STAMPlorations Inspiration

Hello crafters! How are you? I'm so happy days are finally starting to feel longer, there is a sliver of light in the mornings when I leave home, and even some in the evening as I drive home. As I drive east in the mornings and west in the evenings, I often see the most stunning sunrises and sunsets.

Anyhow, enough about sunsets as we are here to see some crafting, right? As it's Tuesday, it's time for another STAMPlorations Inspiration post. For today's card, I used the super cute Tweet Love stamp set, stamping the adorable little Ellie Elephant and coloured her in Copics before fussy cutting her. I created a background using the Oh My Stars! Mini stencil and yellow Distress Ink. Last, I added a sweet sentiment from Tweet Love.

Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love

Stencil: ARTplorations Oh My Stars! Mini

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Onyx Black, Copics, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Squeezed Lemonade

If you feel like doing a bit of shopping, you may want to check out the STAMPlorations Springtime Sale in the STAMPlorations store!

Products in the SPRINGTIME section are

20% off instantly until March 31

No code needed! Simply add qualifying products to your cart and the discount is automatically applied.

STAMPlorations Inspiration

Happy Tuesday and happy STAMPlorations Inspiration Post day. It's time for the weekly dose of STAMPlorations Inspiration. This time I created a baby card using Deepti's adorable stamp set Tweet Love. I started by creating a background using Distress Inks and splattered it with water. Then I stamped the cute little critters, coloured them with Copics and die-cut them with the matching dies. Quick and easy. I decided to use neutral colours as I don't know if it will go to a boy or a girl.

I'm linking up over at 2 Crafty Critter Crazies and Cute Card Thursday. 

Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love and coordinating dies
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Ink, Copics

Check out the CURRENT PROMOTIONS in the STAMPlorations store for some awesome deals: October fall sale, new CUTplorations dies pre-order sale, coffee-themed sale, freebies with orders, and more!

Welcome Baby Girls

I created this card a while ago for a friend who was having twin baby girls. I have completely forgotten to blog about it and thought now is a good time with all the heart/love themed challenges.

I stamped the cute balloons from STAMPlorations Tweet Love and watercoloured with Distress Inks. I also splattered watercolours onto the panel for added interest. I added a sentiment from Lawn Fawn Critters Down Under. I die cut the second part of the sentiment using Lawn Fawn Cole's ABCs, using a piece of cardstock inked with the same colours I used for colouring the balloons. I die cut the panel using a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Die. I die cut a piece of patterned paper from Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Spring using the Scalloped Rectangle dies for added colour.

I'm linking up with the following challenges:

Brown Sugar - Love and/or Valentine's day

Simply Create Too - ATG/optional twist of hearts

Cute Card Thursday - ATG

Crafty Gals Corner - CAS

Unicorn Challenge - Include a Heart

Dragonfly Dreams - Include a Heart

Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love, Lawn Fawn Critters Down Under

Dies: Lawn Fawn Scalloped Rectangle Stackables, Stitched Rectangle Stackables, Cole's ABCs

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress Inks

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.

Little Birdie Told Me...

I needed a card to congratulate a colleague on the upcoming arrival of a little one but was short of inspiration. Luckily I stumbled across the colour challenge over at House of Cards and realised they will work perfectly with one of my favourite baby card stamp sets, Tweet Love. I was also inspired by the animal theme over at Make My Monday.

I stamped the cute little giraffe and tweetie bird in Versafine onto watercolour paper and watercoloured them. I layered a few different greens and added some green splatters to create a background before die cutting with Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Dies and stamping a sentiment from Tweet Love . I added some really old Stampin' Up patterned paper onto a card base before attaching my panel to the card and added a few adhesive gold pearls to finish.

Card and patterned paper: White 200 gsm card, 250 gsm watercolour paper, old Stampin' Up patterned paper from my stash

Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love

Ink and Colouring: Versafine Onyx Black, Gansai Tambi watercolours

Other: STAMPlorations Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Dies, adhesive pears from my stash

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.

Geometric Twofer

I've missed out on loads of great challenges lately as I don't currently get to spend as much time in the craft room as I would like to. Life has an annoying way of getting in the way of the fun stuff, but luckily today after donating blood in the morning I needed something very sedentary to do for a few hours and therefore decided to see if I could come up with something for this month's Twofer challenge where the theme is geometric.

Every time I see the challenges come up in my Feedly feed, I swear I will play along and then a mere blink of an eye later I see the top picks posted for the challenges and yet again realise I didn't get around to play along. Does that ever happen to you?? 

Determined not to miss out on one of my favourite challenges out there, the fantastically fun Twofer challenge, I created two cards using the ARTplorations Tribal Triangles stencil as I thought the triangles would fit the theme perfectly. My first card is a baby card where I inked Spun Sugar Distress ink through the stencil to create a very soft background. I then stamped the super cute elephant from STAMPlorations Tweet Love. I coloured her with Copics, fussy cut and attached to the card. I die cut small stars using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card die and added a sentiment from Critters Down Under. The colours for this card were inspired by Color Throwdown.

