Holly Jolly Challenge - Anything Goes

I'm so excited about today's card as it's my first on the DT for the Holly Jolly Christmas challenge. The theme for the new challenge, which runs for two weeks, is Anything Goes. As long as it's about Christmas, share it with us at the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge! The sponsors of this week's challenge are Di's Digis and Bugaboo stamps so great prizes await the challenge winner.

I made my card using one of Bugaboo's funny Christmas stamps called Santa Died. Stella is just so much fun and I had a great time colouring her. I know exactly who I will be sending this card to! One more reason I'm so excited about my DT assignment is that I get to play with digi stamps which I haven't done very much in the past, and I get to work on my colouring skills. Here I used Copics to colour the image, and matted it onto some Christmassy designer paper. I thought a bit of glitter would be appropriate for the occasion so I used a die to cut out the bauble from blue glitter paper and added some stickles to the Christmas tree ornaments and around the panels. I'm entering the card in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Everything goes this week and the ABC Christmas challenge where S is for Something Festive as I think the Stickles and blue shimmery bauble are very festive (and S is for Stella as well!) and Completely Christmas and Christmas Card Challenges where Anything goes as well.

Cardstock: Craft UK kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, blue glitter paper from my stash
Paper: Dovecraft Merry Magic 8x8 designer paper pack, coloured 240 gsm kraft card chocolate
Stamp: Digistamp Bugaboo Santa Died
Colouring: Copics B00, B04, B06, E34, E39, R20, R24, R43, R46, Y13, Y15, Y19, YG11, YG13, YG17
Other: Ranger Ice stickles Crystal Ice, Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes dies, blue ribbon from my stash

Happy lizard-y birthday

Today's card is a very CAS one, inspired by this week's Freshly Made Sketch and Addicted to Stamps and More where the theme is Clean and Simple.

I have been so excitedly buying more crafting stuff that I have completely forgotten about using all my lovely stash, which once were the new things that I wanted so badly. This card uses a great Stampin' Up set called Tag It which matches the Chalk talk dies. 

I coloured the stamp using my Stampin' Write markers. The papers are from a birthday set I bought a long time ago, and as usual haven't gotten around to using nearly enough. I also made banners from the paper for the inside of the card, and stamped the cute little lizard-y thing a second time. You can never have too many cute little lizard-y things on a birthday card!

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamp: Stampin' Up Tag It
Ink: Stampin' Write markers Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasabi and Rich Razzleberry
Paper: Docraft Papermania Happy Birthday To You
Other: Green ribbon from my stash, Stampin' Up Chalk Talk dies

Happy birthday and the Poppy challenge

I have been looking at the current Poppy Sketch for quite a while, and it's almost the end of the challenge by the time I got this card finished. It's an interesting colour combination, again one I wouldn't choose myself, but that's why I love colour challenges as they make me use colours I wouldn't normally use. I do love bright colours, so I had decided I certainly wanted to contribute a card to the challenge. But I just couldn't get my head around the sketch. I kept humming and hamming, looking at the DT inspiration and browsing through my stamp stash. It was only when I came across the Clear it Out challenge where the theme is Birthday and the stash item is Glossy Accents of glitter when it all came together. I'm also participating in over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes and Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is stamping or stencils.

I stamped the Tim Holtz Birthday BluePrint present onto the pink cardstock and then again on white cardstock where I coloured it, fussy cut it and adhered with dimensionals. Then I added a generous amount of Tim Holtz distress stickles to the bow. I die cut the letters for the sentiment and heat embossed with sparkling embossing powder that I have had for ages but not really used as I couldn't get it to stick properly. This time I used plenty of Versamark ink and had no problem with the glitter, and I heat embossed two layers of the sparkles. I finished off with a orange bow to match the present. 

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card in Raspberry Pink and Purple Grape, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, orange cardstock from my stash

Stamps: Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Birthday Blueprint

Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark

Colouring: Copics V04, V09, Stampin' Write Pumpkin Pie

Other: Tim Holtz alterations Inside Out Alphabet die, Tim Holtz distress stickles Spiced Marmelade, Papermania Holographic embossing powder, orange ribbon from my stash

Autumnal critters in the woods

I can't believe I missed the momentous milestone of 5000 page views on the blog. I have been looking out for it for a few days, and then life happened and it was really hectic and I forgot all about it and then we were up at 5093 already. Hopefully a bit more when you get to read this. Thank you all dear wonderful amazing people who keep checking out my blog. I would think it's pretty much my Mum, Sis, few select friends and all you DT members dutifully writing your inspiring comments. Thank you! 

