Grumpy Cat strikes again

I always claim not to have a favourite rubber stamp, but the grumpy cat image  from Katzelkraft's "Les Chats Russes" set must be pretty close to it. It goes so well with all kinds of snarky sentiments!

Here I've teamed it with a Dylusions sentiment and a few randomly stamped pawprints and fishbones. I coloured the cat in with charcoal in dark and light grey, doing the coarse blending with a fingertip and the finer blending with a paper stump. I don't think I've used charcoal since I was at school - certainly the sticks I used were still wrapped in their unopened cellophane although I've had them for years.

I am sharing this with

Make my Monday - Monochromatic
Alphabet Challenge - Joke 

Anything Goes at Ooh La La Creations

It's a nice easy challenge at Ooh La La Creations this time - Anything Goes. Having said it is easy, oddly enough I often find anything goes challenges really difficult, my mind goes completely blank when I see one. However this time I'd just seen an image  I wanted to use, on the CD Boys to Men which you can find here, so I was all set to make this card.

I made an easel card, teaming an image and paper from the CD with cream and kraft card, candi, mesh and ribbon from my stash and a die cut sentiment.

If the image has whetted your appetite, why not pop over to the challenge and join in? You don't need to use an Ooh La La image, and you don't need to use a CD - you can use any style or technique, but you could win a download of one of the CDs from the store then you would have these lovely designs for yourself.

Tropical Heatwave

Heatwave - remember one of those? It feels as if it's been cold, wet and windy forever, and yet only a few weeks ago we were sizzling in near-record temperatures. And here's a reminder of that scorching heat.

First I stencilled red, yellow and orange distress inks through an oval stencil, then I stamped the palm trees with black Versafine and embossed them with clear powder. The stamp is a very, very old unmounted one. I know I bought it in the days before I had internet access (which I got in 1999) by sending off to one of the small ads there used to be in Crafts Beautiful, which was just about the only craft magazine around at the time to cover stamping. How times have changed!

I finished it with two punched leaves, with the sentiment stamped on the top one.

I am sharing this with

CAS on Friday - Exotic
Just us Girls - Something old or Something new (the very old stamp)

The Gingerbread Man

Next up from me is a very simple Christmas card using the SU Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp and punch set. This would be a good one to mass produce, and you could ring the changes by using different characters from the set.

The background is a piece of festive patterned vellum that was part of a magazine freebie kit, pierced around the edge to form a frame, with the sentiment stamped using Stazon ink. I used a ruler and piercing tool to do the piercing - I had considered cheating and using the perforation blade of my paper trimmer. I've never used the perforation blade before, and to my surprise when I came to try it I found that they have accidentally given me a spare cutting blade instead. I'm not complaining, the cutting blade is the one that gets used most!

I am sharing this with

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Gingerbread 
Less is More - Pierce your project
Watercooler Wednesday - All About Christmas

Lemurs and butterflies

I don't know whether you've noticed but apart from scheduled DT posts, I've been pretty quiet yet again. That's because we've been away again - this time to take the older two grandchildren for a night in "Lookout Lodge", the little group of "glamping" pods inside Whipsnade Zoo.

We had a lot of fun and made some very special memories - the overnight stay includes several guided tours of the zoo in the evening and early morning, when it is closed to ordinary visitors, and with many animals, that's the time they are most active. It also included access to places where the public can't go, such as a visit inside the lemur enclosure.

I think that is my favourite photo of my self EVER! The grandchildren are looking the other way because there was another lemur on the fence chatting to them.

We had two full days in the zoo, and came home absolutely exhausted! I think the break has done my crafting mojo a lot of good though, so prepare yourself to be deluged with posts over the next couple of days.

First of all here is a very shabby chic butterfly card.

The image is stamped and coloured with Promarkers, then cut out with deckle edged scissors and inked around the edges. The base card is covered with patterned paper -  you can just see some of the pattern peeping out around the edges, featuring the blues and pinks that I've used on the image. A piece of embossed and distressed Coredinations forms the main background, topped with a piece of wire-edged ribbon that was lightly scrunched before positioning it.

