Hidden Starfish

It's PJ Party time over at Waltzingmouse Stamps and you all know how much I love WMS right?  Well time was I would have made a card for all 4 challenges but time is short these days but I usually manage to squeeze one challenge in and I made it this month too.

When I do these challenges, I only ever use Waltzingmouse stamps on them, so having read that, are you all scratching your heads and wondering if you missed a starfish stamp?   Well no, you didn't - this came about by accident.   I was testing out ombre inkpads and needed a solid stamp but the ones on my desk happened to be Kaboom so I just turned the dotted star over and inked up the back and when I stamped it I realised it looked like a starfish with it's lovely wobbly edges.  So I inked it up again in red stamped it on to kraft, added brown around the edges and stamped it on top again and then cleaned it before turning it over to stamp the front with the dots in white over the top as real starfish are a bit knobbly.  I drew the face in with a sharpie before coating in glossy accents.

The sentiment is from My Island and I inked it red and then added the brown over the edges for that too tone suntan look ;-)   I finished with a hand drawn border and some tiny stars in the corners from Kaboom.

You've got 24 hours to play along if you want to join in http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/welcome-to-june-pj-party.html

Waltzingmouse PJ Party

It's party night - have you got your PJs on?  I'm ready, especially as I have Spandau Ballet on the TV too!

I managed 3 of the 4 challenges this month - I must admit the sketch stumped me a little - too many bits for my mainly CAS style so I passed.

Here's my card for the first challenge - Texture it - make texture without embossing folders.  It turns out mine was really hard to photograph - but hopefully you can make it out in the top right - I used 2 pieces of ric-rac ribbon and my embossing mat and ran it through the big-shot to see what would happen - irl it's really detailed (although the ribbon is now much flatter!) and I like the way it frames my scene.  The snowman is stamped on pearlised card and glued on with pinflair gel to get some nice round shaping to him and then his bits are paper-pieced with enamel dots for eyes etc.

The second challenge was "snow is falling" so I used one of the new snowflake dies and cut several from white glitter card and blue iridescent card to make a winter wreath with matching shimmering sentiment and a few sequin highlights.

Challenge 3 is old PJs - use any Christmas set other than the new ones.  I decided to make a really mini card - this one is just 3x3 inches as I had a lot of 3 inch scraps of this striped paper from another project.  I used one of my all time fave sentiments from Compliments of the Season 2 - I love the sheer elegance of this and how it can be the feature of a card (especially a mini one!)   Stamped in red on kraft and cut with a spellbinder label die - a few glitter accents, gold edging and gold washi tape - et voila mini card in 5 mins!

Have fun at the PJ party - I'll be back to see who else is playing later.

http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/welcome-to-october-pj-party.html

Love You Always

Super quick post today while I'm waiting for the bath to run as we're off to our favourite Turkish restaurant tonight to celebrate my best mates birthday but I wanted to squeeze in my take on the Waltzingmouse PJ Party Bedtime Sketch.

I kept it really simple - I took inspiration from the DP I selected which has a nice texture which led me to the wood grain heart from "My Heart".  I stamped the leaf border over it following the sketch using wet cement shadow ink and added a strip of red spotty paper from the same pad (prima bohemian bamboo) to finish the sketch shape.  Then I overstamped the heart using pale tomato shadow ink and added the sentiment to match from the same set.   I think it has a masculine feel - romantic but not too mushy - so will go to my hubby.

You've still got a couple of days to play along with this cute sketch http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/march-pajama-party.html

Veg and Flowers

It's Waltzingmouse Pajama Party night/day again and this month I actually managed 2 of the 3 challenges - I'll be back to try the bedtime sketch when I see it too.  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/

Firstly I had a go at "what would your mother make", now at first this stumped me as my mother is not really crafty - she can sew but only really did it practically (turning up trousers etc) and I don't have any stamps to match that!  Then I had a brain wave as the one thing she does love is gardening so I thought she would make little seed packets to share around the bounty from her garden so I made this.

I cut the packet on my cameo and then stamped in black and did a little pencil colouring to the cauliflower - quick and simple.

For the next challenge I got to play with my new funky flower die cuts for the die cut challenge.

I had some gorgeous cherry wood veneer paper I had yet to play with so I decided to do a one layer die cut floral arrangement.  Starting with the front flower first and working backwards I cut out all the pieces and then stamped them adding a little distress ink colour in neutral tones for that marquetry wood panelled feeling before piecing the jigsaw back together.  I added the sentiment over the top once I'd finished.

Are you all in your pjs and ready to party?  Can't wait to see what else everyone came up with.

