Little flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

 

What a glorious day it has been here! The blue skies and bright sunshine have inspired me to reach for the bright colours and join in with some fun challenges.

I recently acquired a pack of two odd-sized embossing folders by Stampin' Up called Little Details and I couldn't wait to experiment with them. The folder I used on this card creates a charming panel in the centre of a C6 card front which I bordered with a couple of scorelines. I coloured the raised details with water-based markers and stamped a colourful sentiment using two Uniko sets.

 

This video by Jennifer McGuire, inspired me to use a pretty little flower from a Sissix wreath die set in a repeat pattern for impact. I cut six of them, coloured them with water-based markers, positioned them on my background and finished them with enamel dot centres.

This card will go in my stash for a summer birthday next year :)

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Little Red Wagon, where the challenge is Small or Large; Can You Handle The Pressure, where we must Use an Embossing Folder with optional Poppies theme (I haven't used that); The Flower Challenge where the challenge is to Use a Die on our flower themed cards; and Happy Little Stampers Birthday challenge where Anything Goes as long as it's a birthday card.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I felt so sorry for the children in our area, heading back to school in this gorgeous weather today. Hopefully, they weren't issued any homework on their first day back and were able to get out and enjoy the sunshine before tea!

 

We walked in the cool of the woods earlier today and Eva found a nice little house to shelter in :)

Sending hugs,

21st birthday arches

Hello, crafting friends!

 

You know that moment when you realise you have to get your niece's birthday card in the post straight away and then you remember it's her 21st birthday... eeek! Well, you know my mantra: When in doubt, reach for the stencils!!

 

The Greetery's beautiful Mistletoe Arches layered stencil set has done sterling service in the Craft Square Metre with wedding, sympathy and birthday cards as well as the Christmas cards it was designed for. So why not a 21st birthday card?! After stenciling the arches, the sentiment was put together with a couple of stamp sets from Uniko and some dies for the 21st bit.

 

This photo was to try to capture the different colours and textures of gold. The leaves were finished with Wink of Stella gold, and the berries a deep gold using a marker. The 'fabulous' was heat embossed in gold and the '21st' was cut out of sparkly gold paper.

Hope she liked it!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Allsorts where Lorraine has chosen the theme Anything but a Square; Inkspirational has a Use Stencils challenge this month as does Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Goes; I'm also joining in the Happy Little Stampers Birthday challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

At the bottom of the fields behind our house there's a hedge and, for those in the know, a little hidden archway in it. The arched tunnel leads to quite a steep bank and down to a stream - one of Eva's favourite places to play! It's getting harder for the old joints, but I can still duck through the archway and navigate the bank, hurling myself across the stream at the bottom and up the other side. This is a short cut to the park with its enticing river and means Eva and I don't have to pound the pavements through the town to get there the conventional way! But that archway gets overgrown so, the other day, I performed the annual clipping to ensure we can still get through. That evening I was out with friends and at some point in the evening, while pushing my hair back, brought out a twig!! Honestly, I remember the days when I could still scrub up reasonably well for an evening out!

 

Me on an evening out!

Sending hugs,

Autumnal leafy arches

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Isn't it wonderful when a craft item arrives in your craft room and the ideas for using it come flooding at you? All I need is a bit of extra time to get them onto paper! The item in this case is a layering stencil from The Greetery called Mistletoe Arches. It's designed to  be used for Christmas cards but...

 

... I saw no reason that it shouldn't turn up on an autumn birthday card! I started this card by masking off the edges of a card base with low tack tape, stamping a background with a woodgrain background stamp and sponging yellow ink over the whole thing before removing the tape.

 

The next step was stenciling the arch over the background in layers using autumn coloured inks and adding detail with markers. The sentiment was made with two stamp sets from Uniko.

 

I added a little bird from The Greetery's Robin and Wren stamp set, stamped and fussy cut and attached to  the card front.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with Brenda's Colours of Autumn challenge at Allsorts; also Four Seasons challenge where the theme is Anything Goes Fall; I'm delighted that Darlene and Diane have also started their new Stencil Fun Challenge and am linking up there too; I'm playing along at Happy Little Stampers Birthday Challenge too where Anything Goes; This is the first outing for the Mistletoe Arches stencils so I'm playing at Darnell's NBUS challenge where we show off our Never Before Used Schtuff.

 

Also, a heads up: Allsorts are celebrating their 700th challenge this Saturday 29th October and there are prizes aplenty to be won! See you there :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS

On Saturday, OH decided it was time to curb the enthusiasm of some ivy in our back garden and Eva was delighted when she saw him getting out ladders and tarpaulin. She sees her role as general helper in the garden and this is exactly the kind of job she feels is her forté.

 

Here she is shredding some bits of woody stem - but wait, it appears to be raining leaves and Eva is quickly becoming the Incredible Disappearing Dog!