I am sharing this with
Addicted to stamps - Make your Mark
Butterfly challenge - Jagged edge and Kiwi
Crafty Gals Corner - Anything Goes
C.R.A.F.T. - Summer
Glitter and Sparkle - Things with Wings
Shopping our Stash - Butterflies, Bees and Bugs    

Anything Goes at CD Sundays

It's time for our new challenge at CD Sundays, and this time the field is wide open for you because our theme is Anything Goes. You can make anything you like, with any theme you like, just as long as you include something from a CD (not a download) that is currently in your possession.

The image I used is from the Joanna Sheen CD "Viva la Divas". You may recall that I really struggle with this CD - the images are so big that they practically fill the front of an A5 sized card, making it very difficult to be creative with them.

I suppose I could take the images into a graphics programme and reduce them in size, but frankly when I have a CD I want to just print out the things I need and get crafting, to me image manipulation is for downloads. So if I wasn't going to reduce the image, the alternative was to make a bigger card, and here I have used it on an 18cm square card.

The design sheet has the image printed twice, side by side, so I cut just the woman from the second sheet and added it to the first with 3D adhesive to give it a bit of dimension.

The glittery acetate, which needed lots of sanding to make anything stick to it, and the foiled shoe and bag motifs, are from very old kits I bought from QVC many years ago.

It's Rudolph Day again!

It's the 25th of July, so it's Rudolph day at Scrappymo's again! And do you realise it is now only 5 months to Christmas? I hope you've got lots of cards made already.

I've used a Bugaboo digi of Santa Claus - actually he's part of a group with a snowman and reindeer too, but I've separated them and just used one of the images. The sentiment is a digi too but I can't remember where it came from. The embossed panel is made with a magazine freebie folder and the papers all came from my snippets box.

I am sharing this with
Scrappymo's - Rudolph Day
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - use an embossing folder
Winter Wonderland - use a digi image
Jingle Belles - Here comes Santa Claus
Little Red Wagon - Christmas in July

Out for a drive

I'm often guilty of only using the items from a set - of dies, of stamps, a pad of paper or a kit - with the other items it came with, when in fact many of them would work perfectly well alone or with other items.

This car die is an example - it's meant to be a London Taxi, from the Xcut Build a Scene London set, and it certainly looks great cut in black and used that way. But it makes a great "people carrier" style car whatever colour it is cut in.

I've cut it in snippets of red, yellow and blue and used a fine marker to colour in the wheels, and added a "hill" and a cute, childlike sentiment as I think this would make a great card for a little boy.

I am sharing this with
CAS on Friday - Primary Colours
Addicted to CAS - Wheels

The ants and the watermelon

It's a photo week at Just Us Girls - here's the inspiration photo they have given us

I've lifted out this cute NBUS stamp from Anitas of a pair of naughty ants making off with a juicy slice of watermelon.

I've coloured it with Promarkers and taken inspiration from the lime green colour of the limeade and the red gingham cloth for the rest of my CAS card, finishing it with a sentiment stamped with a set that was free in Making Cards a few months ago.

Lots of square snippets

This week I got two lovely parcels - an early birthday present of some stitched square and rectangle (at last) and yet more dragonfly dies, and a wonderful parcel of crafting goodies from a very generous Facebook friend, one item of which was this super "Good luck" die. Naturally I had to have a play right away.

I had a good rummage through my snippets box and picked out 10 different scraps of patterned paper (you might recognise some of them as left overs from a card I posted yesterday) and cut them all with a square die then arranged them diagonally over my card and topped with the sentiment and dragonflies, all cut in black.

I am playing along with
Pixie's Snippets Playground weeks 291-292
Less is More - No stamps
Dies R Us - Sentiment as focus

Shedding some light on the matter

I've been venturing into mixed media again - well, tiptoeing really....

All the stamps I have used are from a set I've had for a few years, I can't remember who makes it but I got it mostly for the lovely penny-farthing bicycle, and I think this is the first time the light bulb stamp has seen ink.

I stamped the cogs and screws onto the kraft card then added some dimension with a few screw-headed brads and a couple of chipboard cogs, coloured with gold wax.

The light bulbs were stamped on yellow card, the screw fittings coloured with a gold gel pen and then fussy cut. I've drawn in cords for them but I've just realised that it would be impossible for them to work like that as they aren't actually screwed into anything!

