Sweet Stampin' - Autumn

Happy Saturday! It's time for our new challenge at Sweet Stampin' and this week we've gone all seasonal with a theme of "Autumn".

I used the Hobby Art Oak Tree stamp set and a Card-io bunny set to make my card and started by stamping the tree, bunnies and sentiment in black archival ink on a 6x6 card blank. I then watercoloured in the tree using distress inks. On a spare bit of card I stamped some leaves and acorns from the set in archival ink and again coloured them with distress inks before fussy cutting them. I ran a black marker round the edges from the back to get rid of any white lines on the edges. I assembled the card and added glossy accents to the acorns. To finish off, I drew in a border to link up the corners. 

I can't wait to see your autumnal creations, just remember to include some stamping on your card to be eligible for our top three. Have a great weekend crafting x

Merry Christmas

Apologies for the rubbish photo, no matter what I do the lighting is terrible at the moment. I bought this Sizzix die in the sale this summer and finally took it out of the packaging this week. The die cut beautifully through some matt gold cardstock and as a bonus you can save the letters to use on another project. Great for batch making I simply placed the die cut on some coloured card and mounted it on a 5x7 card blank. I added some glossy accents to his nose and sprinkled on some red glitter before it dried. The stars fall out of the die and are shown on the packaging as being hung from the antlers, but I just added them randomly to the cards.

And now, gratuitous bunny photos. Willow is now 12 weeks old and a bit over 800g. I've never known such a cuddle bun. She will happily sit on your lap and be stroked for 20 minutes and then complain when you stop! She will groom you back and does a very thorough job of licking your hand. Parsley is more than happy to let Willow get all the fussing, he thinks humans are only good for bringing food.

Willow and Parsley are still living together happily, but trying to get a photo of both of them in focus and  facing in the same direction is rather tricky, even with a bribe of strawberry leaves.

Less is More #347 - Sketch 21

Monday again, and it's wet and miserable here in Lancashire. Apologies for the rubbish phot, but it's so dark and dreary this morning.  I'm currently home recovering as on Thursday afternoon I had some radio frequency nerve lesioning to help ease my chronic neck and arm pain. It was a flippin' painful procedure and my neck is still very sore around the injection site. This time my consultant targeted the toothache type pain in my right forearm as well as my neck pain, and it seems to have really helped. My right arm feels much lighter and looser than my left now, but fortunately I don't feel too lopsided!
I felt like crafting yesterday but didn't feel up to doing too much, but when I saw the sketch over at Less is More with its three elements, I knew that I could easily make a card as I had three unicorns sat on my desk ready to go from the Gerda Steiner - Moody Unicorns stamp set. 

I covered a 6x6 card base with deep pink card and doodled a border with a fineliner pen. I stamped three of the sentiments from the unicorn set on white card and cut them out roughly, before drawing in a border on each. I assembled the cars using foam tape behind the unicorn and glue behind the sentiments. Simples!

InkBuds Weekender - Day 2

Day two was spent making a book out of mount board and trying out lots of distress oxide techniques. My book had a minor malfunction as the holes on the front page didn't quite line up and so they repunched them to bind it, but as I managed to drop it on the floor the holes gave way! I will rescue it later by trimming it down and repunching the holes, but wanted to share it with you now as it'll probably take me ages to get round to sorting it. This is going to be a seriously picture heavy post, so grab a cuppa!

We stamped on acetate using black stazon and also a frosting glaze.

InkBuds Weekender

I spent a lovely weekend crafting with Hels and Pauline and lots of the other regular crafters, but I'm pooped now! Been trying to catch up on some of your blogs today, so if you could all stop posting for a few days it would be most helpful. Thanks!

This was the project we made on Saturday, lots of distress oxide inky goodness went into making the masterboard which we then cut into 9 and added to a backboard and embellished away. For some reason it tickled me to have washi tape with poison printed on it, along with words about friendship on my project.

I'll share Sunday's project with you soon, I didn't quite finish it in the workshop and so need to add the finishing touches before I blog it. In the meantime, I shall bore you with lots more pictures of this project! Happy crafting (but not blogging just yet...) x 

Sweet Stampin' - Use Your Favourite Stamp

Woohoo, the weekend is here and I'm off crafting with Hels Sheriden and Pauline Wheeler again. It also means that it's time for a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin' and this week we want you to use your favourite stamp! Now, if you're anything like the design team, this could be a challenge to pick just one...

I really struggled to pick a stamp, but narrowed it down to one with bunnies on it and so went for my most recent purchase, this cute stamp from lili of the valley. I stamped it in black memento ink and whipped out my favourite copics to colour it. I used tattered lace pin dot rectangles to cut out the image and make a mat for it. On a 6x6 card blank I used some more of the purple card and some old lili of the valley patterened paper for the background. I used some lovely Polkadoodles dies to cut the corner flourishes (had these for ages and not used them before, but they cut like a dream and popped out easily) in blue card and added them to two corners. I used the same card to die cut the Hunkdory sentiment and backed it with white card before adding it on foam tape. To finish I added some stickles to her ears and to the centre of the flowers on the patterned paper. 

I can't wait to see what you pick for your favourite stamp, good luck choosing!

The Flower Challenge #12 - Halfway Reminder

It's the halfway point at The Flower Challenge and we have a tic tac toe grid for you to use for our challenge this month. We'd love you to play along and please join us for our first birthday celebrations next month, there might be some very good reasons to join us!

I chose to the use the bottom line on the grid this time - white, die cuts and blue. I used this lovely Docrafts X-cut die and die cut it three times in dark blue, light blue and white, so that I could inlay the pieces on a mat of pale gold card on my 6x6 card base. I added blue gems to the centre of the flowers. I added the die cut sentiment from a Hunkydory Moonstone die set which I inlaid again before adding on foam tape. Simples!

We're really looking forward to seeing all your fabulous makes from the tic tac toe grid, just remember to make flowers the focal point of your card, and remember to join us again next month for our birthday celebrations!