Anything But A Christmas Card!

Good evening,

I've had a VERY lazy Sunday, so I thought that I had better remedy that and make something to share with you. I am (trying) to get all my Christmas prep done early this year,  I have around a quarter of my Christmas cards already made this year, so I am quite proud of myself, still a long way to go, but far better than my efforts at this point every other year.

I can't take all the credit for my early Christmas prep this year though it's largely done to a Christmas challenge I found at the beginning of the year, 52 Christmas card throwdown a weekly Christmas challenge blog that has been inspiring me to pull my finger out and get my butt in gear. I don't get my cards finished in time every week to enter the challenge, but I tend to start something and finish it off later.

This week the ladies are challenging us to make anything but a card, tag or ATC, now a first I thought eeek! Talk about throwing a spanner in the getting the cards done early this year, but then I remembered that I had great fun making Christmas pudding gift bags with yummy homemade choc fudge inside to give to friends that had helped me out through the year, see the post here.

I want to do the same thing this year, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make something cute to put a little something in!

Here's what I came up with

It's a sweet little Christmas cup made from Crumb Cake CS, decorated in Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler using my new favourite stamps Watercolour Winter. I also added edging with my scallop trim punch and stamped Merry from Tiny Tags, I also added two Tiny Tags using the Jewellery Tag Punch in each of the festive colours!

I have also discovered that I can enter this Chrsitmas 3d project for Dynamic duos as the challenge this week is Cherry Cobbler and our choice of another colour and as my Cardstock cup is Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive I fit right in! Don't you love it when that happens?!


I'm thinking of doing a tutorial of how to make these little CS cups so If you'd like to know howto make your own them leave me a comment and I'll take step by step photos as I make up a few more of these cuties!

Hope you've enjoyed visiting my little crafty corner, xx

Engaged!!

Good Morning Crafters,

No, it's not me. My little sister Nikki, and her partner got engaged at the weekend, so I just had to whip up a card for them, and of course offer my crafting services for her wedding stationary! They should have received it yesterday so I can safely share it with you now.

I went for a DL card to show off as much of the 2 embossing folders as possible, If the green layer looks familiar, I am guilty of using this embossing folder on practically every card I've made recently, but it's only because it's so pretty, and elegant. It was the first outing for the Manhattan Flower folder, but I really like this one too. I'm hoping that Nikki will like it and ask me to make wedding invites with it!

Hope you have a good week, xx

Distressed Anniversary

Good Morning,

I quite often get asked to make cards by people at work, some are a breeze to make, and others quite tricky. This card, even though it involved quite a lot of input with the distressing techniques was so much fun to make. My style is normally quite clean and straight lines, so it was fun to get messy, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

If you click on the image, you can see all the details better, but I randomly stamped a piece of Vanilla CS with stamps from, Tiny Tags, Vintage Vogue and All a Flutter, in Pretty in Pink, Sahara Sand (fast becoming one of my fav colours to stamp with, Don't know how I got on without it!), Chocolate Chip, and Baja Breeze, I then used my distressing kit to stain the edges, and the tiny tags. Distressed the edges of all the layers of CS, and curled the top left corner. Bfore adding In-colour ribbon and a popped up butterfly.

I hope you like my efforts, I will definitely be using this technique more often!

Happy stampin, xx

So Many Birthdays!

Hello!

I hope that everyone is enjoying the bank holiday weekend!

I have so many birthdays this month it is unbelieveable! Two people at work are the big 50 next week (you know who you are!), two of my sister's birthdays are Thursday and Friday, I have several orders for birthday cards including the dreaded men's cards, as well as father's day. Thank god for challenges to inspire me!

This card is for one of the 50th birthdays next week, I don't always like to put ages on the cards, so I haven't with either of these. I have used the Sweet Sunday sketch for my layout inspiration,

and the colour pallette from CR84FN challenge blog, this is a new one for me but I liked the inspiration photograph, so I'm sure this will become one of my regulars.

