April Showers

We're certainly getting April Showers here this week, today I managed a long walk with the dogs between showers and then retreated to the craft room to make a few cards.  I put together some House Mouse decoupage that had been cut out a while back, isn't this a fun Spring image?  I added some Glossy Accents and Stickles to the raindrops and a couple of ribbons beside my image. 
I'm entering my card for:
House Mouse & Friends - anything goes
Creative Belli - animals
Sassy Cheryl's - April Showers
Use it Tuesday - April Showers (decoupage is my hoarded stash)
Bunny Zoe - ribbon or twine
Get Hippity - April Showers
Scrappers Delight - April Showers
Digi Designs - animal friends

Blue Buddleia Bear

 

I made this card using a Gruffy Bear from a Joanna Sheen set, using lots of blues.  I'm not convinced that the colours quite work...  to many shades of different values.  The colour inspiration came from House Mouse & Friends Monday and I based the layout on Sketch Saturday, with extra flowers and butterflies spilling out.  The lace came from my stash, sentiment is from the same stamp set.

My card is for:

House Mouse & Friends Monday - photo inspiration

Sketch Saturday - sketch

Paper Pretties - thank you card

Sweet Stamps - think spring

Pop!

I've a quick posting here, been trying to finish up some of the decoupage cards from sheets cut out and bagged up.   This is Joanna Sheen House Mouse, I love the way the hummingbirds are trying to bring the mouse down to earth by popping his balloon.  The ribbon came from a bunch of flowers I was bought and all I have added is some pearlised lilac card. 

My card is for:

Crafts & Me - wings and things

Pixie Cottage - things with wings

Craft your Passion - anything goes

My Craft Spot - for the birds

Pink Elephant - lots of layers

Stampin' Sisters in Christ - wings

Allsorts Challenge - spread your wings

Papertake Weekly - anything goes

Lots of layers

 

I bought some new House Mouse decoupage from Joanna Sheen and have been cutting out while my mojo is missing.  There is a lot going on with the image so I've kept the rest of the card pretty simple, with a couple of layers, a border punch and some ribbon.

My card is for:

House Mouse & Friends - something new (the decoupage pack)

Charisma Cardz - anything goes

Simon Says - new something

Papertake Weekly - anything goes (option of new)

It's all falling into place - I don't be-leaf it - no trees!

This evening, instead of trees, I have leaves to show you:).  By good fortune this card fits the challenges for several of my favourite blogs, where I try to play along as often as I can.  Midnight Madness has a fab prize of House Mouse stamps this week and since the lovely America is also part of House Mouse Monday she suggest combining the sketch with their Fall challenge.  This little chap is a Joanna Sheen stamp, never seen ink before and I think I've had him for about a year - shameful!  Cupcake Craft is where I won my first ever blog hop candy; I also one one of my first ever Top 3/5 awards from them so I love to join their challenges and this week they have leaves as their theme.  Add to that Anything Goes at Basic Grey and Simon Says and I cover almost all my favourite challenges in one here.
About the card:  coloured with Copics and Distress Inks.  DP is Basic Grey, border punch EK Success, leaf and button punches Woodware. Sentiment is Dimension Fourth, strip ribbon from Stampin' Up.
This has been the strangest autumn for weather, we had that lovely sunny hot Indian summer, now it's mild but damp and we have a second bumper crop of mushrooms in the field where we keep out horses - unheard of so late in the year!  Tonight I took my hat off and filled it with mushrooms in the absence of a clean container!
Challenges for my card:
Midnight Madness - sketch
House Mouse Mondays - Fall
Cupcake Crafts - take a leaf out of my book
Simon Says - anything goes
Basic Grey- anything goes
Creative Inspirations Paint - inspired by Fall
Quirky Crafters - autumn leaves
Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Fall colours
Craft Your Days Away - autumn
Pattie's Creations - Halloween or Autumn colours
Whimsical Wednesday - Fall cuties
Shopping our Stash - autumn colours
Crafty Creations - fall and leaves

Tangled up mice

This week's challenge and House Mouse & Friends is Christmas Sparkle and I found this image stamped for me by a friend ages ago to use, as I don't have that many Christmas mice.  As I wasn't sure what it was stamped with I opted for watercolour pencils to colour but disaster struck when I added Stickles to the lights, which somehow bled around the lights.  I added lots of Distress Inks and some Copic dots to try to disguise it, hopefully the background doesn't look too much of a mess:).  I followed the layout from Sketch Saturday, adding some twine and some tiny punched stars that I also glittered with Stickles, though now I wish I'd kept them red not used clear...  DP is Cosmo Cricket and Memory Box, used a MS punch on the centre strip.

