Feathers and a night sky

Finally Friday! I was going to leave work early, and at 3pm I thought I would just quickly update our weekly sheets to have it all done for Monday, and then of course I found an error, and then it was six pm... At least the Friday traffic had eased up a bit by then! So as soon as I came home I headed to the craft room for a bit of snake cuddles followed by crafting. 

Today's card was inspired by the inspiration image over at Pinterest Inspired Challenge and the colours over at Color Throwdown and the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch. I started by colouring some watercolour paper with my Gansai Tambi's and die cut the sentiment and feathers. I inked up a bit of the Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours Speciality DSP with black distress ink and die cut it with a Lawn Fawn Puffy Cloud Border die. I need to use more black, I love how it sets off the colours. 

Card: 300 gsm textured card, 190 gsm watercolour paper

Ink and colouring: Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolours, Tim Holtz Black Soot distress ink

Paper: Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours Speciality DSP

Dies: Stampin' Up Four Feathers, Lawn Fawn Thinking About You border die, Fluffy Cloud border die

Happy Grunge-y Valentine's day to Grandma

I know I said earlier that my "It moose be love" card would be my only Valentine's day card. But then I realised I had forgotten that I also need one for my Grandma. In Finland Valentine's day is called Friend's day and doesn't quite have the uber-romantic connotations it has in the UK and I guess to some extent also in the US. I hope she likes it, it's a bit different from the cards I usually send her, a bit more grunge-y.

I was inspired by the colours over at The Card Concept as well as the rustic woodgrain and neutral inspiration image over at  Fusion Card Challenges. My style of card for The Card Concept is Clean But Grunge-y (yes, I made it up, but it says you can make up your own style. I have another CBG card here). I guess it's a mix between Clean and Simple and Shabby Chic maybe? In addition to the above, I was also inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch. 

I started by creating some paint smooshing on watercolour paper. I used Tim Holtz Distress paints in Vintage Photo, Hickory Smoke, Brushed Pewter and Tarnished Brass on my craft mat, added some water droplets and smooshed my paper around. Then I dried the paper with my heat tool, and gave it a second round of lighter smooshing, picking up more colour. Then I stamped the feathers from Stampin' Up Four Feathers in Versamark and heat embossed with gold and silver powder. You can see from the image below how the feathers have both gold and silver embossing on them. Then I cut the feathers using matching dies.  For the background, I inked up the Hardwood stamp using Ground Espresso and lightly misted it with water before stamping onto linen textured card through a rectangular mask slightly smaller than the stitched die cut. The sentiment says Happy Valentine's day in Finnish. I die cut the "Happy" using Lawn Fawn Cole's ABC from leftover scraps of the card I used for the feathers and used the Stampin' Up Rotary Alphabet stamp for the second line of the sentiment which I then lined with stitching using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die.

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

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Ground Espresso

Stamps: Stampin' Up Hardwood, Four Feathers, Rotary Alphabet stamp

Dies: Stampin' Up Four Feathers matching dies, Lawn Fawn Cole's ABC and Stitched Rectangle dies
Other: Silver and gold embossing powder from my stash

Back in the game

Inspiration is a funny thing. I crafted most of yesterday as I really wanted to publish a blog post (I usually try to publish one on both Saturday and Sunday). Sadly, I ended up with have nothing to show as I kept creating things more and more hideous and at least four more or less finished cards all ended up in the bin. I usually find great inspiration in looking at challenges, but yesterday it just felt that the more I tried to get inspired, the more forced and unlike me the cards ended up looking. I was already mentally prepared to sell all my stash on eBay, just trying to decide whether it would be better to sell things separately or in big bundles. I had a really sucky day overall yesterday, I found myself crying in the kitchen when cooking, for no real reason apart from feeling very sorry for myself, feeling like I was failing at everything  (mostly this is a reflection of how much I hate my job right now). In addition the weather was grey and dreary, as if things weren't miserable enough otherwise.

This morning I decided to take a completely different approach to my crafting, and just did what I felt like doing most. I am going through a phase of creating backgrounds using Distress Paints, and yesterday I thought I should really be doing something else for a change. But today I decided if that's what my little crafters heart wants to do, then that's what I will do and not care about recently having mostly done cards only using this technique. And I had great fun getting all messy. So far, I have created not one but two cards that I am happy with. Also the sun is shining outside, so life seems a bit less dreary today (apart from the fact that I have to be back at work in 19 hours...).

Today's card is inspired by the colours over at Color Throwdown as well as the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch. I created multiple panels of coloured watercolour card with Tim Holtz Distress Paints in Broken China and Spiced Marmalade, just blotting the colour onto my craft mat, spritzing with plenty of water and then smooshing the paper around, adding even more water to the card and tilting the paper to move the colours around. I then used Stampin' Up Four Feathers stamps and heat embossed in white, before using the matching dies to die cut both the stamped feathers, as well as some feathers without any stamping on them. I used the left over pieces of the cardstock to cut some star shaped confetti using a Lawn Fawn die. I adhered the feathers onto a piece of grey card I die cut with a stitched rectangle die and stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from STAMPlorations in white. It was fun, didn't take very long, and when looking at the finished card, I just couldn't understand why I was struggling so hard yesterday!

