Make It Colourful At Stamping Sensations

In April I was very lucky to win the challenge at Stamping Sensations. As a winner I was asked to be Guest Designer on this months challenge which is Make it colourful. Visible Image are the Sponsers for this months challenge. I'm sure that the hot weather that we have been having recently has had many of your reaching for those bright colours, so why not pop over to the blog and join in with the challenge this month, the Design Team have always got beautiful cards for your inspiration, the only stipulation is that your card must have used a stamp or stamps as the main focus. For my card I've used my favourite Lavinia stamps to create this scene, the flowers were made using some Stampin Up punches that happened to be sat on my desk the day I made this.

Hope you are all keeping well and staying safe.
Thank you for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

One Layer Butterflies

It was quite a busy time last week, with hospital visits everyday, thank you all for your good wishes. Father-in-law is still in hospital with a chest infection we're hoping he comes home later this week and Sister-in-law is now at home with no diagnosis as to what is wrong. She has to return for more tests though and has been given six weeks off work. Right now onto my card today, this has been made for the current Butterfly Challenge, which is only for a few more hours so I'm getting in by the skin of my teeth. On the 6th January I went with my friend down to Eileen Godwin's and took one of her wonderful workshops, we made one layer cards just like this one. So when I got home I knew that this was what I would do for the challenge, it was just a case of finding the time to tidy a little so I had room to craft. Well I managed it this morning and this was the result. An A6 one layer card using Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar distress inks and then Picked Raspberry through a butterfly stencil. I then used the edge of a Visible Image stamp around the edges using Real Red from Stampin Up and then finally I used the Butterfly stamp from Visible Image and sentiment stamp from Crafters Companion.

I'm going to enter this into the following challenges:
Butterfly Challenge - O is for one layer and or the colour Ultra Pink
Allsorts Challenge - No patterned papers
A Bit More Time To Craft - Anything Goes

Thank you for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

18th Birthday

My card today has been made for a lovely young lady who will be 18 in a few days time. The flowers and the backing paper are from the Petunia Collection from Heartfelt Creations (I will to confess to having lots of their stamps and die sets). The card is an 8x8 base, then I used silver mirri card to mat the backing paper onto. The die cut square is from Tattered Lace and I kept the middle to stamp the sentiment onto, this was from Chocolate Baroque. I stamped and embossed the flowers with silver EB powder and then coloured using distress ink in Shaded Lilac and then Stampin Up ink in colours Perfect Plum, Pear Pizzazz and Garden Green. The flourishes are from Tattered Lace and finally the 18 Today is from All Occasion Dies.

 Because of the shaping on the flowers the card needed a box to pop the card into. The cut out corners are from a Tim Holtz Sizzix die.

I'm going to enter this into the Stamping Sensations Challenge which this month is Anything With Flowers.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Rudolph Days

As today is the 25th of the month, it's time for the first Rudolph Days challenge of the year. Last year was the first year that I had taken part in any Christmas challenges and I'm so glad that I did, it made the Christmas rush so much easier as I had a great many cards already made. So to start my collection off for this year I used a stamp set from Stampin Up, one of the first that I bought from them and I'm also ashamed to say this was the first time that it had been inked. But you know what they say "better late than never". I found some off cuts of green and red in my scraps box and then with a separate sheet of the green made two A6 card bases. I stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder the tree and the sentiment onto some of the green card and then went around the edge with a gold pen. I then stuck some ribbon around the card and added a bow. Next I stamped the snowflake stamp around the edge of the card so that it was just visible when matted together, again I edged with the gold pen, before mounting all onto the green card bases. I now have the first two cards in my box ready.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

