AYLI - Stamps or Digis

Hello crafty friends I hope, wherever you are in the world, that the year is being kind to you so far.

It's Thursday so time for me to share my make for the new challenge at

It's STAMPS OR DIGIS this time and remember to explain why you have made your choice.

 I have rekindled my love affair with rubber/clear stamps this year and have had a great time trawling through my collection. My stamping platform has probably been one of my best crafty purchases ever. Unless I drop an ink pad (come on, you've all done it!!) 99.9% of the time I get a perfect clean impression.

My card was made using an older, super cute LOTV rubber stamp. I coloured with Promarkers and pencils and paper pieced the pooches napkin. The sentiment is from Mama Elephant Make a Wish Stamp Set and I heat embossed it in black for a bit of impact. The stars (also from the same stamp set) were stamped in similar colours as the sentiment alone didn't quite "balance" the card, if you get my meaning.

So, that's me for today. I hope that you will come and support us.

See you Saturday xx

Stamps and Stars

 Honestly don't Mondays roll around far too quickly which means I am at work by the time this goes "live". I hope you had a good weekend and that the week ahead is a good one.

I've a cutie to share with you today, my inspiration at

where the theme this month is Stamps and/or Stars.

I used a super cute digi image that is practically antique and I can't even remember where it came from!! Anyway, she is a cutie for sure and I coloured her with Promarkers. The sentiment and stars are from a Mama Elephant stamp set and that's it. 

Thank you very much for your visit today and I hope that I have inspired you to join us.

See you soon xx

Holly and Berries Stencil - AYLI

 Happy Thursday everyone. I hope that you have had a good week and have something nice planned for the weekend. I am really enjoying my papercrafting again and feel so much more inspired as the daylight is stretching out bit by bit.

That said, the new challenge at

inspired me to try a technique that, although I am well eqipped for, never actually do and that is stencilling. I am probably not alone when I say this, I do have stencils in my crafty arsenal but just don't ever get the inspiration to use them so this theme was a kick up the butt!! On closer inspection I have rather more than I thought but played safe with an Echo Park Holly and Berries 6x6 festive stencil. Once I got going it was actually a lot of fun and I was really pleased with the result!!

I already had the LOTV stamped image coloured up with Promarkers and the little holly and berries prompted me to choose the stencil that I did. I remembered that I had a chalk set that came with a long handled crocodile clip and dinky cotton balls that were perfect for keeping "in the lines". I don't have an extensive collection of Distress inks but two reds and two greens were just right for the soft look I was after. I used a bit of white pen as highlights on some of the berries and squirted some with glossy accents too. The Mama Elephant sentiment finished it off nicely.

I do hope that I have given you some inspiration to do a bit of stencilling, if not, the alternative is a Freestyle background which would be equally welcome.

Sorry, not sorry, for sharing a Christmas card!! There will be another coming along soon too!!

See you soon xx

What goes with blue?

 Hello lovelies, how are you doing? Okay I hope in these strange October days. 

Now I wouldn't say that I avoid blue, but it really isn't my "go to" colour so my DT piece for 

was a challenge for me in itself....BLUE plus another colour.

My regular visitors will know that I am somewhat addicted to paper pads so it will not be a shock when I tell you that during a ( masked up, socially distanced) trip to The Works, five of the little devils jumped into my basket. I didn't have the heart to put them back on the shelf!! Anyway this one was blue and a pretty shade of pink, a perfect combo for this sweet pop up Christmas card. I used my Lawn Fawn die set for the base, cut a snowy hill that I glittered, and dug out Mama Elephant Reindeer Games stamp set for little Rudolph and his lady friend, who were coloured with Promarkers.

I hope that you will join us.

Keep well everyone and see you soon xx

Just for fun!!

Happy New Week Everyone!!

This is a rare occurrence, and no mistake!! In fact I rather amazed myself when I managed to make a card just for fun instead of only DT creations. So here goes...

I watercoloured these cute PB fellas with various Distress Inks splodged on my craft mat. I was delighted that the colours matched the papers so well and will definitely have another go when time allows. 

