Graduation Thanks

Hello lovely readers! Sharing a very simple card with you today with the cutest set from last month's Clearly Besotted release. Sunday 5th was their latest release and I managed to get some more lovely stuff to play with - can't get enough of their things! The design team do such a good job of inspiring me.

On Wednesday it was nursery Sports Day and Graduation. Yes. Nursery graduation. It sounds like a silly idea, but really it's a way of saying farewell to those about to start school in September, and noting that they're about to start a new chapter. We went along to thank all the wonderful staff there who have helped our 4 year old turn into a confident and caring little girl. A card at least was required. (Don't worry, we also made thank you cakes!)

As you can see I've been practicing with my Copic markers. I met up with a crafty friend last Friday in the craft shop she works in not too far from here. She was so wonderfully helpful and I managed to get some more Copics as well as a myriad of other things.

Supplies: Clearly Besotted Let's Roll stamp and Let's Roll die set; Clearly Besotted Thanks Word die; Copic Ciao Markers; Stick It!; Foam Tape; Papermania 6x6 Capsule Collection; Ranger Multi Medium Matte; Memento Tuxedo Black

Apologies that the photo is not great. It's part of my birthday list to get a better camera, but that's not until November, I'm afraid.

It is so simple, just one of the CB Let's Roll hedgehogs stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with Copic Ciaos (E57, E59 for the prickles; E53, E51 for the face; E18 for the feet and YR02 for the ears). I stamped the mortar board and scroll onto pink paper and die cut them - talk about tiny dies!!! I die cut out the CB Thanks die with some Stick It! on the back to make it easier to adhere to the panel of white card. Stuck the hedgehog in between using Multi Medium Matte glue then his mortar board on top and then the scroll at the bottom. The card blank has two strips of 1.5cm pink card stock at either side and this adds some colour - pink is her favourite colour, which is why I chose it. The main panel is adhered with foam tape and I added some Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents to the scroll. Simple and effective!

Thank you for reading as always. Have a fantastic weekend as always. Here's a picture of those Thank You cakes - pink as well of course. It was a brilliant day despite the weather - well it has to rain on Sports Day!

 

Flowers for sisters

Hello again! I've been busy making cards not just for the various birthdays this month, but also for the commission of 10 cards that my mother in law asked me for. I've been enjoying the challenge - and the opportunity to buy new stamps and other goodies for it! One of these cards is for my sister, the other for hers (I'll let her choose which she prefers!) and thanks to The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge, I've been trying out new techniques. This one is water colouring with an embossed image using a gorgeous flower stamp set from Clearly Besotted - Just Darling.

[Supplies: Spectrum Aqua Markers - Floral; Versa Mark Ink; WOW! Bright White Embossing Powder; Ranger Dye Ink Grape Soda; Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black; Wink of Stella 8mm Tip Pen; Bazzill Basics Paper; Clearly Besotted Just Darling] 

 
I absolutely loved doing these cards. It made me feel like I was a real artist - even though I am most definitely not! I also definitely need more flower stamps in my life...

I stamped the images onto water colour paper with Versa Mark ink and heat embossed with WOW! Bright white embossing powder. I then simply used my Spectrum Aqua markers directly onto the paper and blended with water. The embossed image saves colour running too much onto the blank space.

This is mounted using fun foam and lots of tape onto a card blank with has two 2cm strips of Bazzill basics paper at either side - it's a cheat and saves me paper! The sentiment is from the set stamped in Ranger Dye Grape Soda. I wrote over the sentiment in Wink of Stella and also added a little to the flowers - a card is not a card without Wink of Stella!

This card is simply mounted onto a Kraft card blank with fun foam and the sentiment stamped in Ranger Archival Jet Black. I held back on the Wink of Stella!

Thank you so much for reading, hope you have a great weekend - can you believe we're nearly in July??

Tea-riffic!

