Quick thank you cards

Today I have been making some quick thank you cards to go with some of the crafty items I managed to sell on eBay. I have to say it was hardly worth the effort as I didn't make many pounds. However, the main thing is that I have managed to clear some space in the craft room and my unloved stash items have found new homes where they will hopefully be used more. I'm particularly happy to hear that some of my dies ended up with a lady who works with people with autism and learning difficulties, and she shared some of the lovely cards her students have made. She told me that crafting is such great therapy for the people she works with, but that's hardly a surprise to us crafters! 

This whole eBay episode has made me think of my relationship with stuff. I have been working through a lot of my things in the last year or so, trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary things in my life. I have happily gotten rid of my old notes from Uni, and of so many clothes I hadn't used for ages but kept holding on to "just because". I love Marie Kondo's idea that we should only hold on to things which make us happy. I think I still have a lot of things which don't make me happy but I feel like I can't get rid of them because I have paid a lot of money for them or because I just might need them sometime in the future. But to be honest, I think I would actually be much happier getting rid of them. But trying to enforce a policy of decluttering in a household where the other inhabitant is a hoarder of the most obsessive kind is a true challenge. We have a huge loft and big garage, which are both collecting so much stuff we will never need but which I don't have the energy to go through and then go through the argument of trying to get rid of them. I think it will take many more years to try and get him to change his mind, but maybe one day!!

 

My cards were quick and easy to mass-produce. I cut 10x10 cm cards from white card, and stamped and heat embossed the gorgeous STAMPlorations Large Helenium stamp. I then watercoloured the flower using Gansai Tambis and while the watercolour was drying I die cut the sentiment from pieces of coloured cardstock from my box of scrap papers. Last, I took a Tim Holtz Distress marker and doodled a border. Quick and easy, I particularly like the purple and pink flower, as well as the orange and red one. 

I'm linking up with the following challenges:
Make My Monday - Watercolour
Let's Colour Saturday Linky Party - Anything coloured
Brown Sugar - Anything Goes
Crafting With Friends - Anything Goes
Creative Corner Challenges - Flower Power 

Card: 300 gsm white textured card, scraps of coloured card from my UFO box
Stamps: STAMPlorations Helenium Large
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolours, Tim Holtz Distress markers
Other: Ranger clear embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Scripty Thanks die

April STAMPlorations CAS challenge - Anything Goes with Spring Green

Happy April peeps! April!! Seriously... Here I thought we would never get through all that winter and all of a sudden it's already spring. I just love the light - there's daylight when you go to work in the morning and there is still daylight when you get home. Nature is in full bloom. Soon it will be BBQ season and Pimms on the lawn. It's been a tough winter with the new job and some serious health problems in the family. But now it's all starting to look a bit brighter again. And on top of all the other good stuff, we have a new challenge for you over at the STAMPlorations CAS challenge!! For April we are going with a Anything CAS goes with an optional colour twist of green. I can't wait to see what you make! Thank you also to everyone who linked up with our March challenge, it was lovely to see all the fabulous inspiration.

For my card, I went with two really fab new stamp sets, Coffee Happy and Sketchy Alphabet. I have had to give up coffee because of health reasons (and no, a decaf latte just isn't the same...), so this fabulous stamp set is a close to coffee as I'm going to get. I particularly like the little sentiments that come with the set, they are hilarious. And the Sketchy Alphabet set is so much fun, you can use it to make your own custom big and bold sentiments. I coloured everything with my watercolour pens and blended with some water. Simples, as our friend Alexander the meerkat would say!

I'm linking up with the following fabulous challenges:
One Layer Simplicity Challenge - Anything One Layer goes
Creative Moments - Inspired by a song (Every time I think of coffee and songs, I think about that Taylor Swift song that everyone misheard as "Starbucks lovers". I think it still counts, lol)
Going Grey With Scrap-Creations - Go Green
Allsorts - April Fools/Humorous 
Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge - Beverages, coffee/te

Card: 300 gsm white card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Coffee Happy and Sketchy Alphabet
Ink and colouring: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, Faber Castell Albrech Dürer watercolour pens

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.

Floral Bliss

Just a quick post today as I'm heading out to do some gardening. My flower beds have been deprived of attention for far too long, and you would be excused for thinking we have a jungle, not a garden. So I better go and get some dirt under my fingernails after already having stained my fingers with watercolours! Perfect for today's garden theme, my card was inspired by the beautiful floral inspiration image over at Fusion Card Challenges. and Joyce's gorgeous CASE over at Happy Little Stampers. I'm also linking up with CAS On Sunday where the theme is Flowers, Chocolate Coffee and Cards where the theme is Spring Is In the Air and Through the Purple Haze where the theme is Flowers.  

Card: 300 gsm white card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Floral Bliss, Fond Expressions 2 
Ink and colouring: Versafine Onyx Black, Gansai Tambi watercolours
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies

Bunny scarf in Perfect Plaid

I've spent some time re-organising my stash of coloured cardstock. I hardly ever use coloured card, or patterned paper for that matter, but I sure have a lot of both. At least some of it is a bit more organised now, hopefully that will encourage me to use it more. I bought so much crafting stuff before I really found my "look". If I would do it all over now, I would save a lot of money as there would be so much stuff I wouldn't buy. These days if I buy something I'm pretty sure to actually use it. I'm currently trying to sell off some of my unloved crafty stash on Ebay, I have several Sizzix dies and die sets as well as Stampin' Up stamp sets. All starting at £0.99, so go grab yourself a bargain here. All the stuff is in great condition, although they are all pre-loved. But everything still works perfectly well! I would love for my stuff to find a new, loving home as they are currently just sitting in the cupboard.

