Fishy Finnigan

This is the first card I've made in ages that actually turned out better than what it looked like in my head!

I've used Finnegan from High Hopes, coloured with promarkers and lots of starry die cuts.  I blinged the whole thing up with extra stickles/glitter.

Sketch from Skipping Stones #151
Papertake Weekly - fireworks (glitter and sparkle)
Divas by Design #58 - use some orange
Catered Crop recipe swap - circles and rounds
Passion for Promarkers #172 - pets

10 minute craft dash

I had another go at the 10-minute craft dash ... I think I'm going to be a regular at this as I love this challenge!

Lion from Stamps by Judith (thanks for the reminder that I had this little guy Brenda!) and bunting from Practising Creativity.  Paper Smooches sentiment. All coloured with copics.

My card .... 6 minutes 48secs - if only they were all so quick!

Colour combo from 10 minute craft dash
Papertake Weekly - All Creatures Great and Small
Creative Inspirations #184 - anything goes

Buzzzzzzzz!

Our new challenge at High Hopes is to

Use your oldest High Hopes stamp

My card uses Hunny Bear and was the start of a long love affair with High Hopes stamps!  So what was yours?  Play along and you could win a new HH stamp of your choice!

I've coloured my wee bear with pencils and added clear gloss to his nose, wings and honey jar.  This card took aaaaaages to make, mainly because the pixies had broken in to my house and hidden my wee bee buttons!  (Of course they were right under my nose Doh!)

Other Challenges

• Tuesday Alchemy #30 - anything goes
• Crafty Cardmakers #74 - winged things
• Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #201 - animal antics
• Simon Says Stamp ... anything goes

Miaowy Birthday

Just a quickie post ... movie night tonight and it's ready to start - tonight's choice is Rum diary, looks like it might be a laugh.
ETA: the movie was just 'average' - I wouldn't bother if I was you!

Masked off my kitties so I could make a group of 3 from the same stamp.  Chalked my sky and paper pieced my wee kitty, and then popped image up on dimensionals.

• Sketch from CPS #271 
• Tuesday Alchemy #20 - furry friends
• Do You Stack Up #78 - blue skies and clouds
• Tammy's Scrapin corner #16- anything goes

Woof!

Sorry, no craic in me today at all.  I'm loaded with the cold and have wee piggy eyes and a big red nose ... yes I look delightful but thankfully it didn't spoil my birthday yesterday! Another year wiser (ha) and feelin about another 20 older!
I've always fancied having a go with one of the sketches over at Sketch Inspiration, so this is my first effort.  Takes a bit of thinking to change a scrapbook LO into a card LO!

• Sketch from Sketch Inspiration Sketch #324 June 10-16
• Lexi's Creations #67 - Happy Birthday
• Tuesday Throwdown #102 - critters
• Card Crafters Circle #27 - feeling sentimental
• Totally Papercrafts - its raining cats and dogs

ETA I won at Totally Papercrafts!

Monsters and Mushrooms

This wee card took aaaaages of faffing about with, but I love how it turned out!
I couldn't get a marker to match my DP so I paper pieced my wee mushrooms, and then I decided that my monster needed some fancy trousers too :)

• General theme inspired by the geometric DP's at the Paper Smooches SPARKS trend watch challenge
• Colour theme inspired by pic on There She Goes blog #159
• Papertake Weekly - anything goes
• DYSU #75 - paper piecing
• Paper Play 12 week 23 - back to Kraft
• Craft your days away #47 - bingo - I chose buttons / ribbon / die cuts
• Sketch from The Craft's Meow June challenge
• Crafty Friends #5 - flowers

ETA: I won at There She Goes!

Birthday Bat

In celebration of National Scrapbook Day, Paper Smooches have a special challenge to make a card stock only card.  I paper pieced my wee bat and then his eyes, and chalked the sky.  Star and fence dies from Taylored Expressions, Martha Stewart grass punch.

I hope we have clear skies tonight, we're supposed to have a sooperdooper moon - though usually when there's anything fun happening in the heavens our weather conspires against us and we get to see nothing!

• Sketch from The Sweet Stop SSS157 - I took a few liberties and added the fence/grass detailing at the bottom!
• One Stop Craft #181 - celebrations
• The Stamp Man - your favorite technique - mine is a chalked sky using this template from Bev.
• CAS-ual Friday CFC51 - CAS Birthday
• Willow Sketchie Challenge - dies and punches
• Simon Says Stamp - Birthday
• Papertake Weekly - anything goes
• Catered Crop Recipe Swap - B is for .... Birthday Bat!

