Sympathy for a furry loss

My colleague and friend recently lost a furry friend. I wanted to make her a card to say how sorry I was for her loss. I didn't want to make an overly dramatic card, so I thought this was the perfect time to pull out my newly purchased Lawn Fawn Let's Polka paper pad and use the sweet small heart pattered paper. I was inspired by the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. I really loved the long and narrow shape of the sketch, it's nice to make something a bit different from time to time. I'm also linking up with Addicted to Stamps where the theme is CAS and Craft-Dee BowZ where Anything Goes as long as it has a handmade bow.

Card: 300 gsm white card

Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka

Stamps: Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler, Chubby Chums

Ink: Stampin' Up Smoky Slate

Other: Grey ribbon from my stash

Owl card

This card is inspired by the My Favourite Things sketch challenge. It's Finnish Father's day on Sunday and I made this card for Dad. I love the Paper Smooches Chubby Chums and thought pairing the owl with some owl paper I had in my stash would go well with the sketch. I couldn't help but add a few more chums inside the card. I'm also submitting the card to the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge where Anything goes and Timeout challenge, where the theme is Birds of a Feather Flock Together. 

For the inside, I printed the sentiment. It says "Happy Father's Day" in Swedish. Under "From" I stamped the chubby cow and chick and coloured with Copics.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gs white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card Chocolate
Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black
Colouring: Copics B41, B45, C05, E29, E34, E39, R43, Y13, Y15, Y19, YR04 
Paper: Lilly Bimble paper collection, Stampin' Up paper scraps
Other: Xcut star dies

A pile of smooches

I love the Paper Smooches chubby chums. I identify very strongly with the little chickie in the set for some reason. I love those little eyelashes and the way she looks so cheerful. When I saw this week's CAS(E) this sketch, I immediately saw a stack of chubby chums on top of each other. Actually that's not strictly speaking true. First I saw a design that involved Christmas ornaments in metallic colours, but after banging my head agains the wall for a few hours and enriching my bin with a pile of Christmas ornaments in metallic colours, it transformed from Christmas ornaments to chubby cute animals. I decided to go a bit out of my usual colour range and use the colours over at Colour Throwdown as I haven't participated in that challenge for a few weeks. I'm also entering the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge where anything goes this week.

The card was rather simple to put together, it's all in one layer and I used a mask when I stamped the next chum in the stack. I coloured the chums using Copics and used Tim Holtz distress markers to ink up the sentiment. I then used Versamark to stamp the heart from Joy to the Woods and the XO from the Chubby chums set on the orange border. Last, I stamped the owl and another greeting inside the card using Versamark.

Card: Stampin' Up Pumpkin Pie, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums, Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black and Versamark, Tim Holtz distress markers in Seedless Preserves, Mowed Lawn and Ripe Persimmon
Colouring: Copics V04, V09, Y13, Y15, Y19, YG11, YG13, YG17, YR04

On counting your chickens and some exciting news

Happy Sunday to all of you! I had some really exciting news this weekend, which you may be aware of if you follow me on the InvisiblePinkFacebook. I have been invited to join the Design Team over at Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge!! It's a bi-weekly Christmas Card challenge that runs all year to help you stay inspired to build up a stash of Christmas cards. I am so excited to join the talented ladies on the DT and happy this will ensure I will have built up a good stash of Christmas cards in good time, so that I can focus on stressing about other things close to Christmas instead, hehe. Actually this year I'm most likely going back home for Christmas, as a very dear friend will have his PhD dissertation on the Friday before Christmas, and I can't wait to join him for his dissertation, and should things go well - for the gigantic party afterwards!! So it's even more imperative that I get my Christmas stuff organised in good time. My first contribution to the Holly Jolly challenge will be on September 30th, but there will be a new challenge on the upcoming Tuesday so if you want some inspiration for creating Christmas cards, hop over there on Tuesday.

On another note, I have updated the Challenge page here. I wanted to create a list of some of the challenges I love to turn to for inspiration. I prefer challenges which let you use any crafting products so I have left out several challenges I participate in from time to time as they require you to use supplies from a certain company only.

