LIM sketch and wednesday stampers circles

Sometimes two challenges just fall together pefectly and that's what has happened withe the current Less is More Challenge and the wednesday stamper challenge.... and to top it off I had the perfect stamps!!

The circle stamp in the Rogue Redhead Designs bits and pieces plate were the perfect stamp for both of these challenge and all used the flower from the floriculture plate, and the word again from the bits and pieces.

The coloured inks are Jenny Bowlin inks (available from Happy Daze). I have gone over the flower with a white pen (it's like cheating masking!!)

yooohoooo I'm back!!

a whole week without blogging, that doesn't happen often... well, I have been away on holiday to lovely Somerset.
So first thing I need to do is check in with some of my favourite challenges and see what I can combine.

aha, wednesday stampers "cake" and Less is more "one layer card with sentiment as the focus"
I chose the smallest cupcake I could find, so that the sentiment stayed the focus on the card, but it did need the cupcake.
The sentiment is off the Children Plate from Scrolls work (expect to see a lot more of that plate...) and the cupcake is a free papermania one that came with the docrafts mag a while back. The embossing is a papermania embossing folder. I've coloured the cake with pencils and highlighted with stickles

I actually thought this would be a good card for a little girl's first birthday

One Layer Wednesday Stamper

yes, that's a combination of one layer Wednesday and Wednesday Stamper, as I have combined the two challenges to make this simple card.

One layer Wednesday's Challenge is Eggs and Wednesday Stamper is "fabulously colourful" I used nearly every colour in my pencil pot to make this!
For once the ribbon is not covering any kind of mistake, I think I've now got so used to putting them on to cover smudges that it looked wrong without it, lol.

The stamps are from a forever friends set.

I can fly

I have made this for two purposes.
1) Scrolls Work stamps are currently running a competition on facebook where you can win $50 worth of stamps. you have to upload a card made only with Scrolls Work stamps to their wall today and tomorrow and then the cards will be voted on.
2 ) Wednesday Stamper has a "I can Fly" theme

I hadn't used Erica for a while and she's still my favourite, so I decided it was time she came out to play. The wings and words are also from Scrolls Work. And I have used my "paper sculpture" technique again

I am also going to enter this into less is more's spring theme, butterfly wings and blossom, very spring and lots of white space to satisfy the less is more principle.

chocolate heart card

My book group meets on the second Monday of each month and of course that means that it falls on valentine's day this month. We considered moving it, but then decided that really we might as well be with friends than forcing our husbands to treat us to overpriced meals full of loved up youngies.
I decided though that I wanted to mark the date with a little valentine something for the members of the group. I found these little chocolate hearts, and then decided to make them into cards. I used a book page for the heart, and used this fabulous Mark Twain quote, which could have been made for book groups! both the floral heart and quote are from Scrolls Work Stamps.


These cards were so quick to make, I'm thinking they would make the coolest wedding invitations.

I decided not to put these cards in envelopes, as they are so bulky, but make little brown paper bags


After they were all finished I closed the bags with a presonalised embellishment stapled to the bag

This fits many challenges this week, including
Papertake weekly - have a heart
Crazy Amigo - valentine
Created by hand - queen of hearts (As I'm "in charge" of the reading group lol)
wednesday Stamper - expressions of love
theme thursday - words


it also fits the stampotique challenge, so don't forget to check that out, you could win $30 of stamps!! I haven't shown my piece for this yet as the stampotique team is so big at the moment, the designers' pieces are being staggered on the blog, so keep checking back for inspiration.

another post, so soon!

Now that I've finished the last minute knitting I can get back to the quick fix that is stamping. I just had a mail order present arrive that needed wrapping and decided to have a play. it's for a guy so I wanted something quite masculine. Both of the stamps are from the same paperartsy plate. possibly my favourite christmas plate from Paperartsy (and the beautiful flourishes can be used all year round).
The funny thing about this tag is of course it's a soft present and shaking it is perfectly fine. well I find that amusing anyway!!
I'm entering this for Wednesday stamper "snowflakes" and theme thursday "tags"

inspiration from a couple of challenges

The inspiration for this card came from the Wednesday Stamper challenge (faces) and the theme thursday challenge (pink). All of the stamps are from The Paperartsy Hotpick range, and the gem is from poundland.

I have used my blender pencil again to colour the face. I'm still learning, and each time I use it I can see how to improve the technique.

I'm in pencil heaven!!

If you have visited my blog before you may know that I like to use pencils to colour. my favourite at the moment being Derwent coloursoft. I have tried sansodor to blend the pencils in the past and although I love the effect, just find the whole thing a bit messy, and the drying time is forEVER!!
so I have generally just gone for a non-blended look, which I do love.

However today I tried.... fanfare..... a blender pencil!!!!! Why did I not know about these before? The image on this card was coloured in very roughly and then just blended! simple as that!! and this is only the first time I've used it, so I am expecting to get better at it.... ooh the ideas that are forming in my head!!!

anyway, the stamps: Jasmin and swirl stalks are both from Jo's range from stampotique available at Happy Daze

I am entering this for wednesday stamper's "we love purple" theme. And indeed I do love purple!!

Wednesday Challenges

Three of my favourite challenges are all on a wednesday, and I couldn't decide which one to go for so I decided to do all three, but for once I haven't combined them I've done a piece for each one.

