Catherine Pooler die set

Dinosaur Birthday

Hello there. The Alphabet Challenge has reached the letter ‘O’ , and the theme chosen by Helen is ‘Outdoors’. Here is my take on ‘outdoors’:

I decided to create a scene using Clearly Besotted stamps.

I stamped the background scene first, then stamped it again on some masking paper, masked it off, and ink blended the blue sky. I did consider some splatters and some stars – but decided to leave the blue clear clear.

As this was drying, I stamped and coloured the dinosaurs, and let my Scan-n-cut do it’s work – I’m not a fussy cutter when it comes to images like this, and the scan-n-cut does a great job – if I set it up right and stick down the card properly (my mat is a little less tacky than I would like)!

I then die cut the background panel with a Catherine Pooler die, stuck it down to a card base, stamped the sentiment, and then added my two little creatures.

I hope you are able to join us, it would be great to see what your interpretation of the theme ‘Outdoors’ is….. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

The Sisterhood Of Crafters – Happy Birthday

Addicted To Stamps and More – make your mark

Seize The Birthday – Birthday – option to use stencils (option not taken)

Avenue 613 – anything goes

Simply Merry Christmas

Hi there everyone. There is a new challenge starting at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge, and – as always – the theme is anything goes as long as it’s Christmas. Here is my DT card:

I used some Catherine Pooler stamps and inks to create the background snowflake effect, along with a Catherine Pooler ‘Merry Christmas‘ die cut sentiment.

I added some Tonic Nuvo Crystal drops in red and gold – wherever I could…..I just couldn’t stop myself.

I find I enjoy creating my own backgrounds with stamping smaller images, and this set – from at least a year ago – has some lovely images in it. It may even be a couple of years ago – but I still like to explore my older stash, and give them some love.

I hope you can come along and join us in this challenge – I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – traditional Christmas

Allsorts Challenge – snowmen and/or snowflakes

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – atg Christmas

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – atg Christmas

Always Fun Challenges – snowflakes

Floral contrast

Hi there. I have a clean and simple card to share today for the current challenge at Addicted to CAS:

The theme for this challenge is ‘contrast’, and my mind turned to black and white instead of colours.

I have this stamp set from Uniko from their newest release, but bought a few weeks earlier at the Stamping Retreat. I have been wanting to create some cards with this set, and when I saw the current challenge at Addicted to CAS I thought this was a perfect opportunity.

The stem, flower head, and leaves are individual stamps, placed together as you see. The white on black card is embossed using WOW! embossing powder, and the black flower is using Versafine to obtain a crisp image. The sentiment is from a Catherine Pooler stamp set.

I’ll not have much time for crafting over the next few days, but if I create something – I am sure you will be the first to know. 🙂

Jingle Bells

Hello everyone, and welcome to the start of another challenge at ABC Christmas Challenge. This time, the themes are ‘J’ for Jingle, and/or ‘K’ for kids.

I went with the Jingle theme to create this card:

I knew I wanted to use the Altenew ‘Bells and Bows‘ stamp set, which is so versatile, and used a newer set of brown Altenew inks. I stamped the images over a piece of white Crafters Companion Neenah card stock, and die cut that piece with a Catherine Pooler die – I love using that ‘postage’ effect around the die.

I then took the jingle bells word dies from X-cut, and cut them out several times with a brown card stock, then matted a black layer on top, slightly off-set, to give some dimension and shadow – but the shadow being brown this time:

I hope you can come and join us this challenge, and the Design Team have some fabulous inspiration for you. I hope to see you there.

Ribbon Trim Toucan card

Hi there everyone. I have a card to share with you today for my first challenge as member of the Card4Galz Design Team. This challenge is run every 2 weeks and has a theme for each challenge. This new challenge is to use ribbon or lace trim.

Now – I don’t tend to make cards with ribbon or lace, so it was a challenge to me – but I managed! I actually had several ideas, and came to this card:

I used the new Catherine Pooler stamp and die sets, and the Catherine Pooler designer paper. The front of these paper packs come with a list of the inks which matched – such a good idea – so I picked the paper I wanted, went through my stack of inks – and stamped the images out.

After die cutting them with the matching dies, I looked how to arrange them. I turned to Lawn Fawn for their stitched circles, as I wanted a template to arrange the flowers – almost like a wreath.

Now to the ribbon………I didn’t have any that matched, but I remember a technique on one of Catherine Pooler’s videos, where she ran the ink pad along a plain white ribbon – and it coloured the ribbon! So I did that, and ended up with matching ribbon in the three colours I had stamped the images with.

I hope you can join us at Cardz4Galz and the ribbon or lace challenge this week. I look forward to seeing you there. 🙂

Vintage Cut Rose

Hello there, everyone. I have a couple of cards to share with you today, with the only difference between the two is the colour of the embossing, and the colour of the flower itself:

A little close-up of the gold embossing:

I used a new stamp set to me, the Thirsty Brush and Co ‘Vintage Cut Rose‘. I didn’t know it was a rose when I did it, but looked at the web site for the name of the stamp set when putting this post together.

