Newsflash - Insomnia Girl Spends All Night Playing Blog Catch-Up

Oh boy! Why am I awake at 3 in the morning? Well at least it is giving me a chance to do some blogging :)

Some news I wanted to share with you In Style Stamps is having a blog hop starting at 12pm (EST) today which is 5pm (BST) for us in the UK and on the forum from 11.30am (EST) or 4.30pm (BST) there is chat with some games and prizes. What fun! This will be my first blog hop and by the sounds of it a first for some of the other DT members as well :) Looking forward to seeing you at the hop!

Also I wanted to share with you this lovely (21st April) make from Jean over at Papers and Cake. She has made a wonderful yellow and black butterfly card using one of my latest makes for the current Papercraft Essentials issue 41 as inspiration. I'm just so tickled pink that you liked the cards Jean and love what you have done with the idea :) Also whilst you are on Jean's blog have a look at her drinks card from 7th April - that is so cool!

Ta-Ta For Now

Another Heads-Up

More candy and this one is from my fellow InStyle Stamps DT member and name sharer Kim from Crafts By Kim. (2nd May)

There is a lot of us Kims about! Funnily enough I had only met one other Kim before I started my blog and now I see that there are thousands of us :)

Wahoo for all the Kims :)

Heads-Up Thursday

Hi All, I have a blog candy roll for you:




Siri has some yumm-i-licious candy over at her blog One Dog, Loads of Crafts with some gorgeous papers, buttons, ribbons and a beautiful handmade flower.










Funkie Monkie has some lovely Bellas (3rd May)









Tonya over at Olde Country Creations has some lovely bits and bobs up for offer (1st May)















Look at this from Debbie at Passion For Crafts (30th April)











More yumm-i-ness at Desire's blog Doing Life. (8th June)


















Jennie over at Artistic Stamper has some wonderful stamps and assorted goodies. (3rd May)
















Thank you all for being so generous and good luck in your hit counts.

Dustin's Dragons

Puff the magic Dragon, well actually this little fella is from Dustin Pike who has a whole range of cute characters available as downloads at his Etsy Shop. But Dustin also, very kindly, gives away some free images on his blog too.

Isn't this Dragon cute? I love my dinosaurs and dragons :) I've coloured him with a mix of promarkers and copics and used my sewing machine to finish.

Dustin is also looking for DT members - well I had said to myself that I wasn't going to apply for any new DTs for a while but well, Dustin's images are just so cute I could not resist throwing my name into the mix :)



Materials:
Stamp - Dustin Pike; Woodware sentiment
Colouring - Copics; Letraset Promarkers
Papers - DCWV
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; silicone glue; double-sided tape
Other - Sanding tools; Cuttlebug; Embossing folder; Nestibilities; Button; Embroidery thread; Sewing machine

My Cute Stamps News

Good Morning All, I have had some fab-tastic news you all! I'm on the My Cute Stamps DT for May-July Wahoo Wahoo. Can you Adam and Eve it?

The other New DT members are:

Jen Caputo
Heather Pulvirenti
Heather Nichols
Julie Campbell
Yuki Leong
Krystie Hersch
Linda Dotterer
And May GDT Jen Del Muro

What a talented bunch - I'll have my work cut out for me to keep up with this lot. LOL.

Colour Create Challenge Week 12

Wahoo Me! I've done a challenge card :) Been wanting to get one done for ages! This one is for the fab folks over at Colour Create Challenge who have a pink, black and white theme (with some optional polka dots thrown in for good measure) this week based on the purse below.


I've gone heavy on the black, which is a new one on me as I don't really use lots of black. The background paper is from DCWV Glamour pack and I've used embossed Core-dinations black and pink card with some sanding. The image is from a Wendie Rhodes stamp set and I've used versamark with chalks to colour it.


The fabulous wired organza ribbon is from the fantastic candy I was lucky enough to win from Tara and the girls - thank you :)

Materials:
Stamps - Wendie Rhodes
Ink - VersaMark
Colouring - Chalks
Papers - DCWV
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; silicone glue; double-sided tape
Other - Ribbon; Cuttlebug; embossing folder; core-dination card; nestibilities

Heads-Up On The InStyle Stamps Discount Code

Two heads-up in one day! This one is for a fab 20% discount off of your order from InStyle Stamps (Copics are excluded). Wahoo! So get over there now - Boy do I love sales :)



So what you need to do is get over to Instyle Stamps, use the discount code ISSA20009 and put Kim D in the comments section on the order so they know you were referred from me :)

The sale ends on the 30th April. Enjoy your shopping.

