Thanks A Latte

I've been enjoying a fantastic luxury for the last few weeks, I've been working four-day weeks. This is the life, I'll tell you. I had managed to not use all my annual leave days so I decided to use the last few to just take Fridays off. I wish I could keep doing this indefinitely as I have been enjoying really slow Fridays at home, reading a book for a few hours in the morning while drinking big cups of coffee on the sofa, then moving upstairs to my craft room to spend the rest of the day there. I genuinely meant to spend these days cleaning the house and clearing things off my to-do list, but let's just call these my mental health days and ignore all that dust in the corners, right? 

My card is inspired by the inspiration image over at Daring Cardmakers. My choice of patterned paper was inspired by the blankets in the inspiration photo and I was also inspired by the leaves and the colours scheme of oranges, reds and teal. I was also inspired by the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches, the Awesome Autumn theme over at Lawn Fawnatics and the Thank you theme over at CAS on Friday.

Card and patterned paper: Teal 250 gsm card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, watercolour card, scrap of red card, Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Fall, Knit Picky

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Love You a Latte and matching dies, Claire's ABCs

Ink and Colouring: Distress Inks, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaves, Scripty Thanks

Paper Pieced Flowers

With summer in full swing I am inspired by all the lovely flowers everywhere. This card was also inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch and the colours over at Color Throwdown. How amazing aren't those colours, I just knew I had to play along this time. I was also inspired by the paper piecing challenge over at Just Add Ink and The Thank You theme over at Clean And Simple On Sunday. Although just a little tip - if you are planning on doing paper piecing, be sure to pick a stamp that DOESN'T have a gazillion pieces which are all the size of a grain of sand or somewhere thereabouts... this required a lot of patience and there may have been some swearing and a lot of glue sticking to my hands. 

It should be quite obvious what happened here - I started by die cutting the frame and then stamping the triangular flower arrangement inspired by the sketch. I then proceeded to fussy cut all the required pieces. I'm a bit gutted that I didn't have any patterned paper with a slightly lighter purple to better match the challenge colours but all you can do is make use of what you have at hand. Last I die cut the sentiment and then went on to the puzzle of adhering every little piece. It would have been impossible to know which leaf fit where except I cleverly arranged everything in place as I was cutting, so it was just a case of picking each piece up with tweezers and adding glue. I keep questioning myself about the sentiment, maybe I should have gone for a banner instead to be closer to the sketch, but I think this works quite well too.

Card: 300 gsm linen textured white card

Stamps: Stampin' Up So Very Grateful

Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka Mon Amie, Let's Polka in the Meadow, Let's Polka in the Dark

Dies: Lawn Fawn Scripty Thanks die and Stitched Rectangle Frame die

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Sunday Stamping

I can't believe this Sunday I woke up to a (relatively) clean house so instead of my usual frantic Sunday morning cleaning frenzy, I just lazily made my way to the craft room instead! Most certainly the best way of starting what turned out to be a very lazy Sunday indeed, involving nothing useful but instead important things like napping on the sofa. 

Yesterday we visited a friend for a summer BBQ which was wonderful despite a few showers that forced us to evacuate indoors temporarily. But as a consequence I'm struggling to come off a sugar high - my friend served the most delicious chocolate cake. After almost no added sugar for a month I have to say one night of sugary goodness has kicked off the most horrible cravings to get more of the white stuff. I can't believe how addictive sugar really is, I'm glad I did a kitchen cupboard purge a while ago, as nothing would have been safe in there today.

Anyhow, on to today's card which was inspired by a number of challenges. First of all it was inspired by the colours over at ColourQ and the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. I was also inspired by the tag theme over at AAA cards and the theme of stamping, markers and your choice (die cutting, masking) over at the CAS Mixup. Last but not least I'm linking up with Shopping Our Stash where the theme is How Does Your Garden Grow and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes.

I started by creating a rectangular mask by die cutting a rectangle from a piece of scrap paper the same size as my card. I also die cut a tag from white card. I then stamped the flower stamps through my rectangular mask onto the tag and background in black ink before colouring the flowers on the tag using Copics. Then I die cut the sentiment using a Lawn Fawn die and adhered everything onto the card base.

Card: 300 gsm smooth white card, Neenah solar white card, scrap of Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay card

Stamps: Stampin' Up 

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento, Copics

Other: Lawn Fawn Tag You're It die and Scripty Thanks die

Quick thank you cards

Today I have been making some quick thank you cards to go with some of the crafty items I managed to sell on eBay. I have to say it was hardly worth the effort as I didn't make many pounds. However, the main thing is that I have managed to clear some space in the craft room and my unloved stash items have found new homes where they will hopefully be used more. I'm particularly happy to hear that some of my dies ended up with a lady who works with people with autism and learning difficulties, and she shared some of the lovely cards her students have made. She told me that crafting is such great therapy for the people she works with, but that's hardly a surprise to us crafters! 

This whole eBay episode has made me think of my relationship with stuff. I have been working through a lot of my things in the last year or so, trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary things in my life. I have happily gotten rid of my old notes from Uni, and of so many clothes I hadn't used for ages but kept holding on to "just because". I love Marie Kondo's idea that we should only hold on to things which make us happy. I think I still have a lot of things which don't make me happy but I feel like I can't get rid of them because I have paid a lot of money for them or because I just might need them sometime in the future. But to be honest, I think I would actually be much happier getting rid of them. But trying to enforce a policy of decluttering in a household where the other inhabitant is a hoarder of the most obsessive kind is a true challenge. We have a huge loft and big garage, which are both collecting so much stuff we will never need but which I don't have the energy to go through and then go through the argument of trying to get rid of them. I think it will take many more years to try and get him to change his mind, but maybe one day!!

 

My cards were quick and easy to mass-produce. I cut 10x10 cm cards from white card, and stamped and heat embossed the gorgeous STAMPlorations Large Helenium stamp. I then watercoloured the flower using Gansai Tambis and while the watercolour was drying I die cut the sentiment from pieces of coloured cardstock from my box of scrap papers. Last, I took a Tim Holtz Distress marker and doodled a border. Quick and easy, I particularly like the purple and pink flower, as well as the orange and red one. 

I'm linking up with the following challenges:
Make My Monday - Watercolour
Let's Colour Saturday Linky Party - Anything coloured
Brown Sugar - Anything Goes
Crafting With Friends - Anything Goes
Creative Corner Challenges - Flower Power 

Card: 300 gsm white textured card, scraps of coloured card from my UFO box
Stamps: STAMPlorations Helenium Large
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolours, Tim Holtz Distress markers
Other: Ranger clear embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Scripty Thanks die