One of the things I recently ordered, and I know I will love and use a lot is this adorable new Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid paper. My inspiration for this card was the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and the inspiration image over at Daring Cardmakers. I was inspired by the beautiful pastel spring colours, the bunny and the silver on the cake stand for my card. I was also inspired by the bunny image over at If You Give a Crafter A Cookie. Furthermore, I'm linking up with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes, Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge, Fussy and Fancy Challenges where the theme is pastel colours and Creative Corner Challenges where the theme is Use Embossing Powder.

Card: 300 gsm textured white card, Vanguard card VA019 Lime Green, Neenah Solar White card
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters in the Arctic, Scripty Sayings
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark and Memento Tuxedo Black and Copics C1, C3, C5
Paper: Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid
Other: Papermania Silver Tinsel embossing powder

Morning Glory and stencilling

What a difference an hour makes! I know everyone tends to get all bent out of shape when the clocks go back, and yes it's annoying to lose a whole hour but the light in the evening is wonderful. I got home, caught up with reading the blogs I follow, had time to make a card and even photograph it in daylight. How wonderful is that! 

Today's card was inspired by a bunch of challenges. I was inspired by the circle theme over at Make My Monday, the stencil theme over at AAA Cards and the Celebrating Spring theme over at Daring Cardmakers. Last but certainly not least I was inspired by the colours over at Color Throwdown and the sketch over at Paper Play Sketches. I'm also linking up with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes this week.

I started by stamping the gorgeous Morning Glory Large stamp from STAMPlorations in black Versafine ink and coloured it with Distress Ink and a watercolour brush. Then I masked the flower used the Retro Circles stencil and stencilled Twisted Citron and Mermaid Lagoon ink. Next, I inked another piece of card using the same stencil and ink. I die cut both cards using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journalling Card die, and die cut the little chevrons using another die from the same set. I inked some card to create the ombre sentiment, and last I splattered some Distress Ink onto the background card before attaching everything and adding some Crystal Effects to the sentiment. 

Card: 300 gsm textured card, 160 gsm Hobbycraft white card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Morning Glory Large
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Twisted Citron, Mermaid Lagoon, BluePrint Sketch, Mowed Lawn
Other: Lawn Fawn Scripty Hugs and Stitched Journal Card dies, STAMPlorations Retro Circles stencil, Stampin' Up Crystal Effects

First Christmas Card of the Year

Compared to last year, I'm late getting started with my Christmas cards this year. But luckily there is still almost nine months to go, and to be honest, I really don't send that many cards, so I should still be fine. I think I even have a few cards left over from last year to be honest. 

Today's card was inspired by the current Lawnscaping challenge where the theme is to include something sweet on your card. I thought I would use the adorable Party Animal and some Christmas goodies from Holiday Party Animal. It's all very simple to be honest, I coloured the stamped images with Copics and die cut with matching dies. Then it was just a question of die cutting the tag from Let's Bokeh in the Snow paper and some vellum snow using the Stitched Hillside Border dies. I stamped the sentiment using the Happy Everything stamp set and die cut a panel from the red Let's Bokeh in the Snow paper. I'm also linking up my card with Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is "We can see clearly now" (use something clear, like acetate or vellum), Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge where the theme is to use a sentiment, Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra where anything goes and Sweet Stampin' Christmas where the theme is Cute Christmas.

Card: white 300 gsm textured card, Neenah Solar white card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Party Animal and Holiday Party Animal and matching dies, Happy Everything
Ink and Colouring: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics
Other: Lawn Fawn Let's Bokeh in the Snow paper, Stitched Hillside Border, Stitched Rectangles and Tag You're It dies

Rose and weathered wood

Well, I'm back from Finland, I can't believe we are at the end of the Easter holidays. I can't face the thought of going back to work tomorrow, the silver lining is that it's just a four day week to ease us back into it all. I have spent the day sorting some of my inks into my new crafting desk drawers, which was great fun. I had a bit of trouble flexing my crafty muscles, but I managed to get a card done in the end. 

I started by masking off the area I wanted to stencil, and stencilled through the STAMPlorations Weathered Wood stencil using Stampin' Up Crumb Cake and Baked Brown Sugar inks. Then I stamped the rose from the Blossom Overture stamp set using Versafine and coloured using Gansai Tambi watercolours. After fussycutting the rose, I stamped a sentiment from the set onto vellum. Last, I die cut a banner using a Lawn Fawn die from Let's Polka in the Dark red polka dot paper.

My card was inspired by the colours over at ColourQ and the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch. I coloured the flower with red and pink, the pink doesn't show very well on the photo unfortunately. I was also inspired by the lovely floral image on the wooden table from Inspired by All the Little Things. Furthermore, I was also inspired by the Stencil theme over at both AAA Cards and CAS on Sunday. 

Card: 300 gsm white textured card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum, 190 gsm watercolour paper

Stamps: STAMPlorations Blossom Overture

Ink and colouring: Versafine, Stampin' Up Baked Brown Sugar, Crumb Cake, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolours

Other: STAMPlorations Weathered Wood stencil, Lawn Fawn Let's Polka in the Dark paper and Tag You're It die