A Birthday Card and Two Challenges

I suddenly remembered this morning that it was our Great Nephew's Birthday tomorrow and I hadn't made him a card yet, and with it being Sunday it's a new challenge over at Pixie's Snippets Playground. So with both of these things in mind I started rummaging in my scraps box. I found lots of small (but not too small) pieces of white card, plus a square piece that I had stamped something on and then abandoned it. Then I remembered that the new challenge over on the Allsorts Challenge blog was Dogs and/or Cats, and sitting in my cupboard were both the cats and dogs sets of stamps from Tim Holtz. As I have never inked any of these stamps I thought it was time to remedy this. The reason that I picked this dog over any of the others and the cats, is the fact that yesterday afternoon my sister turned up with her dog. I had just started chopping up some meat ready for dinner and this was the look that Luka (the dog) gave me thinking that I might throw a piece his way. I created an inky background using distress inks and then over stamped around the edges with a star swirl stamp from Stamping Up and an ink pad with luminous ink however it did not show up in the photo very well. I stamped the dog on a smaller piece of card and then coloured him with Aqua pens before cutting him out with the matching die.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Perfectly Created Chaos

There is a new challenge on the block over on the Perfectly Created Chaos blog hosted by Dori. This is my second entry into the challenge, my last one being 21 Again. For this card I have used From Land To Sea by Stampin Up, I started by colouring my white card with blue distress ink then in the same colour over stamping with two of the stamps from the set, the ships wheel and the tentacles from the jelly fish. Then in black I stamped two turtles and coloured these using a couple of shades of green pencils. I then added the sentiment in the corner and then ran the black ink pad around the outside edge of the page before mounting onto a 6x6 card blank.

Thank for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Snippets Time Again

After all the lovely weather we have been having lately, yesterday certainly let us know that there is still some rain there. A perfect day for crafting, which is exactly what I did do with 3 friends. We are all Stampin Up demonstrators (although I do it just for myself) so we got together with stamp sets from the current catalogue and just played. My card today is the result of this play, I have used stamps from three different sets to achieve this card. I used the mountains from In The Meadow, the beehive from Shooting Star (this I made into an igloo by covering with glitter) and lastly the wonderful Eskimo from the Cookie Cutter Christmas set. As I used scraps for the Igloo and the Eskimo I can enter this into this weeks Pixie's Snippets Playground challenge.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

One For The Boys at Stamping Sensations

I was lucky enough to have my card picked as the winner for the July challenge over on Stamping Sensations. So I have been asked to be the Guest on this months challenge which is One For The Boys. For my card I have used Stampin Up's One Wild Ride, it was made with my son in mind as he loves motorbikes and has owned 3-4 so far. I started by making the wood grain effect background (tutorial can be found here), then when it was dry I over stamped using some of the background stamps from the set. I over stamped the base card, again using the background stamps from the set then stamped the bike and the sentiment and embossed with black embossing powder. I cut out the image and the sentiment and lightly dusted with my ink dusters with a matching ink. The ladies on the DT have made some beautiful cards for your inspiration this month I do hope that you will pop over and take a look.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Scene Card With Snippets

I had a lovely day on Saturday while hubby was out playing golf with the guys. This is one of the cards that I made. I have a box sat on my worktop that is overflowing with off cuts and scraps left over from other card projects, while rummaging through it I found I had enough white card to stamp this scene out. I have used a stamp set from Stampin Up called Moon Lake and I also used the mountains from another Stampin Up set called In The Meadow. I coloured it in using Spectrum Noir pencils and found some brown card in the box for the matting, I also had a pack of A6 cards in the cupboard, perfect to finish it off.

I would like to enter this into the challenge over at Pixie's Snippet's Playground.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Beautiful Day

Back again this time with another Altenew stamped card, using the Beautiful Day set. Again this is a CAS card something I find so hard normally. I used just two ink pads, Rich Razzleberry and Mossy Meadow from Stampin Up. The sentiment was from the same stamp set and I married the colour of ink with a burgundy matting then onto a 6x6 card blank. I must admit to loving these Altenew stamps and have just taken delivery of two new sets.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Altenew Stamps