I hate to say it but it has been rather nice to have a wet weekend so that I could get some time in my work room. I am planning tissue pouches as Christmas presents for the girls at work this year so have been cutting fabric to size ready to have mass assembly one evening. My Christmas card pile isn't looking too shabby either so I am quite pleased with progress. 

If you are out and about at Firework Displays tonight, stay safe.

See you later in the week xx

Some challenges

Winter Wonderland - Colour it

Stamping Sensations - Get ready for Christmas

Allsorts #492 - Pretty Papers

Animal Friends challenge #68 - Winter

The Merry Christmas Challenge - Anything Christmas

AYLI Favourite Animal

It's challenge time again at As You Like It and the theme this time is right up my street.

ANIMALS!!

This was actually a tough choice for me as I love all animals, with the exception of a few creepy crawlies and I am not very keen on crocodiles, but for the purpose of this I went with dogs (please don't anyone tell Surprise, although we do refer to her as "the big dog" so I suppose she counts!!)

This was the card that I made for my Sister's Birthday, it's a perfect companion to the one I made her fella earlier in the year here.

I used the same Making Cards cd Rom and trawled through my paper library for a suitable colour match, which I think worked really well. The "Sister" stamp was a magazine freebie too and I used my favourite Mama Elephant stamp and die sets for the little tag.

It would be lovely to see you there!!

Oliver Texting

Hello friends. Hope this finds you well. We have had a lovely week and most definitely don't want to go back to work tomorrow...never mind, our next week off,  in September, will soon be here!!

I know I am not alone in struggling with cards for the male "flavour", particularly youngsters. However, I think I nailed it with this fab image from LOTV - Oliver Texting featured on a card for one of my cousin's boys.

I flipped him so that he was facing in the opposite direction and coloured him with Promarkers to match the MFT papers - Painted Prints. I inked the edges with Frayed Burlap and finished off with my favourite Mama Elephant Mini Messages and Mini Tags and a small grey pearl.

To round off our week we have been invited out for a Father's Day carvery, so looking forward to that...no cooking!!  My Dad will be very much in my thoughts today and if you can't be with yours either I hope you too have some happy memories to recall.

Have a good day whatever you are up to and as we are in the midst of a heatwave in the UK, stay safe in the sun xx

Some challenges

Allsorts #420 - Birthday boy
Crafty Calendar June - Boys will be boys
Sweet Stampin' - Creations for children
Kitty Bee Designs #97 - For the guys
Unicorn Challenge #22 - For the guys

AYLI DT Favourite skin or fur colours

Helloooo!! I love it when it's time to share a DT piece for

j

because it means that Martin's weekend off is coming up...yay!! I think we are off to Lyme Regis this time, there is always the guarantee of a great ice cream there!! 

For now though, there is the guarantee of a great challenge and this fortnight it is to share a project showcasing your favourite colours for skin or fur. As always, it is necessary to tell us what you have chosen and why.

Our sponsor is 

so I had to use an image from Winnie's Spring Collection and here it is. 

On this occasion I used my Promarkers to colour her in to match the papers. My default skin colours are, Apricot, Oatmeal, Blush and Baby Pink which, together,  always give a fantastic result and go, pretty much, with cool and warm paper colours. The border is a Spellbinders die and the little tags are Mama Elephant with the Mini Messages stamp set and some seam binding ribbon to finish off.  Hope you will have time to join in this time.

See you soon xx

Some challenges

Passion for Promarkers #395 - Tag it
Whimsie  Doodles May - Anything Goes
The Ribbon Girl -  May card challenge
Creative Inspirations #275 - Anything Goes 

The Cutie Pies Winter Warmers

Hello friends. It's time for my DT card for

As we are in the midst of winter the theme this time is  Winter Warmers

Nothing like a hot chocolate with marshmallows to warm you up...as you can see I didn't add cream though...I am trying to be good!! I used  Hot Cocoa Bear from, Bugaboo, one of our sponsors (full details on the challenge blog here ). Hope you will join in and either make a start on your Christmas cards for this year or make a birthday card for a winter Birthday.