The "adventure" sticker is part of a gift from a friend and the words are from one of the very first sheets of peel offs I ever bought, some time round about the beginning of time. I've added a little white gel pen to give the impression of light and movement.

I am sharing this with
Shopping Our Stash - You Light up my Life
The Male Room - Mixed Media
Watercooler Wednesday - Masculine
Crafty Creations - Anything Goes   

Let them eat cake!

I was a bit worried when I saw that this week's challenge at Sweet Stampin is Cake, because I am so rigorous about my diabetes management programme that I don't even buy cake themed stash! How's that for self restraint? But it means I thought I wouldn't be playing.

Then I remembered this stamp set that was a magazine freebie some years ago - I think it was probably Polkadoodles magazine, it certainly looks like a Polkadoodles stamp.

I coloured it with Promarkers (has anyone else noticed that since they changed from Letraset to Winsor and Newton they sometimes give patchy results?) and teamed it with papers from my stash and a sweet ribbon to make a centre stepper card.

I am sharing this with
Sweet Stampin - Cake
Fab'n'funky - Use a patterned paper 
Allsorts Challenge - Fancy Folds 
ATSM - Anything Goes

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #89 - Up Yer Kilt

It's time for our new challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers and this week  Edna has chosen the theme "Up Yer Kilt"

 

This doesn't mean your work has to necessarily have a Scottish theme, or indeed to include a kilt, just that there needs to be some PLAID somewhere on it.

However, I have gone for Scottish and a kilt on my offering:

 

The image is a lightly-decoupaged one from the La Pashe CD "The Best of La Pashe 2012" while the background was printed out from the 2014 edition in the same series.

 

I wrote the sentiment out using the font "Stonecross" (note to anyone who tries to use this font, which is available on many free font sites - it has no lower case characters so you need to write all in upper case or you are left with blank spaces where the letters should be) to give it an authentic Scottish look.

 

For anyone who can't read it, or doesn't understand the Scots dialect, click on the row below  and highlight everything between the two asterisks and while it is highlighted, you will see it in clear text!

 

*  I don't know where that wind's coming from but I know where it's going  *

 

It refers, of course, to the tradition of a Scotsman not wearing anything under his kilt! And for that reason, I did consider using an alternative font - our old friend Comic Sans, since "Sans" is the French word for "Without"!

 

I think this would make a great New Year card - after all, Santa must be in a party mood after he's got all that present-delivering out of the way.

 

 

 

 

A CAS sympathy card

I like to have a few ideas for quick sympathy cards to hand, and I think clean and simple styles are perfect for the occasion as well as generally being quick to make.

For this card I have stamped the silhouette flowers from the SU Just Believe set  and mounted it on a strip of black card, then added it to my card front with a  sentiment stamped with an old Anna griffin stamp and a purple butterfly cut with a memory Box die.

I am sharing this with
Use Your Stuff - black and white with a splash of colour
Sparkles Monthly - Thinking of you/Sympathy

I can snow a rainbow!

OK, snowflakes are white - well, white-ish, but this old Hero Arts snowflake stamp (about 17 years old, I think) looks lovely stamped in any colour.

Here I've stamped it in all the colours of the rainbow, to make a background, and topped it with a sentiment that is also a very old stamp although I can't recall where it is from. Possibly Dimension 4th?

The entire blogosphere seems to be having Christmas challenges at the moment, so I'm going to share this with lots and clear the decks ready for the 25th when of course it will be Rudolph Day and i'll be back with a new festive make.

Christmas Card Throwdown - Rainbow
Crafty Gals Corner - Christmas in July 
C.R.A.F.T - Christmas
Cardz 4 Galz - Christmas or Winter
Retro Rubber - Somewhere over the rainbow
Sweet Stampin - Christmas in July

Christmas in July at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's time for our Christmas in July challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz. We'd love to see what Christmas cards you are making for your menfolk!

I've made a snowman out of die cuts.

