Cupcake Inspirations #500

Today I'm happy to be celebrating the 500th Cupcake Inspirations Challenge. Congrats and big thanks to the whole Cupcake Inspirations team for all their hard work to keep this super fun challenge running for all that time, and to many, many more great challenges to come!

For my project, I used the cupcake stamp from STAMPlorations Sweet Kindness which stamped and heat embossed in gold four times. I used Faber Castell watercolour pencils to colour the images and blended the colouring with a watercolour brush. I created the Dots All Over stencil and Distress inks to create the fun dotty background and finished the card with a bold black die cut sentiment from Everyday Sentiments. 

Stamps: STAMPlorations Sweet Kindness
Stencil: ARTplorations Dots All Over
Dies: CUTplorations Everyday Sentiments
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils

STAMPlorations Inspiration

The week has flown by, and it's Tuesday again. And that, of course, means a new STAMPlorations Inspiration post. I'm continuing with my theme pairing a stencil background with the Bloom Doodles stamp set. This time I was inspired by the beautiful bright late summer flowers in my garden. I feel so grateful for all my beautiful potted plants, I have received some as gifts this summer, and the ones I got from the garden centre have flourished and all the colours make so happy every time I see them. 

I started my card by inking red and brown Distress Inks through the ARTplorations Brick Wall stencil and splattered some brown ink for added interest. Then I stamped flowers and leaves from the beautiful Bloom Doodles stamp set, coloured them with Faber Castell watercolour pencils and blended with water and a fine brush. I fussy cut the flowers and leaves and die cut a sentiment from black card using Everyday Sentiments Dies. Last, I arranged everything onto the brick background. I really like the colours of the watercolour pencils, it's really fun to mix lots of colours and then blend to see what the final result looks like.

Don't forget that by commenting on the Inspiration post you are in the draw to win a $15 gift code to the STAMPlorations store.

Stamps: STAMPlorations Bloom Doodles 

Stencils: ARTplorations Brick Wall 

Dies: CUTplorations Everyday Sentiments Dies

Ink and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils, Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black

Don't forget to check out the August offers in the STAMPlorations store as you can get 25% off CUTplorations dies with code CUT25 and 20% off slimline stencils with code SLIMLINE20. For for more offers, visit the STAMPlorations Store Coupons page. For normal priced products, use my code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout for 20% off.

STAMPlorations Inspiration

How are you today? Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Are you starting to accommodate to this new normal of isolation and social distancing? I have not left the house for anything else than my daily walk/jog for a few weeks now. I'm ever so grateful we have a big garden and our house borders on fields with footpaths so I can go out for relatively isolated walks, although I have to say I have never met as many people on my walks/jogs as I have in the last few weeks. It seems like the whole world has suddenly taken up walking. Luckily I get to see my colleagues every day on video conferencing too, and we have online boardgames nights, Friday drinks and daily coffee breaks. And of course, there is always the craft room.  

And talking of crafting, it's time for another STAMPlorations Inspiration post. I was inspired by the daffodils in the garden to create this springtime card. I started by stamping the Narcissus - Large twice, masking for the second round of stamping. I then coloured the flowers with watercolour pencils and added a green sentiment using Everyday Sentiments dies. 

Stamps: STAMPlorations Narcissus - Large
Dies: CUTploratoins Everyday Sentiments
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils

STAMPlorations New Release Sweetly

It's time to introduce the fourth stamp set of the STAMPlorations February 2020 release week. And it's another one of Shery's gorgeous floral sets - Sweetly. It contains a big bunch of flowers, a butterfly and a mix of words and sentiments. 

For my first card, I stamped the butterfly, masking as I went along. I used my watercolours to colour the butterflies, letting the colours run over the lines to create a rainbow halo around the butterflies. I created the sentiment by heat embossing in white.

For my second card I started by stamping the bunch of flowers onto watercolour card and heat embossed in gold. I then die cut the panel using the Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies and coloured the flowers with the Faber Castell watercolour pencils. I attached the panel onto some Tim Holtz patterned paper and added a gold sentiment which I die cut using Everyday Sentiments.

For a chance to win a $20 gift code or one of the new stamp sets, comment on the blog post over on the STAMPlorations blog and the participating designer's blogs. You don't have to comment on all blogs, but every comment will be entered in the random draw. Commenting is open until February 19th and the randomly drawn winners will be announced on February 21st. Also, the new stamps are 10% off automatically until February 19 in the STAMPlorations store and if you use my discount code STAMPGIRLKAROLA you will get an extra 20% off.

