Rainy Day Hippos

Hello. I have a slimline card to share for the new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge, and the new theme of ‘R’ for Rainbow:

I enjoyed making this card, though there are a lot of elements to it.

I began by stamping the hippo, duck and puddle images from Clearly Besotted, coloured with Copics, and used the matching die set to cut them out. I know this is an older stamp set, as Clearly Besotted don’t produce matching dies any more….

The base card is using Concord & 9th cardstock to match the colours of the Copics I used, and the white layer is scalloped circles from Pinkfresh Studio.

I thought the area behind each window was a little too plain, so I used a matching ink colour and an umbrella stencil from Clearly Besotted to create a muted background.

All stuck down as you see – and some matching little sequins added – they were just kinda sitting there on my craft desk – I think I have a thing for teal/aqua colours………

The sentiment is from the same stamp set – adding the ‘rainbow’ theme to the card, even though now picture of rainbows – I thought out of the box…!

I hope you can come and join us for this challenge with your ‘rainbow’ themed creations – I look forward to seeing what you create. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Polkadoodles Challenge – week 48 – anything goes

Crafty Sentiments Designs anything goes (colouring)

Aud Sentiments anything goes with a sentiment

2 Crafty Critter Crazies anything goes with critters

A perfect Time To Craft anything goes

Display our badge...

OUR BANNER FOR YOUR blogs
Participation Badge

ABC Christmas Challenge Y and Z

Hello. A new challenge is beginning at ABC Christmas Challenge. There were almost 300 entries for the last challenge, from which I had to choose only a few winners (very, very difficult), and I hope you can return for this new challenge.

This time we want to see your ‘Y’ Christmas as ‘Your Favourite Things‘, and/or your ‘Z‘ Christmas creations with ‘ZZZZZ – A Sleeping Image’. I chose a sleeping image:

I have been wanting to colour this image for ages, and finally got around to doing it.

Once stamped onto Make It Colour Blending card stock in Gina K amalgam ink, I used a range of Copics to colour and shade as you see.

I used a sentiment from a Clearly Besotted stamp set – ‘Drink and be Merry’ – adding as a banner across the lower third. Why did I place it there – I certainly hear you asking – because I went out the line of the tail of the ribbon with my red Copic – no going back from that…….so it had to be covered up………

I hope you can come and join us in this next challenge and I hope to see you there. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Digi Choosday Challengeanything goes

Jan’s digi stamps challenge anything goes

Aud Sentiments Challenge anything goes with a sentiment

Colour Crazy Challenge – anything goes with colouring

Santa Snowy Scene

Hello. As the weather here is grey and rainy, I have spent some time in my craft room. Here is the card:

This card used stamp sets from several companies, some masking, and generally some forward planning on my part. It’s a good job I had nothing better to do.

Some other views:

sorry for the blurry sign :)

I decided to do another slimline card – well, DL for us – I ordered some DL card bases so started with that. The upper row of trees is from Mama Elephant, and as this row is only wide enough for a smaller card, I stamped once on one end, then again on the other end – then masked some trees off and stamped to cover the middle………I filled in a tiny little gap with an artliner.

Then – the next row of trees using a Lawn Fawn stamp set – one side, then the other – but these were a little longer, so I only stamped twice – and filled in the gap with the artliner, knowing my Santa would be there at the end.

The images from MFT – stamped, coloured and die cut out. Once placed down, there were some gaps, so I stamped, coloured, and cut some more little trees from the Lawn Fawn set – all stuck down as you see.

Some Copic BG00 for some snowy hillsides. Then I remembered that the colours for the Color Throwdown Challenge needed some silver….hmmm… do I go with some glitter, a silver sentiment – but where to put it as I liked the scene as it was and didn’t want to cover much of it up…..

How about a banner that Santa would hold? No – would cover the trees…

How about a signpost? Now then – I went with that one – searched through the Color My Life app – there we are…..but the signpost when stamped has snow on it and a sentiment wouldn’t fit……

So – I coloured a piece of card in brown – a neutral allowed colour – stamped the sign post alongside it – die cut the sign post – coloured the post itself, then cut out the stamped and silver heat embossed sentiment – stuck it on top of the signpost…….hey presto!