For my second card, I used the Tribal Triangles stencil for stencil monoprinting using Distress Oxides. I attached the panel onto black card, die cut a black circle and the sentiment from STAMPlorations Feel Better Soon Phrase Die in gold mirri card. Last, I stamped a grunge barcode from Mixed Media Grunge at the bottom of the card and added some colourful dots and tiny adhesive gems. 

This card was inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch. I'm also linking up over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is to Distress It. **Addition** Last night when I published the post I was so tired I wasn't thinking straight but after a good night's sleep it's all coming back to me. I was of course inspired by the wonderful CAS Mixup challenge to use the stencil monoprint technique (thank you as always for the wonderful inspiration!!!) and this is the second card I'm linking up over there. I'm having a great time using my stencils this way and may have one more card up my sleeve as the rules allow you to link up three cards to the challenge!

Card: 300gsm watercolour card, black 200 gsm card, Hobbycraft 190 gsm white card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love, Mixed Media Grunge, Lawn Fawn Critters Down Under

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine, Distress Oxides, Distress Ink Spun Sugar, Copics

Stencil: ARTplorations Tribal Triangles

Dies: STAMPlorations Feel Better Soon Phrase Die, Lawn Fawn Stitched Circle die, Stitched Journaling Card die

Other: Enamel dots and adhesive gems from my stash

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.

February STAMPlorations CAS Challenge - Mid-Month Inspiration

We are midway through February so it's time for a quick reminder of our current STAMPlorations CAS challenge. Although we have now passed the pink day (did you have a good V-day? or maybe you had an awesome Galentine's instead?) there are still a few weeks left to create a CAS card featuring hot pink for the challenge. It's an optional colour twist so if you had enough of pink for a while (whaaaaat??) you could just as well create a non-pink CAS card if you prefer. Pink or not I can't wait to see what you create!

I created a card to match my tag for day 2 of Love TAGplorations. I used Deepti's super cute Tweet Love stamp set which I watercoloured using Tim Holtz Distress Inks. I also stamped the sentiment using Sketchy Alphabet and coloured the letters in yellow. I added a bit of colour to the background by watercolouring through the Dots All Over stencil. Last, I die cut the Hello from a scrap of yellow card and added loads of Ice Stickles. 

Card: 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper, scrap of yellow card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love, Sketchy Alphabet

Ink and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress Inks

Stencil: ARTplorations Dots All Over

Dies: Hello Word Die

Other: Ranger Ice Stickles

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. If you have any questions or problems, just let me know!

Love TAGplorations Day 2

Welcome to day two of STAMPlorations Love TAGplorations, seven days of Valentine tag making fun. You can never have too many tags, can you? I hope you enjoyed the first day of the hop (if you missed it, you can find it here). I hope you will join us by commenting on the tags you see during the event and by linking up your own tags too which you can do between February 8th and 14th. And there are loads of prices:

• 3 randomly drawn winners from all comments left on the STAMP blog and participating designers blog will each receive a $10 gift certificate to the store
• 1 randomly drawn participant in the Love TAGplorations linky party will receive her choice of stamp set (Pocket Blooms, A Full Heart, or Two of Us)
• 1 randomly drawn participant in the Love TAGplorations linky party will receive her choice of any 2 of the new love-themed dies (Love, Always, XOXO, Forever, You & Me, Clustered Hearts)
• 1 randomly drawn participant in the Love TAGplorations linky party will receive her choice of tag set: Luggage Tags or ATC/Tag Builder

Also don't forget that you can use the discount code STAMPGIRLKAROLA to get 20% off your purchase in the STAMPlorations store if you want to, see the end of this post for further details.

I started today's tag by stamping the adorable oliphant and balloons from the super-cute Tweet Love in a very light pink. I then used Tim Holtz Distress Inks to watercolour the image to give it a no-line appearance. Next, I used yellow and orange distress inks through the Dots All Over stencil to create a bit of colour in the background. I also used a foam applicator to add some pink around the edges of the tag. I used the Hugs Word Die on a piece of pink scrap card to die cut the sentiment, and stamped the second part of the sentiment using a stamp from Tweet Love. Last, I added some Ice Stickles to the sentiment and some ribbon from my stash. I can't wait to show you the matching card I created to this tag!

Card: 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper, scrap of pink card
Ink and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress Inks Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Abandoned Coral, Black Soot, Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black
Stamps: STAMPlorations Tweet Love
Dies: CUTplorations Hugs Word Die, Luggage Tags Nesting Dies
Stencils: ARTplorations Dots All Over 
Other: Ranger Ice Stickles, ribbon from my stash

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. If you have any questions or problems, just let me know!