Other STAMPlorations projects used: CUTploration Everyday Sentiments dies, Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies

National Colouring Book Day with STAMPlorations

Did you celebrate National Colouring Book Day on Friday? I have to admit I missed it, but the great news is that over on STAMPlorations we celebrate all month! Today I'm here to showcase some projects for the STAMPloraitons National Colouring Book Day linky party. I love colouring. Usually, I colour stamped images, but sometimes it's lovely to not have to think about creating an image to colour, but just pull out your pencils or markers and get going. I love it if I am in a creative slump and really can't get going at all. And a colouring book is great to take away when travelling, all you need is the book and a small number of pencils. Sometimes not having access to a large selection of colours can be really interesting too. Great entertainment on long flights!

If you want to join us for National Colouring Book Day, there is a free digital colouring page for you to download on the STAMPlorations blog. You can also win great prizes (including a colouring book!) if you comment on the post or join the linky party using the free digi.

Did you know that there are three STAMPlorations colouring books? They are perfect for cardmaking and other types of crafting, you could use them for art journals, tags, ATCs or just to colour for the joy of colouring! I created two projects using a colouring page from the Bloomtangled colouring book.

Just getting started...

I used Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils for colouring the page. I used the Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies to cut a panel for my card from the coloured page, and matted it onto black card. I then found a perfect strip of vellum in my random stash box, and heat embossed a sentiment from Noteworthy 2 in black shimmery embossing powder to complete the card. 

I used Stitched Tags Nesting Dies to die cut a tag from the rest of the colouring page, and adhered it to a white card panel cut with the same die. This time I used some water to blend the colours. I think they become more vibrant this way. I used the leftover piece of the vellum to stamp the sentiment, again from Noteworthy 2. I hope these projects inspired you to colour something, and don't forget to download the free digi and join us for the linky party over on the STAMPlorations blog.

I'm linking up my card over at Fusion Card Challenges, Just Add Ink where the challenge is "Just add C" (my C is colour, colouring, colouring book and contrast) and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything goes this week. I'm also linking up my tag over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is bright and cheerful.

Colouring book: STAMPlorations Bloomtangled

Stamps: STAMPlorations Noteworthy 2

Dies: CUTplorations Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies, Stitched Tags Nesting Dies

There are some great offers in the STAMPlorations store in August, including (of course!) a colouring book sale!!

Clear Stickers are 30% off with code CLEAR30 Coloring Books are 25% off with code COLOR25 Clear Stamps* are 25% off with code STAMP25

February STAMPlorations Challenge - Paint It Red

 

You might have noticed that there are some temporary changes to the challenges over on the STAMPlorations blog while Shery is taking a Winter break to enjoy being a new Mummy to her second adorable daughter, aptly named Winter. 

But keep calm and keep crafting as there is still a challenge for you! The individual challenges (CAS, mixed media, CUTplorations and Theme&Sketch) have been combined into one big super-challenge and will run that way for February, March and April. 

This month our super theme is Paint It Red which runs until the end of the month. We would love to see any love themed or red (or both) projects in our gallery. Go wild and create anything your heart desires - cards, ATCs, mixed media... or anything else you can think of - in any style you prefer! I decided to stick to CAS as that's what I know and love. You can use any products you like, but if you have any STAMPlorations crafty stash, we would love to see you use it!

I decided to go for both red and love (it is February after all...). I used watercolour pencils in pink, red and grey through the Zen Hearts stencil and then used a fine watercolour brush on the coloured parts. Colouring through a stencil is so easy, even if you wouldn't be very good at colouring, you can't fail this way. Then I simply added the hilarious sentiment from Funny Kinda Love and added a few adhesive pearls from my stash. Quick, easy and perfect for V-day. 

While you are busy creating, don't forget to keep checking in over at STAMPlorations as there will be some awesome new products coming there soon. Llama tell you, you might want to check in on Wednesday. Llama so excited already! That's all Llama say for now...

I'm also linking up over at these super-inspiring challenges:

House Of Cards - pink colours and Valentine's theme

Just Add Ink - Just Add Romance

Just Us Girls - Love

Card: 250 gsm white card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Funny Kinda Love

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils

Stencil: ARTplorations Zen Hearts

Other: Adhesive pearls 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.