I used the largest die from the Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 8 set, but it would work with any rectangular shape that can stand freely.
I cut two black and two white labels, and scored one of the white ones 2cm from the top and stuck the top area to the other white one, to create the standing card.
One of the black labels was cut in half across the middle widthwise, to form the top of his hat, and the other just before the middle lengthwise to form the brim.
Once you have the basic snowman, you can decorate him however you like - I added a snowflake to his hat, cut with a magazine freebie die, and for his face used googly eyes, candi and a snippet of orange card for his carrot nose.

I am sharing this with

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - use a die cut
Fab 'n' Funky - shaped cards
Glitter and Sparkle - Anything Goes
Cut it Up - Christmas in July
Christmas Cards All Year Round - Anything Goes    

Landscapes at Ooh La La Creations

Our new theme is ready at Ooh La La Creations Challenge and this time we would like to see a landscape on your work.

I've made a gatefold card with most of the interest on the inside. I used the Carnival of Colour CD, available here. The paper on the outside panels looks textured, doesn't it? But actually it's perfectly smooth, it is clever shading in the design that makes it look that way.

For the wide panorama on the inside I printed out an A5 design sheet, but at A4 so that it came out much larger. Then I layered it onto blue-grey paper. Sticking it right across the creases of the card would have made it pucker, and have made the card difficult to close, so I cut across the panorama just short of where the fold was to lie, leaving that little space each side of the fold to enable the card to close properly.

The sentiment is tamped with a Dovecraft stamp.

Orange butterflies

We're still not seeing many butterflies in the garden this year - last time I mentioned it, some of you said you were seeing a lot and others are having the same experience as us. I suppose the upside of it is that there haven't been many caterpillars eating Mark's plants, though!

To make the butterflies, I brushed water all over a piece of watercolour paper then sprinkled with Brusho crystals - mainly orange, but with a few patches of yellow and red. When dry, I stamped the IndigoBlu butterfly and cut them out leaving a narrow border. They are stuck with 3D glue onto black and orange card, and the sentiment stamped with a magazine freebie stamp.

I am sharing this with

Butterfly challenge - Matching pairs/orange peel (a pair of butterflies)
Alphabet challenge - I for insects
Cardz for Galz - Butterflies
Shopping our Stash - CAS
CAS Watercolour - Butterfly  
Watercooler Wednesday - All about birthdays

Paris revisited

A few weeks ago, I made a card using papers and embellishments printed out from the Debbi Moore CD "Shabby Chic - Paris" and mentioned at the time that I had printed far more than I needed and would be able to make several more cards.

Well  I popped those papers into a plastic wallet to keep them looking fresh, and then promptly forgot about them - at least, until I read that the latest theme at Make My Monday is Travel. So out they came ......

Celebration at CD Sundays

Our new challenge theme at CD Sundays is Celebration, so we want to see something made for a special celebration - and of course we want to see something from a CD on your card.

I've used one of the digis from the Polkadoodles CD Work & Play Collection #9 - Love and Kisses, which I have coloured in with Promarkers, plus a gel pen for the tiara. The sentiment is computer generated and the background is a textured card from Bazzill.

I am sharing this with
Polkadoodles challenge - Anything Goes
Digi Choosday - Anything Goes
A bit more time to craft - Anything Goes

Little white dog

The very first film I ever saw at the cinema was Tommy Steele's "Little White Bull" and the tune of the theme song goes through my head every time I see a small white animal. Just thought you'd like to know that, since there's a little white dog on the card.

The current theme at Jingle Belles is a photo challenge :

 

I've used the colours, the snowflakes and that little white Scotty dog as my inspiration, and the fireplace shape reminded me of the X-cut doorway die set.

 

 

I first cut the doorway out of the blue card then embossed it with a brickwork ef,  then backed it with yellow card. Then I cut the door shapes from white and cream and inlaid them into the space I had cut the doorway from in the blue. The fence panels and dog are cut from the same die set, the sentiment is a Craftwork Cards one and the snowflakes, made of stiffened non-woven fabric, are from my stash.

 

Oooh that has given me an idea..... somewhere I still have lots of iron on interfacing from my dressmaking days. I wonder what it's like for stamping and/or diecutting? I feel an experiment coming on!

Penguin parade

Ok, confession time - I've had these lovely penguin stamps for a couple of years now and they've never seen ink before, in fact the rubber was still uncut. They really deserved to come out to play before now, didn't they?