Hello crafty friends! Been a bit hectic this past week without a huge amount of time to do any crafting. We're away for a few days visiting family and also celebrating a big birthday for a really good friend. It's a birthday with a 0 at the end of it and this friend deserves a really good do. I'm sharing the card I made her with you today. She loves tea, so the Best Pun Ever from Lawn Fawn was just perfect:

[Supplies: Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Circles (I did not buy them from here, but they are no longer listed where I did buy them); LF Let's Polka 6x6 Paper Pad; LF Best Pun Ever stamp set and dies; LF Large Stitched Squares; Ranger Dye Ink; Ranger Glossy Accents; Wink of Stella 8mm Pen; Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles; CB Long Flag Die;]


It's a shaker card using the tea cups from the set and also some cupcake stamps I bought cheap in Hobbycraft, as the shaker elements along with some clear sequins. The tea cups were stamped in different Ranger Dye Inks, as was the tea cup on the outside, coloured using my Prismallo Aquarelle water colour pencils, then covered in glossy accents. The cupcakes have also been outlined using my Wink of Stella pen to add some sparkle. I encased them all in a square from my Papermania capsule collection cut using my LF large stitched squares, with the aperture cut using my Spellbinders large circles. I adhered it to the card with lots of fun foam. The background paper is LF Let's Polka. The sentiment is from the Best Pun Ever set stamped in Ranger Dye Pink Gumball onto the CB long flag die.

I really love this card and hope she does too. Thanks for reading and as always, have a fantastic weekend!

Funky purple thanks

Hello! So who is still doing The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge? I'm still going, with the odd hiatus - sometimes you have to do housework! This card was inspired by Kathy Racoosin's Day 8 post, where she created an amazing card background just using a roll of tape and markers. It was pretty inspiring, so I came up with my own interpretation. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen the first few photos, but not the finished product!

Basically I started with a piece of watercolour paper and took a couple of my Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Circles and drew around them in a random pattern with some of my purple Spectrum Aquas, overlapping to create the different shapes. I then got to colouring in between the lines using all my different purple and blue markers and pencils - from my Spectrum Aquas, to my lonely blue Inktense and my Caran D'Ache water colours and my Artists pencils too. This was the result:

It looked a bit odd with the water colour pencil as is, so I blended those bits with water to soften it up. In hindsight, I shouldn't have used a water colour marker to draw the circles - they naturally bled a bit, and it looks a bit messy up close. You don't get anywhere by not experimenting though!

Pretty funky, but what to do with it? I've seen some great inlaid die cutting on cards, so after watching a Jennifer McGuire video and one from Lawn Fawn, I got busy with my CB Thanks die cutting it out from the corner of the funky panel and then several from white card stock:

I then glued the white Thanks together using my new bottle of Ranger Multi Medium Matte with its precision tip - that makes it much easier! - and then added the coloured panel on top. To stick it back into the panel, I put some double sided sticky tape on the back of the panel so the blank space for the thanks was now sticky. I stuck it on carefully, and put back in with my tweezers all the little extra die cut pieces from the 't' and 'h' and 'a' etc. Blimey, that is fiddly work!

I then simply attached it to my card blank. It's quite subtle because it blends in with the background, but some Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents help it pop out a bit more.

[Supplies: Water colour card; Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Circle Dies (out of stock where I purchased them); Spectrum Aqua - Floral; Derwent Artists' Pencils; Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles; Derwent Inktense Pencils; Clearly Besotted Thanks die; Wink of Stella; Glossy Accents; Ranger Multi Medium Matte; Precision tip; Double sided tape]

Thank you so much for reading and have a lovely weekend :)

Butterflies and Roses

Two posts in two days? I'm getting carried away with all my The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge and also the Pretty Pink Posh Watercolour Blog Hop. If you haven't been joining in with the former, you have lots of time still, but with the former, you have until Monday at 11:55pm PST (which I think is Pacific Standard Time!). The cards that are there from the design team are truly inspirational, and lead into even more inspirational cards from Joe Public - I had no idea there were so many crafters and water colourists out there.

 

I started off my card with just a blank square of water colour card stock and stamped and embossed a rose and some butterflies using my free Clearly Besotted stamp set from Simply Cards and Papercraft (issue 134). I then got busy with my Spectrum Aquas using the floral range (this is the one I use most often!). This was the result:

I liked the rose and the butterflies but wasn't happy with the background, so inspired by Debby Hughes' post using tags, I got out my CB rounded tag die and cut out the rose and the big butterfly, then fussy cut out the smaller butterflies. I found some previously die cut rectangles in my scraps box, got a couple of card blanks, one Kraft, the other white and with a bit of tape adhered the rectangles to the cards, then with some fun foam, the rose and butterfly tags on top. Some twine and then another butterfly set them off. I had to cut the cards down a bit as the rectangles didn't fit so well with the size they were, so using my WRMK Envelope Punch board, I made some new envelopes for them. I loved that when the cardstock went through my die cutting machine it went from textured to smooth. A different touch.