Bedtime Story

I'm much later getting around to the bedtime sketch for this month's Waltzingmouse PJ Party http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/welcome-to-november-pajama-party.html but I finally managed to get it finished tonight.

I decided to twist up Christmas a little with a cake from the Your Lovely set which I stamped in white but kissed stamped against the vintage Christmas Background stamp with green to give it a subtle pattern the likes of which I could never do in icing myself!  I decorated it with some holly from Festive Foliage stamped and shrunk on shrink plastic.  I added a sentiment from Compliments of the Season pulled into a curve.  I replaced the circles in the sketch with more holly leaves and added some red ribbon and a red pen line to finish.

PJ's in the daytime

I normally play along with the PJ Party late at night as it starts but my hubby is working away this weekend and had to be up at 5am today so we had an early night last night.  So - as I'm alone, I can still be in my PJ's at noon ;-)

There were 4 play ahead challenges plus the bedtime story sketch this month - I've managed 3 of them and will back to play the sketch later  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/welcome-to-november-pajama-party.html

Challenge 2 was to make a Christmas card and I couldn't resist playing with my new Alpine Christmas set.

This set is soooo much fun to play with!  I stamped the village twice (masking off the church on the second with a scrap of tape) using momento luxe ink.  I have to say I have been searching for a decent white ink for a long time and Wedding Dress from this range is STUNNING!  I used it for the hill in the background too and used a cotton bud to dot some snow around to ground the village.  The trees were stamped in olive grove and the sentiment in black.  Simples.

Challenge 3 is a doozy - make a Tag - but Claire is judging this round so you have to make a tag she will like - yikes!  I went old school with Festive Foliage.

I started with a kraft tag and stamped the mini pinstripe background across it in pearlescent ivy.  I added my holly sprig in bamboo leaves over the stripes and masked it off so I could stamp the pine leaves behind in the same ivy colour as the background.  Pinecones (adirondack ginger) and berries (SU real red) finished off the stamping.  To add some texture, rather than stamping the mistletoe directly to the card, I used some of my favourite material - cloud clay - and stamped it in the ivy colour (ink stops the stamp sticking to the clay) before letting it dry overnight.  Once dry I cut it out with scissors and painted on a wash of ink and shimmer.  I used liquid pearls and glossy accents to give dimension to the berries and a bow before sticking it to the tag.  I cut a larger tag from DP and tied the two together with some green twine.  I finished with a sentiment from the opera tags Christmas set stamped over the holly.   Hope you like it Claire ;-)

Challenge 4 was actually the one I tackled first - I did it as soon as I got my alpine set as the darling little chalet was screaming decoration to me!

I stamped it 4 times on copic card so the corners touched at the base and then coloured it in and very carefully cut out all the teen-tiny little windows!

I cut it out and and used the up and under method around the eaves - so for two facing each other I cut a slit up and for the other two I cut a slit down from the top of the roof - so once folded you can get it to hold together to make a little decoration without the need for any glue.  Pretty, but really, it doesn't come into it's own until the lights go out.....

Sorry for the dodgy photo - it's very hard to photograph - but you can now see the point of cutting out all the tiny windows - this makes THE most perfect tea light holder.  [BATTERY TEA LIGHTS ONLY PLEASE - don't burn the house down with flames and paper!]  I wish I could show you it properly but hopefully you get the idea - I plan on using them to decorate my Christmas table :-D

See you all later with my bedtime story sketch.

PJ's and Trees

It's a couple of my favourite challenges today - Less is More and the Waltzingmouse PJ Party and luckily I've managed to combine the PJ Party sketch with the tree theme from Less Is More to come up with this.

I stamped the large teardrop tree from Tiny Trees in Starfruit ink from Stampin Up, added the branches in brown and let it dry before embossing the flurry of stars in blue glitter over the top.   It was then die cut from a circle of card which was edged with dashes from a green-gold glitter pen.  I added a strip of blue paper for the banner and edged the whole thing with more dash lines.

This is the sketch - you have a week if you want to play along with this one.

There are 3 other challenges for the PJ party - two for Halloween which I've not managed, but the 3rd is all about Art Deco and I love that so had to make a card.  Challenge 3 - Art Deco - Black and white and POP

For my pop I went with gold and used a soft gold base card adding a black and white deco panel with the new background stamp.  I die cut a fancy label and embossed a sentiment from Putting on the Ritz in gold and mounted it with a couple of gold gems.  I added fancy photo corners to finish - http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/wms-october-pajama-party.html

And while I'm here - I should also remind you that if you're a Waltzingmouse fan, then the new Fanatics challenge started this morning so you have another sketch you can play with http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/challenge-4-sketch.html

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 :-)