STAMPlorations Inspiration

Happy Tuesday crafty friends! My explorations into kraft cards for the STAMPlorations Inspiration posts continues today with some white Calla Lilies this week. I started by stamping and heat embossing the In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies in white on kraft card. I used my Polychromos colouring pencils to fill in a bit of colour and splattered a little bit of white acrylic paint. All that was needed was a beautiful sentiment from Lotus Love. That's all from me this week, short and sweet.

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies, Lotus Love
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine, Polychromos colouring pencils

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. And if you use my code you also get to pick a freebie to the value of $7 (for details see the badge below).

Note that as a STAMPlorations affiliate, I get a small commission on any orders you place in the STAMPlorations store using the links in my blog post or my coupon code STAMPGIRLKAROLA. This is at no added cost to you. Thank you for your support to keep my craft addiction going :) 

Sunset Sympathy

I made this sympathy card as I wanted to play along with the "Special Thoughts" challenge over at Daring Cardmakers. I was also inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch and the Bling It On challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.

I created the background by blending Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Candied Apple, Seedless Preserves and Black Soot Distress Oxides and splattered with water. I inked the flowers using the Bloom Silhouettes stencil in Black Soot. I added the beautiful sentiment from Lotus Love onto purple card and matted onto red card. It says "When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure". Last, I added a few sequins for a bit of bling.

Stamps: STAMPlorations Lotus Love
Stencil: ARTplorations Bloom Silhouettes
Ink: Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Candied Apple, Seedless Preserves and Black Soot Distress Oxides, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Radiant Roses

I have waited for this for a long time. Finally time for my summer leave - although summer is already fading fast. Two whole weeks of no work! And of course, I'm coming down with a cold. Oh well, less gardening and more crafting. But we do have apple and pear trees heavy with fruit so I there will be a lot of jamming and stewing in this house over the next few days.

Anyhow, I did spend the whole morning in the craft room today. This card was inspired by the colours over at Color Throwdown and the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch. I'm also linking up with the "Add text" theme over at House of Cards and the Stamp It theme at both Simon Says Stamp Monday and Wednesday Challenge.

Card: Neenah Solar White, Stampin' Up Basic Black
Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Radiant Roses, Lotus Love
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Copics
Other: Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle, Signo white gel pen

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. 

STAMPlorations CAS challenge - mid-month inspiration

And so we have sped over halfway through January already. Is it just me, or is 2016 going even faster than 2015? The exciting bit about mid-month is that it's time to reveal our mid-month inspiration for the STAMPlorations CAS challenge, which this month is Anything goes with an optional colour twist of Silver. I wrote at length about the challenge in my post from earlier this month. And by hopping over to STAMPlorations CAS challenge blog you will find more inspiration from the rest of the DT.

For my mid-month inspiration card I used a stamp set I fell in love with the first time I saw it, Lotus Love from Dee's Artsy Impressions at STAMPlorations. I started by die cutting a piece of cardstock with a stitched die, stamped the flower in Memento Tuxedo Black and masked it. Then I inked the background using Distress inks and foam applicators to get a ombre background. After removing the masks I coloured the flower with Copics. I left a clear space in the corner to stamp a sentiment from Fond Expressions 2, which I heat embossed in our theme colour, silver. Last, I added a few tiny rhinestones for a very simple embellishment.

Don't forget that you have until the end of the month to link up with us to show your CAS creations. You don't have to use STAMPlorations products to take part, but if you have them we would love to see them. A randomly picked winner will receive a $10 gift card to the STAMPlorations shop, and even better, if the winner is using STAMPlorations products, they will receive a $15 gift card.

I am linking up with the following challenges: 
Inspiration Destination - Anything Goes
Inky Chicks - Anything Goes 
Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes
Crafting From the Heart - Anything Goes
Sparkle N' Sprinkle - Use loose glitter, embossing powder or flocking (embossing powder in the sentiment)
One Crazy Stamper - Anything Goes
Hiding In My Craft Room - Embossing

Card: 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Lotus Love and Fond Expressions 2
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Inks Blueprint Sketch, Broken China and Chipped Sapphire, Tsukineko Versamark and Memento Tuxedo Black
Colouring: Copics G02, G05, G07, V04, V07, V09
Other: Papermania Silver tinsel embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, adhesive gems from my stash

Disclaimer: I have received some STAMPlorations products for free in exchange for creating cards for the challenge. All opinions however are completely my own. As you can see by browsing my blog, I have been using STAMPlorations products (which I bought myself) way before my time on the DT and I wouldn't recommend them unless I absolutely loved them myself.

Watercolour lotus

Yesterday I felt like having a good old play with my Distress Inks and some water, inspired by lots of things I saw on various card challenges over the weekend. So I armed myself with a brush, some water and a bunch of blue Tim Holtz distress inks. I started by a layer of smooshing, letting it dry, and then adding several layers of splattering and splashing. Yes, I know, that's a very detailed and easy to follow description of the creative process. I had a lot of fun, and I think the background turned out quite nice, even if I do say so myself.

I didn't want to detract from the background, so I just stamped the lotus blossom from the gorgeous Lotus Love stamp set from Dee's Artsy Impressions at STAMPlorations and heat embossed in white. I used my new thanks die from Lawn Fawn to create the sentiment. You can't really see it, but both I coloured both the lotus and the sentiment with my Wink of Stella pen, so in real life they have a gorgeous subtle shimmer to them. 

It's really hard to make the Wink of Stella show on photos...