 

Sending hugs,

Happy tenth birthday celebrations!

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Regular visitors here will know that one of my favourite stamp companies is Uniko, based here in the UK. Well Uniko is celebrating ten years of fabulousness this month and the owner, Bev, has come up with a really fun way to mark the occasion by sending us all on a series of quests! The first quest is to make a birthday card using Uniko products, and this is what I came up with:

I used the Background Blocks Layered Modern Floral for this card, but only the flowers, not the leaves. The flowers image was stamped at an angle off the edge of a card panel in a deep red and I love how bold and happy they look!

 

Instead of the leaves that come with the set, I used the leaves on the Natures Treasures II stencil or a whole different look. Pale green ink was sponged into the smaller leaf images and I added a bit of yellow detail with a coloured pencil.

The sentiment was made with a combination of sets. The upper case 'Have a' and 'Birthday' words come from Wild, and the 'Wonderful' is from You Are, Yes You. Stamping Platforms have made it so easy to create our own unique sentiments out of different sets and it's fun to do!

CHALLENGES

I'm uploading this card to the Uniko 10th Birthday Linky as per the first quest; I'm also joining in at Allsorts where Wendy has chosen a theme of Anything Goes with optional red flowers; Stamping Sensations has an Anything Stamped Goes with the option to Use a Stencil so I'm playing along there; as well as Happy Little Stampers Stencil Challenge where Anything Goes.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I am a big fan of Lord of the Rings but a quest that DOESN'T involve hiking off to Mordor and chucking a ring into a dangerous volcano is much more my kind of thing!

 

Sending hugs,

Simply thank you

Hello, crafting friends!

Welcome back to CAS Colours and Sketches where we have a brand new hostess (hello Samantha!) and a gorgeous colour combination for you to play with.

Reflecting the Pantone colours of the year, these are bang on trend, so I've used them to give some of my older stamp sets a fresh new twist!

To start my simple one layer card, I sponged yellow ink into Funky Fossil's Arched Window stencil, holding it upside down to make a tag shape at the top of a card base. Next came the sentiment, from the retired Letterpress Winter by Stampin' Up, positioned in my stamping platform and stamped in the darker grey.

I masked off the sentiment and used the lighter grey to stamp the flower and a leaf from Uniko's You Are Yes You above it. Coloured pencils were used to colour the petals and as a finishing touch, I added a shadow to one side of the tag to give it a bit more dimension, and a couple of clear dots.

Are you ready to join in with this week's challenge? As always, there is some wonderful inspiration over at the challenge blog where my team mates have pulled out all  the stops. You'll find the Linky Tool there too and will be able to link up your own creation. Don't forget to keep it clean and simple!

CHALLENGES

Normally, I look for a sketch or photo inspiration to get me started with a card but today I was inspired by the arched window stencil which made me think of a tag! I'm joining in with AAA cards' Up To One Third challenge and choosing not to go with the optional twist this time.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The weekend just gone has been the May Day holiday weekend across the UK and we celebrated with a lovely long walk in the sunshine in a local woods famous for its bluebells. We were all - even Eva - quite tired by the end of it. 

Most of the weekend was warm and dry but on Monday strong winds and showers made our walks much brisker and my crafting more extensive! There has been some damage in the garden which has saddened me - watching everything come out has been so rewarding. But the plants have time to grow back so all is not lost.

Hope you've enjoyed your weekend too. Sending hugs,

Dotty flowers

Hello crafting friends!

After a day in the garden with blue skies, sunshine and bright flowers, I began to feel quite holiday-ish - even if I was just weeding! So when I went indoors to make a floral birthday card, I reached for the bright colours. Come and see:

I started this card by pasting a piece of striped green designer paper onto a card panel. I stamped over this using a flower from Uniko's You Are, Yes You (a really useful little set that I notice is currently in the sale.)

I stamped the flower heads again on bright dotty papers, cut them out and placed them over the stamped ones. The detail on the flowers make this stamp perfect for paper piecing. The papers are ancient Stampin' Up ones, but dots and stripes never go out of style!

Once everything was glued in place, I cut the panel with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodles, attached it to a card base and stamped a birthday sentiment at the top.

CHALLENGES
There's a Dots and Stripes theme going on at the Uniko challenge and also at AAA Birthday, so I'll be linking up there; They're celebrating Occasions over at Watercooler Wednesday and I'm entering my birthday card there; and last, but definitely not least, I was totally inspired by the gorgeous bright colours at The Colour Throwdown this week.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I’m enjoying walking with Eva on these beautiful mornings although this morning I was shouted at by a man who was concealed in the trees taking photos of ducks! I had let Eva off lead as there was apparently no-one about, but she spotted him at once and was naturally intrigued about what he was doing crouching in the undergrowth. When she saw he was communing with ducks she became very excited and wanted to join in. He was NOT impressed.*

*No hidden men or ducks were harmed in the morning walk.