ETA This card was spotlighted over at the Sweet Stop!

Happy Bark-Day

(Click HERE for details on this week's Dream Valley Challenge)

Hee this was another of the stamps I was suckered into buying becuase it had a cute 'Ruby' on the front!
At the minute she's curled up over my feet, not that I'm complaining as they've been like 2 slabs of ice all day!

Loads of paper piecing here (the only things I actually coloured was the little robin and the chocolate cake).

• Sketch from CPS Anniversary day 7
• Simon Says ... animal antics
• Ribbon Carousel RCC38 - paper piecing + ribbon/twine
• Allsorts #140 - free and easy

Another SPARKS Kangaroo

Booo hoo, I'm still feeling really yeuchy and had to take the day off work, but in an effort to concentrate my mind elsewhere I had a wee go at making this card.  Not easy with having to stop every 5 seconds to blow my nose!

Again I've taken inspiration from the current Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge, this time I just focused on the colour theme.
I've also used one of my new border dies from Dienamics, and then coloured the wee bits from the centres with a Copic to match the blue theme.

• Paper Smooches SPARKS Dec 29 - Jan 11
• Lothian Crafts #22 - die cuts
• Top Tip Tuesday #67 - anything goes
• Try it on Tuesday - no DP or stickers
• Simon Says ... New something (my new die)
• Papertake Weekly - anything goes

SPARKS Triplet bunnies

Oh it was nice to make a card today just for the fun of it with no pressure of a Christmas deadline!
This one's for the current Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge.  I took inspiration from the photo for my colours, the googley eyes and for the same image x 3.

When I'd finished I wished I'd had the patterned bunnies looking in the direction of the other one, so I made another card just for the craic!

It was also good to get some little scraps of my hoarded Basic Grey papers used up (I think these use bits from 'Lime Rickey' and 'Cupcake')  I also used the tiniest leftover scraps to pop their feet up on dimensionals.  Waste not, want not!

• Paper Smooches SPARKS 15-28 Dec
• Basic Grey #59 - anything goes
• One Stitch at a time #93 - anything goes
• Sparkles 1st Birthday - anything but a Christmas card
• Crafty Cardmakers #58 - use it three times
• Friends of Speedy TV #12 - CAS
• Try it Tuesday - anything goes

Dream Valley Challenge #21

It's challenge time again over at Dream Valley and this week it's

Sparkle!

So it's perfect if you haven't got all your Chrissy cards made, or if you just wanna bling up a wee birthday card like me!  I added some clear gloss and Glamour Dust glitter to my little mouse's balloon and the card candy, and then I blinged up my bling by adding red stickles to some clear gems.

And what could you win??  Well, my lovely team mate Mags has kindly donated TWO Lili of the Valley stamps (times like this I wish I could play in the challenge LOL!)  You've 2 weeks to play along, and don't forget that you can make anything you like, just as long as it sparkles (max. 3 entries).  And if you're stuck for inspiration, pop over to Dream Valley Challenges to see the fab creations from the DT!

Oh, and the Design Team call ends on 28 November, so you'd need to be quick!

Bunny in flight!

I haven't played with my big eared bunnies for a while, so thought I'd stamp him up for this week's sketch challenge at Sketch Saturday.  Coloured him with promarkers and popped up on dimensionals.  I doodled a border and then added wee 'scratch' marks on my image and clouds to match.

• Sketch Saturday #183
• Stamp TV Free for all Friday - cut it out
• I Love Promarkers #93 - anything goes
• Penny Black at Allsorts November challenge - all creatures great and small

Blue Bunny

* ETA: I was one of Card Patterns Super 6 with this card! *

Ohhh its a bit of a draughty day out there... got my pots and cutting back all done in the front garden, but didn't quite manage to get any of my winter planting done.  Ah well, there's always next weekend!  Ha, who am I kidding, 2 dry weekends in a row must be a new record for us!

Right, I'm away ... I've a stack of ironing that's threatening to topple, and I'm a Celebrity Get me out of here starts tonight, which I LOVE!

• Sir Stampalot November Challenge - blue and green
• Penny Black at Allsorts November challenge - all creatures great and small
• Sketch from Card Patterns #141
• Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge Week 81~~Your Favorite Technique (mine is stamping, embossing and paper piecing)

One fish ... two cards!

I thought I'd use up some of my wee scraps this evening and couldn't be bothered to get up and get a different stamp, so its one image and two cards!  I couldn't get a decent pic either, the dark nights are definately upon us ... can't believe the clocks go back next week, where did the summer (and autumn!) go??

