Doughnut crazy

My crazy birds arrived today! I finally caved in a bought the set. I have very jealously looked at so many fabulous creations with this set all around the interwebs for the last six months and somehow my fingers were quicker than my brain and managed to put in the order before my prefrontal cortex managed to react. Goes to show that my brain is getting old and slow.

Anyhow the birds are now in the house. They are just the most adorable little critters. I especially love the sad looking round one that I chose to play with today. Looking at that sad little face made me think - why is he so sad? And then I realised that the only reason someone would be that sad is because they don't have any doughnuts. If you would see my face right now, that is the expression I am wearing right now as I am thinking about the fact that I don't have any doughnuts (and if you love doughnuts as much as I do, check out my other doughnut card here). I thought I would make a little painting to go on my fridge door, to remind me to think things through before I reach for the fridge door to get that "one last snack before I promise to stop". 

I had a blast playing with the bird, the gorgeous STAMPlorations doughnuts and my Faber Castell watercolour pencils. After colouring the stamped images, I used my Stampin' Up Alphabet Rotary stamp to create the sentiment. It's a bit tricky to stamp with, and I often have to fill in a bit of missing bits from a letter here or there. But it's great for custom sentiments like this. I thought die cutting the words for "diet" from black card stock to make it look as threatening as possible. I added some glossy accents to the doughnut glazing and the letters of "diet", although it doesn't show very well. To create the frame, I dabbed green and blue Distress Paints onto a craft mat and sprayed with plenty of water. I then dabbed watercolour paper in the paint. After drying with a heat tool, I die cut the frame using Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies.

I am linking up with the following challenges:
STAMPlorations August theme challenge - Stamp and Watercolour
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Food and/or drink
Chocolate, Coffee and Cards - Frame It

Card: Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Sugar Rush, Tim Holtz Bird Crazy, Stampin' Up Alphabet Rotary stamp
Colouring: Faber Castell watercolour pencils
Paints: Tim Holtz distress Paints Picket Fence, Bundled Sage, Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron, Broken China, Peacock Feathers
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Cole's ABCs, Stampin' Up Glossy Accents

Distress paint rainbows

I was going to go to the gym after work today. I even brought my gym kit with me. But then I somehow ended up coming home and playing with my Distress Paints instead. Whoopsie! After messing about creating rainbow backgrounds inspired by the Rainbow challenge over at Stampin' Royalty, I decided to make a card using one of the backgrounds.

I created the backgrounds by pouring blobs of paint onto a craft mat and spritzing with loads of water. I then dabbed different papers in the paint. I used watercolour paper, hammered paper and linen texture paper. I let the paints dry, and helped them along a bit with a heat gun. 

After picking my favourite background I die cut it using a Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle die. I love how the linen textured cardstock looks almost like canvas. I die cut the letters for the word rainbow from gold mirri card using Lawn Fawn Cole's ABCs. I used the Stampin' Up Alphabet Rotary stamp to create the custom sentiment. Finally I attached the background to a piece of linen textured card using 3D foam pads, and added a few colourful sequins.

I am linking up with the following challenges:
Stampin' Royalty - Rainbow
Addicted to Stamps - ATG 
House of Cards - Metallics
Time Out Challenge - Word inspiration "Friendship is Golden" (I was inspired by the "golden" bit, although I think this card would be perfect for  a friend who is going thought a rough time)

Card: 300 gsm linen textured white card, gold mirri card
Paints: Tim Holtz Distress Paints Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Festive Berries, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron
Stamps: Stampin' Up Alphabet Rotary Stamp
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Cole's ABC's, sequins from my stash

Happy new bachelor pad!

I made a happy new home card for my Dad who has moved house. I don't have any stamp sets that would directly be for new home cards, so they always require a bit of imagination. This time I was inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch (although I did rotate the sketch into landscape instead to fit my image), the colours over at Color Throwdown, the inspiration image over at Just Add Ink and the elemental inspiration over at Daring Cardmakers (I was inspired by the wooden frames, the wooden wall for my background and the blue wall for the blue banner in my cars). 