[Supplies: Spectrum Aquas Floral; Versa Mark Ink; WOW! Embossing Powder Bright White; Simply Cards and Papercraft Issue 133; Baker's Twine - Joe and Flo; Bazzill Paper] 

I've another butterfly card I made earlier in the week that I'd like to share because the challenge at Addicted to CAS is butterfly:

 
[Supplies: Memento Tuxedo Black; CD Metallic Pencils; Wink of Stella]

Again using my CB freebies, these are simply stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with Caran D'Ache metallic pencils, with some Wink of Stella on top. Very very simple.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have time to do some colouring and join in with the blog hop :)

Father's Day Cards - 30 Day Colouring Challenge

It's been quite a week and amongst other things, the 30 Day Colouring Challenge hosted by the lovely Kathy Racoosin started. I am LOVING it. I've been posting on Instagram every day so far and there are so many people in social media land joining in, it's really inspirational. If you don't know what I'm on about, check out Kathy's blog for more information and join in if you can!

Enough rambling, did I actually make any cards? Well yes I did! I focused on Father's Day cards as that is coming up in a couple of weeks and I had three to make - my Dad, my Father in Law and my Husband!

I've been using some Lawn Fawn stamps I got a couple of months ago, which is nice because they haven't been out of their packet much! Here they are:

My Dad:

My Dad loves reading, so the CB Bookworm set linked with the LF Best Pun Ever fitted nicely. The cup was stamped in Lemon Twist Ranger Dye ink, and like the rest, coloured in using my Derwent Artist's pencils. I cut it from the matching die and covered it in Wink of Stella then glossy accents to make it stand out. I cut a slit in the top and popped in the die cut book worm. I think he's cute. The backing paper is LF Let's Polka.

My Father in Law:

Again I used the LF Best Pun Ever set, stamping the cheese onto a panel of water colour card stock in Lemon Twist and appropriately, Cheese Puff Ranger Dye ink, with the grater in Memento London Fog. I coloured them in with my Prismallo Aquaralles and gave them a light wash with water to bring the colour out. The sentiment is simply stamped in Ranger Jet Black Archival ink. The background is LF Let's Polka Mon Amie. I think he'll like the terrible pun!

My husband:

I love the little ice lollies from the Best Pun Ever set. The little faces that go with them are so so cute! As we have two little girls, it seemed appropriate to stamp the larger lolly in the middle of two little ones My husband likes green and my eldest loves pink, so that was the colour scheme I went with. They're simply stamped onto water colour cardstock with Ranger Jet Black Archival ink, coloured in with Spectrum Aquas (from the floral set), and given a light wash with water. I thought it would be fun to put the sentiment on the inside too - making the 'Coolest' blue (Blue Ribbon Ranger Dye)

[Supplies used on cards: Lawn Fawn Best Pun Ever; Lawn Fawn Let's Polka (currently out of stock where I purchased it) and Let's Polka Mon Amie; Clearly Besotted Book Worm; Ranger Dye Inks; Ranger Archival Ink; Derwent Artist's Pencils; Spectrum Aqua Pens; Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles]

It's so far been a productive week and we're only on Day 5 of the challenge - I don't think I've made so many cards in a week!

Thanks, as always, for reading and I hope you get the chance to join in with me and everyone else on the challenge. Oh and it's release day for Clearly Besotted Stamps - it's a good one ;)

Home - Where the Heart Is

Hello everyone! I've had quite a few goodies arrive in the post recently, not least the Sugar Pea 'Home' die that I've been waiting on for several weeks. It finally shipped over to the lovely people at Make The Day Special!