Coloured both with my pencils and baby oil, but I don't know if I'm using too much oil or the wrong paper but it's bleeding a bit and I hadn't realised that with the oil that dimensionals wouldn't stick to it!
Ah well, here they are anyway!

Challenges:
Both:

• High Hopes #120 - ribbon, twine or lace

1st card:

• Sketch from ICS #137 (though my scraps were too wee so I had to add in an additional panel on the bottom)
• Wee Memories #73 - free for all

2nd Card:

• Sketch from Tuesday Morning Sketches #117
• Fab'n Funky #95 - torn or distressed (I distressed my white edges with blue ink)

Krafty chickens!

When I was at the craft show in Belfast last spring I saw this grid stamp and thought it looked like wire and would be good to use with my misc. chicken stamps ... and have never had ink on it till now! 

Another rubbish dark photo I'm afraid ... my green embossed paper is a lovely lime green and sparkly.  Sponged some clouds using Bev's cloud stencil which I love (here's the link to her template).  Coloured with promarkers and orange stickles added to their beaks and some flowersoft for the grass.  Also added a ribbon loop to the side with the wee scrap that was left over from making my bow.

Right that's me away now for a cuppa and settle down for the rest of X-Factor and then Downton Abbey, perfect Sunday evening viewing!

• Flipped the sketch from I{heart}2stamp - October
• Simon Says Stamp ... anything goes
• CAS-ual Fridays CFC22 - loop a ribbon
• Took my Autumnal colour theme from Easy Craft Project's last challenge #48 - autumn

An orange flowery whale

An orange flowery whale, well why not!  It's blogland and I'll have my whale whatever colour I like!

Ingredients:  Whale from High Hopes; Echo Park DP; sentiment from Elzybells; Taylored Expressions wave die; yellow bling; orange ribbon; clear gloss and glitter; chalked sky; corner rounder punch

• Creatalicious challenge #26- anything goes
• Colour combo from The Play Date Cafe PDCC100
• Wee Memories #69 - use patterned DP
• Simon Says Stamp - use dies and/or punches

Crazy Bunny!

I was lucky enough to recently win a set of stamps from Paper Smooches and they arrived in the post today ... I've been doing a bit of painting round the house, but of course this evening my new stamps took priority!

I paper pieced my crazy bunny using some Echo Park DP scraps and then paperpieced his teeth and eyes too. 
Sentiment is an oldie from Stampin Up.

• Sketch from Papertake Weekly
• Simon Says Stamp - anything goes (they have a fab hop on this week with an AMAZING stash of goodies for the winner!)
• The Pink Elephant TPE114 - paper piecing

Flowery Doggy card

What do you think?  Too many colours and patterns?  I'm not sure yet!
Stamp is an oldie from Penny Black and Echo Park DPs.
Popped my purple panel up on dimensionals and then the doggy popped up again.

• Sketch from Penny Black Saturday Challenge #166
• A Spoon Full of Sugar #162 - Happy Birthday
• Penny Black at Allsorts (August) - free and easy

A magic froggy

I hadn't really thought out my image when I had stamped my little High Hopes froggy, and he's magically sitting on top of the water!  Sky is chalked with clouds but doesn't show up in pic, its a horrible dark evening here and I've no hope of getting a decent photo ... end of July and we had the heat on tonight and my cosy coat on when we took Ruby for a walk.  Brrrr!

• I flipped the sketch from Card Patterns #124 
• Die Cut Dreams #94 is 4-legged animals
• Use it Tuesday #11 - animals (my old stash is my green Basic Grey paper and my gems)
• Simon Says Stamp - anything goes

A Birthday Fish

ETA: top 3 at Unscripted Sketches!

Well its STILL raining, way too wet and yeuchy to go anywhere!  ... and its sooo dark too, we've had the kitchen light on since lunchtime!  Even wee Ruby has just spent the day snoozing, and getting up now and then for a peek out the door to see if its dried up, and then going back to her cushion!

We had a challenge a few weeks back at Dream Valley Challenges sponsored by Crafty Ribbons ... and this lovely ric rac ribbon was the result of a wee shopping trip!  Coloured my fishie with promarkers, added frosted lace stickles to the bubbles, covered the whole bowl with clear gloss, and then popped his wee fins up on dimensionals.  Fish from High Hopes stamps, sentiment from Paper Smooches.  Echo Park DP.

• Sketch from Unscripted sketches #115
• Simon Says Stamp - anything goes
• Stampavie and more #147 - birthday
• Allsorts #112 - free and easy