Ally Pally and A Whiff of Joy Candy Heads-Up

Boy I love the Big Stamp and Scrapbook Show at Ally Pally going on this weekend. I was there yesterday and it was fab. Very crowded, it gets busier every time they are so going to have to move the venue! So I might have picked up some bits and bobs there, you know one or two little items!

Anyway I just wanted to give you a heads-up of some lovely candy over at Katharina's blog Stamping with Whiff of Joy where she is giving away two sets of the Summer Stamp collection. I can't wait to see what those stamps look like the sneak peak is beautiful.

Hope you are having a good weekend and anyone going to Ally Pally today have a wonderful time.

Woof Woof

At last I've got a card for you and today it is the lovely Buster from InStyle Stamps. He looks very stylish striding out in his shiny red coat. When you pop over to InStyle Stamps don't forget to mention where you saw the images when ordering :)

The papers are from DCWV and I've coloured Buster with a mix of copics and promarkers.

Also don't forget to drop by the InStyle Blog to join in with some of the challenges.



Have a fabby Friday.

Materials:
Stamp - InStyle Stamps
Colouring - Promarkers; Copic markers
Papers - DCWV
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; silicon glue; double-sided tape
Other - Brown marker pen; ribbon; white gel pen

Sugar Stitch

As promised a card! After a very lazy Easter weekend with very little crafting going on - shock! Horror! I have managed to finish this card for you today.

I've used the Twilight In Provence Papers from Designs By Krista which, btw, is only $1 and Krista has a sale going on at her shop with lots of yummy downloadable kits for fantastic prices.

The beautiful Sugar Nellie stamp is coloured with my usual mix of Derwent and Prismacolor pencils but I've also used the Shimmerz paints Blue Sky, Sunflower and Sugar Plum to add that extra shine.

Then you might notice a bit of hand stitching again?



Materials:
Stamp - Sugar Nellie
Inks - VersaFine Onyx Black; VersaColor blue; Distress inks broken china, lavender
Colouring - Prismacolor pencils; Derwent pencils; Sansodor; Shimmerz paints
Papers - Designs By Krista
Usual suspects - Double sided tape; Paper trimmer; scissors
Other - Embroidery thread; needle

Bits Of News And A Clue

I will get a card done - promise :)

But in the mean time here are some bits of news for you that you might want to join in on:

Katharina at Stamping With A Whiff Of Joy is giving away a set of the fab WOJ collection 2 Medieval stamps (til 17th April).

Max over at Max's Craft Creations has a really fun Egg hunt game with lots of chances at candy happening on her blog - Fab idea Max :)

And talking about games, would you like a clue for my guess the number of beads game going on here? Well in the piccy below I've separated 50 beads from the main pile :)

Does that make it harder or easier? Remember you can enter a guess every day until the end of the candy and to enter then just see This Post.


Hope you are having a good weekend.

Molly Goes Shopping

My first card as guest DT for InStyle Stamps :) And here comes Molly on a shopping trip. What a cutey! I've coloured her in with a mix of PrismaColor pencils and Derwent pencils.

If you pop over to the InStyle Blog there is a Thankful Thursday Challenge going on and if you join in you could win a prize :) The challenge is a sketch, not the one below btw! But I'm hoping to get one done to the fabby sketch.

Catch you later.



Materials:
Stamp - InStyle Stamps Molly
Colouring - Derwent; Prismacolor; Sansodor
Usual suspects - Silicone glue; double-sided tape; Paper trimmer
Other - Paper file; Buttons; Ribbon; Pricking wheel

Just A Quicky

To let you know that MyStamp Box is having a blog hop finishing at 11.59pm EST tonight, so that is 6.59pm BST? Is that right?

Anyway go take a look - there is a chance at a stamp set for you :)

Look What I Got :)

Aren't I lucky? I received this wonderful RAK from Siri with the most wonderful vintage Norwegian buttons and ribbons she raided from her Mum's and Granny's collections! Totally unique. She also made me a gorgeous matching box and card, isn't it lovely?

What a box of treasures!

Thank you Siri, now what shall I make.....?

Spring Sugar

So Spring break has started for many children in the UK and next weekend it is Easter, which means that we have a four day weekend. To celebrate Easter/Spring Sugar Sugar has a Easter/Spring challenge on this month which must be anything except a card.

I've made a little chocolate egg holder. Ok so this would have looked a bit fuller but, well, some of them might have fallen into my mouth. LOL.



Materials:
Stamp - Sugar Nellie
Ink - VersaFine onyx black
Colouring - Derwent pencils; Prismacolor; Sansodor
Papers - HOTP
Usual suspects - Double sided tape
Other - Acetate; Cuttlebug; Curved Rectangles Mega Nestibilies; Ribbon; Button

Toot Toot - Guest Design Team For....