In addition to the above, I am linking up with the following challenges:
Happy Little Stampers - Smooshing
The Artistic Stamper - Anything Goes (with Stamping)
Card and Scrap - Use stamps
Crafty Enjoyments - Clean and Simple
Crafts Galore Encore - Anything Goes

Card: Coloured 240 gsm crafting card grey, 300 gsm watercolour paper, 250 gsm white card
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Paints Broken China, Spiced Marmalade
Stamps: STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2, Stampin' Up Four Feathers and matching dies
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Journalling card and Stitched Rectangles dies, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

Ombre feathers and why I need a bigger desk

I'm baaack! Ok, so maybe you didn't even notice I haven't been around in ages. I have an excuse... First it was work, and this weekend was the Culinary Consultant's birthday, so we spent some quality time with our favourite peeps, not leaving any time for the craft room. Me, the Culinary Consultant, my Sis and his Sis spent Saturday in Thetford forest climbing up trees, doing a bit of tight-rope walking from tree to tree and riding zip lines. It was really scary as some of it was really high up, but we had a blast. I have to admit I chickened out from doing one of the really big Tarzan swings where you just jump off a platform high up a tree, and then swing at full speed into a net. The Culinary Consultant and his Sis took it all in a stride and did great! 

Today, after Sis drove off home (and our guest room is once again empty, sad face...) I spent some time in the craft room, creating a huge bunch of stuff that went straight into the bin. Apparently my crafting muscles have atrophied. I pretty much pulled out every stamp set and die I owned. They are all spread across my crafting desk, you can see what it looks like... Every single thing I made was horrible. So I took a break, read a few chapters, had some cake and ended up having a bit of a nap as well (our sofa is way too comfortable). 

After my nap I decided to try again. I pushed all the crap on my desk to the side to make a teeny tiny little space in the middle of the desk. Stuff started falling off the edge of the desk... Hence the need for a bigger desk. And I guess the earlier messing around counted as warm-up, and I was finally able to create a card that wasn't too horrible.

My card was inspired by the colour combo over at Colour Me...! and the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. I was also inspired by the ombre challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge. Not one, not two but three different ombre elements! The background, the feathers and the sentiment. I was also inspired by the tic-tac-toe board over at CAS-ual Fridays. My choice is diagonally Stitching, Spritzing and Embossing. Stitching is the faux stitching around the panel, there is some spritzing in the background I did by flicking a watercolour brush, and embossing is the white heat embossing on the feathers.  For the background, I was also inspired by The Friday Mashup, where one of the themes is to create a background filled with colour. 

Card: Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper, Stampin' Up Sahara Sand card
Inks: Stampin' Up Sahara Sand, Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Dies, Scripty Hugs die, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

A new card and a new craft room

I have finally had a chance to enjoy the new and improved craft room today. Getting home turned out to be a bit of an epic journey as we had the "pleasure" to endure the mother of all hailstorms. Visibility was zero to none. Luckily I made it back home safe, and now the sun is shining in through the windows of my little piece of crafty heaven.

But first, today's card. I was just itching to get to craft something and was browsing a few challenges for inspiration. I was quite taken with the STAMPlorations sketch as well as the colour combo over at My Favourite Things. I'm also linking up with the X, Y, Z challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday. I wanted to come up with something clever and exciting using X but in the end I had to settle with the boring Y is for yellow as my brain cells were in useless mode. Last but not least I'm also linking up with Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge where the theme is Anything Goes/Just Add Pink.

In my mind, the borders on the sketch looked exactly like my Tim Holtz Vintage Lace die cuts. So I cut some and used them as a mask to ink through using three shades of pink distress ink. Then I used markers to colour the Stampin' Up Four Feathers stamps and die cut them with matching dies. Last I die cut the hello and matted everything onto pink card. I was tempted to add some ribbon or rhinestones, but decided less is more this time.

And then to the new craft room. Oooh, how I love my little room. I am convinced having your own rooms is the secret to a happy relationship (check in on me again in a few years to see if said happy relationship still exists...). The new Ikea organiser went in, one of the desks moved up to the loft making room for my old and faithful sofa for those lazy Saturday mornings when I want to slouch with a cup of coffee and browse blogs for inspiration. Of course I wanted my Ikea unit to look like the one below. 

This is what I wanted my craft room shelf to
 look like (click image to be taken to the source)

But then I thought about how hard it is to get away with robbing a bank, and settled for some DIY hacks instead. I am still waiting for a lot of stuff to arrive in the post to be able to finish organising my stamps and dies which is why it all looks a bit unorganised yet. Most things haven't found their places yet, but I'm sure that things will fall in place. And I have so many plans, there will be a much bigger desk one day. Also, although you can't see it in the picture, there is a whole white wall above the sofa which needs pictures. But that will all be a project for another day.  

The empty shelf is where my camera lives, but
for obvious reasons, it could not be included in the picture.