Card: White 300 gsm card, kraft card, scraps of Pistachio Pudding and Soft Sky card

Stamps: Stampin' Up Hardwood, Nuts About You and Alphabet Rotary Stamp

Ink: Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Soft Sky, Marina Mist, Pistachio Pudding, Calypso Coral

Other: Lawn Fawn Congrats scripty die, Stampin' Up Banner punch, Stampin' Up Basic adhesive pearls (coloured with a brown Sharpie)

Embossing paste stencilling

If you see a mojo hanging around somewhere looking useless, it's mine. Could you maybe send it back to me, please? I have spent lots of time in my craft room but always ended up cleaning instead of crafting. I am suspecting there is something seriously wrong with me.... I've cleaned out so much stuff I have held on to but which I really don't need anymore. I doubt I will ever need my lab books from my undergrad biochemistry or protein chemistry labs. I've throw away duplicates of printed photos that I've been holding on to for some obscure reason although one copy has already been put into a photo album. And I've found an endless amount of random stuff like cables for cameras and phones which have long ago gone to electronic heaven years ago. To top it all up, I can't bring myself to finish anything, so after tearing out everything from cupboards and drawers, I leave half of it on my craft room floor waiting for inspiration to put it all back. You have to place your feet very carefully when trying to reach my crafting desk. Also, last night we were busy making apricot jam. All of a sudden 8 kg (over 17 lb) of apricots decided to ripen in one go. I was still sterilising jars at 1am!! But it all turned out gorgeous, so it was worth the fuss.

Yay for apricot season!

However, a few days ago I received a lovely parcel from the gorgeously talented Shery Russ over at STAMPlorations. I was lucky enough to win a stamp and stencil pack in the random draw over at STAMPlorations in June, and the gorgeous bird stencil finally got my mojo flowing enough to manage to put together a card. I was still feeling the whole mixed media vibe from my guest DT card for STAMPlorations from yesterday, so I got out my Tim Holtz distress paints and created a messy watercolour background. Crafting is so much more fun when you are making a bit of a mess. Then I made even more of a mess by applying some embossing paste through the stencil. Last I die cut the thanks in white, blue and dark blue and matted the card onto blue card before attaching to a white card base and adding a few adhesive pearls from my stash. One of the layers of the thanks die cut are from the card I used for matting, I just die cut from the central bit which was covered by the front panel. I love to make the most of my cardstock. I'm quite proud of myself getting back into the crafting groove again, and I really loved playing with my new goodies.

I would like to link up with the following challenges:
STAMPlorations Anything Goes Challenge - Anything goes with STAMPlorations
A Gem of a Challenge - Animals or birds
Inkspirational - Photo Inspiration
Simply Create Too - Anything Goes
Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes
Try it on Tuesdays - Use stencils

Card: Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper, Tim Holtz Core'dinations card, white 300 gsm white card
Paints: Tim Holtz Distress Paints Chipped Sapphire, Broken China, Picket fence
Stencil: STAMPlorations Some Birds stencil
Other: Vendy Vecchi Embossing Paste, Stampin' Up Hello You dies, coloured pearls from my stash (ordered from eBay, no brand displayed)

STAMPlorations sketch challenge guest DT August

I'm so excited to be joining the talented STAMPlorations team for another guest DT spot, this time for the August sketch challenge. You may have seen my guest post for the July sketch challenge here, and after using a STAMPlorations digi for that card I decided to get a few of my favourite STAMPlorations sets. I've already made a few cards and I absolutely love the stamp sets I have (you can find a few cards here, here, here, here and here). When I saw the August sketch, I immediately saw doughnuts and macaroons. Ok, so I may see doughnuts whenever I close my eyes, but luckily it happened to work well with the sketch.

I am crazy about doughnuts. I stop by the Krispy Creme display in the store just to talk to the doughnuts... I know, I'm crazy. I made my own doughnuts a while ago, you can see them here. I actually made macaroons myself also, you can see them here. So I absolutely adore the Sugar Rush stamp set and had such a great time playing with it for this sketch.

This is probably as much mixed media as I'll ever do, but STAMPlorations always inspires me to at least try to get a bit more experimental. I started by creating the background using Tim Holtz distress paints and lots of spritzed water. I dabbed the paints onto a craft mat, spritzed with plenty of water and smudged the paper around in the colours, adding a dab here and there for more colour. Then I stamped a few sentiments from the Sugar Rush set onto the background, and heat embossed them in white. I stamped the macaroons and doughnuts in Staz-on, watercoloured using distress markers and a waterbrush and fussy cut them. For the sentiment I used a scrap of Tim Holtz Old Paper cardstock and stamped the sentiment in Vintage Photo and heat embossed in clear embossing powder. I also inked the edges of the banner in Vintage Photo. Last, I arranged everything onto the background, added a few sequins and added some Glossy Accents to the doughnuts to give a bit of gloss to the icing. Unfortunately it doesn't show very well in the images.

I decided to have a card photo-shoot outside instead of my usual windowsill location as it seems like summer is back, hopefully not only for a one day visit. And I decided I wanted to show off my gorgeous hydrangea as well, I absolutely adore it. I thought it matched the colour scheme of the card perfectly. 

I would like to share my sugar-filled creation with the following challenges:

In the Pink - Anything goes as long as it's pink

Addicted to stamps - Anything goes

Creative Moments - Anything goes with summer fun

Fab and Funky - No pattered paper

Try Stampin' - or not - on Tuesday - Inspiration picture

Card: Coloured 240 gsm kraft card baby pink, Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour card, scrap of Tim Holtz Old Paper card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Sugar Rush

Inks: Tim Holtz distress markers and a waterbrush, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo, Tim Holtz distress paints Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, Bundled Sage, Picket Fence and Broken China, Tsukineko Versamark, Tsukineko Staz-On Jet Black

Other: Ranger clear embossing powder, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Glossy Accents, sequins from my stash

Holly Jolly - Feathered Friends

The last two weeks have just flown by, and it's already time for a new challenge over at Holly Jolly. Thank you to everyone for sharing your gorgeous Christmas Carol inspired creations, we love to see what you are creating, and it's good to see there are already lots of people getting prepared for Christmas. I chatted with a friend the other day and she said she can't even bring herself to use the "C-word" yet, but still she was already getting a head start with her C-cards. Crafters, eh? Lol.

Anyways our new challenge over at Holly Jolly is Feathered Friends. So get your crafty on with some Christmas themed Feathered Friends and link up with us. In addition to comments from our DT you will be in the running for some great prices from our sponsors who this week are Bugaboo, All Dressed Up, Stamp&Create and Crafty Sentiments.

 

This time I got to play with the Bugaboo stamp Winter Penguin Trio. I have to say, I love the challenges where Bugaboo is a sponsor as I absolutely love their cute digi stamps. I had so much fun colouring the Penguin buddies playing in the snow. I used Tim Holtz distress markers, and for the sky I blended the markers with some water for a watercolour effect. For the background I used Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours Speciality Designer Series Paper. It comes with various resist embossed patterns, and you can colour it to your liking. In my case, I got to try out two of my new Tim Holtz inks on it, BluePrint Sketch the July colour and Twisted Citron, the new May colour. I used Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies to cut the images and the Lawn Fawn Tag You're It die for the banner. To finish, I added a bit of paper twine to the tag. I love the deep blue starry sky behind the Penguin buddies, I really love this new colour from the great Tim Holtz.

I am linking up with the following challenges:
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Anything Goes
Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Anything Goes
A Gem of a challenge - Animals or birds
Crafty Friends Challenge - Inspired by a movie (Madagascar, the penguins are my favourites! Cute and cuddly!)
Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge - Things with wings
Crafting From the Heart - Anything Goes 
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Make a Plan (planning for Christmas!)
Card: 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours Speciality Designer Series Paper
Inks: Tim Holtz distress markers, ink pads Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron, Tsukineko Staz-on Jet Black
Stamps: Bugaboo Winter Penguin Trio, Dovecraft Clear S'Jingle TTS
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies and Tag You're it dies, Tim Holtz paper twine

Crafts Galore Encore - Anything Goes in August

Today we have a new challenge over at Crafts Galore Encore. This month our theme is the easiest possible, Anything Goes. So link up with us to show what you have been crafting lately, we love to see your beautiful creations.

This month our sponsor is Sherri Baldy, and our winner will receive their choice of three of the digis our DT got to play with. 

To do something slightly different, I did a stepper card. I did it based on the instructions over at Beccy's place but modified the size to fit my card. Then I just threw the kitchen sink at it, more or less. 

I would like to link up with the following challenges:
Chocolate, Coffe&Cards challenge - A flower in your image 
Creative Moments - Anything goes / Bingo (used die cuts/punches, image, flowers)
Inspiration Destination - Always Anything Goes
Creatalicious challenges - More than one fold
Craft Your Passion - Always Anything Goes
Crafty Creations Challenges - Four (four dresses and four words in the sentiment)


Card: White 300 gsm card, pink card from my stash
Image: Sherri Baldy digi
Colouring: Copics
Other: Kanban toppers from my stash, papers from my stash (free with a crafting magazine), heart border punch, pink robbon from my stash