Pastel watercolours and sequins

I interrupt my crafty stash shopping session to show you that I managed to slowly slowly tease my mojo into co-operating a little bit today. I have spent most of the morning trying to decide whether to spend my hard earned money on a few Paper Smooches dies (I fell in love with this ah-maaa-zing Criss Cross die as well as this and this flower die). In addition, I'm dreaming about the awesome Paint Strokes die, but can't seem to find it from any UK retailer. Could of course order it from the US, but would have to pay astronomical shipping and import tax on top, and although I got a small pay rise with my new job, it's not enough to support such folly. On the other hand, I really want the awesome new paper packs from Lawn Fawn, particularly the plaid one, I am utterly and totally in love. And I *have* to have the stitched frames, that's not negotiable. I'm also considering very seriously buying the set of Lawn Fawn inks as I love the bright colours. However, I have made a solemn promise not to start another set of inks, as I really don't need them. Although to be fair, do we ever really need any of the crafting stash we buy... I just really, really want them!

I also had the shock of my life when I browsed over to the Lawn Fawn blog to drool over their wonderful inspiration cards. when What do I see in the most recent Fawny Flickr Friday - Valentine's Day Edition other than my "It moose be love" card along with the most amazing cards from fellow crafters! I almost felt my heart stop. Such a proud crafting moment. 

Anyhow, on with the show. After a week away from the craft room I wanted to ease my mojo back into crafting mode. So I made a simple card inspired by the very simple and elegant sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches as well as the colour challenge over at Your Next Stamp. I simply die cut the sentiment using the Lawn Fawn Scripty congrats die and the banner above using a die from the Stitched Journaling Card die set from linen textured white cardstock. Then I used Tim Holtz distress inks in Worn Lipstick, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon, Pine Needles and Faded Jeans to create a watercolour background which I attached to my front panel, and attached everything to a card base made from linen textured white card. I embellished simply using a few matching sequins and that's it. I really like how the card turned out, I love the blended watercolours showing through the white card, it's a really nice effect. I'm also linking up with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes and Allsorts where the theme is Bring on the Bling (sequins count as bling, don't they??)

Card: 300 gsm white linen textured card, 190 gms watercolour card
Ink: Tim Holtz distress inks in Worn Lipstick, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon, Pine Needles and Faded Jeans
Dies: Lawn Fawn Scripty Congrats, Stitched Rectangles and Stitched Journalling Card
Other: Sequins from my stash

Paint smooshing on vellum

My week of annual leave is sadly coming to an end and it's time to say goodbye to family and head back home. As sad as that is, there is a silver lining to every cloud, and for me it's of course getting back to my craft room! Oh and seeing the Culinary Consultant too. Ok, that might even be the biggest silver lining to be honest, but don't tell him as he would just go getting big ideas about himself. Men... can't live with them and all that schtuff. Anyhow, I have another card I made a while ago that I wanted to share with you before hopefully being able to create something new in the next day or two. 

I had a bit of a mad creative moment the other day, creating several cards in one go, you can see my other similarly themed card here. I got really inspired to do some Distress Paint smooshing and decided to try it on vellum. I loved the look, it looks like stained glass! The paint behaves very differently on the slippery vellum compared to watercolour paper. I die cut a panel from the vellum after it had dried and stamped the sentiment from STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2 and heat embossed in silver. I added two die cut snowflakes I found when rummaging through my stash (yay for using up yet another bit from the stash, every little bit counts!). Super quick and easy. If only I was as good at sending cards as I am at making them...

Also, don't forget that you have another 2 days to join the first ever STAMPlorations CAS challenge, where the optional colour twist is silver.

I am linking up with the following challenges:
Craft for the Craic - January Blues
Fussy and Fancy - Monochromatic 
Craft Rocket Challenges - Clean and Simple
If You Give a Crafter a Cookie - Inspiration Image (see below)
Stampavie and More - Winter
A Snowflakes Promise - Winter
Deep Ocean Challenge Blog - Winter Wonderland

Card: 300 gsm white card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum, silver and white glitter card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Paints Broken China, Brushed Pewter, Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers and Picket Fence
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles, Stitched Snowflakes
Other: Papermania Silver Tinsel embossing powder

A world full of colour

Sorry for the silent treatment, I'm a few thousand miles from my craft room at the moment. I did however want to share with you this fun card I made last week, I absolutely love rainbows, I always say rainbow is my favourite colour. And of course I love Tim's Crazy Birds, and I realised I haven't had a play with them for a while so it was past time for them to come out and play.