Happy Good Friday to all who celebrate Easter and wishing you a happy weekend. Don't forget to stay safe.

Hugs,

High Flier

Hello crafting pals!

My grown up offspring are always doing things that make me proud of them. So I've decided that instead of scrambling about to make quick cards when I hear about their successes, I will create a stash of cards to keep on hand  - like this one:

I've gone a bit die crazy for this card! First I cut two card panels with my largest Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle, one in sky blue, the other in cloud white. The white one was cut in half on the diagonal with a Lawn Fawn Puffy Cloud Border die.

The swallow was cut with a Xcut Dinky Die I found at the Range a month or so ago. (Yesterday I was reading this post by Cat at Cat Luvs Paper, which made me determined to start using the craft stash I've bought but not yet used!) I cut one swallow in navy and one in white and layered them to add a bit of dimension.

The sentiment is made out of words from MFT's From Me To You and the gorgeous 'amazing' from Uniko's You Are, Yes You. I used my stamping platform to make sure I got the positioning right, stamping with navy ink and a splash of red.

CHALLENGES
I'm linking up with Just Add Ink where their gorgeous photo inspired my layout; Happy Little Stampers Die Challenge where Anything Goes this month; and also the Allsorts Challenge where they're looking for Anything With Wings.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

So Friday has come around but I'm not sure if any of us are really getting that Friday feeling at the moment are we? My weekend will involve spring cleaning, dog walking and plenty of crafting. How about you?

Hugs,

Sunset silhouettes

Hello crafting friends!

Remember the distant memories of summer, relaxing outside in the evening, with a chilled glass of rosé perhaps, watching the sun set, lifting your face to catch a warm perfumed breeze... That was the inspiration for today's card and oh, I only wish!

The card started with a piece of watercolour paper, dampened and given an ombré look with some Stampin' Up Real Red ink, a large flat paintbrush and some water. When it was dry, I measured up with a ruler and pencil and cut out this shape. I've seen this shape quite a lot around blogland but don't have a die. I think I definitely want the die now!

For a bit of drama, I used black ink to stamp the gorgeous silhouette image from Uniko's Just Because onto my inky background. The watercolour paper wasn't brilliant for picking up the ink but my stamping platform was a big help as I was able to stamp four or five times knowing that the stamp would press into the exact same place each time.

The sentiment was created using two more Uniko stamp sets: Wild and You Are, Yes You. I used my stamping platform again here so that I could position the words accurately.

I added a sprinkling of gems for a touch of sparkle and the final task was to run markers round the edges of the cut-out shape to avoid that naked edge look, especially as the watercolour paper is really thick! I used three colours of marker - red, dark pink and pale pink -  to match the ombré.

So, so proud to have been the Top Pick at CAS Watercolour with this card!

CHALLENGES
Uniko is celebrating its 8th birthday and there are some fabulous party celebrations going on with prizes on offer. I've used lots of my Uniko stash and am joining the fun there! I'm also linking up with CAS Watercolour Challenge where the colour theme is Red and Black. Finally, this is my second entry at The Flower Challenge where 'Just Add Leaves' is the challenge. I liked the idea that this flower silhouette is ambiguous - you can't tell which are leaves and which are flowers!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My youngest son has been home from uni for a couple of days and it's been lovely to have both my sons here. It's been a mixed few days though... I've just discovered that my youngest has travelled back to uni with some rather important keys in his pocket! And while I was busy cooking a roast on Sunday, the oven died a death and everything had to be finished on the stove! It turned out to be delicious but now I'm having to remember not to buy food that requires oven cooking until we can get it replaced.

Thanks for popping round to visit today. See you soon!

Hugs,

A minimilist valentine

Hello crafting pals!

I've gone VERY clean and simple for today's card. Are you ready?

What do you think? I used two of my Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle dies to make a tag, replacing the cut out panel in the centre so that the stitching looks embossed. Let's zoom in a bit:

The sentiment is from a lovely Uniko set called You Are, Yes You. I used my stamp platform to stamp the word 'amazing', masking off the dot on top of the 'i' and then removed that stamp and lined up the words 'you are'.

The tiny hearts are from Stampin' Up's From Our House To Yours and I've used them to replace the dot over the 'i' that I'd masked off. The larger heart was stamped in pink and the smaller in dark red over the top. I finished the card with a single gem.

CHALLENGES
I'm linking my card up with Less is More, which is challenging us to use Less on our cards with its Less (Tiny and Few) theme. Can you believe this challenge is 9 years old?! I remember being so excited when it first started up and being an avid LiMette every Saturday, as it was a weekly challenge then.
I shall also link up with Festive Friday, having chosen Hearts, Red and Pink from their list.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
So we've seen January off! I am embracing February - the month of love and pancakes! What are you looking forward to in February?

Hugs,