Then on to my self control issue. I have no self control when it comes to the cute Lawn Fawn critter stamp sets. And when I say no self control, I mean "my credit card is hiding from me and wincing in pain" type of no self control. I might just have gotten myself another "early Christmas present". But seriously who could resist those adorable little happy faces? And if you get the stamp set, you might as well get the matching dies, because we get plenty of fussy cutting with those stamp sets that don't have matching dies, don't we? Am I right or am I right? Oh come on, indulge me here and say there's nothing wrong with spending money you don't have as long as it's on crafting gear. They will last me my whole life, right? Right? She said with a look of desperation on here face. Let's just all admit to it together. My name is [insert name here] and I'm an addict...

Expect to see plenty of cute critters in the near and distant future, because these babies are constantly on my crafting desk. It's a slippery slope though, because now I have realised I need much more Copics as well. I was watching a Youtube video of a lady who had bought herself the full set of all colours, and she made a video where she opened the shipment with the markers. And oh boy was I jealous, I would love to have all those little babies. But I think I have to settle for very slowly building my stash, one or two markers a month. So in 10 years or so I should have them all!!

Back to today's card. I used the Joy to the Woods stamp set and matching dies. When I saw the sketch over at My Favourite Things I immediately saw the vertical lines as the trees from the stamp set. Maybe because I was staring at the stamp set on my desk. Anyhow... I took a liberal approach to the sketch, so you can see the general elements, but it's not a very literal interpretation. Let's call it artistic freedom. I absolutely loved, loved, loved the colours over at Colour Me...! this week. I love the combo of the yellow, orange and red grass that I cut using the Lawn Fawn Grassy border die. Funnily enough, I don't like the colour of any of those papers when I look at them alone (particularly the yellow) but somehow they look so great together. I'm also entering the Make My Monday challenge where the theme is Fall/Autumn Colours.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm cardstock Pillarbox Red, Hobbycraft 160 gsm three shades of Yellow, orange cardstock from my stash, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Up Real Red (for the sentiment), Tim Holtz distress ink Spiced Marmelade (for the fox footprints) Stampin' Write Smoky Slate and Pumpkin Pie marker, Copic Y19, R24 and E34 for colouring the trees and critters
Other: Lawn Fawn dies Joy to the Woods, Grassy border

Cuddles

The new theme over at Addicted to CAS is Cuddly. How cute is that!! And a perfect excuse for me to finally use the teddy bear stamp I bought ages ago, but never got around to use before now. The stamp is even named Cuddles. I think he is just the cuddliest little thing with his bunny. Of course there was no other sentiment I could use for this card than "Hugs". It's a great versatile sentiment that would work if you need to send a get well card, or even a congrats card. Although as I have admitted before, I'm better at making cards than sending them. I used the current Sweet Sunday sketch for the layout.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm smooth white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card lilac
Stamp: Docrafts Cuddles, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler 
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black
Copics: B00, E34, E39, R20, R24, V04, V09
Paper: Stampin' Up Patterns Stack - Brights Collection

CASEing the catty

This is the end of the current Stampin' Up Catty, CASEing the catty has reached the last section entitled Artistic Expression. So I thought I better play along as they will move on to the holiday catty next and I have virtually nothing from there, so I won't be able to play along much. But this time I got to play along, and whip out my Blendies. My inspiration is from page 166 in the UK catty (seems to be page 168 in the US catty I have downloaded, not sure where the difference is) and looks like this

From the Stampin' Up Annual Catalogue page 166

Making this card I realised I don't have any neutral DSPs at all, something I surely need to rectify soon. So I went with a monochrome banner instead. I used a stamp from the So Very Grateful set as I don't have the Vivid Vases stamp. For the sentiment, I used a marker to colour the text from one of the speech bubbles from Just Sayin'. I don't have a nice die to cut out the stamp, so I just fussy cut using a template I downloaded online.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, Stampin' Up Whisper White, Chocolate Chip and Rich Razzleberry card

Stamps: Stampin' Up So Very Grateful, Just Sayin', Gorgeous Grunge

Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Up Crumb Cake, Blendabilities Coastal Cabana, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry 