My card is for the following challenges:

House Mouse & Friends Monday - Christmas Sparkle

Sketch Saturday - sketch

Simon Says - anything goes

Paper Sundaes - anything goes

Stampin' for the Weekend - what a cutie

Kenny K  - Christmas

Sparkles Forum -something that sparkles

Clearly Inspired - glitter

Card Making Mamas - punches

Bows 'n' Berries - glitter

Netty G - anything goes

A House Mouse ATC

House Mouse and Friends has an ATC Challenge this week -now I've made lots of ATCs in the past but not for years - also quite a few of my HM stamps are rather bigger than ATC size!  I found this image, which a kind friend has sent to me, it's been sitting in a box ever since.  I was very careful colouring it because I think it just may be a pre-Copic image stamped with Versafine.  What an evil mouse he is to wake up his friend like that.  If there was room I'd have put a different sentiment:  "With friends like this, who needs enemies".  My ATC will probably become a card topper in the future, but for now, here's my first ATC for years:).

This is for the following challenges:
House Mouse & Friends - ATC
Stampin' for the Weekend - Paws for thought
Papertake - anything goes (optional metal) brads
Crazy Amigos - free theme

Summer Snooze

I coloured up this little mouse while I was on holiday and I'm really pleased with the way the poppy turned out, I've found this difficult before and I think I've over-complicated it by trying to use too many reds.  This week House Mouse & Friends celebrate their 100th Challenge so I thought I'd make him up into a card to enter - do check it out - they have some amazing prizes and candy!  I've followed Sketch'n'Stash's layout, using Memory Box Brioche DP.  The sentiment is also House Mouse, I've added tiny bits of bling to the dots of the I and the exclamation mark as well as bling in the corners.  The tiny buttons have thread knotted in them and the seam binding bow matches the length of it around the card square.  Didn't add it to the length as I didn't want to obscure his little tail!  Congratulations and best wishes to all those lovely ladies (and gentlemen) at House Mouse & Friends, they are one of the best teams for commenting on entries, thank you!
My card is for the following challenges:

House Mouse & Friends - buttons, bows and bling
Sketch'n'Stash - sketch
Stamptacular Sunday - animal antics
Papertake Weekly - getting cute
Fuzzy Wuzzy - animal + punches
Creative Stamp Friends - summer
Die Cut Dreams -animal antics
I Did it Creations - animals
One Stitch at a Time - flowers
Scrappy Frogs - summer flowers

Shopping our Stash - UFOs

I had big plans when I saw that this week's Shopping Our Stash Challenge is UFOs, because I've got plenty - unfinished objects that is:).  I love to sit and cut out decoupage while I'm watching tv.  Sometimes I glue the layers on, sometimes they sit in plastic bags, but as you can see the decoupage rearely makes it into a card!  Back to reality and I have at least made up one card with an adorable House Mouse image. 
I finished this one ages ago and then realised that I had missed a couple of layers out when I was glueing!  I've added the missed out meeces to one side, used some backing paper that matches from the Joanna Sheen CD, stamped a LOTV sentiment and punched out a lacy border with a MS punch.  I've added gems to the middles of some of the asters and also put some down the RH side.

My card is for the following challenges:
Shopping our Stash - unfinished objects
House Mouse Monday - adorn with jewels
Simon Says - let's get fruity

PS Thank you to Shopping Our Stash for my Top 3 badge, I hope more of you will join me in shopping my stash:)

Wishing you sunshine all year through

Today we have sunshine and showers and this is a bright happy card to celebrate the sunshine, though it has been so dry that we really do need the rain too!  I've used a Joanna Sheen House Mouse Decoupage, I have the stamp for this image too, it's beautiful isn't it.  I've added a LOTV sentiment, some twine and some gems,  The DP is My Mind's Eye and I've cuttlebugged some snowflakes onto the yellow paper.  Yes I do mean snowflakes, in the yellow they look like stylised sunflowers to me.
My card is for the following challenges:
House Mouse & Friends Monday - May flowers
Moving Along With the Times - sketch
My Mum's Craft Shop - anything but square
Creative Craft World - anything but square
Delicious Doodles - let the sun shine
Fairy Knoll - flowers
Totally Papercrafts - don't be square
Paper Sundaes - pop it up

The birthday card that changed its sex...

Hmm... I wrote the title to this quick blog entry, looked again and realised that it made more sense when I added "its" lol!  Hope you're all enjoying the lovely weather and the Easter weekend.  We had our Open Day yesterday with most of the racing yards open to the public, there was a record crowd who all seemed to be enjoying themselves.  We took a quick trip up to Seven Barrows before we did our volunteering stint at the Car Parks, here's the Gold Cup Winner, Long Run, receiving his visitors:

The ribbons on his door are his racing colours.  My card is for CD Sunday's Birthday Challenge; I'd like to wish them a very Happy Birthday!  I used the Joanna Sheen House Mouse backing papers CD and began with the idea of making a masculine birthday card, adding the sentiment.  But when I added the decoupage with the pink waterlily I'm afraid I had a change of heart  and out came the ribbon to match the goldfish!  I put Glossy Accents on to the bubbles and also the fishes eye and to make them even more "bubbly" I dropped tiny crystal seed beads onto them, I hope you can see them in the photo.