Happy Bot Day

I love dedicating my Saturday mornings to crafting. I should be out running but sometimes I feel like it's more important to provide a work-out for my creative muscles. No comments about the fact that I still haven't managed to squeeze into most of my trousers after the Christmas binge. But crafting is cheaper than therapy and there is only so much a gal can take after a mad day at work on Friday. Why do all the big problems always creep out on a Friday evening right before you are supposed to go home?

Anyhow, this Saturday I started the day with a big stash of crafty goodness from STAMPlorations, a cup of hot coffee in my trusty Unicorn mug and haven't stopped since.

Now this is #thelife : #saturday #morning, my trusty #unicorn mug, #coffee and the most amazing #craftystash from the awesome @stamplorations . If you visit their store just to daydream of everything you want, you may recognize a lot of the stuff, but there are also a few sneak peaks of new stuff you will see soon. I can’t wait to share!!

A post shared by InvisiblePinkUni (@invisiblepinkuni) on Jan 27, 2018 at 12:28am PST

The first stamps out to play from the new stash are these super adorable Little Robots from the amazing Shery of STAMPlorations. I was inspired by the colours over at Color Throwdown, although I always feel like I'm really pushing the envelope when limiting my colour palette (I had to create a rainbow card after finishing this to recover, I'll show you that one another day...). I was also inspired by the "Use markers or pencils" theme over at CAS on Friday and Masked Magic theme over at Daring Cardmakers. Last but not least I'm linking up over at Shopping Our Stash where the theme is Birthday.

I started by stamping the two robots, masking the first before stamping the one behind it. Then I masked the other robot as well and masked a rectangle in the middle of the card. I inked Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide through the ARTplorations Dots All Over stencil. I coloured the robots with Faber Castell watercolour pencils. Last, I combined sentiments from a few stamp sets, stamping them in Hickory Smoke Distress Ink (I really have to buy the Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide as it I prefer Oxides to Inks for stamping...), I had to use a grey marker to fill in the sentiment as it didn't stamp as well as I wanted. 

Card: White 250 gsm card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Little Robots, Noteworthy 2, Bloomin' Spring Coffee Basket 
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Oxide Spice Marmalade, Distress Ink Hickory Smoke, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils
Stencil: ARTplorations Dots All Over

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.

Thankful for Cake

Today I spent some of my time in the good old craft room which has had way too little use lately. I'm procrastinating as I should be writing job applications. After many weeks of way too much work, I decided I've had enough, and it's time to start looking for something else. So instead of writing applications, I've been eating chocolates and crafting. As you do. 

So today's card was inspired by the delicious chocolates I ate. It's dangerous living close to a chocolate factory outlet shop. They had some really good offers, and in all good conscience, I couldn't leave without taking advantage of them! I can tell you that Eating sugar makes you inspired to colour cakes, which was perfect given the Just Add Cake theme over at Just Add Ink. I'm also linking up with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes this week. In addition to using the new Sweet Cravings stamp set from STAMPlorations I also used a sentiment stamp from the Words of Gratitude set which you will be able to find in the STAMPlorations shop very soon. 

Card: 300 gsm white card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Sweet Cravings, Words of Gratitude (coming soon!)
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Hickory Smoke, Faber Castell Albrech Durer watecolour pencils
Other: sequins 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.

Bloomtangled

I know you already had a  glimpse of the beautiful new STAMPlorations colouring book for National Colouring book day but today we are here with some of my fellow STAMPlorations DT ladies to showcase the book and some projects we made from the coloured pages for the official Bloomtangled Blog Hop and Linky Party.  And of course we want you to have some fun too, you can comment on the main blog post and all the designer's posts for a chance to win some prizes. On the main blog post you will also find a download from the colouring book. If you download the page, colour it and turn it into any kind of project you can link up and win even more prizes.

First I'll show you some pages I coloured with different mediums. 

Coloured with Faber Castell Albrech Durer watercolour
pencils and light blending with a little water.

Gansai Tambi watercolour on clear gesso.

Sharpies work really well with the colouring book -
I just love the vibrant colours.

Of course I wanted to turn my coloured pages into some projects. I used the page I coloured with Sharpies and made two cards by die cutting the coloured page using the Crazy Double Running Stitched Rectangle, matting it onto pink and purple card and adding black and white die cuts. 

I used the watercoloured page to decorate my bullet journal - I die cut a large panel of the page again using the Crazy Double Running Stitched Rectangle. I added some die cuts and used the Sketchy Alphabet stamps to create the letters to spell August. I inked through the ARTplorations Ethnic Organic One stencil using Distress ink to create the background for the journal page. I used leftover strips of the colouring book page to decorate the weekly spreads.

