Thinking of you

Well, Mr Mojo has definitely gone walkies at the moment, so I thought a couple of challenges might help. Over at Less is More this week they want to see shadows and at the Butterfly Challenge their letter is F for Faux and the colour is jasmine.
Well, the faux bit didn't happen, but I die cut the main butterfly die (which I purchased from a Chinese seller on eBay for about £3) from jasmine and pale grey card and glued them together, offsetting them slightly to give a shadow effect. I also cut three butterflies out of the same card stock (the two largest are from an All Occasions set of 3 butterflies and the smallest was from a freebie set with a craft magazine) and glued them together in a similar fashion
I die cut a frame out of the grey card with tattered lace pindot squares and squares dies and glued it to a 6x6 card blank. I stamped the Clearly Besotted sentiment in London Fog memento ink, as I felt that black would be too harsh. I glued the card together and added some small cream pearls to the centre of the flowers. Not sure that I should have added the pale yellow pearls to the corners, but they're stuck there now. My photography skills have obviously gone walkies with Mr Mojo, sorry about the wonky pic!

Sweet Stampin' - humour

This week at Sweet Stampin' we want you to make us smile as our theme is humour. My fab teamies have come up with some amazing cards that are sure to inspire a laugh.
I used the elephant from the Katzelkraft Les Jungles set, stamped him in memento and coloured him with my copics (being sure to add a blush to his cheeks) and then fussy cut him out.
I made his background on some white card that I had misted with water and then added cosmic shimmer pixie powders through a cloud stencil from Claritystamp. Hopefully the second pic shows some more of the shimmer from the pixie powders. Once dry I die cut a Tattered Lace Decorative Circle, overhanging the die on the edge of the paper as I didn't want a full circle. I added some faux stitching round the edge then attached it to a 6x6 card with glue. I added the elephant with foam tape, before stamping the sentiment.
There's a little story behind the sentiment stamp I used on this card. I was rather taken by a stamp from Whipper Snapper, that I saw on Lynne in NI's blog recently and so I ended up on the Whipper Snapper website. The Picked Texas Wildflowers stamp and a couple of others, including the fun sentiment I added to this card fell into my basket. Very impressed with the speedy delivery, it was with me in less than a week! I said it was a short story, I didn't say it was interesting!
Hope you all have a great weekend and don't forget to include some stamping if you join in our humorous challenge.

Happily Ever After

Over at Crafty Cardmakers, they want to see pearls and/or gems. As I needed to rustle up a quick wedding card, I thought this may be the challenge for me!

This card really didn't photograph well. It does look better in reality honest! I used a lovely textured linen card for the front and die cut the X-cut happily ever after die out of it. I trimmed down the A5 linen card slightly so that I could mount it on a layer of silver mirri on an A5 card blank. The die set also included to words as a seperate die so I cut this and mounted it on top of the original words to add extra dimension and then added glamour dust to the heart. 

I die cut Sue Wilson's wedding couple out of the same linen card and taped the back of the die cut to keep all the pieces in. I added glamour dust to her skirt and veil and his shirt with a quickie glue pen. I added the couple to the card with foam tape and then added some gems in a few different sizes to finish the card. Hopefully, the following photo shows you some of the dimension.

Dream

This was supposed to be a post about the card I made for the current LIM challenge, but it got binned after I discovered that the stripes were at a slight angle on the card and it looked worse on the photo. Let's just say that attempts to correct it did not end well...

Instead, you have a super simple card made from the Polkadoodles Horace & Boo Cd-rom. I very simply printed off the image four times on a sheet of A4 paper and then fussy cut out one of them and then decoupaged up the picture by cutting down the remaining 3 images. I stamped a sentiment from the Cat's Pajamas Fly High set which was still on my table on a 6" square card blank (can you tell I bought rather a lot of these when they were on offer?) glued on the image and added a doodled border. Simples! 

InkBuds weekender make

I don't think I shared this with you after the InkBuds weekender with Hels Sheriden and Pauline Wheeler at Preston last year. This was the Saturday project. The jigsaw is roughly 12x12 inches. I struggled to catch the shine in the photos from the treasure gold gilding wax on the edges, the wooden embellishments and die cut doily and clock. Really looking forward to the next one on 20/21 May. Can't remember what we're doing but I think Hels is teaching a load of distress ink techniques as she's a Ranger Certified (although that probably should be certifiable knowing Hels) educator.