Other: Doily and twine from my stash (non-SU)

Pink peonies

When I saw the gorgeous inspiration image over at Just Add Ink I knew exactly which stamp I was going to use. Then I realised I actually don't have the stamp, I have just seen it so much around that my brain somehow thought I had it. Signs of early onset dementia? On to plan B: Googling "fee digi stamps peony". And to my big surprise, I found a wonderful stamp over at a blog called Tidbits Trinkets. Based on a very quick browse it seems like a great place for free digis. And while I was there, I happened upon a link for this site which has oodles of free vintage images, if you are into that sort of thing. I also found this site, which has lots of links to free digis. I haven't checked it out in detail, so don't know if the links truly work etc. but I thought I would mention it if it was useful for someone (and so that I could refer back here myself the next time I was looking for the site...). Who knew there was so much free stuff out there!

I used my Sharpies to colour the peonies. They don't blend as well as Copics, but I only have a limited colour selection of Copics. I definitely wanted a bright fuchsia colour for the peonies, so I used my glorious 80's Glam Sharpies. I think the colours are just stunning, even if you can't say the same about the colouring... After colouring and fussy cutting three of the peonies, I have forever sworn off from using this digi stamp again. My neck and shoulders were sore from sitting for hours perched over my desk, and although fussy cutting is always fussy, this was fussy to the n-th degree. But it was worth it in the end, I'm happy with how the card turned out. Funnily enough the theme for this week's Love to Create is fussy cutting, so I had to enter the card there. For obvious reasons I decided not to put another peony inside the card, although who knows maybe I get inspired some other day to do one more and put it inside the card. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm smooth white card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card Pink Raspberry, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamp: Free digi stamp, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Ink: Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay
Colouring: 80's Glam Sharpies

Welcome baby in pink

I love the cute little elephants in the Paper Smooches A Little Lovin set. They have seen their fair share of use already, and with a colour scheme like the one over at Just Us Girls, who could resist making another baby card. This time I use paper piecing for the little oliphants using the same papers as I used for the background. The layout is based on this week's My Favourite Things sketch challenge, which you can see I followed rather literally. I am also entering this card at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, where the theme is Tag it. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card

Inks: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Worn Lipstick

Stamps: Paper Smooches A Little Lovin

Paper: Docrafts Back to Basics III

Other: Stampin' Up Banner blast punch, Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, Nellies MultiFrames MFD020 die, Stampin' Up buttons subtles collection

Embrace the imperfections

I wasn't going to post this card, as I'm not sure if I like it or not. It has the wrong kind of white space... It's also the subtle colours, I think it looks a bit drained. I deal better with bright colours (something very pink is coming your way soon...). But it did grow on me a bit, so I thought what the heck, let's just put it out there. It's all about embracing the imperfections and finding something good in everything. I do like the colouring of the flower.

The inspiration for this card was the same sketch as yesterday's card over at Stampin' Royalty. As I already submitted one card over there, I won't submit this one. The colours are from the Colour Me...! challenge, I will submit the card for that challenge. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm smooth white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Accessories Pastel Cropping Block
Stamps: Hero Arts Layered Flowers, Stampin' Up Chalk Talk
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics Y13, Y15, Y19, R20, R24, Stampin' Up Blushing Bride
Other: Daisy Embossing folder (free with an old issue of a crafting magazine)

Be grateful and smile

And so it's Sunday morning again, and half of the precious weekend is already gone. I didn't do anything but craft yesterday. No cleaning, no cooking... Oh well, it could be worse I guess. 

I made this card as a little reminder to myself. I have been feeling a bit blue lately, it's probably the change in the weather and the end of summer. But it's good to remind yourself that all in all, things aren't too bad. I thought I would make it a bit luxurious with some gold cardstock and gold heat embossing. I used the Stampin' Royalty sketch for inspiration. 

