Just Us Girls GDT - Colour challenge

Saturday means a new Just Us Girls Challenge! I've had super fun Guest Designing for the talented team, and sad that this is already my second to last week with them. And what a super fun colour combo it is. Perfect for Halloween - or anything else that tickles your imagination. I've been enjoying lots of fun with my Lawn Fawn critters lately and this card is no exception. I decided to dig out my Pop-Up Hillside die and create a spooky Halloween Night scene with some poisonous mushrooms and little critters dressed out as witches.

This is what the outside of the card looks like

I created the sky by die cutting the Puffy Cloud Borders in scrap paper. First I inked the background card in light purple and then added more purple using the Puffy Cloud Borders as masks, using darker purple and finally black to create a gradient. Then I splattered the whole background with water for an even spookier effect. I die cut the pop-up hills in black card and added some forest border and stitched tree borders die cuts to them. Then I stamped the critters on white card, coloured them with Copics and die cut using the matching dies. 

I can't wait to see what you create with this week's colours.

Card and paper: Stampin' Up Basic Black card, Neenah Solar white card, Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Rainbow

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Holiday Party Animal, Gleeful Gardens, Critters Ever After, Hats Off To You all with matching dies and Happy Everything

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Wilted Violet, Dusty Concord, Black Soot
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Pop-Up, Stitched Tree Borders, Forest Border, Puffy Cloud Borders, Stitched Rectangles, Scripty Happy
Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

Gingerbread Man Parade Tag

I cannot resist the cute little gingerbread men, they seem to feature in a lot of my Christmas crafting this year. When I saw the current inspiration tag over at Tag You're It, I knew I wanted to make a tag with a row of gingerbread men. I was also inspired by the gingerbread image over at Inspired by All the Little Things. I'm also linking up over at Shopping Our Stash where the theme is Tag You're It and PDE Linky Party where the theme is All Tags.

Card: 250 gsm white card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Holiday Party Animal, Christmas Unicorn

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics 

Dies: Lawn Fawn Tag You're It, Merry Christmas border die

Other: Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Christmas and Let's Polka in the Dark paper, red ribbon, twine, a gold sequin and adhesive rhinestone from my stash

Warm Christmas Wishes

I had a huge bunch of Lawn Fawn stash on backorder and then they all arrived all at once. The weird thing is that my work has been taking everything out of me lately, so I haven't been able to create anything - and all that stash has just been hanging around on my desk. That is, until I saw the inspiration images over at Curtain Call and House of Cards. I knew exactly what I wanted to create based on the sketch over at Just Add Ink. I'm also linking up over at CAS on Sunday where the theme is Christmas and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes.

Card: 250 gsm white card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Argyle Backdrops, Holiday Party Animal, Love You a Latte and matching dies

Paper: Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Christmas, Let's Bokeh in the Snow

Ink and Colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics

Other: Lawn Fawn Scalloped Rectangle Stackables

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

Party Animals on a Rainbow Watercolour Background

If you look up #domesticgoddessfail in the dictionary, you will most likely see a picture of our house. It's quite incredible how you stop seeing the mess when you come home late in the evening and get up early in the morning and never see your home in daylight. Then the weekend hits and you see the mess but you are too tired to really care. I read all these wonderful food and lifestyle blogs about people who live in spotless designer houses and spend their days arranging flowers. I spy with my little eye two small flower vases on top of one of our snake-vivs with flowers long dead. As in dead and gone. That's how bad it is! Could someone please just hug me and tell me it will all get better? At least I have taken down the Christmas decorations (ok, that's an exaggeration as in fact the Culinary Consultant dismantled most of them), but the box is still in the living room, waiting to be taken up to the loft. So the sad fact is that today I will have to focus on cleaning, although I would much rather spend my time in the craft room. Isn't it funny how all you want is to be an adult when you are a child - just imagine you could do whatever you want. And yes, you could just sit on the sofa and eat candy all day in theory... but of course we all know that's not how it goes.

Anyhow, before I grab my trusty Dyson Animal, I want to show you the card I made yesterday while procrastinating and mentally scolding myself for crafting instead of cleaning. It's inspired by the Party Animal themed challenge over at Daring Cardmakers and with a theme like that I couldn't resist grabbing the cute little Lawn Fawn stamp set called very appropriately - yes, you guessed it - Party Animals. I wanted to make a watercolour rainbow background, so I grabbed a bunch of Tim Holtz Distress Markers and a waterbrush and then spritzed some water droplets to create a distressed look. I stamped the critters in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Neenah Solar card and coloured them with Copics before die cutting with matching dies. I'm all about rainbow colours at the moment, cheers me up when it's grey and dreadful outside (although I have to admit the sun is currently shining, and boy does that feel nice!). I'm linking up my little animals with Just Add Ink where the theme is Just Add V (obviously aimed at Valentine's day, but I chose to add Wilted Violet distress ink [that's the one in the lower right corner of the background] as well as very happy creatures [does that count?]), Challenge Up Your Life where the theme is No Designer Paper (easy for me, as I love to hoard DSP but never use it, go figure...), Creative Knockouts where the theme is Furry Friends and last but not least Brown Sugar where the theme is Favourite Colour Combo (yes, I proclaim that rainbow is a colour combo). I can't wait for all the crafting challenges to move on from the omnipresent Valentine's day theme for us not so romantically inclined!! 