The jigsaw project was taught by Pauline, so I thought you might like to see the example she made, to show how we adapted the project to our own colour pallete etc.

Fly High

Funny how sometimes an idea just pops into your head isn't it? I was sat watching rubbish Saturday night telly and suddenly this stamp set wandered across my mind.

The stamp set is by Cat's Pajamas and has been teetering on Mount NBUS for a while now. I stamped it on a scrap of alcohol marker friendly card, left over from my last make and coloured it in with my trusty copics. I then fussy cut it out and added some silver highlights with a sparkly gel pen and added glossy accents to his face and the carrot "bubble". I added a second coat of glossy accents to his face, which had absolutely nothing to do with putting a fingerprint on it checking if it was dry, honest. I then left it overnight to dry (away from temptation!). 

I fished this scrap of dark blue card that had been stenciled with a glitter paste out of the box of good intentions and die cut out a circle and also cut a frame out of a bit of silver mirri from the bit box.

I stamped two sentiments from the stamp set on a 6x6 card blank and then glued it together.

Hopefully the following picture shows the shine a bit better.

I'm taking this card over to the Snippet's Playground as the stamping and silver card were out of the bit box (okay, boxes...). I fancy a play on the swings!

Life would be better...

Happy Friday! I feel in love with this new stamp "Piñata Squidgy" from Stamping Bella and amazingly it didn't join Mount NBUS, and was out of its packet and inked up within a week of arriving. As ever, I used memento ink to stamp and coloured in with my trusty copics, before fussy cutting the two seperate stamped images.

I made a frame with square dies to work out the the positioning on my 6x6 card, before adding the sentiment in versafine (to give a stronger black than the memento stamps) using my MISTI. I glued the piñata in place and then added the Squidgy on 1mm foam tape to finish.

I love the sentiment, although I can't work out if it's because you get showered with sweets or because you get to beat the **** out of something! 

Spring walk...

Over at Less is More this week, they want to see our "Spring Walk" cards and I'm totally claiming that this is an exact representation of what I saw on my walk today. I've also been trying to train my bunnies to wave back at me when I wave at them through the kitchen window. Not quite cracked that one yet...

Back to what passes as reality in these parts, I inked up this super cute NBUS stamp from Lili of the valley and coloured it in with my trusty copics. I then cut round the image and glued it onto a 6x6 card blank and doddled a border. Simple, just like me!

Why I rarely make shaker cards....

So, the latest edition of Simply Cards & Papercraft arrived on my doormat this morning. The free gift this month is a vase and flowers stamp and stamp set. Now, having seen Sue Wilson make a card using alcohol gel hand rub at the weekend, I thought I'd have a go. I know from experience that glue between acetate takes about a fortnight to set, so I figured I'd try using my fuse tool to make an instant  heat seal. Um. Let's just say it didn't go well...

So I decided, having no patience, to make a standard shaker card with sequins. This time my fuse tool made perfect sequin proof pockets. I stamped the bouquet of flowers on white card and then die cut the vase below them.  I then used a tattered lace pindot rectangle to cut out the whole thing. I stamped the stems on a small piece of card and then coloured everything in with my zig pens. 

I stuck my shaker element behind the aperture with red liner tape leaving the red on so it didn't stick that side. I glued the stems on behind the shaker, then added 1mm foam tape around the edge of the back of the image and stuck it on a rectangle of purple card.

At this point I wasn't happy that I didn't have an edge to my vase, the stamp of the vase seemed slightly smaller than the die, so that wasn't a solution. I'd already planned to join up the stems and flowers with a fineliner pen and so I decided to draw in the vase using the faint emboss of the edge of the die as a guide. This probably would have worked if I'd done it before I added the foam tape and so my pen wobbled on the unsupported cardstock. I decided to cut the vase again out of pale blue card and then fussy cut round the aperture to give me a vase shaped frame which I hoped was reminiscent of thick glass. I had to cut the frame thicker than I wanted to hide the magnitude of the pen wobble. In order to distract from this I added glamour dust to the frame before gluing it on to the card.

