astrological bent.  By teaming it with the sentiment from Good Times the Gemini twins just become a pair of besties ;-)   I used the little banner from Starry Nights to create a subtle background behind the twins which I coloured with copics and mounted onto a circle of teal card to make it stand out.  Very quick and simple little card but perfect to give to a friend.

So pop on over to the store now and get your order in before its too late.......

More Film Inspiration

I said I'd try and come up with something a bit less obvious for this week's LIM film inspiration challenge and Gillian's Monster's Inc card (No 5 in the gallery) lead me down the Pixar path - we LOVE all the pixar movies in our house but our favourite has to be "UP" and my first card is quite a literal translation for a scene from the film.

I used a house stamp from Maya Road and then masked a balloon from Mama Elephant repeatedly and "tied" them all to the roof, just like Carl does in the film, only I just had to use a pen ;-)   The house is brightly coloured just like in the film.  I thought the sentiment also from Mama Elephant Good Times was perfect as it really summed up the theme of the movie.

This one might not be quite so obvious - it's a little bull from Mama Elephant's Cosmic Stars set and IRL I've coloured him red but it looks brown in the photo.  The idea of the red was to make him angry which should give you a clue to the film.............     Raging Bull of course!

My final card is also my entry to CASology this week where the trigger word is "Travel"  http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-39-travel.html

I was inspired by Blue Thunder - a film from the 80's which centres around a helicopter.  I went with a blue base (made more sense than having a blue helicopter on a different coloured sky!) and cut a mat with a circular cut out to create a circular slider card and added a helicopter (Clearly Besotted's Going Places).  I stuck 2 x 5 pence pieces behind the helicopter separated with a round foam pad so that the helicopter to can fly in circles around the card.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set.  I coloured the helicopter with copics and fussy cut.  Very CAS but cute and fun (unlike the film that inspired it!)

I think that's all my film inspiration exhausted now.

Status Update: 18 today

We had an 18th Birthday in the family this week and now the card is open I'm safe to blog it.  I had such fun making this card - lots of bling but still very masculine and very trendy with all the facebook like words and icons.

I used the brilliant set from Mama Elephant plus one stamp (status update) from Sn@p and just blue and grey ink.  Drawing some feint pencil lines helped get the sentiments all lined up nicely.  The 18 was cut with my cameo and then I used pinflair gel to cover the area under the negative die cut and lined up the black sequins in rows (painfully slow but worth the effort for the finished effect)

As I had stamped the sentiments to form a background over the die cut, I'm going to enter it into the stamp your own background challenge at Make My Monday this week http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/create-your-own-background.html

Tea and Balloons

Now normally - I play along with Less is More every Saturday morning - or by that evening at the latest - but this week I am very late to the party as I spent Saturday throwing a surprise tea party for my friend's birthday.  I'm finally joining in with my one layer card featuring spots and stripes and sharing some photos from the party as I've been giving my cameo a good workout making decorations for it!

I used a couple of Hero Arts sentiments stamped in black and then added some floating balloons using mama elephant stamps with distress inks but there was only a spotted one so I added the stripes with a tiny line stamp.  I hand drew the strings.

If you're interested - then this is what has been keeping me busy....

I've spent the last few weekends scouring antique centres looking for this china - isn't it pretty?  It's from the 1950's and is by Royal Stuart Spencer Stevenson - in their harlequin range so lots of pretty mixed colours.  I have everything except a milk jug but I hope to find one soon!  I got the antique linen on ebay.  I made little teabag shaped party favours and teapot shaped menus using the silhouette cameo machine (I really don't know what I did without this great machine)

I used the same teapot shape and added a cup to make a mobile and matching wall hangings - I got all 3 from just 4 sheets of 12 x12 paper with a bit of cotton and ribbon.

I made a couple of word banners - one tea party - and one saying Happy Fiftieth Birthday Maria (awful photo as it was over the window) - the cupcake embroidery was gift for my fortieth from another friend but it fit the them so stayed put.

I went to sewing class at The Craft Den last weekend and made this lovely cup themed bunting.   I'm not known for my sewing machine skills so needed lots of help from Lynne to get it sorted but I love the finished results.  (I bought the posters)

The final handmade element was a rainbow of tissue paper flowers to decorate the fireplace - simply made with folded sheets of tissue die cut with a large scalloped circle die, stapling the centre and patiently peeling and scrunching the layers.

And a final shot of all us of in our posh frocks before we poured the tea and tucked into all the finger food.   (I'm far right front, the birthday girl is far left seated)

I made all the food too - and if you want the run down on the menu then head over to my foodie blog http://craftilicious-thecraftycook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/posh-tea-party.html

Inspired by a song

I was really pleased when I saw the theme for this weeks' CASual Friday challenge - to be inspired by a song you love.  For me, it was a very easy choice - You and Me by the Wannadies - it's "our song" and we danced like maniacs to it at our wedding - here's a link to song if you don't know it - do have a listen it's short and sweet but fabulous!  http://www.muzu.tv/thewannadies/you-me-song-music-video/516943/

The chorus of the song goes "you and me, always, and forever" and that was what I took as my inspiration.....

I used a cute little person pair stamp from "good times" by Mama Elephant and stamped a line of people in grey but highlighting the pair of us in red.  We are a very close couple and sometimes we do feel a little like it's just the two of us against the world so I felt that this layout was the perfect visual metaphor for our relationship.  I then used a retired Elzybells alphabet set to spell out the chorus of the song in black and finished with a tiny die cut heart cut from black glitter paper with a simon says stamps die.

I'm entering the following challenges with this card:

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/cfc89.html

http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/love-is-in-air.html