I have chosen to use Baja breeze, So Saffron, and Crumb Cake (formally known as Kraft) I thought that it would be hard to make these colour's feminine but blue is Karen's favourite colour so I thought this pallette would be perfect for her.

I really like the Springtime Vintage DSP which just so happens to but in the same colours, so it all worked out great! The Saffrom backing paper is from the Nursery suite DSP, so it just goes to show that these papers are not just for baby cards they co-ordinate well with other paper packs too.

I will also be entering this card into the Simply Stampin' challenge which this week is Floral Frenzy, if you look closely you'll see that not only have I used a floral backing paper, but I have stamped a cute floral image from the Timy Tags set around the 'K', as well as making my own flower from the scallop circle punch.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Happy Birthday Amanda!

Good Morning, all you crafty people!

I made this card for my fabulous up-line Amanda, happy birthday!! I made it earlier this week and have been dying to show it, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise just incase she wondered over to my blog before hand.

Those of you who know Amanda will know that she always says that envelopes have a be decorated so I couldn't very well leave it blank, so I carried on the theme to the envelope. I really liked the look, I may have to start decorating all my envelopes this way!

I have used the gorgeous Sweet and Sour speciality papers for this card and envelope. You may have guessed by now that I LOVE challenges (I'm officially addicted to them) So I took the opportunity to combine a few for this card.

The sketch is from Mojo Monday, I have missed out the bow (very unlike me) as I wanted the Daisies die to have more of a focal point and I have swapped the large tag for three small ones (aren't these Tiny Tags just the cutest).

Next I wanted to use a great colour combo, colour challenges are fast becoming my favourite, they really push me out of my safety zone. So I just had to head over to Color Throwdown for my colour inspiration. This week there is an added twisted with the addition of 'pick your own' guest colour. I chose to add Rose Red, which is the colour of the DSP.

Lastly I thought that I would also add in the theme featured on SU-only which was May Flowers, and as I'm loving my Daisies die, that was no problem what so ever!

I do hope that Amanda likes her card, I'm sure she will get tons of them! Enjoy your surprises, birthday girl!

See you soon - xx

Top 3, and a new sketch

Good Afternoon,

This week at Simply Stampin' is sketch week. I needed to make my step dad's birthday card for Monday so I thought I'd use this weeks sketch to make it. I have distressed some Newsprint DSP teamed up with the colour Bravo Burgundy, I thought is I wanted to use the retired set Studio Sketches for his card that the burgundy colour would go great with the wine stamp that I wanted to use.

I know we all think that you can't use ribbon on a masculine card, but I think as long as you don't go the whole hog and add a bow, and remember to use masculine colours its fine, so I've used (also retired) Basic grey taffeta ribbon.

I am also very excited that I've got top three for my last weeks card, I've been joining in with the challenge blog every week since it started, and I'm ecstatic that I've made top three for a challenge! Check out the banner in my side bar.

So here is my card

I hope that he and the girlie's over at the challenge like it. I'd love to know what you think, so please feel free to leave me a comment.

Enjoy the weekend
xx

Stampin' Celebration Spring

Well hello again,

This weekend seems to have gone on forever, last night I was lying on the sofa watching telly thinking that it was Monday and that I had work today when my boyfriend reminded me that it was Sunday and we still had another day off! Not that I'm complaining as it gave me enough time to finish off a card I started yesterday for a challenge I haven't entered before called Stampin' Celebration. The theme this week is spring so I thought that I'd use  my Growing Green set, and really had to resist the urge to put some butterflies on it, for those of you who don't know, last week I set myself the challenge of using all of my stamp sets as I seem to use the same favourites all the time.

Here is the inspiration collage for this weeks challenge

I wanted to try a different style of card that is new to me, which is why it has taken so long to finish it. These shutter cards will definitely have to only be for very special occasions.