I then realised that the bottom flower of the bouquet was hidden behind the frame. Fortunately, the stamp set included a single flower and so I stamped this twice, coloured it in and fussy cut it before going round the edges with a black pen. At this point I realised that there was a single flower die in the set. Doh! I then glued the two flowers on and mounted it on a 6x6 card to finish.

The sequins? Oh, I just thought they added a little more sparkle. There certainly aren't any black smudges or marks hidden under them. Nope. None at all. Definitely none...

Wedding card

I hope you've all had a relaxing Easter weekend. Hubby has been away at his annual field target dodah thingy competition for the weekend and so I started the annual craft supplies tidy up whilst I could leave things spread out. Oddly enough, I seem to have more craft supplies than I did last year. No idea how that happened! I wasn't able to sort out everything, but I did manage to find the set of butterfly dies that had gone AWOL. Somehow though, I managed to lose in the process my Sue Wilson ivy die as featured in today's offering. 

My colleague asked me to make a wedding card for her grandson who was getting married, now that he had completed his basic army training. The colours for the wedding were grey, pink and silver. Apologies for the glare on the pic, the silver mirri that I used for the background mat and the frame round the image wouldn't play ball. 

As usual for my wedding cards, I used my Stamping Bella image coloured with my copics and my Spellbinders grand decorative ovals. Rather than go all cream and white, I used one of the left over papers from making my parents anniversary album for the background, it has a lovely pearlescent sheen to it in real life. I think it added quite a contemporary feel to it. I used a selection of flowers from wild orchid crafts and cut my favourite Sue Wilson Ivy die out of some lovely pearlescent dark grey paper. I die cut their names out of the same paper using Crafters Companion's upper and lower case alphabet dies and added to the card. To finish I added a little glamour dust to her dress with a quickie glue pen and a few pearls.

Flower Challenge - Halfway Reminder

Gosh, halfway through April already! That means we're also halfway through our current sketch challenge over at the Flower Challenge.

We have a great sketch for you to use this month, just remember to make sure that flowers are the main focus of your card.

I used a 5x7 card base and made a mat out of some super sparkly wrapping paper that I bought at Christmas and then added a smaller rectangle of white card on top of it. I found this silver plastic ribbon with inset diamanté in my stash, so I snipped it down to a width and length I was happy with and added it with some cosmic shimmer glue. I die cut some of the wrapping paper with the middle sized flower and a leaf die from the Heartfelt Creations Delicate Aster set. The wrapping paper has a plastic coating on it which my cut n boss struggled to cut, until I added in the metal shim plate and then it cut into that like butter. I cut two of the flowers and layered them up, offsetting the petals to give a fuller flower. Because I was sticking them on a bumpy surface, I used my glue gun to stick the flower and leaves onto the card. I added a pearl embellishment from my stash to the centre of the flower to finish. A little on the blingy side, but I thought it would work well as a wedding RSVP as you could die cut the letters out of the wrapping paper and add them to the bottom left of the card. I just need someone to invite me to their wedding now! 

Sweet Stampin' - Paper piecing.

Happy Easter weekend. Hopefully the extended weekend in the UK will give you all some extra time to craft, when you haven't got chocolate covered fingers that is! It's time for a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin' and this week we want to see your paper piecing creations.

I decided to make life easier for myself, by using the XL Gorjuss Hush Little Bunny stamp set! I repeat stamped her on papers from the Santoro Gorjuss 8x8 paper pack and a sheet of peachy coloured paper and cut out her various parts. 

I prepped my 8x8 base card with a sheet of paper from the same paper pack as a background. I die cut the second largest frame from the Tonic ribbon and bow layering die set from a dark green/grey sheet from a papermania A4 card pack - love these as every sheet is different in a rainbow of colour and they stay crisp in the package/storage they come in. I offset this slightly in the card base. I stamped the girl on a lighter shade of card and then die cut her out using the third largest solid die of the die set, this amputated her head and feet, but that didn't matter. I stuck this on the frame and then paper pieced her together. I cheated and coloured in the details on her dressand tights, her shoes and the stripes on the bunny with my copic markers as they were just too fiddly to cut out! It bugged me that the gorjuss word at the side of her leg had been cut off and so I finished it with a fine liner pen on the frame, although I was a bit heavy handed.