First of all: Stampotique, where the challenge is "vintage" I hope that this is "vintagey" enough.
All the stamps are stampotique and available from Happy Daze. I have used Jo's Abstract foliage, long splatter and old english Hallowe'en, alongside smile

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Secondly: Wednesday Stamper. Theme: steampunk. Stamps: Scrolls Work . Available from Scrolls Work and Happy Daze.

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Third: One Layer Wednesday: Theme: Nature. Stamps: The frantic stamper's own range (solid square and sunflower).

Gone Fishin'

Well you might have thought I had with my lack of blogging this week, but that's actually the theme at this weeks Wednesday Stamper.
I made this card using Water babe from Scrolls Work stamps, coloured with whispers markers. The K&co paper I ripped to create the waves actually has fish on it too, but you probably can't tell. I have mounted this on a small plasma card (cut from a larger one) about 2.25" x 4"

Wednesday stamper: square

I decided to use this decorative "square" shape (I used a page of an acrylic tag book as a template) for this week's wednesday stamper, using an image fron PaperArtsy. It's still a little early for me to be making christmas cards, but this image just fits a square so well. I wanted to edge the image with starlite silver but my inkpad has dried up so it was sort of grey. needless to say, I've just ordered a re-inker.

Wednesday stamper: Tim Holtz

When I first considered this wednesday stamper theme I wondered how Tim had an influence on what I make, and I immediatly thought of distress inks, so of course I started with a distress ink background, using the houndstooth background from the artistic stamper, but then I realised how much more of an influence tim had had, as I distressed the edges of my black card with my scissor blade and added some random ephemera.
The flourish and family stamps are also from the artistic stamper. This is my last official Artistic stamper piece as my term on the DT comes to an end this week, but I'll still be using the stamps plenty, especially the gorgeous backgrounds and the cute mabel lucie atwell images!!

so cold we are turning inuit!

We have had so much snow over the last few weeks that we have decided to put it to good use and build an igloo. We had so much fun doing this as a family.
I have also managed a little bit of crafting I have made this ATC/card for Wednesday Stamper's "when I grow up" theme using an image from the stampsmith

Wednesday stamper : santa claus

I can't believe it's taken me so long to get round to making a wednesday stamper this week, after all it's the easiest theme!
I have made this to go on my secret santa gift at work. I'm pretty sure I'm safe, I don't think anyone at work reads my blog.
The stamp is by Hearts in Touch, who are also sponsoring this month's challenges at Gingersnap Creations this month.

in fact to be in with a chance of winning not just this stamp, but the whole plate you can take part in the gingersnap blog hop

Hallowe'en : note the apostrophe!

If you know me well, you will know that I am on a personal mission to "stop the drop" of the apostrophe in the English usage of Hallowe'en. I won't rant too much about it. I know language evolves, but I think it just looks so ancient and beautiful with the apostrophe, why lose it? It's not like it is used that much throughout the year.

So please, just for me,
use the apostrophe!

Anyway, back to business, I have made this card for Wednesday Stamper.
This is the first time I have tried this diamond fold style of card, and it was much easier than I expected, and I just made it from a strip of A4 card. The witch is from The Stampsmith, and is the witch from the Wizard of Oz plate. The detail on the left hand side is a scrap of lace.

I have included a couple of extra photos to show the detail of the fold, in case you are not familiar with the style of fold.

happy "eye-surgery"!!

you can't find cards for that from Hallmark (or maybe you can, I don't honestly know)
Anyway, my friend is having laser treatment tomorrow, and although I know it's now really commonplace, I think she is exceptionally brave.
My friend is Not A Crafting Person (yes it deserves capitals) but she has a bit of a thing for basic grey papers. Also note the bubble stickers, they reminded me of contact lenses, which she won't need anymore, and the tiny text? well hopefully she should be able to read that alot easier too!!

All stamps are by PaperArtsy

I am entering this for the "open" theme on wednesday stamper (let's face it, it wouldn't fit any other theme!!)

... I was saturday surprise has a "parts of the body" theme...how perfect is that!

Somewhere over the rainbow

The theme at Wednesday stamper is dogs. I decided to use this image of dorothy and toto from The Stampsmith, to decorate a notebook. I hand drew the rainbow again.
(is it just me or does toto remind you of Spit the dog?)

I am also entering this as a second piece or Gingersnap's rainbow colours challange.

groovy baby!

I have made this ATC for TMTA's Flower Power theme, Wednesday stamper's Paisley theme and for the stampsmith blog.
The paisley stamps are from a stamps away set, that I have had for ages

altered chip fork!!!!!

This is one of those pieces that makes you question your sanity. I saw the theme at one powerful hour was maps, and I remembered that I had a blackpool map on a sheet of stamps from stampattack. I also remembered I had some of these wooden chip forks that I picked up one day because I thought they had "potential". These chip forks just shout "day at the british seaside" to me, so I went with a daytrip theme to make this tag. This will also be a second entry for wednesday stamper's "taking a ride" theme.
(the map is stamped onto the fork)

Now what I need to know is are these wooden chip forks a peculiarly British thing?

a few challenges..

I decided to see if I could combine the challanges for ready steady stamp:
Wednesday stamper (Ride) and Tag it on (time flies). I'm pretty sure this piece satisfies all of them!
The main image is by Inka, the clock is non-sequitur and the quote is from Paperbag studios