I hope to link up to another challenge or two later, but we are off out for a celebratory meal soon, it's our 23rd wedding anniversary today:).

Happy Easter everyone :)

One finished, one nearly finished

 I've not had much time to craft over the weekend, older son home from Uni on Friday, Mum visitng on Sunday and beautiful warm weather haven't been conducive to creating:).  I have put together a House Mouse decoupage card with some raffia ribbon from Bunny Zoe and a computer generated sentiment.  The background paper is from a Joanna Sheen CD to co-ordinate with House Mouse, but it has come out very wishy-washy, think I need to look at the printer settings.  In real life you can see raspberries scattered across the paper.

My other card is a watercoloured Sheena Douglass stamp, with just some My Minds Eye DP and a ribbon added.  It's not finished because I haven't yet added a sentiment.  With a few pearls and odds and ends it could be a wedding card, or it could be a sympathy or thinking of you card.  So it's going to sit, nearly finished, until I need it:).

I've found a few challenges to enter my cards:
Make It Monday - anything goes - church card

Kaboodle Doodles - cute and cuddly
Fairy Tale - Happy Birthday
Totally Gorjuss - fluffy, well House Mouse are fantasy mice and MY mice are fluffy lol
All of these are the House Mouse card.

 

Stash enhancement at the NEC - and a decoupage card

I've little to show you in the way of cards this weekend, however I've had a fun day at the NEC with Chrissie of Less is More fame.  Here's my stash:  a beaded necklace kit (didn't mean to buy this but it called my name!), 3 Sheena Douglass stamp sets plus 2 free embossing powders for a bargain £12, a set of Jenny Mayes stamps, a weird white lightweight stamp with gorgeous detail, a couple of stencils, a Big'n'Juicy stamp pad, a guillotine, a couple of sets of Nesties, a punch around the page set and a few odds and ends of sticky tape etc.  Great haul, if only I could stay home to play with them lol!

I've a very simple card I made with House Mouse decoupage to show you.  It is simply matted onto purple card, some punched flowers, a ribbon and a sentiment added.  I like to cut out when I'm watching TV but I'm not so good about making them into cards, here's a finished one, more cards to blog tomorrow...

House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge - multi fold card

Here's my second card as a Guest  Designer for House Mouse Challenges, the challenge this week is to make a multi-fold card.  I decided to have a go at a spring card which was easier than I expected and I found this great fun to make, using Sandy Hulsart's great tutorial from Splitcoaststampers. I used My Mind's Eye cardstock which is very heavyweight and I made it slightly taller by adding a circle cut with a Marianne Creatable die and then embossed.  There are Glossy Accents and Stickles on the flowers and yes, I have used peel offs in the corners of the card, hardly anyone uses them these days but they fitted the space perfectly!  The mice are from a Joanna Sheen unmounted sheet, aren't they adorable!

I've really enjoyed the chance to be part of the HM Challenge Team, they are a very friendly bunch.  If you get the chance, be sure to hop on board:).

My card is also for the following challenges:

Incy Wincy Designs - Spring is in the air

Cupcake Crafts - anything but square

Card Cupid - shaped card

Paper Cutz - Spring 

Guest DT Posting for House Mouse & Friends Monday - your favourite stamp

I was really excited to be chosen as a Guest Designer for February at House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenges, it's been very hard not to to let the news slip:).  Thank you so much to the HM & Friends Team for their friendly welcome:).  I found the theme really challenging; it is to use your favourite stamp.  Deceptively simple and yet so tricky LOL!  I looked over my stamps and coloured several images (you may have seen them blogged recently) and ended up with one of my new stamps as my current favourite.  This is from a Joanna Sheen unmounted Spring set and it is just adorable!

It's coloured with Copics and Glossy Accents.  The sentiment is also from the set, the green DP is Basic Grey Sugar Rush and  I've embossed white card, sponged Mustard Seed Distress Ink over it and stitched it down.  Add in a bit of bling, a bit of sunny yellow/orange ribbon from stash and that's my card!