I cut a honeydoo crafts foliage flourish die out of the same pale green/grey and added it to the side of the card. I didn't have the right coloured paper flowers in my stash and so I spritzed some white flowers with a couple of drops of dusty concord distress reinker and a little water to dye them and then let them air dry before adding them to the card. I have to confess that I originally added some smaller flowers as well to the card, but then changed my mind. In order to hide the torn paper where I pulled them off, I die cut the leaf from the Heartfelt Creations in the darker card several times and hid the tears  under them! I added three drops of wisteria Nuvo drops and a little faux stitching to finish.

I'm looking forward to seeing your stamping paper piecing creations x

The rest of the ugly sweaters...

As it's Good Friday, it's obviously the perfect time to show you the rest of my ugly sweater Christmas decorations, after all they're still hanging on my twig tree on the sideboard! They were from the Bucilia Ugly Sweater kit and were great fun to make!

Has anyone else been having problems with blogger? I've done a few posts this week, but for some reason blogger had published them as though they were all done last Saturday!? I've been into blogger and re-jigged them about to get them to show on the correct date, but it's piggin annoying! 

Have a great day and don't eat too many hot cross buns x

Today's Mighty Oak

I'd been intending to make a card with this sentiment for a friend for ages, but never actually got round to it. I just loved this sentiment and knew it would make my friend smile as she has battled with severe mental health problems for years, but I couldn't quite decide how to make it. Finally, Mr Mojo had an idea! Shock, gasp, horror! It turned out to be a one layer card too. Double shock, gasp and horror!

I stamped the tree and sentiment from Hobby Arts Oak Tree stamp set on a 6x6 card blank in Versafine. I added a couple of bunnies from the Card-io Cottontail capers set as my friend loves bunnies, although now I look at it, I think one of the bunnies has been on the sherry! 

I then tapped my shaded lilac distress ink on an acrylic block and spritzed it from a distance with water before smooshing the block down over my tree. I then repeated the process with tumbled glass distress ink. I blended the colour together with a couple of strokes of a water brush, leaving some of the splats at the edges.

I picked up some bundled sage distress ink on my water brush and added some colour to the canopy of the tree and created a bit of grass under the tree for the bunnies to sit on. Simples.

Out of my mind...

Probably, a very accurate title as I put the tin of instant coffee away in the fridge, rather than the milk and sat down the eat my tea with two forks...

Oh well, whilst I'm waiting for my marbles to reappear I'll tell you about this card. Actually, I'll tell you in a moment as it's reminded me of a note that was left on my desk at work. "Mr X phoned about his mum. He wants to know when she can go home and has she got any marbles?" I'd previously had a conversation with the son and told him that I was going to do a basic cognitive assessment with his mum as I'd noticed she had some short term memory loss. I guess he wanted to know how she got on!

At long last, back to the card. I used an image from the Katzelkraft Les Jungles set and coloured it with Dreammes Inkydinks then fussy cut it out and added it to a 6x6 card with foam tape. I stamped the sentiment from the Indigoblu More Than Words stamp set and doodled a border to finish.

Right, off to look for my marbles, see you soon x

Laugh at yourself...

I couldn't resist the Les Jungles stamp set from Katzelkraft, the animals are hilarious. I stamped and fussy cut out this lion and coloured him with Dreamees Inkydinks and their brush pen and blender solution. I fancied trying out a different colouring medium for s change and this was relaxing to do, although I'd probably add some high and low lights with pencils if I did it again.

I used a sentiment from an indigoblu set and die cut it with a tattered lace long thin torn rectangle. I also used the torn hexagon set, somewhere I'm sure I have a the torn square dies but as they are currently AWOL I roughly trimmed a square of card. A bit of doodling with a white pen and job done!

Birthday Bunnies

I've not managed to escape over to Pixie's Snippets Playground for absolutely ages, but as I managed to tip over the box that contained the trimmings from making the wedding album for my parents golden wedding last year all over the floor, I figured it was time to pay a visit.