I made a big bunch of rainbow Distress Paint backgrounds ages and ages ago. Apart from this card, the rest of the backgrounds have been hanging out unloved in my UFO box, so I thought it's about time to do something about it. I picked one of them and die cut it using a stitched rectangle die. Then I stamped one of the Crazy Birds and some artsy paraphernalia, coloured with Copics and die cut using the matching dies. Last I added a sentiment from STAMPlorations and attached everything onto white card.

I'm linking up with the following challenges:
Make My Monday - Newest or most favourite stamp 
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - T is for Technique (Distress paint background)

Card: 250 gsm white card, 300 gsm white linen textured card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Bird Crazy and Crazy Things (and matching dies), STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics, Tim Holtz Distress Paints
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles

My first and only valentine for this year

I'm not big on Valentine's day cards, and not planning to make many. In fact, I'm assuming this will be my only one for the year, for my dear Culinary Consultant. It might be a bit too girly coloured, but he likes warm colours so why not. I had fun playing with the watercolour background, and decided to colour the moose with watercolours as well. Sorry about the horrible photo, I am about to head out of the country for a week, and realised that I won't be able to take a photo of the card in daylight before I go away, so had no choice.  Anyhow, as I will be away, it will be a bit quiet on the blog for the next week, I have a post or two lined up but that will be it on the crafting front for a while. I hope to see you all in a bit though, don't forget about me and take care!!

I am linking up with the following challenges:
ColourQ - colour challenge (and yes, I only used the colours from the challenge, but when smooshing pink and yellow it will create some orange to... so technically I don't think I'm cheating although there is also some orange in the background)
Lawnscaping - Watercolour
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Create With Critters
Retro Sketches - sketch
Make My Monday - Stitching (real or faux)

Card: 300 gsm white textured card, 190 gsm watercolour paper

Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka and Let's Polka in the Dark

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters in the Arctic and matching dies

Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress Inks Mustard Seed, Worn Lipstick, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle and Say Cheese dies

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

CBG stands for Clean But Grunge-y

This morning I woke up to a white world! We went out for dinner last night, and when we were driving back home to our remote little village in the middle of nowhere snowflakes started falling from the sky. This morning it felt like the whole world was clean and new. Well, as it's already 11 o'clock as I write this, most of that lovely white fluffy stuff has disappeared and it looks a bit grey and dreadful again, but it was nice while it lasted. As long as it's gone by tomorrow morning as I'm not looking forward to slipping and sliding in to work. Back home we had a proper winter, so the cars have separate winter and summer tires. Over here we only have snow one or two days a year so everyone just goes along with one set of tires and boy does it get slippy-slidey when there is snow.

Oh well, on to more crafty things. Things like the dreaded male birthday card. Your brain freezes and you feel like you will never overcome this impossible mountain. You start over and over again, never getting anywhere. And then from time to time, you realised you actually created one by accident, without even thinking about it! This time a card that was going to be something completely different happened to end up a male birthday card instead. Oh well, who am I to argue.

I started by inking through a STAMPlorations stencil I have never used before, despite having it for a while. I got out three shades of green Tim Holtz distress inks, Cracked Pistachio, Twisted Citron and Forest Moss for this. Then I used some stamps from STAMPlorations Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds and the same inks to create a bit of a grungy look around the area where I was planning to add the panel with my sentiment. I stamped the frame from STAMPlorations Blossom Overture and the sentiment from STAMPlorations Celebrate Artsy in Versamark and heat embossed in silver onto black cardstock. I attached the front panel onto a mint green mat and then onto white card and that my friends in how you make a CBG (clean but grunge-y) male birthday card. Also, don't forget if you are a CAS (or CBG, hehe...) card crafter, STAMPlorations challenges you to join our first ever CAS card challenge, where the theme this month is anything goes, with an optional colour twist of silver.

I was inspired by, and linking up with, the following challenges:
ColourQ - colour inspiration
Time Out - Birthday with optional twist of sponging
Shopping Our Stash - Something New (never before used stencil)
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Stencil It
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Ombre
Fantasy Stampers - All About the Boy

Card: White 300 gsm textured card, Vanguard VA012, coloured 240gsm crafting card black
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Inks Cracked Pistachio, Forest Moss and Twisted Citron
Stamps: STAMPlorations Blossom Overture, Celebrate Artsy, Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds
Stencils: STAMPlorations Shutters Stencil
Other: Papermania Silver Embossing Powder