I also made another card from a page I coloured earlier for National Colouring book day. Again the beautiful florals just needed nothing other than a simple sentiment 

I love the page I coloured with watercolour pencils, so I haven't had the heart to cut it yet!

Card: white 250 gsm card, pink and purple card, scrap of black card
Colouring: Sharpies, Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Wilted Violet, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Peeled Paint, Faber Castell Albrech Durer watercolour pencils, Gansai Tambi watercolours
Dies: Crazy Double Running Stitched Rectangle, Fabulous word die, Hello word die, Gorgeous word die, Seriously word die, Awesome word die, Celebrate word die
Stamps: Bold Sentiments Fabulous, Sketchy Alphabet
Other: ARTplorations Ethnic Organic One stencil, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

National Colouring Book Day and Bloomtangled

Bloomtangled page coloured with Sharpies

Did you know that today is National Colouring Book Day? Not that you necessarily need an excuse to get out your colouring book and colouring medium of choice, but if you haven't done that for a long time, let me remind you how incredibly relaxing and fun it is to sit down and just colour away. As a special treat, today I and some of the amazingly talented ladies of the STAMPlorations DT are sharing some colouring inspiration from the new STAMPlorations colouring book Bloomtangled. We will show you more from this super fun book later, but today we are sharing a lot of pages we have coloured over on the STAMPlorations blog. 

Shery has made a page sampler from the book available over on the STAMPlorations blog so you can join in on the fun immediately. You can link up your coloured page until Sunday, August 7th and one randomly drawn winner will receive a copy of the colouring book. You can also find the book over in the STAMPlorations store. And don't forget by using the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA you will receive 20% off at checkout. Below you will find several pages I have coloured using different media.

The book and my beloved Faber-Castell watercolour pencils.  

So far I have tried out Sharpies, Copics, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils (with very little water) and Gansai Tambi watercolours but before using the watercolours I covered the page in clear Gesso. My absolute favourite was the Sharpies due to their super vibrant colours. 

Watercolour pencils before adding water

Gansai Tambi watercolours on a page covered in clear Gesso.

I had so much fun with the Copics
I had to colour another page.

Nothing like a bit of colouring and a happy cup
of coffee to get the day started.

Now it's your turn to do some colouring and don't forget to link up your free Bloomtangled sampler for a chance to win the book. Together with the DT team, we will be showing you some projects we created from our coloured pages in a few week's time so don't forget to come back to check in. And there are a few other great new releases coming soon as well which I can't wait to share with you. I would love to hear from you if have ever tried colouring. Did you enjoy it? Which book would you recommend? What media do you enjoy using?

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. 

Love TAGplorations

I'm very excited to be part of STAMPlorations Love TAGplorations, seven days of Valentine tag making fun. We hope you will like the tags we have created with the DT to give to the important people in our lives and to showcase the gorgeous new Valentine's stamps, stencils and dies in the STAMPlorations shop. And as usual this wouldn't be half as much fun unless you could join us in the celebrations 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.

For today's tag, I used Faber Castell watercolour pencils to colour through the Zen Hearts stencil onto a kraft tag I cut using the larges of the Luggage Tags Nesting Dies. I then traced the outlines of the coloured pieces using a white gel pen. To match my white outlined stencilled heart I die cut the Clustered Hearts Die from white card and also from a scrap of pink card from my UFO box - I think I created this with Tim Holtz Distress Paints. I then sprayed the tag with gold perfect pearls to give it a very subtle gold sheen - unfortunately I didn't manage to capture that in the photo.

I used another scrap of watercoloured card I created with Distress paints, this time in pink and blue to die cut the "always" using Always Word Die. I adhered the die cut pieces to the tag and stamped the first part of the sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black using a stamp from the Pocket Blooms stamp set. For a finishing touch I added some stickles to the die cut sentiment, a few adhesive rhinestones and a white ribbon from my stash.

Pocket Blooms

Zen Hearts

Card: kraft card, scrap of white 250 gsm card, 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper

Stamps: STAMPlorations Pocket Blooms

Stencils: ARTplorations Zen Hearts

Dies: CUTplorations Always Word Die, Clustered Hearts Die, Luggage Tags Nesting Dies

Inks and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress Paints, Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Faber Castell watercolour pencils, White Gel Pen

Other: Adhesive gems and white ribbon from my stash, Ranger Coffee 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!