Now on to today's card. The challenge over at Shopping Our Stash this week is Chicken. What a great challenge, I was thrilled as the challenge gave me a great excuse to use the cute little chickie from the Paper Smooches Chubby Chums set. I made another card earlier in the year, you can see it here. I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches as an inspiration. I assume "Any shape" on the sketch includes a pyramid of chicks... I am also submitting my card to CASology, where the Cue Card is three. Last but not least I'm also submitting to Addicted to Stamps and more where the theme is Make Your Mark as I coloured the chickees with Copics.

I stamped the chick twice on scrap paper and cut her out to make a mask and then stamped the pyramid using the masks. I coloured the chickees with my Copic markers which I have been hoarding, but not using nearly as much as I had planned. For the matting I used some orange paper from my stash which has been hanging around forever. Finally, the adhesive gems are also from my stash as I bought a big set of Papermania gems in all the colours of the rainbow and love to have a chance to use them.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, orange card from my stash (no idea of make)
Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics Y13, Y15, Y19, R20, R24, R43
Other: Papermania adhesive gems Capsule Sunshine

Congratulations and smooches

On today's card you can find some more of the little cuties I coloured on the beach. The inspiration for this card was the current sketch from CAS(E) this sketch. I used Paper Smooches stamps for the chubby little critters and the sentiments. The chubby chums are coloured using Tim Holtz and Stampin' Up markers and a blender pen on watercolour paper. The banner is from a set of Christmas sentiments, I stamped it and fussy cut it and mounted the sentiment stamp slightly curved to fit with the banner. I am also entering the card in the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge where Anything goes until July 12th.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Daler & Rowney 190 gsm watercolour paper, Coloured kraft 240 gsm card in teal

Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums, Sentiment Sampler, Papermania Urban stamps 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner

Ink: Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay, Stampin' Write markers and Tim Holtz distress markers, Stampin' Up blender pen

Hey chickie

I know pretty much on first look whether I like a stamp brand or not. The stamps with the girl with no mouth - freaky! Not my thing at all (and no offence meant to anybody, I know there are some seriously beautiful cards out there with those stamps, but like I said, just not my thing). But then there are others that I just fall for from the first time I see them, and would love to buy every single stamp and die they have ever made. I am a sucker for the cute cartoon characters. And Paper Smooches is definitely one of those brands. I finally bought a few of their classic stamp sets, including this one called Chubby Chums. It actually reminded me of me and Best Friend. We are both chubby chums. Chubby in a very cute and loveable way!

My stamps arrived just in time to make a card for Best Friend's birthday. I love love love the Hey Chickie sentiment. Makes me chucle every time. And I thought, what could be better than to celebrate my first Paper Smooches card than to participate in the Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge. This week it's a sketch challenge (see below). The round circles in the background inspired me to stamp the little chickie all over the background. I was also inspired by the CAS-ual Friday challenge, which this week was three thirds. I used three gems and three XO:s on the tag which covers about a third of the card surface. As a bonus, I used three colours for the chickies in the background, and there is three scalloped tag ends on the two tags on the card. How's that for threes! I will also submit the card to this week's Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, despite the fact that there is already more than 430 submissions for the challenge, and this will just get lost in the crowd. But the theme this week is keep it clean and simple and I figured if the shoe fits...

For my card, I stamped the chickie onto white cardstock using black ink, coloured using Sharpies and fussycut using scissors. I used the Stampin' Up scalloped tag punch to make the two tags, one in Crisp Cantaloupe and the other in vellum. I stamped the chickie onto the background panel in Crisp Cantaloupe, Daffodil Delight and Tangerine tango. Then I just adhered everything into place and added the twine and gems. I also stamped the cute little moo inside the card.

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Cardstock, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Stampin Up' Crisp Cantaloupe cardstock, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum
Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums
Inks: Hobbycraft black pigment ink, Stampin' Up Crisp Cantaloupe, Daffodil Delight and Tangerine Tango
Other: Stampin' Up Scalloped tag punch, 80's Glam Sharpies, Papermania adhesive gems Capsule Sunshine, yellow twine from my stash