I started off by stamping some bunnies from the Dreammes Binky & Bo set on some of the patterned paper off cuts in versafine and then fussy cutting them out and adding a little pink marker to their cheeks and ears. I was messing about with some shaving foam and distress reinkers the other day and so trimmed a bit of one of those papers down with Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangles. Using some leftover gold mirri card I die cut a frame and the memory box  jumbled happy birthday and added them all to a 6x6 card blank.

I added the bunnies with some foam tape and put some Woodware Fluffy Stuff on their tails. As you have to heat emboss this to activate it, it warped the card slightly, so I'd probably do that step before adding them to the card in future. I also discovered that if you put the card under a pile of books to get rid of the warp, it flattens the fluffy stuff. You can then reheat and puff it, but it tends to overheat and discolour slightly. Can you tell this was the first time I'd used it?  

I spent aggggges looking for my little set of All Occasions 3 butterfly dies. I still haven't found them, but I did find a set of butterfly dies that were free with a magazine recently and so managed to add the large butterfly from a scrap of pink card. I also found my Memory Box Dancing Butterflies die that I hadn't seen for ages and added the tiny butterflies to the card. Some glittery gold gems from Papermania for their bodies and job done!

Less is more

I know, another post from me! I've not joined in any challenges for ages and this is my second one in two days.
So, the new challenge over at Less is more is curves, and it's the dreaded one layer week. I have to say that since I purchased my MISTI (although I was gutted that within weeks of my finally succumbing and buying it all the cheaper versions came on the market) one layer card week isn't as scary as it used to be!
I used the super sweet stamp set, bear and bird from Waffle Flower and laid out the 4 stamps on my 5x7 card blank and stamped them with my Misti and then stamped the present in his hands, sorry, paws. I used Dreamees Inkydinks and blender solution in a water brush to colour in the image.
Hopefully, the leaves will count as a curve for the challenge.

Hippity Hoppity...

When I saw that the current challenge over at Cuttlebug Mania is to use an Easter bunny or bunnies, I figured that I probably had something suitable in my stash... Okay, so I had about 4, okay 40 bunny themed stamps and dies!

I used the Marianne collectables rabbit die set and tried to make the bunnies look like my two, Parsley and Bramble. I drew on their mouths with a white gel pen and added googly eyes rather than use those in the set. I used Lawn Fawn's puffy clouds die on two shades of blue card and as my stitched hills die has gone AWOL, cut a hill of green out of green card for then to sit on. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions If bunnies could talk stamp and die set. Of course I had to add some faux stitching to finish!

Gratuitous bunny pic - Bramble is on the left (she'll be 10 in July) and Parsley is on the right, we've had him 3 years, but don't know how old he is as he was handed into the rescue as a stray.

The Flower Challenge - use our sketch

It's time for a new challenge over at The Flower Challenge, and this month we have a sketch for you to play with.

For my card, I used a freebie stamp and embossing folder set that came with the latest edition of Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine. I stamped multiple images of the bouquet and die cut one with a tattered lace pin dot die. I then cut out parts of the bouquet in four stages to create a decoupaged bouquet and coloured it with my zig clean colour pens before layering it up with pinflair glue gel. 

I embossed the border embossing folder in white card and then fussy cut it out to create a ribbon, to coordinate with that tied round the bouquet. My base card was a sheet of A4 kraft card folded in half, which meant that my ribbon was slightly short, so I snipped it and hid the join behind the circle. I couldn't resist adding some faux stitching with a white gel pen to finish. 

I'll be back with another card based on the sketch half way though the challenge.

Sweet Stampin' - Travel

Blimey 1st April already! Where is the time going? It's time for a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin', and our theme this week is travel.

I grew up with caravan holidays and so I always associate them with travelling. In particular I remember the year we travelled from Manchester through France, Germany, Lichtenstein, Switzerland to Austria and then on to Venice, all in just under 3 weeks! It also means that I tend to buy any stamp I see relating to caravans to use on cards for my Dad! 

When I got this stamp from Little Claire recently, I knew exactly how I wanted to use it and for once, the  card turned out how I wanted it to!

I multiple stamped the car and caravan in versafine using my MISTI and joined up the ground between them with a fine liner pen, then drew another line under the ground and coloured it in with my zig clean colour pens. I added a mat of red and black behind it on a 6x6 card and stamped the banner sentiment from Clearly Besotted, cut it out and added it using foam tape. Simples!