Phew…….!

Then I decided to add some white gel pen highlights to some images – but stayed away from adding glitter or glimmer – I just didn’t want to make any mistakes now the card was together. This time – I knew when to stop!

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdownred, green, aqua, silver

Watercooler Challenge occasions

Just Add Inksomething beginning with ‘S’ – Santa, snow,

Krafty ChicksOccasions

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challengeatg Christmas – option things with wings (not taken)

Right Click to Save
Please feel free to copy to your sidebar

Panda Snow Day

Hello. It’s been a few days since my last post, but work and loss of upstairs heating – where my craft room is – has interfered a little. The heating was fixed yesterday, so I was able to go and craft to create this little Panda snow scene:

I can tell Royal Mail is struggling with deliveries again, as I usually receive items from Seven Hills Crafts within 2 days of ordering – but it has taken almost a week……….now I have them, the heating was fixed – so off I went.

I stamped the Panda images with Gina K Amalgam ink, and coloured with Copics to match the colours from the current Color Throwdown Challenges.

The background hillsides are from Lawn Fawn – stamped, coloured, then die cut to create a couple of snowy hillsides.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted, and the cream card for the top area is a textured cream card, so I didn’t feel the need to add anything to that area.

I added some glitter to the hills and trees, and some stickles to the pom-poms on the hats. You can blame Jenn Shurkus for that! I did the virtual craft retreat last weekend – two full days of craftiness. So even though my kit hadn’t arrived to participate – I still watched all weekend and did some other crafty stuff – but the take-away message from that weekend?

Glitter!

Use glitter – everywhere (and it certainly gets everywhere) so until I manage to watch the replay and go through the kit now it’s arrived – I’m glittering, and using glittery stuff……..

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday ChallengeHappy Holidays

Color Throwdownpurple, aqua/mint, cream

Aud Sentiments Christmas/Winter Animals and a sentiment

Trimmies Craft ChallengeChristmas

Arty Stamper ChallengeCritters

Please take  our badge for your blog!
Share the Fun!

Pawfect Christmas

Hi there. Another challenge has started at Cardz 4 Galz and it’s my time to host. I chose the theme of ‘Cute Christmas’. Here is my card:

I chose a couple of stamp sets from Clearly Besotted and a little masking of the dog to get him curled up in front of the fire. The mantlepiece snow-globe and snowman were also added from the scene stamp set.

Once stamped, coloured with Copics, and using a stitched rectangle to cut the panel out.

I think the two background papers are also from Clearly Besotted, usually as part of their release bundle – and they matched the colours I used to colour – not planned at all!

There are some really cute Christmas cards from the Design Team, and I hope you will check them out – and come and join us. I look forward to seeing what your Cute Christmas creations will be. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Daring Cardmakers feature gifts

Colour Crazy Challengeweek 44 – atg with colouring

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge atg Christmas

A Bit More Time To Craftatg

Animal friends Challenge at least one dog or cat

Please feel free to copy to your sidebar
Looking for latest Challenge Here Click Badge Below
Button zum Mitnehmen

CAS Santa

I received this stamp and die set from Simon Says Stamp, and had a little play this morning:

To say this card looks very CAS – it took me ages – again!

The first hurdle was when I stamped the beard – I managed to get ink in the middle of the beard from using a large ink pad on the large stamp – so I stamped again with an ink cube – much better. Otherwise, I would probably have gone and cut out the middle of this stamp – which I hate doing.

Then I coloured the beard in aqua Copics – didn’t look right – though I have saved it just in case……..so I stamped the beard again – the third time now – and decided it looked good with no colouring.

The hat was stamped and coloured with Copics – two red tones only – it’s quite a large area to cover, and I decided just two shades would work alright.

I then stamped and heat embossed the glasses in silver – again – it didn’t look right. So I stamped and heat embossed with black – blinking heck it still didn’t look right.