Just as a tip if you are like me and want to be very frugal with your cardstock. I wanted to use my god cardstock in a sensible way as I only had one sheet of it. So The smaller golden panel in the middle is actually cut out from the big one in the background as that one only needs to show the little narrow edge leaving the whole inside wasted in my opinion. So I just market the outline of the black back panel onto the large golden panel, left some extra to attach the black panel to and cut out the rest for the middle panel, trimming the edges after cutting it out and using it for the middle panel. I then punched out the flower from the middle of the middle panel. Hope that makes sense, I think it's a good way of saving on cardstock.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card black, gold card from my stash
Stamps: Penny Black Life's Messages
Ink: Hobbycraft gold pigment ink
Paper: Kaisercraft 6" paper pad Christmas Collections (free with a crafting magazine sometime last year)
Other: Stampin' Up Petite Petals punch, basic pearls coloured with a Sharpie, Papermania Enchanted Gold embossing powder

Sunflower inspiration

As usual for my card, this card was inspired by several challenges. First of all, I was inspired by the great sketch and inspiration photo over at Viva la Verve. It's already week 3 of September, my contributions to weeks 1 and 2 are here and here. I loved the inspiration photo with the wooden table and sunflowers. I was also inspired by the Friday Mashup where the challenge is to use vellum and/or stitching (real or faux). I managed to get both into this card. I don't use faux stitching very often, but when I do, I always like the effect but I seem to need a reminder to use it. Last but not least I was inspired by Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge where the theme is Tag it, which worked perfectly with the sketch.

I stamped the sunflowers in Chocolate Chip. There is a stamp that is supposed to fill in the colour in the sunflowers, but I couldn't make the yellow bright enough, so I decided it was a case for the Blendabilites. They are perfect for a bit of Friday chillaxing. Some good music on Spotify, maybe a bit of good chocolate and lots of colouring, and you feel completely refreshed and ready for the weekend.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm cream card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum, coloured 240 gsm kraft card chocolate

Ink: Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Tim Holtz Walnut Stain, Stampin' Up Blendabilities Daffodil Delight, Copics E34, E39

Stamps: Stampin' Up Reason to Smile, Hardwood, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler

Paper: Stampin' Up Print Poetry DSP stack

Other: Stampin' Up Scalloped tag topper punch, circular dies, yellow ribbon and twine from my stash, Stampin' Up basic pearls coloured with a Copic marker

Happy cupcake

Today's card is a quick make. Well, it would have been a quick make had I not had to do it twice. Let's just say something irreversible happened to the first version due to a tired crafter who put her scissors through the wrong pink cardstock - the ready card base with all layers attached, and left upside down on the crafting desk instead of a another pink piece of cardstock that was actually meant to be cut. And when you make something for the second time, it's no longer as fun... But it's here now, all photographed and tucked away safely in the ever growing collection of finished cards (I'm good at making cards but very bad at sending them). 

Today's card is inspired by three challenges. A very CAS sketch by Retro Sketches. A stunning colour combo by ColourQ. The theme "Tea and/or cake" over at Make My Monday. After that, it was just a bit of stamping, inking, cutting, glueing and Bob's your uncle. I love this week's colourQ colour combo as I think it's the first time ever I used my Summer Starfruit ink, which I bought in a deliberate attempt to use more yellow in my cards, and have failed so far.

I stamped a few random cupcakes
and cherries inside the card as well.

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm smooth white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card baby pink

Stamps: Stampin' Up A Cherry on Top, Yippee-Skippee

Inks: Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Summer Starfruit

Paper: Stampin' Up Sycamore Street DSP

Other: gold sequins from my stash

Fusion challenge - shiny pink

It should be fairly obvious why I love this week's Fusion challenge. I mean it's pink. And shiny. But I also love the juxtaposition of something so stereotypically male as a sports car with the bright pink colours. So I wanted to do the same with my card - use very typical male themes such as cars and steampunk gears but at the same time make it very feminine by using a bright pink colour scheme. And I love the combination of pink and kraft. Usually you see a much more soft baby pink combined with kraft, but I went for a really cold and bright pink instead just like the inspiration photo. I am also entering the card in this week's Pink Elephant challenge where the theme is embossing, as I have used both heat and dry embossing on this card. By the way, you have to go and check out the cool card by one of the TPE DT, Nance, who has used glow in the dark embossing powder. How cool is that?

For my card, I stamped the antique car using Versamark and embossed using Pink powder. It has a nice shiny look that doesn't come through very well from the photo. I dry embossed the background and inked using Vintage Photo and Worn Lipstick distress inks, which I also used around the edges of the car panel. I die cut the star using my new Xcut dies, inked with Versamark and embossed using pink embossing powder. Finally I added a sentiment from Paper Smooches and some adhesive gems. I finished the card late yesterday so it was too dark for pictures, and today I raced the sunset on my way home, and almost made it.