I'm also entering my card for the following challenges:
Woodware - embossing
Incy Wincy - colour me wonderful - favourite colouring method is Copics!
Simply Create - bold and bright
Aly's Sunday sketch - bling bling
One Stitch at a Time - make it pretty

A little more lurve

There are so many love/Valentines challenges around that I couldn't resist making just one more card...  Still looking through the box of stamped images I found this adorable House Mouse image.  I've coloured it lightly with minimal shading because I'm fairly sure it isn't stamped with a Copic friendly ink, I've had it for longer than I've had my marker pens I think!
The hearts have Glossy Accetns on them, the DP is more of the Bearly Mine CD DP.  Wide lacy ribbon came from stash and I twisted the 3 green ribbons when I stuck them down.  The sketch is Midnight Madness.
My card is for the following challenges:
House Mouse & Friends &Totally Gorjuss Love
House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge - all about hearts
Midnight Madness - sketch
Crazy4Challenges & Stamping Royalty & Crafty Cardmakers - hearts
Crafty Emma Challenges - cute and cuddly
Stamp, scrap & doodle& Dutch Dare & One Stop Craft & Paper Crafting Journey & Bunny Zoe's - love is in the air

Crafty Ann's - love is all around
Crafty Catz -& Crafty Sentiment & Stamps R Us - Valentines/ love
Fabulous Friday - use the word love
Fairy Knoll & Sew Many Cards  & C.R.A.F.T. -  & Tiffany Doodles & Everybody Art Challenge - Valentines

Really Reasonable Ribbon - pink, red, white
Papertake Weekly - have a heart
Pink Elephant - be my Valentine

You've got to roll with it...

Here's the second House Mouse card I have finished up.  It's a lovely stamp from one of the unmounted sets but I'm not altogether happy with my colouring.  I've used watercolours and Distress Ink and I find it hard to pick out the meeces; any suggestions to get them to be more prominent on this busy image would be very welcome!
I've followed the sketch at Midnight Madness.  The mat has "paper piercing" which I did with the  sewing machine, the background DP is Basic Grey Indian Summer and the sentiment is also House Mouse.  The silk ribbon comes from a cone that I fell in love with and bought a few years back and the wide lacy ribbon from Stamp Attic.

My card is for the following challenges:

Midnight Madness - sketch
Fab'n'Funky - tempting texture (silk and the lacy ribbon)
Crafty Cardmakers - use water (watercolours)
Scrap Creations - animal antics
Critter Sketch - critters
Corrosive Challenge - red, orange, yellow

Stacks of Strawberries

I have a couple of House Mouse cards to show you today, this is the first one, a Joanna Sheen decoupage.  I've teamed it with a freebie sentiment stamp that came with the DoCrafts magazine sometime last year which is great for all those fruit/veg images.   I've put it together using the very simple sketch at CPS, which works really well for a big complex image like this.  The DP says DaisyD's, I think it was in a bargain bin at a craft show.

My card is for the following challenges:

CPS - sketch

Scrap Creations - animal antics

Cupcake Craft - seeing red

Gingerloft - use red

Craft Your Days Away - photo inspiration

Here comes the Spring - maybe!

Isn't this House Mouse adorable?  He is from a Joanna Sheen unmounted sheet that DH bought me for my birthday.  I'm sticking to my stash diet and enjoying using the things I have, so out came this lovely spring image for colouring.  I've used the sketch from Create4Fun for my card, colouring with Copics, Stickles, Glossy Accents and some Distress Ink for the background.  The dotty paper is a Bearly Mine digi download, the green DP is Prima.  I've used a Cuttlebug folder then Distress Ink on white cardstock cut our with a Marianne Creatables die.  The sentiment is computer generated, I like this one for Get Well cards.
My card is for the following challenges:
Create4Fun - sketch
Quirky Crafts - dots, embossing
Sweet Stampin' - spring flowers
Cupcake Craft Challenges - McDonald had a farm - OK this may not look like a farm animal to you, but have you ever known a farm that doesn't have mice? :)
C.R.A.F.T. - roll of a die
Cute Card Thursday - banish the blues
For Fun Challenges - spring or winter
Papertake Weekly  - anything goes + flowers
StampsRUs - animals

House Mouse and a lesson learned

I've had a light bulb moment today, which is probably a really silly one, but is a lesson learned anyway!  I have been a little unhappy with my Copic coloured House Mouse stamps and coloured this one in to persevere.  It is ok, but no more than that, the colour has bled a little.
I was watching Sheena Douglass on telly yesterday and nodding away when she said that using the right cardstock was so important.  This evening the penny finally dropped:  I use superfine cardtock for digi images because my printer doesn't like thicker cardstock and they colour like a dream.  These days, I don't have so many rubber stamps that are "colouring in" images and I did what I do with most stamps, stamping out onto the thicker cardstock.  Which explains a lot!  I've stamped onto the fine cardstock and will make this again tomorrow, hopefully the problem will be solved!

Card also has Distress Ink on the sky, Glossy Accents on the berries.  The stripe DP is MME, can't remember who made the leafy one.  The sketch is this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge.
I'm also entering:
The Cheerful Stamp pad - let's relax
Stamp Scrap & Doodle - anything goes