Finally – stamped in black – that’s it – plain black ink. Now I liked it…….

I tried the aqua background – Concord & 9th Oceanside card stock – actually liked the look of that. I toyed with stencilling some stars, dry embossing it – but decided it looked just fine as it was……one thing went right straight away, anyway!

The word ‘Ho’ stamped three times at an angle to inject more frivolity – and heat embossed with silver. Then I went hunting for some silver sequins, and also found some aqua sequins – so I added both colours as you see.

As this card base is 5 x 7 inches – one of my favourites when not doing slimline cards – I spread out my Santa a little to cover……now he looks like an egg-head……..but I’m calling the whole card fun. I might even make some more………….now I know what I like!

So – trials and tribulations of a morning crafting. I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdownaqua, red, silver

TTCRD – anything goes

Craft Rocket ChallengeChristmas/Winter

Merry Little Christmas Challenge anything goes Christmas

GRAB OUR BADGE
Blog Badge
SPREAD THE MERRY LITTLE LOVE AND GRAB A BADGE!

Penguin Tags

Hello once again. There is a new challenge at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge, and as I’ve got quite a Christmas card stash going on from creating all year, I turned my thoughts to tags. As the challenge is anything goes Christmas – I created these penguin tags:

I was inspired to make these penguin tags after watching a YouTube video from Jamie Magrich and seeing what she did with the Stampin Up ‘Menagerie Mix-up‘ stamp and die set. I had a lot of fun making these little penguins.

I wanted to create a little scene behind them, so I stamped and die cut the Lawn Fawn ‘Over The Mountain’ scene – not colouring them in as I wanted the penguins to stand out.

I don’t make many tags, and struggle with such tiny projects – but I am having a go this year – seeing as how we can’t go out and do anything – I have more crafty time to experiment.

I added a variety of shabby ribbons from my stash – I have a lot of different colours of these shabby ribbons – loving the creases and colours in them, and some patterned paper from Clearly Besotted to mimic snow……I know it’s red – but artistic license at play here!

I hope you can come and join us with your ‘anything goes Christmas’ makes. I look forward to seeing you in our gallery.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Creative Fingers Challengeanything goes

Crafty Catz weekly challengeanything goes – option party time not taken

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge anything goes Christmas

Crimbo Crackers Challengeanything goes Christmas

Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper Challengeanything goes using patterned paper

Crafty Catz Challenge Blog Badge
Please feel free to copy to your sidebar
A new challenge every Saturday

Balloon Christmas

Hello. I have been playing with my new stamps from Clearly Besotted – their November release. I just don’t know how they come up with such cute images/stamps time and time again. I can never resist…..here is my card:

Once I had stamped the images I wanted to use, and as Clearly Besotted don’t have matching dies for their stamps, I used my Scan’n’cut. I don’t use this machine often enough, and to cut out images I have already coloured is something I am scared of……..

I watched quite a few YouTube videos to get some hints and tips, and the most informative and helpful was from ‘Papered Chef’ – she has loads and loads of videos which certainly helped me sort out how to do this, add a little outline to each image – and a pencil to ‘close-in’ the images, and draw around some of the tiny pieces – like the balloon strings.

I am so pleased it all worked out – but I did cut them first and colour them afterwards- just in case…………..which ended up being quite fiddly – but I coped! :)

I even cut the two matted layers with it too – getting the sizes one slightly smaller than the other to make the size I wanted – and even rounded corners!

This has certainly given me the confidence to use this machine more for images without matching dies – and may even save me a small fortune!

I was going to doodle in the balloon string to attach all the little animals, but I embossed the top piece of card first so I searched for the red glittery twine I knew I had somewhere – and trailed it around each of the animals as you see.

Some glitter pen to the balloons, some white gel pen to the images – then stamped the ‘Ho Ho Ho’.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – green, brown, orange, red

CAS on SundayCAS Christmas

CAS(E) This Sketchsketch

Animals Friends Challengeat least one cat or dog (the cat is the last in the trail of animals)

Merry Little Christmas Challengeanything goes Christmas

For your blog
Button zum Mitnehmen
SPREAD THE MERRY LITTLE LOVE AND GRAB A BADGE!