 

I stamped them, coloured them with Promarkers, cut them out by hand and then added die cut scalloped circles to back them.

 

For the background, I took a DL card and stamped the snowflake and the sentiment all over it at random, then daubed Cosmic Shimmer Blending Ink around the edges (strange stuff, this, although it is called Blending Ink and says it works well on porous surfaces, I find it doesn't actually blend very well at all, distress inks seem to behave much better for me).  The border around the edge is made by applying very narrow double sided tape all around the edge, exposing the sticky surface and shaking on clear glitter, to give sparkle without concealing the detail beneath it.

 

I am sharing this with:

 

Use Your Stuff - all creatures great and small 

Winter Wonderland - Penguins 

Holly and Ivy - Anything Christmas goes

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Snowflakes

Dad's tool shed

The current theme at The Male Room is texture, and I've used lots of texture on this card.

The  background is a cream woven-textured card from a DCWV stack and the "wood" panel is made by using a woodgrain stencil and embossing paste on a kraft background then sponging over it with Imagination Crafts Starlight metallic paint in brown and Alchemy Wax in copper and gold. As you can see, the paint "takes" better on the raised areas while the wax takes better in the recessed ones. which emphasises the grain of the wood.

The tools are cut with First Edition Tools dies.

Posting a Christmas Card

I love this sweet little stamp that was a freebie with a magazine about 4 years ago. Several friends and I make a point of always exchanging letter box themed Christmas cards and it is perfect for the occasion.

I've added papers from my festive stash, die cut snowflake, poinsettia and ivy and a scarp of ribbon. The image is coloured with Promarkers.

I am sharing this with

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Snowflakes 
The Holly and The Ivy - Anything Christmas Goes
Always Fun challenge - anything goes 

That carnation again

You may remember the other day I used a carnation stamp but felt it would have looked better  stamped in gold on a dark background instead of being used as an outline to colour.

Well here it is, and I'm much happier with the result:

 There's a joint challenge at AAA Cards and Less is More this fortnight, the theme being a one layer card with a coloured base, so I am joining in with this card.

 

and I am also sharing with The Flower Challenge - Embossing heat/dry

Queen Bee

I just love these new bee stamps from Craft Consortium - I got them last week, and haven't got the matching papers (yet) but I couldn't wait to play with the stamps.

I've made a very CAS card by using a yellow card base, stencilling a honeycomb in one corner then stamping three of the bees and the sentiment, and highlighting the wings with a white gel pen.

There's a joint challenge at AAA Cards and Less is More this fortnight, the theme being a one layer card with a coloured base, so I am joining in with this card.

 

And I am also sharing this with the Alphabet Challenge - I for Insects

Revisiting Craft Asylum Candy

This week there's an inspiration photo at Sweet Stampin  and as soon as I saw the pretty pastel colours and the chevron tiles, I was reminded of the Craft Asylum Candy papers, both 6" and 12" pads, that were languishing part used in the bottom of my stash box and probably hadn't seen daylight for a couple of years, so I lifted them out and got a little bit carried away!

First of all, here  is the card I made for the Sweet Stampin challenge

I stamped the hearts and sentiment onto one of the label panels from the smaller pad and layered them together with a border from the same pad onto a card covered with the small heart paper. The pennant is a die cut from the larger pad and the flowers are made with snippets from both pads, stamped with a flower that was a magazine freebie many years ago, fussy cut and with enamel dots for centres.

Tucked into the back of the smaller pad were absolutely masses of snippets, so next I die cut a whole load of circles of different sizes, used some of them to back sentiments from the die cuts in the larger pad, and added to a pink background along with a border from the small pad.

Some of the elements are stuck directly on to the background, others raised with foam pads.

There were still lots of snippets left, so I looked to Pinterest for inspiration, where I found the card that I CASEd for this next one. I would credit the original artist, but for some reason instead of giving the blog or site it came from as Pinterest usually does, it just said "Source: Instagram". Instagram's a blooming big place and I couldn't face scrolling through a few billion pictures just to find a single one, so whoever you are, thank you for the idea!