Card: 300 gsm white card, 190 gsm watercolour card, Neenah Solar white card
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Party Animal and  Holiday Party Animal with matching dies
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress Markers, Copics
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Dies

Detachable tag Christmas card

I have been reading a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I might have mentioned it some previous blog posts. It's quite interesting, and as opposed to many other books that talk more about the mindset and very elusive and abstract, this book has a lot of very practical and hands on ideas of increasing happiness in your life. One of the ones I have really taken to is reducing clutter and "stuff" in general. I have been going through my wardrobes, my random cupboards and trying to let go of things. Another idea I have read about in blogs relating to the same line of thinking is that we hold on to a lot of things just because we think we ought to. I'm not saying we shouldn't hold on to things that truly have sentimental value, of course we should, but I'm questioning whether we need to hold onto every single card we get sent for example. I have it in the back of my mind that it's somehow an obligation to hang on to them, and I have gone through a lot of my old birthday and Christmas cards, hanging on to those that I really find I have a sentimental connection to but getting rid of those that I feel I only keep "because I'm supposed to". This is such an interesting idea, I could go on about it for pages and pages. Particularly as this house is inhabited by another person who is very sentimentally attached to even the smallest things. It's quite interesting that my Mum is very minimalist, and she works hard to get rid of clutter, whereas the family of my dearest are very much sentimentally attached to a lot of things, so I think our attitude to how to connect with material possessions is strongly linked to the behaviour of our parents.

Anyhow, this got me thinking of my Christmas cards. Are people hanging onto them just because they feel they have to? Is there anything I can do to help them enjoy the thought that I have put into the cards, but then let go of them? Maybe there would be a way to get people to recycle the cards? And then the current, very ingenious sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch gave me an idea (I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of this, but I can't point to any specific inspiration where I would have seen this done). What if I make the tag detachable, and encourage people to use it for a gift. Then the remains are much easier to dispose of, as it's no longer a "proper" card. Plus there is the added benefit of recycling some of the materials, and hopefully bringing some joy to yet another person as well. 

The card without the tag and the reverse side of the tag.

For this card, I started by die cutting the tag using a die from Lawn Fawn Tag You're It from the purple paper from Let's Polka in the Dark. I stamped the matching tag onto red paper from the same collection, and fussy cut it to match the tag. Then I stamped the adorable little reindeer from Party Animal and added the gingerbread man and christmas hat from Holiday Party Animal, die cut with the matching dies and coloured with Copics. I die cut the Merry using the Merry Christmas border die from gold mirri card and stamped the smallest "Christmas" I could find in my stamp stash (it's from Stampin' Up Endless Wishes). I also stamped a greeting and some small images on the back of the tag in case the recipient of the card chooses to use it as intended.

I think next time I will edit the text to start "I would love it if
you wanted to recycle the tag" instead.

For the background, I brushed water onto watercolour cardstock I had cut using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies. Then I added Tim Holtz Festive Berries and Seedless Preserves ink and blended them together. I also flicked some colour splotches using my watercolour brush. I really love playing with these watercolour backgrounds lately. I also heat embossed some gold speckles onto the background, although unfortunately it doesn't show very well in the picture. Then all that was needed was to attach the tag using a few small glue dots which I had "de-stickyfied" between my fingers so that the tag will pop off easily. I also added some twine, again it's detachable so it can be used to tie the tag to a present. I absolutely love this idea, and feel a bit bummed I have already created more cards than I need for Christmas. Oh well, next Christmas everyone is getting a detachable tag card from me, be pre-warned!

In addition to linking up with CAS(E) This Sketch, I would like to enter the Christmas Challenge over at Happy Little Stampers where the theme is Tag. I'm also playing along over at Time Out where the theme is Christmas Card with purple or pink. Last but not least there are a few Christmas themed blogs that inspired today's card, so I would like to link up with Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge where the theme is Bright Colours, the lovely Jingle Belles where the theme is Holiday food (talking about Gingerbread as it's my chosen Christmas food... did I tell you I got an alpaca cookie cutter when we went to the alpaca show last weekend? Can anyone say alpaca gingerbread for Christmas? Yaaay!!! To be honest, I really like reindeer as well, although given the cute fellow on the card, that's probably a bit morbid. If you haven't tried it, I would warmly recommend if you ever get a chance, but maybe not at Christmas...) and ABC Christmas Challenges where the theme is V is for Very Cute.  

Card: 300 gsm white card, 300 gsm watercolour paper, Stampin' Up Whisper White card, gold mirri card

Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka in the Dark

Stamps: Lawn Faw Party Animal, Holiday Party Animal, Thank You Tags, (&matching dies for all Lawn Fawn stamp sets), Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grunge and Endless Wishes

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark and Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz distress inks Seedless Preserves, Festive Berries

Colouring: Copics

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Merry Christmas border die, Tag You're It dies, red and white bakers twine from my stash

Get well soon

Just a very quick post today to publish a cute card I made earlier. I guess spending several days at home with a cold inspires you to make a get well soon card... I have created this card for the current Lawnscaping challenge where the theme is "Thinking of You". I thought the cute little party animals carrying a hot cuppa and a heart would be perfect to cheer up someone who isn't feeling well. The layout was inspired by the sketch over at CAS on Sunday, and the colours by this week's ColourQ. 

I started by brushing some water onto watercolour card that I had cut with a stitched die. I then added some Tim Holtz distress inks in Picked Raspberry and Mermaid Lagoon, and angled the card all different ways to spread the inks and make the blend. I also splattered some ink around on the card base. I stamped the cute little critters onto white cardstock, coloured with Copics and die cut using the matching dies. I stamped the sentiment in black, and attached the critters to the watercoloured panel. I created the background by stamping the Thinking About You sentiment multiple times onto the cardstock, and adhered the front panel using foam tape.

Card: 300 gsm white card, 300 gsm watercolour paper
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Party Animal, Holiday Party Animal and matching dies, Scripty Sayings
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Up Basic Gray, Tim Holtz distress inks Picked Raspberry, Mermaid Lagoon
Colouring: Copics
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies