Following the map that leads to you

The Stampin' Up World Map background stamp has been on my wish list for ages, and I decided to finally treat myself to it. It's just one of those stamps that I can see being so versatile, it will work as a background or as a focal image. For this card, I decided to use it as the main panel. The sketch I used is from STAMPlorations. Originally, I made another card for this sketch, but as usual it didn't turn out how I wanted. That was a floral image, and as that didn't work I decided to go somewhere completely different. Inspired by the current Just Us Girls challenge where the theme is ombre I created a green ombre background and stamped the World map on it. I used a stamp from The Open Sea for the background. The sentimet is from a Tim Holtz stamp set. Once I knew what I wanted to do, the card came together very quickly. I'm also entering the card in the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge where the theme is "O" and my O is for ombre (obviously) and also for ocean.

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card Beige, Hobbycraft 160 gsm card white
Stamps: Stampin' Up World Map, The Open Sea, Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous The Journey
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress inks Bundled Sage, Iced Spruce, Peeled Paint, Pine Needles, Stampin' Up Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

A little bit of shabby grunge

This card is so not my style at all. I'm very much a CAS type of cardmaker, at least most of the time. But when I saw the amazingly beautiful inspiration card by Julee Tillman over at Viva La Verve Sketch challenge I wanted to recreate something similar. It's nice to go outside your comfort zone from time to time and try different things. I used the colours for that challenge as well, although again they are far from my usual colour palette. Which is great as it allowed me to use up some cardstock that I haven't used before. 

I embossed the blue panel using a Tim Holtz embossing folder. I used a pair of scissors to distress the edges and some sandpaper to distress the Core'dinations cardstock which reveals a lighter shade when distressed. I inked the embossed and distressed panel with orange, yellow and brown ink. I die cut the stars and inked the edges with brown ink and distressed using scissors. I did the same for the sentiment banner and the background panel. The sentiment is from one of my most used sentiment sets, the Paper Smooches Sentiment sampler. I think this card would work well as a male birthday card.

Cardstock: Craft UK kraft card, Tim Holtz Core'dination card in Spiced Marmelade, Mustard Seed and Tumbled Glass

Ink: Tim Holtz distress ink Spiced Marmelade, Mustard Seed and Walnut Stain

Stamps: Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler

Other: Xcut star dies, Tim Holtz embossing folder Retro Circles

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - Snowmen

I can't believe it's already two weeks since my first DT post for the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge. Today there is a new challenge, and the theme is Snowmen. So hop over to the Holly Jolly blog to check out the inspiration from the amazing DT.  This week the challenge sponsors are The Stamping Boutique and Bugaboo Stamps, who are giving away great prizes to the winners. Congrats to the winner of the previous challenge, Anything Goes.

For today's card I have used Bugaboo's stamp Winter trio with the adorable snowmen and penguin. I coloured the image with Copics. I matted the image onto purple stripy paper which I think matches the scarves of the snowmen. I created the background using a stencil and Tim Holtz distress inks. I created the little snowflake ornament by die cutting two different snowflakes using my new All Occasion Dies from blue cardstock. I triple-embossed the snowflakes using clear and holographic embossing powder, attached them on top of each other and finished it with a gem in the middle. I got the inspiration for this from this amazing card by Karren over at Stamping Stuff. It was a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort in my completely unbiased opinion, hehe. 

I'm entering the card in the following challenges:
The Glory of Christmas challenge - Snowmen
CHNC challenge extra for October - anything goes
Crimbo Crackers - anything goes
Sweet Stampin' Christmas - Snowflakes

Cardstock: Craft UK kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card in purple grape, Hobbycraft Three shades of blue 160 gsm cardstock
Paper: Stampin' Up Patterns Stack Brights collection
Stamps: Digi stamp Bugaboo Winter Trio, Dovecraft 'Tis the Season S'Jingle
Ink: Tim Holtz distress inks Broken China, Chipped Sapphire, Dusty Concord and Salty Ocean, Tsukineko Versamark
Colouring: Copics B00, B04, B06, B41, B45, E34, E39, R20, R24, R43 R46, V04, V09, Y19
Other: All Occasion Dies snowflakes, Imagination Crafts Snowflake Frenzy stencil, Ranger Fine Detail Clear Embossing powder, Papermania Holographic embossing powder, Ranger Ice Stickles Crystal Ice, Papermania Adhesive Gems Capsule Aqua

Tardis Birthday Card

A while ago, it was the Culinary Consultant's Birthday. It's only the third time I have been around to celebrate his birthday, although it feels like we have been together for a long time. I have tried to find a new idea for each birthday. Last year it was animals that he loves with an elephant card and snake cake, and the year before that it was a Dark Knight cake, as the new Batman movie had recently come out and he wanted to see it. I don't think I was making cards back then, as I can't find any photos of a card to go with the occasion. This year the theme is Doctor Who, as the Culinary Consultant has been very excited about the return of the beloved Doctor onto our TV screens. I am trying to get into it, we watch the show together every Saturday night, although I do suffer from some difficulty to stay away for the whole duration of the show. I also made a Tardis cake, but as it looked like it was made by a five year old, I shall spare your eyes from that monstrosity. I am linking up this card to the I is for Iconic challenge over at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers and Out of This World challenge at the Daring Cardmakers blog. I'm also entering the "Anything goes"  challenge over at Addicted to stamps and more. 

I was doing some online research for the card, and luckily came across the Hau to Craft blow which had two blog posts here and here for a Tardis card. Even more luckily there was a link to Valita's blog which even came with a free template to create the card. Could you be any more lucky than that? I'm eternally grateful for that free tutorial, it was hard enough to make the card with the tutorial so I don't want to think about how hard it would have been without it. It is a lot of tiny details and very fussy work, so I wouldn't make many of these, but making one for that one special person was totally worth all the fuss. 

The card is not hard to do, it just takes a lot of time and patience. You need the best part of a 12x12 in sheet of cardstock. I used Tim Holtz Core'dinations in Chipped Sapphire. A bit of Black Soot around the edges of each piece (which there are plenty of) and about a gazillion pieces of foam adhesive. I used the computer to print the little sign on the door, and was lucky enough to have a relatively small alphabet stamp set to heat emboss the words POLICE BOX on the top, as I was first planning to fussy cut them but it turned out to be a complete disaster. I also made a gift tag to match.

Cardstock: Tim Holtz Core'dinations Chipped Sapphire, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Shimmery Grey card I ordered from eBay which doesn't have a maker indicated

Ink: Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress ink, Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Picket Fence Distress Marker

Stamps: Hobbycraft Typewriter Alphabet clear stamps

Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Tim Holtz alterations Inside out alphabet and Gadget Gears dies, Stampin' Up Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, Stampin' Up Basic Pear coloured with a gold Sharpie

Gorgeous Christmas colours

Sorry for being so late with the post today. To be honest, the reason is all the cards I have made recently were so horrible I couldn't post them. Which got me into a slight panic about what I would post today. Then I sat down and took a deep breath and told myself it's perfectly ok if I don't post anything. Cardmaking is my hobby, and it's supposed to be fun, not a pressure to produce a card per day just to have something to put on the blog. It's ok to make cards and then toss them without never showing them to anyone if they are bad. 

So I walked away from crafting for a while and cleaned out the horrible mess my craft room had become instead. Then I took a browse around the blogosphere to see *if* there was something that would inspire me, not to force myself to make a card. And I found the amazing colour challenge on The Christmas Card Challenges which immediately made me reach for my Copics. With a colour combo like that, who could fail at creating a great card? I was also inspired by this week's Viva La Verve sketch, which I already tried to tackle earlier but failed miserably. I guess the clean craft room inspired me to do a clean and simple design, which involved a lot of masking while stamping, and required a few tries to get right. I'm also participating in The Pink Elephant Challenge where the theme is to use pink and Addicted To Stamps and More where Anything Goes this week.

I used a circular mask to stamp the main image. I made it by die cutting a circle from paper. I started by stamping the bird and the squirrel, then masking them and stamping the trees through the circular mask. I found it helpful to stamp on a test paper first, to see whereabouts I wanted everything to go before doing the "real deal". I used Copics to colour the image. I then stamped the ornaments on another piece of paper, coloured and die cut them. I used a gold sharpie to draw the thread they are hanging from. Last, I heat embossed the sentiment onto beige cardstock in gold and added the die cut holly as a finishing touch. Job done, clean and simple, and finally a card I can publish!

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm card, coloured 240 gsm craft card beige
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
Coulouring: Copics C3, E34, E39, R43, RV29, RV34, V04, V09, YG13, YG17, Gold Sharpie
Other: Gold embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods dies

A pile of smooches

I love the Paper Smooches chubby chums. I identify very strongly with the little chickie in the set for some reason. I love those little eyelashes and the way she looks so cheerful. When I saw this week's CAS(E) this sketch, I immediately saw a stack of chubby chums on top of each other. Actually that's not strictly speaking true. First I saw a design that involved Christmas ornaments in metallic colours, but after banging my head agains the wall for a few hours and enriching my bin with a pile of Christmas ornaments in metallic colours, it transformed from Christmas ornaments to chubby cute animals. I decided to go a bit out of my usual colour range and use the colours over at Colour Throwdown as I haven't participated in that challenge for a few weeks. I'm also entering the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge where anything goes this week.

The card was rather simple to put together, it's all in one layer and I used a mask when I stamped the next chum in the stack. I coloured the chums using Copics and used Tim Holtz distress markers to ink up the sentiment. I then used Versamark to stamp the heart from Joy to the Woods and the XO from the Chubby chums set on the orange border. Last, I stamped the owl and another greeting inside the card using Versamark.

Card: Stampin' Up Pumpkin Pie, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums, Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black and Versamark, Tim Holtz distress markers in Seedless Preserves, Mowed Lawn and Ripe Persimmon
Colouring: Copics V04, V09, Y13, Y15, Y19, YG11, YG13, YG17, YR04

Watercolour stencil poppy inspiration

As usual, the current Poppy sketch gave me a bit of a creative crisis. Every time I see the sketch and colour combo over on Poppy sketches, I know I want to participate, but the sketches are usually a bit more abstract than the average sketch challenge, so my creatively challenged brain is struggling. I usually need a week of thinking time before I know what I want to make, so luckily the challenge is a bi-weekly one giving my brain a chance to catch up. This time it took inspiration from two other challenges to complete this card, "Stencil" over at Addicted to CAS and "Use Watercolour" over at Simon Says Stamp wednesday challenge. 

I used a Tim Holtz stencil for the background, along with TIm Holtz Distress paints. However, I didn't use the stencil as you normally would by dabbing colour through it, but as a stamp. I really like the look this way. I spritzed the watercolour paper with water before "stamping" to get a watercolour effect. I then used the Tim Holtz stamp set Grunge Cirque which I coloured with markes and spritzed lightly with water before stamping. I used a marker to write the sentiments into the stamped image, I thought that was quite fun. 

Then I had to put the card away, as I got an overwhelming urge to start adding ribbons and rhinestones and pearls and distressing and whatnot. But I managed to walk away and keep it CAS. Shortest "products used" list ever, eh? As a consolation prize, I did some stamping for the inside of the card. 

Card: Daler & Rowney 300 gsm watercolour paper, coloured 240 gsm kraft card Purple grape, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Tim Holtz Visual Artistry Grunge Cirque, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler (for the inside)
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress paints and markers in Dusty Concord, Mowed Lawn and Seedless Preserves