A Mice Time To Party

Hello everyone. The Alphabet Challenge is celebrating 10 years of challenges – 10 years!!!!! I’m a veritable new-comer to this challenge – only being around on the DT since August 2019 – but I’m certainly in the mood for celebrating.

As we have reached the letter ‘P’, we want to see your ‘Party’ themed creations. Here is my card:

I seem to be stuck in the slim line, die-cutting, Copic colouring, scene creating genre – but I do like creating these types of cards. There is so much room to play with.

Using MFT ‘It’s A Mice Time’ stamps and matching dies, coloured in Copics – I knew I wanted to use ALL the images from this set – I then turned to creating the scene. I used a lot of die-sets from Mama Elephant and Lawn Fawn – and it took me quite a while to figure things out – but here we have it.

I am quite pleased with the end product – a joyful celebration to be had.

Hopefully, at some time in the near future we can all celebrate together – fingers crossed!

Come along and celebrate with us – there’s a lot of party themed creations from the Design team – I look forward to seeing what you create in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Lil red Wagon colouring

2 Crafty Critter Craziesatg with animals

Crafty Animals Challengeanything goes with animals

Crafty Creations Challengeanything goes

Fab ‘N’ Funky Challengeanything but Christmas


ABC Christmas Challenge – ‘W’ and ‘X’

Hello there. I am hosting the new challenge at ABC Christmas Challenge for the letters ‘W’ and ‘X’. The theme chosen for these letters are ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘Xtra Special’.

I have a prize on offer for the winner – chosen by a random generator – so every entry has a chance to win:

Thirsty Brush and Co – stamp and die set – Home For Christmas

You can enter as many times as you like – as long as you follow the winter/Christmas holidays or festivals – and you have followed the theme for the current letters.

Here are my cards:

Winter Wonderland
Xtra Special

Both of these cards are a combination of ink-blending, die-cutting and adding glittery stuff, with the second card also including some Copic colouring.

The Winter Wonderland card is utilising the new die set from Tim Holtz – Colorize Holiday Village – but changing the colour of my village to two shades of red instead of brown – I wanted a brighter look to the card. I did have to watch YouTube to figure out what to glue where – and in what order!

I added some mountains behind the village and an ink blended sky – which actually came about quite by mistake……. I did the ink blending, then used a Lawn Fawn stencil and some glitter paste to try and create some stars – but when I took the stencil up it moved and scraped along the sky. I tried to take the glitter paste up with a spatula – but it just swept the glitter across the sky………my idea of a happy accident. A very glittery sky now, with the distress inks showing some of the stars anyway. Oh yeah!

The Xtra Special card was also ink blending, but with Distress Oxides – two red colours and Wilted Violet along the edges to darken them. I liked the look of the violet so much, I used that as the main colour for my characters. Purple penguin and bird anyone!

I decided to add some white acrylic splatter to the background, and then also added some white gel pen into the areas which I thought looked a little open.

There is some glitter and sparkle on this card too – once I have the stuff out then I’m gonna use ’em! Nuvo drops on all the itsy bitsy tiny tree lights, sparkle pen on the other baubles and the snow on the lodge – oh, and the pompoms on the hats too.

I hope you can come and join us – it’s getting closer to the time when we have to think about what Christmas cards we have and also think about sending them cards out…….I look forward to seeing you in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Winter wonderland card:

Aud Sentiments anything goes with a sentiment

Christmas 24 ChallengeChristmas Landscape

Merry Little Christmas Challengeanything goes Christmas

Xtra Special Card:

Jingle Belles RockChristmas and Creatures

Color Crazy Challenge week 43 – anything goes colouring

2 Crafty Critter Craziesanything goes with critters

Crafty Animals Challengeanything goes with animals

Christmas Cards All Year Roundfor or with family or friends