Thank you for stopping by today, it's always lovely to have visitors xx

Some Challenges

ABC Christmas Challenge - A= Anything Goes B = Bear
Ribbon Girl - January card challenge
Christmas Card Challenges #3 - Anything Goes
Catch the bug - Anything Goes 

Reindeer Games

I can't believe another week has whizzed by since I last shared anything with you but anyway here I am with a Christmas card, inspired by a few current challenges.

Unusually for me I had a layout in mind and the card was born from that. I have no idea who the papers are by but I do remember buying  them from Buddly Crafts a couple of years ago. The sweet reindeer are from the Reindeer Games set and I fussy cut and attached them with foam pads onto a water splattered Weatherwed Wood DI background. The pretty edges were made using a Marianne Craftables set.

The inspiration came from here

Allsorts Challenge #370 - Gingham style
Double D challenges - Simply Gingham
Crafty Gals #79 - Lots of Layers
ABC Christmas Challenge - N for No Rules

Thank you for sharing your day with me, you are always welcome xx

Cupcake anyone?

Hello there. Today I have another pink creation to share. It's not a colour that I use regularly but I have been trying to add a few more girlie coloured cards to my stock box and In the Pink challenges certainly help to get the inspiration flowing.

 So, using their latest challenge in the form of a photograph

I made this...

I stepped outside my comfort zone for this one and unearthed an ancient stamp set from Personal Impressions in order to do a spot of heat embossing direct to the card blank together with a bit of inking. The sentiment from Mama Elephant was also heat embossed onto a SB label. Finally a Promarker coloured cupcake slathered in glitter and some roses to finish off.

Hope you like it...I'm not sure!!

Another challenge join in

Creative Corner Challenges - Glittermania

I really don't want to go back to work today but I did buy a few crafty goodies last week so I suppose I had better put in an appearance !!

Hope your week is a good one xx

Twinkle town

Hello friends, hope you are well and not suffering too much with the extreme weather at the moment, be it two feet of snow or blistering heat. Here in my part of the UK it's....raining...again, and just when I thought the fields couldn't get any wetter, still each day that passes is a day nearer to spring.

Anyway, weather report over!! I am here to share another Christmas card that I made with a New Year present to myself.

The fabulous stamp set is called Twinkle Towns by Mama Elephant and although very different, for me, I had to have it.

 Coloured with Promarkers the bauble then had a liberal Stardust stickling. 

I heat embossed the bough with a glittery green embossing powder that I had long since forgotten about and added a red cord to hang the bauble from. The sentiment came from a Wplus9 set called Woodland Wreaths (Carol...this one is all your fault!!).

Apologies for the appalling photography!!

So, another Christmas card for the box and some challenges to enter too.

Winter Wonderland - Something New (Stamp sets)

Simply Create Too #101 - Something New (Stamp sets)

Moving Along With The Times #12 - Embossing (Heat)

Craft Rocket #7 - Clean and Simple

Double D challenges - Brrrrrr

ABC Christmas - B for baubles

Crafting by designs - Winter, Glitter, Sparkles

Ooh La La challenge #196 - In the country

Crafting With Friends #12 - Anything Goes

Crafty Time January - Make it Sparkle

Until next time xx

Tag...you're it!!

Hello blogging buddies, me again!! This time to share some gift tags that I made using the brilliant Mama elephant stamp set called No Peeking.

They were really quick to do so I made rather a lot of them in the hope that they will sell at the next local Craft Fair. If they don't then at least I will have my own Christmas tags done and dusted!! 

The cute animals were coloured with Promarkers to coordinate with the cardstock and twine and I stickled the edges for a bit of Christmas bling!!

Some challenges that fit

Make the day special - Anything But a card

Little Red Wagon #311 - Tags

I love Promarkers #290 - Anything Goes

Not Just Cards #25 - Anything Goes

Sisters of Craft #10 - Anything Goes

Creative Ladybirds #8 - Anything Goes

Thank you for vising, as always you are most welcome and your comments make my day xx