Look to perfect little bows! I'm so proud of myself.
I hope the ladies over at Stampin' Celebration like my effort.

Challenge combo

Good morning,

It's still lovely here, I have to keep reminding myself that it's only April!

Last week I entered a brand new challenge over at Simply stampin', I really enjoyed entering this challenge, so yesterday I hurried over there to see what this week's challenge would be, it was a colour challenge, here is the palette



I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it, so I thought because I had enjoyed last weeks sketch challenge so much, maybe I would be able to find another Sketch challenge and I could combine the two. I found the Sweet Sunday sketch challenge, that had a cute little sketch that was just the inspiration I needed.

So I've done just that and combined these two challenges.

Here's the card I came up with

Believe me the darkest colour is Bravo Burgundy, even though in this picture it looks like its black! I'm afraid I don't own a camera so all my photos are taken on my phone.

I have used a stamp set that I have had for a while but have yet to ink up called Silhouette sentiments, which can be yours for free with an order of £150 or a party of over that value!
I also dusted off my brayer for this card. I quite pleased with the result and for once I managed it first time instead of ending up with one OK piece after several failed brayering attempts! I have also cut my Bravo burgundy CS into strips and cut to look like ribbon, as I don't have any ribbon in the colours for this challenge.

So here's what I've used
Stamps, Silhouette sentiments, Tiny tags
Paper, Very vanilla CS, Pink pirouette CS, Wild wasabi CS, Bravo burgundy CS, Woodland walk paper pack
Ink, Wild wasabi, chocolate chip
Accessories, Brayer, stamp-a-ma-jig, Jewellery tag punch, Rhinestone.

Hope the teams like it, xx

Marina Mothers day

Hi there,

As you may have read previously I have been asked to make some mothers day cards.
This card is using a retired set called Bloomin' with Beauty. It is gorgeous, I'm so sad that it was removed from the catalogue.

I stamped the image in Chocolate chip ink, cleaned off the stamp then using a sponge dauber dotted the flower part of the stamp with Marina mist, Rich razzleberry, and Wild wasabi inks before stamping again.

I added some dazzling diamonds glitter to the centre of each flower before cutting out and layering on top of the original image.

I used a blending pen and the choc chip ink to add highlights to the vase.
The background paper was made using the Elegance wheel and Marina Mist cartridge, with a piece of the Elegant soiree paper layered over the top.

My upline Amanda is showing a wonderful tutorial of ribbon brooches that would have finished this card off a treat, if you'd like to check it out please click here to go to her blog.

Here's today's recipe
Stamps, Bloomin' with Beauty (retired), Occasional greetings, Tiny tags
Paper, Elegant soiree DSP, Whisper white CS, Marina mist CS, Chocolate chip CS,
Ink, Marina mist, Chocolate chip, Rich Razzleberry, Wild wasabi,
Accessories, Elegance wheel and handle, dazzling diamonds glitter, blender pen, sponge dauber, Jewellery tag punch, Scallop trim border punch, chocolate chip satin ribbon, basic rhinestone.

Hope she likes it xx

Marina, marina, marina!

Hi there,

Today's card is for a very good friend of mine, her birthday is on Monday and for once I'm prepared in advance and have her card all ready for her, hopefully she isn't checking my blog before then!

Its uses my brand new Broadsheet Alphabet set, which I think is one of my most useful sets, I used to spend a fortune on alphabet stickers to personalise cards and now I won't have to spend another penny on them, Yay!

So it here is

 I hope that she will like it!

As the title for this post suggests I used a lot of marina mist in this card,
Here's what was used to make it -

Stamps - Broadsheet Alphabet, Tiny Tags
Paper - Very Vanilla, Marina Mist, Blueberry Paper Pack
Marina Mist Ink, Marina Mist satin ribbon,Marina Mist marker (for doodling around scallop) Designer Buttons (brights) Scallop Circle Punch, Tag Punch

Happy Birthday for Monday Angela!

Bye for now