Well so far I've had an enjoyable weekend crafting away all on my own. Today my mum has come for the day, we may get some crafting done between chatting and watching Andy Murray hopefully win Wimbledon later. This card I've made with the current challenge over on the Stamping Sensations blog, which is Anything Goes with Stamps and Ribbons. In April at the Ally Pally show I bought some Altenew stamps and this is the first chance that I've had to get them out for a play. I love the results of stamping with the same colour to get the effects of shading. The ink pad that I used was from Stampin Up called Melon Mambo, and for the leaves I used Mossy Meadow also from Stampin Up. The sentiment is from the Birthday Blossoms set. I've added an organza ribbon and mounted onto some matching card.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Fun With Friends

I thought I would share with you how I spent the day yesterday. I had a few friends round for a craft play day, and Elaine provided all of the goodies to play with from the new Stampin Up Catalogue (Elaine is standing at the back trying not to look at the camera). We had a great day, starting at 9.30 and crafting right through until 4.30.

 Below are my results of the day. First we used the Floral Phrases stamp set and the detailed floral dies which work so well together. Then we played with the Jars of Love set of stamps with the Everyday Jars Dies. I will admit that the middle card was made using the left over jar shape from the card with flowers but rather than the Stampin up stamps I used Lavinia stamps.

I think I can safely say that we all had a great day. Thank you Elaine.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

It's Been A While

Well my travelling is over for the next couple of months, we returned from Williamsburg, Virginia in the US last Thursday and hit the ground running.  As well as being Fathers day on the Sunday it was also our Grandsons Christening, I'm glad to say that everything went well on the day. Which is more than I can say for my PC, I have windows 10 and have got on very well with it despite reading about other peoples problems. That was until Saturday when it lost all of my apps and refused to work properly. Luckily I have a very tech savvy friend who has been able to sort it out for me, so fingers crossed it continues to behave.

My card that I'm showing you today is for my Father-in-law to give to our Great nephew next week on his 18th Birthday (mine is still a work in progress). I made it using stamps from Brett Weldele which I brought from Art From The Heart called called Dandy Robot (they have a large selection of his stamps here). I also used Stampin Up's Gorgeous Grunge and Timeless Textures to create the background. I started with a blank piece of white card and coloured the background with Broken China distress ink and then using various other colours of blue in distress inks over stamped. I then stamped my main images in Blueprint Sketch DI and coloured by dragging the colour out with a damp paintbrush. Then in MCS I made a further backing sheet with Congratulations on your 18th Birthday to the size I require to pop around the main topper. Again I coloured with Broken China DI before putting everything together on an 8x8 card blank.

I'm off now to finish the card that we will be sending, I hope to show you on another day, but before I go I would like to enter this into the Alphabet Challenge which at the moment is  I for inking up.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and for leaving your comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Another Anniversary Card

I have another Anniversary at the end of the month that I needed to make a card for, and as it was wet and windy here (like the whole of the UK) yesterday I got on and made it. I used some of the die cut shapes that I found whilst my Craft Room was upside down last year and a 6x6 white card blank. I coloured the white base shape with distress inks in Mustard Seed, Wild Honey and Bard Door and blending tools. Then stamped using Tuxedo Black using Stampin Ups World Of Dreams set. Using a matching shape in silver mirri card I mounted my topper, using a smaller matching shape I stamped the sentiment using a Lili Of the Valley stamp and mounted. Using the ink that was left on the blending tools I inked the base card and also the sentiment before popping everything together. This months challenge over on the Stamping Sensations blog is Anything goes, so I shall enter this in to the challenge.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Heartfelt Flowers and Canvas

First of all let me say a big thank you to those of you who left their good wishes on my last post. Mum and Andrew are now back at home trying to get into some sort of routine (I remember it well), I'm sure that it won't take to long. Today I would like to show you this canvas that I have been working on over the last couple of weeks. It's for a workshop that my crafting buddy Elaine and I are going to run in August. The letters on the background are texture paste through a stencil made on the Scan-n-cut, then when dry and painted with gesso and was sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists. I stamped very lightly and randomly over the canvas with a text stamp when the spray was dry. Then made some flowers using Heartfelt Creations Sun Kissed Fleur, Classic Leaf and Open Leaf stamp and die sets, coloured with aqua pencils and stuck on with glue gel. The butterflies are from a set from Stampin Up.  I've really enjoyed making this canvas and I hope that the ladies that come along to the workshop enjoy making it too.

