White Butterfly

After a few super hot days, we have cooling rain today. And of course, rain means craft room time! I bet the garden is enjoying the rain, but I feel sad that it will completely undo all my hard work cleaning my windows over the last week. We were going to have the out-laws over for a visit this weekend so I wanted our windows to be shiny clean. Now the visit is postponed due to the rain, so they will never see my shiny clean windows, only the water-stained ones. Sigh. Not that they would care, but I do.

Anyhow, end of rant. I had lots of fun in the craft room today, and I had Distress Oxides on my craft room desk which were perfect for this week's Color Throwdown. I also was inspired by the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. 

I used Distress Oxides to stamp the background using a stamp from STAMPlorations Vignette: Celebrate Artsy and stamped the sentiment using a stamp from the same set. I then cut the beautiful Flutter Zen 2 layering butterfly die, using white card and vellum for the background.

Stamps: STAMPlorations Vignette: Celebrate Artsy 

Dies: CUTplorations Flutter Zen 2

Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Oxides Mustard Seed, Spicy Marmalade, Picked Raspberry, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

STAMPlorations Spring Fling Day 10

Welcome to day 10 of the STAMPlorations Spring Fling, thank you for stopping by! I hope you have been inspired by the spring themed projects we have been showcasing over the last few weeks. Is it spring where you live yet? We had a really warm spell about a week ago, but then it turned grey and chilly again. I can't wait for more sun, as the asparagus has started to grow in the garden and now needs lots of sun to grow. 

Today is day 10 of the STAMPlorations Spring Fling, so only two more days to go. As usual, there is a prize to be won by commenting on the  STAMPlorations blog and the designer's blogs (including mine!). Today, the prize is a choice of any in stock 4x8 stamp set.

My project started by watercolouring the background using Gansai Tambi Pearl Colours, blending with lots of water to create a rainbow. I die cut the panel using the Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting dies, using the two smaller dies to cut a frame from black card. I then stamped Leave a Little Sparkle Typografia Motivate in Versamark and heat embossed in Gold. Last, I die cut the beautiful Flutter Zen 2 Layering Dies butterfly from gold glitter card. 

Stamps: STAMPlorations Leave a Little Sparkle Typografia Motivate

Dies: CUTplorations Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting dies, Flutter Zen 2 Layering Dies
Ink and colouring: Gansai Tambi Pearl Colours, Tsukineko Versamark

Don't forget the Spring Fling April sale in the STAMPlorations store. You can also use my discount code STAMPGIRLKAROLA for an additional discount off your order. 

STAMPlorations 5th Birthday

I am so happy to be able to celebrate the success of STAMPlorations with you today with a post on the STAMPlorations main blog. As you may already have seen on the STAMPlorations blog, for the duration of June, the STAMPlorations DT are showcasing our favourite cards in honour of STAMPloration's 5th Birthday. I want to take this opportunity to wish Shery and David happy STAMPiversary and wishes of many more. 

The chance to be part of Shery's STAMPfamily is an honour and a privilege. She is the most creative lady out there, and in addition, she is the most generous and hardworking as well. I feel so happy to have been able to be a part of the STAMPlorations team for a few years now, and every time I am blown away by the gorgeous new products. I keep using the stamps, dies and stencils over and over again, still going back to the old ones as well as loving to explore the new releases, many of which I'm sure will become classics in their own right.

So today I have the honour of showcasing my favourite three cards I have created while designing for STAMPlorations. It's probably not a surprise that they are all rainbow coloured... It was not easy to narrow it down to three, it's like picking your favourite child. I have also created a new card to wish STAMPlorations Happy Birthday using  Bloomtangled #1 Cover Plate Die, which you can see at the beginning of the post. I love, love, love paper piecing these dies. Nothing says bliss like an early morning big cup of coffee, a pair of tweezers, some glue and a gazillion die cut pieces!

CAS sweetness using Sugar Rush and Copics

Birthday party using Balloons and Banners and no-line
watercolouring with Distress Inks

A thing with wings using the gorgeous Flutter Zen 2 Layering dies,
Dots All Over Stencil, a sentiment from Noteworthy 2
and Ink blending with Distress Inks.