The lovely shine from the embossing powder
 on the car and star don't show very well in the photos
 but it's really nice in real life.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card Pink Raspberry, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous The Journey, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz distress ink Worn Lipstick, Vintage Photo 
Other: Tim Holtz Steampunk Embossing Folder, Xcut Nesting dies star, Papermania embossing Powder Pink, Papermania Adhesive Gems Capsule Heather

Shabby chic flower card

If you follow my blog, or even drop in here randomly, it should be rather apparent that I'm a huge fan of crafting challenges. I have to say I'm not a very faithful challenge participant, as I flutter from challenge to challenge. I have a list of about thirty or so challenges I follow, and if I find that week's challenge inspiring, I will open it in a tab in my browser and keep it there until I have participated (or until I realise the challenge deadline has passed and once again I missed it...). This way every time I look at my browser I can have a quick look at all the ongoing challenges I would like to participate in, and find inspiration every time I sit down to craft. However, I think I have gone from enthusiast to addict... I think it's time to admit I have a problem. Currently I have fifteen tabs with challenge blogs open, and I want to participate in them all. I think it's time to accept that I just can't do all the challenges I want to, and sadly have to skip a few again this week. Sob!! But I have combined a few challenges when looking for inspiration for this card.

The first inspiration is the Viva La Verve challenge, which this week is both a sketch and colour challenge. I adore the sketch, and I managed to use some stuff from my stash to complete the card as the pink background panel was originally made for another card but it didn't work so it has been hanging around in my stash box for a while now and I'm sure is very relieved to have managed to finally make it onto a card. I distressed the edges by running a pari of sharp scissors back and forth, and used some sanding paper over the embossed image to distress it even further. I very rarely do shabby chic as I'm more of a clean edges kind of gal, but it's always fun to do something different from time to time.

I am also entering the card in the STAMPlorations September challenge where the theme is Stamps and Markers as the flower panel was stamped and I have coloured it with Tim Holtz Distress markers and a AquaFlo brush. I also sprayed the flower panel with Perfect Pearls for a subtle shine, although it doesn't show very well in the photo. 

Card: Craft UK kraft card, Tim Holtz Distress Coredinations card stock

Paper: Stampin' Up Patterns Stack - Brights Collection

Stamps: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady Jumbo background stamp (free with the March 2014 issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine), Stampin' Up Tiny Tags

Ink: Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz distress markers

Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Embossing folder Cuttlebug script, Pink ribbon from my stash

One never before used stamp card in two colours

You know how sometimes things get a little out of hand when you start crafting... That's certainly the case with today's post of not one but two cards. It all started with a simple little colour challenge over at Stampin' Royalty.

I completely fell for the bright colour combo which is actually strange as I'm no big fan of yellows or oranges but for some reason this colour combo really hit home. I found a nice flower stamp from a set from Kanban that actually I have never used, despite owning the stamp for at long time. The challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is Create Your Own Background so that's exactly what I did, and for that I used a Simon Says Stamp stencil and Tim Holtz distress inks. 

Colour scheme one: Festive Berries, Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmelade

I stamped and coloured the image inside the card and on the envelope.

I have been running into the NBUS challenge lately on blogs I am following, and thought that's such a great idea. NBUS stands for never-before-used-schtuff. Guilty as charged, and happy to play with some of my untouched goodies. The stamp I used is completely virginal, and in fact the stencil I used for the background has never been used before. Or it has been used, but nothing I have created with it has so far made it to an actual finished card, so that's as good as unused. One of the options for the current NBUS challenge is to make two cards with the same stamp, so I decided that's what I'll do next. 

For my second card, I looked for colour inspiration and found that both Colour Me...! challenge and Just Add Ink have a palette of turquoise and yellow. So all in all, the card that started with one simple colour challenge ended up being two cards and five challenges in total! Now the only question is, which one is the prettier one?

Colour scheme two: Peacock Feathers and Mustard Seed

Some stamping inside the card as well

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm Three shades of Yellow and Three shades of green card, orange card from my stash, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card in teal and pillarbox red
Stamps: Kanban Flower stamp (only marked as Stamp06 on the packaging), Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz distress markers Festive Berries, Peacock Feathers, Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmelade
Other: Simon Says Stamp Large Moroccan stencil, Papermania adhesive gems Capsule Sunshine, Ranger super fine detail clear embossing powder