I'm going to enter this into the challenge over on the Love To Create blog which wants Anything Mixed Media/Creative/Inky Goes...

Thanks for taking to time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Craft A Scene - Week 3 - Autumn Splendour

After being a few hours late with my post last time for the Craft A Scene challenge blog, I thought I had better be on time this week. I started my card with some white card stock and coloured the bottom with a green distress ink and the top with an Orange and yellow. The stamped some trees in the background of my scene, these were from Stampin Up, Lovely As A Tree set.  These I coloured with distress markers to give the appearance of autumn leave on the trees and the ground underneath. Also from the same set are the oak leaves which I stamped into each of the bottom corners and again coloured with distress markers. The walking figures are from Stampscapes, the birds from one of the Hobby Art sets and the sentiment also from Stampscapes. I then ran a black marker pen around the outside of the card to give the appearance that it had been matted before popping the finished scene onto a 6x6 craft card base. I do hope that you have time to pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the wonderful cards the DT has made for your inspiration this week.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.
I'm off now to play with my new goodies that I bought at Ally Pally yesterday.

Sue

Craft A Scene - Week 3 - Include A Four Legged Animal

Were onto week 3 over on the Craft A Scene blog, and we're still asking to see you scenes with a four legged animal. For my card this week I've used mostly stamps from Stampscapes, the moose is from Stampin Up. I started by stamping the boulders and the moose, masking them off then adding the trees and grasses. With brushes I added the colour to the sky and to the ground, I then coloured the trees and grasses with a piece of cut and dry foam. The moose was coloured with pencils, and the boulder promarkers. Finally I finished by adding the walker and dog, the birds in the sky and the sentiment which is also from stampin up. I hope that you can take the time to pop over to the blog and take a look at the cards the DT have made for your inspiration.

Thanks for taking the time to look, and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

30th Birthday Cards

Today I thought I would show you the 3 different cards that I had to make for my Daughters 30th Birthday today. All are 8x8 card bases, the first was made using this gorgeous large swallowtailed butterfly stamp from Stampin Up (I just had to have it). I stamped it and then embossed with white embossing powder, then coloured over the top using a stylus tool and Adirondack ink pads. I wiped away the ink that settled on the top of the white embossing, and then cut out. The backing paper was a download from Chocolate Baroque, which I took into MCS to lighten the colour, after cutting it to size I went around the outside of the page using Storm Adirondack ink. A Martha Stewart punch was used for the fancy panel, which I placed some wide lace under. The sentiment was made on the PC and again coloured with the Storm ink. The corners are from a Marianne Die.

The second card from my Son to his Sister was made using the Fabulous Shoes CD from Katy Sue, with art work from Sandra Wright. When my Daughter first saw this CD she fell in love with it, so it was the obvious choice to use.

Finally the last card from my Father-in-law was again using a Katy Sue CD, with art work by Sandra Wright, but this time it's the new Flights of Fantasy CD. The flowers used on the last two cards are made using a crealies die, also the leaves. The corners on the last card are a new Marianne corner die.

We're off out for a meal tonight with my Daughter and her partner, she hasn't seen the cards yet. It's a good job I know that she won't look at my blog before we meet up.

My next post will be a scheduled one, as this weekend I'm attending two workshops, held by the talented Eileen Godwin, of Eileen's Crafty Zone. The first is a card based workshop, which I should have attended earlier this summer, but it was the weekend my Mother-in-law passed away. And the second is the following day and more journal based, so I hope to have plenty to show you when I get back.

Thanks for taking the time to look, and you kind comment which are always appreciated.

Sue