Again, one of the die cuts from the large pack has been used, this time with a die cut scalloped circle. The squares are cut from snippets of the patterned papers and the butterflies punched from snippets of the plain ones, and the pennants stamped onto another plain blue snippet.

I am going to enter the two snippets cards as a pair, making a single entry to Pixie's Snippets Playground, because I can't decide which I prefer.

Finally I did something I almost never do, an exact copy of a card - well, almost exact, except that I made the "minor" adjustment of changing the background from white to black, which I think completely alters the look of the card. I saw the original on the Craft Asylum Blog (sadly like the company, now defunct, but at least the blog is still visible) - you can see it here.

I think swapping out the white background for black makes the embellishments - all from the die cuts in the large pad - and the stamped sentiment really pop and means it would be suitable to send to a man.

Well, I've had a blast reliving these old papers - and still have plenty more left to use. But until next time I get struck by an inspiration particle, it's heading back into the stash box (oh go on then, I'll be honest, boxES ) for now. Apart from those stamps, I'd forgotten just how useful they are!

Brown Butterfly

I don't know about you, but we seem to have far fewer butterflies than usual in the garden this year, despite the glorious weather. Even our Buddleia (the bush that I call "Eileen's Buddleia" as it was planted in memory of one of my Grapevine readers, at the request of her husband) has hardly had any butterflies visiting.

The least spectacular, but often most interesting, butterflies are the kind I refer to generically as "little brown jobs" and today's card is a tribute to all of those.

The image is stamped using an old Stampington stamp (the date on it is 2007) called Elegant Butterfly. I stamped it onto some vintage floral patterned paper then die cut a circle and distressed the edges with ink and an edging tool before mounting it on a brown doiley. I then stamped the centre of the image three more times and fussy cut the butterflies to use when finishing the card.

A stamped sentiment, vintage style ribbon, embossed card panel and more of the vintage paper are all distressed and layered together to complete the card.

I am sharing this with:
Watercooler Wednesday - Feminine Anything Goes 
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Sketch 

Cardz 4 Galz - Butterflies 
Mix it Up - Anything goes & Distressing
Country View Crafts - Things With Wings
Crafty Creations - Anything Goes
Craft Rocket Challenge - Anything Goes   
Love to Craft - Anything Goes

Bright carnation

Earlier this week I had to go into hospital for a procedure, and it left me feeling pretty drained for a few days, so Mark bought me a lovely bunch of carnations to cheer me up. The colouring of them was really unusual, yellow petals with very bright red tips, and that's what I've tried to capture in this card.

The carnation stamp is a very old but NBUS one, which I think was a Linda Luckin design - I must have had it about 10 years. I think it's perhaps a bit heavy to be coloured in like this, I'm going to try it again stamped and embossed in gold on a dark background - burgundy, green or black - when I think it will look more striking. But I've captured the colour of those carnations!

I am sharing this with
Addicted to Stamps  - CAS
CAS on Friday - Flowers
Stamping Sensations - Anything with Flowers

Being naughty AND nice.

I have to confess that my heart sank when I saw this month's challenge at Naughty or Nice - the theme is "If the shoe fits"  and I am simply not a shoe person. I never wear them indoors, and outdoors it's FitFlop sandals in summer, FitFlop boots in winter. I've not owned a pair of heels for at least 30 years, and don't see the appeal of them.

All that means I don't have any show related stash - then I remembered that a year or two back, the lovely Monika Reeck took pity on me when I mentioned that, and sent me some images and sentiments that she had stamped, so here, thanks to Monika, is my Nice card.

I chose some funky metallic card for the background and watercoloured the shoes to match then fussy cut then and cut the sentiment with a stitched ovals die.

But I couldn't NOT make a naughty card, even though I had no show images, because one thing I DO have is this great Dylusions sentiment stamp that I like to use at every opportunity.

I teamed it with an image from a download I won from a now-defunct challenge (Suzy Bee's, I think) and look, the model IS wearing shoes so it's sort of OK! Added a background embossed with a Santoro Hears folder and lightly sanded, and added a lios brad and some heart pearls.

I think this is the kind of catty card you could only send to your BFF. Oh, and now I've blown the image right up on the screen, I can see that very faintly around the hem of her, ahem, dress, you can see the words "Sorry, wrong number". Haha!