I've also three friends who have moved house recently, so I have to make those in the next week or so. Here's the first using that new die and also my new Spectrum Aqua markers that I got free through subscribing to Simply Cards and Papercraft. I've been playing around with them and watching lots of videos on YouTube for tips - I love the way they make really beautiful backgrounds so easily. Definitely a great free gift!

I started by taping down a piece of water colour paper onto my glass cutting mat and block colouring it using three of my Spectrum Aqua markers (Heather, Orchid and Wildflower). I then washed them over with water to blend them together. After waiting for it to dry, I splashed it with water and then blotted it dry, leaving nice splatters.

I then took the HOME die and cut it out twice from two shades of purple paper, adhering the houses in the bottom right. I placed the 'Home' as in the picture, accenting it with some die cut hearts from my Lawn Fawn Best Pun Ever set. I used one for the 'O' of 'Home' instead of the house and added some Wink of Stella and glossy accents to make it pop out a bit - Home is where the heart is after all!

I think this might be the first card I've made that didn't have any stamping on it!

I've followed the layout for this month's Make the Day Special Challenge, as I'd like to enter. They give such brilliant customer service, so any excuse to buy things there ;)

Hope you like it and thanks for reading!

My first shaker card!

Hello everyone, hope you're looking forward to the Bank Holiday weekend - those in the UK, at least! 

Tonight I'm bringing you my first ever shaker card. I have tried these before, without much success. Now I'm not saying it's perfect, but it does work and half the sequins aren't on the floor. I think I need a bit more practice, so this is hopefully the first of a few. No doubt a splurge on some nice sequins will be required - #impoverishedhappycrafter :)

  
I've made it using some of the new things I received the other day in my haul. It's a basic 6x6 card blank with a piece of Lawn Fawn Let's Polka as backing. The shaker part is a nice grey from my Papermania capsule collection, die cut with the new Lawn Fawn stitched squares - they cut beautifully - filled with some sequins from Hobbycraft. I need some Pretty Pink Posh! 

I wanted to see the backing paper through the shaker box, so it is backed with acetate to contain the sequins before attaching to the card - did I mention before that usually they end up on the floor? Some time looking at how to make shaker card videos might be well spent over the next couple of days.

The set is Mama Elephant Up and Away, stamped in various Memento dye inks, coloured with Derwent pencils. The balloons are coloured using my metallic Caran D'Ache, with a bit of Wink of Stella and glossy accents. The fox is hanging on with some red baker's twine.

I'm just so happy it worked, I had a lot of fun making it.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your weekend!

A bit of a haul...

Hello! I got a  bit carried away last week and made quite a few purchases. I love Michelle Short's haul videos over on her blog, The Card Grotto, and whilst I can't compete with her on quality of blog and video, I can express the same enthusiasm for buying new things.

I have coined a new phrase: The Impoverished Happy Crafter. I am she. I suspect at times you are too. There is so much out there, so many lovely things I could use, and so little money in my bank account. I would rival Carrie from Sex and the City's shoe purchases with crafty ones if I could afford it!

So, here we are, my Make the Day Special Lawn Fawn and Mama Elephant purchases. I didn't get the Up and Away dies when I bought the stamps, but should have really. I've wanted the Let's Polka paper range for ages - Let's Polka and Let's Polka Mon Amie, plus some stitched square frames, and last but not least, the Best Pun Ever stamps and dies just had to be mine. I've been on the look out for a decent teapot and cup and this was it. Lovely!

One of my earlier posts was about the Ranger Dye Inks. I had a couple of questions from some bloggers about them. I'll pass my answers on: They didn't bleed when brushed with water and you will need a decent stamp cleaner, because the stamps I used have stained. I know Stazon cleaner is what a lot of people use, but I have heard it can damage clear stamps over time, so I haven't bought any yet. I need to do some research on stamp cleaners, otherwise everything I own will be stained!

Still, I bought the rest of them for the rather reasonable price of £3.75 each from Inkylicious. They were also selling all twelve for £42...

I also bought some Wink of Stella pens - a brush and a fine. I've seen them used on projects a lot, so I thought it was time to try them out.

I'm off to do a bit of crafting now the kiddies are in bed. Can't wait. I've been like an overgrown child at Christmas today - desperate to open those last two packages!

Thanks for reading. Happy Tuesday :)