Wahoo, Wahoo! For April and May myself and Jodi from Inked Inpressions are the guest DTs for InStyle Stamps. How Cool is that? InStyle stamps do rubber stamps and Digi-stamps over at their shop and I love their retro, manga/anime and whimsy styles, just up my street! But get this, you can also get custom anime made. What a fab idea!

Hope you are all having a good weekend.

My Next Project Is....

I've been wanting to make a scribble board for my projects for a while and I recently felt inspired enough to get on with it. The idea is that I scribble down those projects that are in my head and have them hanging in one place somewhere near my craft space.

I don't know about you but sometimes I have lots of things I want to do but they don't always get done or something comes up and the idea gets pushed somewhere else. I have lots of notepads, books, random pieces of paper where I jot everything down but I just needed one place to keep tabs on.

The beauty of this little board is that I've laminated the paper so that I can write and rub off as needed :) Let's see if it works!



Details: The flowers were made with my scalloped and circle nesties and distressed with a file and ink. See the little cherub button? - I've been storing him for ages waiting for a project to use him on. Isn't he a darling?

I made a 'curly-wurly' template and cut it out of designer paper and distressed. The background corrugated card was painted with acrylic paints and the cuttlebug die-cut leaves were embossed with veins with an embossing tool. The title is printed with my computer :)


Materials:
Papers - GCD Studios
Inks - Tim Holtz Distress inks
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer silicone glue; double-sided tape
Other - Cherub button; Cuttlebug; Nestibilities; Leaf dies; pearl brads; Acrylic paints; Corrigated card; Lamintor; String; Wood beads; Computer; Printer; Paper files; Woodware large embossing leaf punch; Embossing tool.

19th Century Papercrafting

A very slight aside from cardmaking today and an unsually long post from me :)

My OH and I went to see an amazing exhibition of the 19th Century artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi's woodblock printed art work at the Royal Academy of Arts in London last week.

It was a fascinating exhibition and Kuniyoshi's art and design is amazing and has obviously influenced comics and manga of today.

Kuniyoshi was a master of the Ukiyo-e, or 'floating world', school of Japanese art which seems to have focused on the hedonistic side of life that was very in vogue. It seems that there were over 400 publishing houses in Edo (Tokyo) at this time and they would hire artists to draw designs on various themes including legends, stories, adverts for sponsors or even drawings with strict moral messages as imposed by regulations of the times. These artists were seen more as craftsmen (and women) with a product than artists and their drawings and designs were bought for mass production through woodblock printing.


The line drawings from the artist were layered onto a woodblock and carved by extremely skilled craftsmen, destroying the original line art in the process. A first print would be made and the artist would decide what colours would be used and where. The carver would then carve another woodblock for each of the colours to be used. Another skilled craftsman would then ink the woodblocks and print a colour at a time to build up the final print. The woodblocks would be used time and time again and often the later prints would be well worn in comparison to the first prints to come off of the blocks.

So in other words - it was a form of stamping :) Well printing is a form of stamping after all. On a big scale of course.

But the details achieved were outstanding.


They would also use other papercrafting techniques in some of the art work such as 'blind' or dry embossing and adding metal powders to give a luxurious sheen to the piece. The wood grain from the woodblock would also be used to add a pattern to the picture such as texture to a kimono for example.


The skill of Kuniyoshi, his school and the craftsmen involved was just incredible. There is an online gallery of his work at the Kuniyoshi project.

Normal services should resume tomorrow :)

Flutter-Hi

Okay, so you guys will start to think that I'm just obssessed with butterflies - Mmm, perhaps I am! This ickle butterfly has been made from GCD Studios papers and overlayed with embossed acetate painted with yummy Shimmerz Paint Angel Wings.

The front of the card has been cut with scallop nesties and I've covered the inside of the card with coordinating red paper and scalloped white paper (to write on!) and rounded the edges.




Materials:
Papers - GCD STudios
Colouring - Shimmerz Angel Wings
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; corner rounder; silicone glue; double-sided tape
Other - Basic Grey microchipboard letters; Cuttlebug; Nestibilites; Embossing folder; QuickKuts swirl

And We Have A Stitchy Winner

Well done those who had a play with The Name That Stitch Competition

The Stitches were - Running, Blanket and Herringbone

Which makes first by the post - MACHIN STAMPS

Wahoo, well done Machin Stamps, if you send me an email (address in the side bar) with your mailing address I will get a little stashy RAK off to you :)

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Whilst you are at it, if you like your challenges there is a fab 'Anything except a card' challenge going on at Kaboodle Doodles.

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Also to give you a blog event heads up. GCD Studios is having a fun day to celebrate their new DT on Monday 6th April



Have fun you all.