I also made another card inspired by my first one. The Bloomtangled Cover Plate dies are designs from the Bloomtangled Colouring Book so I thought I would take the same design from the colouring book. I covered the page in clear Gesso and then coloured it with Gansai Tambi watercolours. I die cut the page and used the large piece to create a panel for a card. I was also able to get two smaller die cuts from the leftover pieces of the page. I used one to make a tag with a sentiment from Noteworthy 2  heat embossed in white. I used the other tag for a hand lettered quote, which I ended up using in my Bullet Journal.

If you want to join in on the festivities you can CASE any of my designs - or any designs from my fellow DT teamies - and link up over on the main birthday blog post. Any type of project is eligible and there will be loads and loads of inspiration all through June so I'm sure you will find something to inspire you. You can also win prizes by playing along with the wishlist linky party. Between these two posts, you might be the lucky winner of one of the many prizes in honour of STAMPlorations 5th birthday!

If you are not familiar with the term CASE, it stands for "Copy and Share Everything" but in the crafting world you should take it to mean "be inspired by". So you could use any part of the projects above as inspiration for your cards, maybe the flower theme, maybe the colours or maybe something else that you get inspired by. I can't wait to see your inspirational projects in the linky on the main birthday blog post.

The STAMPlorations products I used for my new cards:

Bloomtangled #1 Cover Plate Die

Happy Word die

Bloomtangled Colouring Book

Thanks word die

Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies

Noteworthy 2

Manila Tags Nesting Dies

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.

Things With Wings Blog Hop Reminder

This is a reminder for the STAMPlorations Things With Wings Blog Hop which is taking place to celebrate spring and is going on until the end of April. I'm honoured to join in with a bunch of the super-talented ladies from the STAMPlorations DT to show you our creations for this first reminder post for the hop. I hope you will join us by either commenting on the DT creations or link up your own cards to be in the draw to win one of the many prizes from the new spring STAMPlorations release.  

For my second card, I decided to continue with the rainbow colour theme in line with my first card last week. This time I created a rainbow using Brushos. I attached the Shower of Flutters stencil to watercolour paper, sprinkled over some Brushos and sprayed with my mini mister until the colours blended. After the Brushos dried, I stamped the butterflies from Trendy Butterflies which match perfectly with the stencil. I die cut the intricate butterfly and sentiment from glittery gold card - I used a shim  made of a folded piece of paper in my cutting sandwich for the butterfly to ensure the intricate small pieces of the lattice-work popped out of the die cut cleanly. All that was left to do was to add the die cuts to the card. I just love the look you get when you sprinkle Brushos and then mist - you can't plan what comes out and you can never get the same look twice, every card is totally unique.

I'm linking up with the following challenges:

AAA cards - Shiny Spring

Shopping Our Stash - Use Punches or Dies

The Card Concept - Fresh Flutters

Card: 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper, gold glitter card

Ink and colouring: Brushos, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Stamps: STAMPlorations Trendy Butterflies

Stencil: ARTplorations Shower of Flutters

Dies: Flutter Zen 2 Layering Dies, Hello Sunshine Phrase Die

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. If you have any questions or problems, just let me know!

April STAMPlorations CAS Challenge - Anything Goes With Pastel

New month - new CAS challenge! Welcome to April and to our "Any Pastel Colour" STAMPlorations CAS challenge. As usual the colour twist is an option, if you don't want to go with the colour twist you can still link up as long as your card is CAS. 

For my card this time, I started by creating a subtle background by sponging pastel Distress Inks through the ARTplorations Dots All Over stencil. I die cut the butterfly using CUTplorations Flutter Zen 2 Layering Dies from a piece of watercolour card that I created by watercolouring pastel Distress Inks. Then I die cut the intricate top for the butterfly from white card. After adding the butterfly to the card I stamped the sentiment from STAMPlorations Trendy Butterflies 2. Sometimes all you need are a few dots and a really intricate butterfly!

I'm linking up with the following challenges:

Curtain Call - Speckled

Happy Little Stampers CAS - Blend

Card: 250 gsm white card, 300 gsm watercolour paper

Ink and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine Tuxedo Black

Stamps: STAMPlorations Trendy Butterflies 2

Stencils: ARTplorations Dots All Over

Dies: CUTplorations Flutter Zen 2 Layering Dies