I wanted to play with my water-colours so I stamped and embossed the image – one gold and one black – then took my Altenew water-colour pan set and played.

I didn’t want the flower colours to be one colour, so I did the blue and purple for one flower, and red, orange and yellow for the other. The leaves are a combination of three greens – I think – but I was just playing.

Previously I have been scared about mixing colours to not get brown (!!) Still playing and practising…………..

The panel is die-cut with one of my favourite Catherine Pooler die sets, and the background paper on each is from my stash of Stampin Up DSP.

I shall be entering one of these cards into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – spring mood board

Seize the Birthday – anything goes birthday

Krafty Chicks Challenge – flowers

Addicted to Stamps and More – make your mark

Quick CAS

Hi there. I have a card to share inspired by a couple of challenges:

I mentioned the other day about a new delivery from Stampin Up, and this is the marvelous 3D embossing folder – plainly and simply embossed in white card, after die-cutting the rectangle with a Catherine Pooler die.

The sentiment is from the other new delivery I had the other day from Catherine Pooler – the colours chosen from my Altenew inks – as I used them for my ‘Ocean’ card the other day and they were still sat next to my craft mat.

The first challenge I will be entering, is from Just Us Girls – challenging you to use an embossing folder………

The second challenge is from AAA Cards, challenging you to make a CAS card in ‘minutes’, with the optional twist of dry embossing.

This card – I knew what I wanted to do – took me just under 15 minutes:

I thought I had everything out and ready – but spent a minute realising that my Gemini Junior wouldn’t take the embossing folder at all – and I fiddled for a while trying it, with different layers, but then resorted to my Big Shot Pro – because I knew that would take anything!

Another minute was wasted as I decided to add some stamped and die-cut hearts from the same Catherine Pooler stamp set – but then decided not to as I didn’t like how they turned out.

The key to speed like this is planning………… I think this is the quickest card I have put together – and I am really, really liking this embossing folder……..

AAA Cards

“Just Us Girls” Challenge

Copic Peony

Hello there. I decided to have a go at Copic colouring again for this beautiful stamp set from Uniko – the Pure Florals Peony:

I enjoyed colouring this image so much – strange for me to actually enjoy colouring – so I did another one:

I even managed to grab some fresh air to take the photos – I do miss going outside to photograph my cards. It makes such a difference.

The colours for this image was from the current challenge at Just Us Girls – yellow, purple, teal; the layout is for the current challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches; and Copic colouring to enter the current challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More, where they invite you to ‘make your mark’.

I hope you are having a fabulous day, (perhaps recovering from St Patrick’s Day), but I am waiting for our St George’s Day on 23rd April………..

🙂 🙂

Find Beauty in the Simple Things

Hello again. Another session in my craft room today. I have one card I am still working on, and this card:

We’ve had some sun here in the UK for the past few days – quite warm during those sunny spells – and I managed to take a photo where I prefer to – in the sun in the back garden.

This card is using a stamp set from Uniko – currently having free world-wide shipping on orders over £30!! Wow!! (I believe that ends at 8am GMT 25/02/19) Seeing that offer, gave me the idea to use one of Bev’s stamps for this card.

The colour scheme is for the current challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches – Pear Pizzazz, So Saffron and Daffodil Delight; the layout is for the current challenge at AAA Cards – CAS one corner with optional twist of ‘music‘ – obviously not following the optional twist – and Addicted to Stamps and More, who are looking for a CAS card.

Now – back to try and finish my other card, currently drying following some water-colouring…………. 🙂

A winter Wonderland

Hello everyone. An early posting as I am excited to be the visiting librarian for the new Library Challenge beginning today.

Marina asked for some book suggestions from people who played in this challenge previously, and this was one of my suggestions. I was supremely excited when she asked if I wanted to be the ‘visiting librarian’ and create a card for this challenge, and I very gladly accepted – then spent the next couple of weeks grappling with it! You’d think it would be easy, wouldn’t you?

Here is the book cover:

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I toyed with a door in the middle of tress, but then found my Heffy Doodle ‘Ad-roar-able lions‘ stamp set and used one of those lions:

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The base is glimmer card, with an extra piece I used to colour blue using Distress Oxides – who knew that would work!! – and die cut the middle with an MFT tag die to represent the doorway.

The lion is welcoming you through the doorway into the winter wonderland, where I placed a Christmas tree. Again, my thoughts turned to more trees, a variety of trees, but – you know – I kinda like the simplicity of this card. It looks like fun to me. It was certainly fun creating it. 🙂

I hope you join Marina and I for the challenge, and I look forward to seeing what you create with this marvelous theme.

Best wishes to you all. 🙂

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