Hanging About - Sugar Pea Super Guest Designer #2

I am terrible at sending birthday cards, so I tend to focus on cards I can send out at any time of the year. The Chunky Monkey set is very versatile with different cute images and perfect for birthdays and all year round cards.

Do you know the story of Day Monkey, Night Monkey by Julia Donaldson? My youngest has it and it was her favourite book for ages. She had two little monkeys that she took to bed every night for weeks, so as soon as I saw these monkeys I had to colour them the same. It's such a sweet story for bedtime reading.

I stamped them on Copic friendly cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured them in with my Copics, one light, one dark. I then fussy cut them out, cutting between the two tails so I could cut all the white away.

I stamped the branch onto another piece of Copic cardstock and coloured with my Copic markers. I then cut around the branch, and you could partially die cut the circle with your Zig Zag Stitched Circles as it will just leave the aperture and not the stitching.

I took an A2 (US) white card blank and marked lightly on it where the aperture would be and masked a rectangle around it. I then inked the area in distress inks to make a sunset scene.

I die cut the branch panel out with the scalloped die from the SugarCut - Birthday Journal Card and stamped the sentiment from the Chunky Monkey set at the bottom. 

All I then needed to do was assemble it. I used foam tape to place the branch panel on top of the card blank and very gently glued the monkey tails over the branch and applied a little glue behind the dark brown monkey for security.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Happy Crafting :) 

Home - Sugar Pea Super Guest Designer Post #1 - VIDEO

Hi Everyone, I'm absolutely thrilled to be Guest Designing for Sugar Pea Designs over the next three months. I've been a fan of theirs since I started crafting and the first thing I bought was the Home Sweet Home SugarCut and so I thought it would be nice to start my term by showcasing this. I have used it quite a number of times, making it one of my most used dies. 

I have a video to accompany this post, which you can watch here, or over on my You Tube channel.

I took an A5 (UK sized) piece of Bristol Smooth cardstock and cut it in half and started inking up a galaxy background with some bright distress inks. In between the bright splotches I added some Black Soot. This highlights the bright spots and makes it into the galaxy. I need some more practice using the Bristol Smooth I think, as it is so smooth I felt it didn't blend as well as I'd like.

I then took some white gouache and mixed some up with water to make splatter and added it on top of the panel, along with some Clear Sparkle Pen.

Then I took some white card stock and die cut out the SugarCut Home Sweet Home and the SugarCut Homescape. I was very careful to remember to keep hold of the little windows and the heart and the piece between the M and E! I then stamped the sentiment from the Sweet Sentiments - Home set.

I cut all the pieces down to fit an A2 (US) card base and adhered the galaxy background. I then popped up the die cut pieces with some foam tape, adding in the little die cut out pieces with some multi medium matte.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. I'll be back again soon with more SugarPea inspiration. Happy Crafting!

Love Nature

Do you ever wonder why you spend so much on craft supplies, especially colouring media, when you can use your children's pens and get really great results?

A while ago to entertain the kiddies one day after school we got out their blow pens and I decided to join them with my own stencils and I used this gorgeous one from Simon Says Stamp that I got some time ago and just haven't used to its full potential. 

While they were occupied using pink, purple and orange on balloons, I pinched three colours, two green and a yellow, and with just a basic white card blank I used my stencil and blew gently to create the pattern. You do have to blow fairly gently and steadily, something the children still have to work on.

With my Lawn Fawn Love die and some scrap green card I had, I die cut three and layered them up to get some dimension. I added the 'nature' from my SSS One With Nature set with some VersaFine Onyx Black before placing the 'Love' above.

Simple and yet so effective. It won't put me off buying Copics, but I may play with more of my kids supplies too! I would recommend washing your Blow Pens out after use - especially if you've had other children using them too. They do store quite a lot of moisture!

Happy Crafting Everyone :)

Birthday Guinea Pigs - with exciting news!

It was my sister's birthday recently and I couldn't resist reminding her of one of our little pets from when we were growing up. We had two guinea pigs, one called Gnipper (after Dennis the Menace's dog), who lived for 6 years and then Pip who sadly only lived for 2. We loved those little piggies. Both Abyssinians, but Gnipper was the ginger, white and brown one with the tufty hair and the one I based my card on.

I took a piece of Copic friendly card stock and stamped a couple of images onto it and happily coloured away to try to get brown, 'white' and ginger. I then fussy cut one out.

On an A2 (US) white card blank I masked a rectangle in the centre of and got my mini cloud stencil from MFT and inked up rainbow clouds. I then die cut some grass for little Gnipper to stand behind and attached it to the bottom of the inked panel before deciding I needed a frame, so I die cut one from my MFT rectangle frames and attached it around the inked centre with some foam tape. All that was left to do was attach my furry friend in the middle with some foam pads.

So now you've got this far, I have some exciting news for you. I was asked some time ago to Guest Design for Sugar Pea Designs for 3 months from July - September. I know! Can you believe it? Little old me getting to play with some of my favourite stamps - what's not to like? Look out for my first post coming up soon. You can read more about it on the Sugar Pea Designs blog where you'll see this crazy picture....

Happy Crafting :)