Card: kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm card raspberry
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and matching dies
Inks: Tim Holtz Distress inks Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick, Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Melon Mambo, Summer Starfruit
Other: Tim Holtz Vintage Lace dies, Lawn Fawn Hello die

Lots of weird things

This card contains several things that are very strange for me, which I don't use very much. I don't use much of orange, it's a very difficult colour for me. I also almost never use buttons, they make cards difficult to post, and just don't feel... well... right. However, I was very inspired by the challenge over at The Friday Mashup which involved a sketch and to use two different embellishments. I hardly every use any, or if I do, it's almost always gems. So this time I thought I would go "overboard" and use not one, not two but three embellishments. But somehow the style of the card still feels quite clean and simple, so I like it despite all the weird stuff on it. One reason I like it so much is the amazing colour combo over at Colour Me...! The colours are so bright and go really well together to my big surprise. 

I would also like to link up over at CASE-ing the Catty, where the theme this week is to use a new DSP. I love the cool new Irresistibly Yours DSP and have used it already with markers and with my cool new Tim Holtz spritzer tool. This time I thought I would use distress inks, and was inspired by the image on page 14 of the SALE-a-bration cattie. It's such a super versatile DSP. I am also linking up over at Craft Hoarders Anonymous where the theme is to choose your challenge by picking from different categories. I picked ink for colouring medium, twine for fiber, stamping and die cutting for technique, embossing for texture and buttons and bling for embellishments.

Inspiration picture from page 14 of the
Stampin' Up Sale-a-bration catalogue.

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge

Card: Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay and Rich Razzleberry card, Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm card
DSP: Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours 
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Inks Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves and Spiced Marmalade
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and dies, Just Sayin'
Other: Yellow twine, Stampin' Up buttons subtles, Papermania adhesive gems

Hugs and kisses

Today's card is inspired by the photo over at Just Us Girls. I didn't want to go for hearts as the obvious choice so I used feathers instead. I tried to use inks and markers on the stamps to mimic the marbled effect on the cookies, and use the colour scheme from the photo. The layout for the card is inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch. I'm also linking up with CASology where the cue card is Friend and Brown Sugar where the theme is Valentine's.

I coloured the feathers with ink pads and markers to get a marbled effect and die cut them with the matching dies. I die cut spaces for the feathers in the bronze cardstock, and adhered the feathers into place. I stamped the sentiment in Regal Rose. Last, I used my Tim Holtz Spritz tool to add some airbrush stains to the white space. Unfortunately it doesn't show very well in the photo as only the most dark airbrush stains show, but it gives a subtle effect to the background. 

Card: Leonardo Cardstock 300 gsm white card, Metallic Bronze card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and dies, Good Greetings
Ink: Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Melon Mambo, Real Red, Regal Rose
Other: Papermania adhesive gems 

Purple note

And so it's back to work again. Sigh. I wish weekends could last forever. One day I hope I will be able to work part time. How wonderful would that be? Much more time in the crafting room...

Today's card is inspired by the Colour Me...! challenge and the sketch over at My Favourite Things. I'm also linking up at the Dragonfly Dreams challenge where the theme is to use your favourite colour (I guess you can figure out my favourite from the card, hehe), That Craftplace where the theme is monochromatic and Inkspirational Challenges where the theme is "Note".

I had a great time making the ombre watercolour background for the journal card, which I die cut with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling card die. I stamped the feathers in Versamark and heat embossed in white. To finish off the sentiment, I added a big piece of bling.

Card: Coloured 240 gsm kraft card Purple Grape and Lilac, Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper

Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Dusty Concord

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card die, Art Deco adhesive gems

Pink feathers

This card is for my Mum who will have a rough few days coming up due to some health issues. I would appreciate any good thought being sent her way, I'll sure be sending out as much of that as I possibly can.

I'm really diggin' the Four Feathers stamp set. I love inking it up in various colours. I also love the current Retro Sketch. And I thought it made a great combo with the colours from the new The Challenge. I'm really getting into this whole clean and simple thing. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and Just Sayin' 
Ink: Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Smoky Slate and Strawberry Slush

Four Feathers in Sweet Sorbet

After much deliberation, I decided to get the Stampin' Up Four Feathers stamp and die set. It's one of those sets which I wasn't too excited about when I first saw it, but I have seen so many great cards with the set so in the end I realised how incredibly versatile it is. I also finally treated myself to the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journal card die, which I adore. I thought they made quite a great card together with a paper from the Sweet Sorbet set. I know the colours don't go with the season at all, but I need them to remind me that spring will eventually come after all this cold and darkness.

I am submitting the card to Addicted to Stamps and Crafts Galore Encore Challenge where Anything goes. I'm also linking up at Clean and Simple on Sunday where the theme is ribbon and twine and Clear it Out where the challenge is to use three of a thing (three feathers). 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and matching dies, Lawn Fawn Critters from the Past
Ink: Stampin' Up Calypso Coral, Pistachio Pudding, Sahara Sand, Soft Sky and Summer Starfruit
Paper: Stampin' Up Sweet Sorbet 
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Journal card die, twine from my stash