I'm was inspired by, and linking up with, the following challenges:
Just Us Girls - colour inspiration (see below)
The Friday Mashup - Feeling Blue (see below)
The ABC Challenge - Z is for zero (no embellishments allowed)

Card: 190 gsm watercolour paper, 300 gsm textured white card, scrap of dark blue card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Lotus Love
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Inks Blueprint Sketch, Broken China, Chipped Sapphire and Tumbled Glass
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles and Scripty Thanks dies, Papermania Seafoam white embossing powder, Wink of Stella glitter pen

Lotus love and my re-discovery of libraries

If you are a regular reader, you can't have missed my rants about repeatedly getting stuck in traffic on the A14. On a good day I spend about an hour and a quarter in my car every day, but on a bad that it can be two or even three hours. And it used to frustrate the living daylights out of me. Now I have tried to be a bit more zen about it, and the thing that has really helped me with my newfound calm are audiobooks. I love reading, but it feels like these days I never have time to read a book. I guess it's more fair to say I value other things, like crafting more than sitting down to read a book. Anyhow, I borrowed a few Stephen Fry audiobooks from a friend and really got into the habit of listening to them in the car. It made is so much less annoying to be stuck, at least there was something fun to focus on. So I thought this is fun, I will just get myself audiobooks. This lasted until I got online and saw what audiobooks cost. Oh dear. I almost abandoned the idea. Until I had an epiphany. The library! So I got myself a library card. Turns out the library even has a small selection of downloadable audiobooks. So you don't even have to go to the actual library. And there are e-books as well. A completely free option for keeping myself entertained. And the best bit, I can listen to my audiobooks while crafting as well. Total win.

I had a summer job in the library for a few summers when I was a teenager. It was, to this day, my favourite job ever. I could go on and on about everything I loved about that job... The best bit was opening shipments of new books. It was so much fun to see all the new books, and register them onto the library system. The first summer I worked at the library was back in the days when they didn't even have an electronic system yet, everything was on index cards and every morning the little cards that went into the pockets at the back of the books with return dates needed to be stamped. If you are not as ancient as me, you will have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. But if you haven't done so in a long time, have a look at what you can find at your local library these days!

Wow, that was a long rant for something completely unrelated to crafting. So I shall quickly get to the main point, today's card. I loved the Lotus Love stamp set from Dee's Artsy Impressions at STAMPlorations the first time I saw it. It arrived a while ago, but I have been so busy playing with my Crazy Birds and spritzer tool that I haven't had time to play with it until today. I filled a whole scrap paper with different stamp combinations, but this was my favourite design. It's inspired by the sketch over at RetroSketches and the colour combo over at Color Throwdown. I was also inspired by two cards over in the STAMPlorations CASE playground, one from Maria F and one from Deepti. I would also link up with the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is No Designer Paper, at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where the theme is Colouring and last but not least over at STAMPlorations Anything Goes challenge. 

I stamped the lovely lotuses in Memento ink using some masking here and there. I coloured them in with just a few yellows and yellow-green Copics. I stamped some splotches using the Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grunge stamp set and Tim Holtz distress ink Squeezed Lemonade. Next, I die cut the "you" from black cardstock and stamped part of one of the Lotus Love sentiments. I die cut the scene using a Lawn Fawn Stitched rectangle die, attached the panel to linen textured card using foam adhesive and finished off with a few teeny tiny adhesive gems. I just adore the look of those gorgeous lotus blossoms. 

Card: Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, 300 gsm white linen textured card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Dee's Artsy Impressions Lotus Love, Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grunge
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress ink Squeezed Lemonade
Colouring: Copics Y13 Y15, Y19, YG11, YG13
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Stampin' Up Hello You dies, adhesive gems from my stash

Sympathy at sunset

I have absolutely no idea what is going on with me lately. I am usually up no later than seven in the morning, often I even wake up at six and can't go back to sleep. This weekend I slept to 8:30 yesterday and nine today! It's really weird, I feel like I have slept away half the day. But I guess my body needs it for some reason or other, I'm suspecting I'm fighting off a bug or something as my colleagues have all had a nasty autumn cold, so I'm thinking I will take it as easy as my body wants and hopefully stay healthy. On another revelation, I think I have worked out the comings and goings of Mr Mojo. Last week I didn't go to the gym at all (I know, bad bad me) and I've had a very creative Saturday. The week before, I went to the gym, and was hardly able to create at all. I see a pattern forming here. Clearly the gym is detrimental to my crafting Mojo!

On to more interesting things, like today's card. When I saw this week's colours over at Color Throwdown, I just knew I had to play along. I also liked the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch, and I thought it would be a great idea to combine them into one. I was also inspired by the beautiful multi-colour sponging in the inspiration card from Time Out Challenges. I'm also linking up over at House of Cards where the theme is Stitch It Up, Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is Die Crazy, The Artistic Stamper where the theme is Things With Wings and Craft and Smash where the theme is clouds.

I started creating the sunset image, and although I wasn't planning specifically to make a sympathy card, that's what it turned out to be. I don't have a very good selection of sympathy sentiments, but luckily I had just received an order from STAMPlorations containing the Lotus Love set which had a sentiment that fit the card perfectly. I created the sky using masks I die cut using the Lawn Fawn Puffy Cloud Borders and Tim Holtz distress inks. For the grass, I used the Lawn Fawn Grassy border die. The flowers are stencilled in black distress ink through the STAMPlorations Some Birds stencils. I die cut the panel using Lawn Fawn Stitched rectangle dies and heat embossed the sentiment in white. Last, I added a few sequins inspired by the sketch. The panel is adhered using foam tape onto hammered white cardstock.

Card: Hammered white 300 gsm card, white 250 gsm card, black paper
Ink: Tim Holtz distress inks Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Chipped Sapphire, Black Soot
Stamps: STAMPlorations Dee's Artsy Impressions Lotus Love
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Puffy Cloud border dies, Grassy Border die, STAMPlorations Some Birds stencil, Papermania Seafoam white embossing powder, sequins from my stash