Sweet Sugar Flowers

Have you ever done one of those cards that just changes several times over from first concept to final product? Well this was one of them! It has changed so much that I'm not sure what to call it now. LOL.

Indecisive is my middle name :)

Right, well, anyway this card uses the fab cracking UTEE technique which is this month's technique to try on Sugar Sugar.

Now I was sure I had some clear UTEE somewhere but can I find it? Can I heck as like! So I've used a bucket load of normal clear embossing powder and a lot of patience.

The fabby Sugar Nellie Leanne Ellis image is coloured with pencils, sansodor on a watercolour backwash and the flower, bubbles and embossed detail are painted with yummy sparkly Shimmerz Flashee Fuschia Blingz.



Materials:
Image - Sugar Nellie Leanne Ellis
Colouring - Prismacolor pecils; Derwent pencils; sansodor; Koh-I-Noor watercolours; Shimmerz Flashee Fuschia
Papers - DCWV
Usual suspects - Paper trimmer; Double sided tape
Other - Ribbon; Clear embossing powder; heat gun; versamark; flowers; Flower brad

Ooo I'm excited!

I've been asked to be a guest designer for Making Handmade Cards! Imagine my surprise when Jo from Making Handmade cards emailed me out of the blue. I did a couple of projects for them and they liked them so now I've a new blinkie on my sidebar :) Well I never!

Have you seen their e-kits? If you join the newsletter you get a free Floral kit to start playing with immediately :)

I've been lucky enough to be able to play with some of Claire's new designs soon to be launched into the shop and here are a sneaky peak.


Have a good weekend folks :)

Rumble In The Jungle

Been playing about with my punches. To be precise I've been making background papers using the positive and negatives from a leaf punch as a stencil. What do you think? I thought this worked quite well with this fab digital stamp from Louise Bridgen's Holly and Madison's World Tour set at Charmed Crafts.

Told you I was getting into the digi-stamps at the moment :)

The image has been printed on transparency and card and coloured with pencils on the card and pens on the transparency.

Thought it was a bit of fun and of course I will be entering into the challenge over at Crafty Goings on, I mean who wouldn't with a 72 Copic pen prize :) Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy!



Materials:
Stamp - Charmed Crafts Holly and Madison
Colouring - PrismaColor pencils; Caran d'Ache pencils; Derwent Pencils; Sansodor; Letroset promarkers; Copic Ciao (Yep - pretty much everything except watercolours!)
Usual Suspects - Paper Trimmer; Silicone glue; Double-sided tape
Other - Animal brad HOTP; Hemp string; Printable transparency; Woodware large leaf punch; VersaColor bamboo ink;

Go Check These Out

Yep - Blog candy!

I haven't posted a blog candy roll call for a while, so here is one for you - but I'm sure you are all way ahead of me and have seen all these already?!




Stamp With Us Have a new blog. (1st April)










Much sort after Hanglar stamps from Malin over at Pyssel mamman. (31st March)










Steph Any Shade Of Green has a Mystery Candy - What fun. (2nd April)










Wendy at Paper Therapy is getting over her last candy give away by doing another candy give away - hair of the dog and all that :) (14th April)








Sheila at Manic Stamper celebrating a MASSIVE 80K Hits and a birthday! (15th April)











Katrina at Whimsical Wishes with SU candy (29th March)










My fellow DT Member for Shimmerz Paints Claudia has some Magnolias up for grabs at Pretty Pressings (2nd April)











Maria at Imagine, Create, Inspire is celebrating a fab 10K hit count (27th March)











Helen over at Helen's Craft Haven is celebrating a fab 5K hits (30th March)







Gosh what a lot of candy - and I'm sure I've missed loads! All wonderful candies - thank you all for your generousity!

And a Heads up folks, watch this space becouse it is my one year blog-iversary in April and there may be a bit of candy of my own on offer.....:)

Make A Little Birdhouse In Your Soul

Have I just aged myself with that title? LOL! (For those who aren't sure it is the title of a song from the 1990s by the group They Might Be Giants!)

I'm enjoying the recent craze in downloadable stamp images at the moment, I shall always love rubber stamps but the downloadable stamped images are instant hits with me, particularly being in the UK where you can't always get those fabby rubber stamps easily from the US.

This image is a download from InStyle Stamps and I've used it for their challenge this week which is a Thank You themed sketch and a Guest DT Call.



I thought the card would make a fab 'Thank you for letting me stay' card :)

A tip for any of you who haven't tried stamped image downloads yet, or who are having problems with colouring them after printing - as soon as you print them use clear embossing powder and your heat tool to seal the printer ink.

Materials:
Stamp - InStyle Downloads
Colouring - Prismacolor; sansodor
Papers - DCWV
Usual Suspects - double-sided tape; Silicone glue; Paper Trimmer; Scissors
Other - Ribbon; X-cut border die cut; Cuttlebug

Surf's Up

I'm always getting ahead of myself, making Spring cards in Winter so here is a Summer ATC at the start of Spring.


Materials:
Stamp - C.C. Designs
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Papers - DCWV
Colouring - PrismaColor Pencils; Sansodor
Usual Suspects - 3D-foam; Paper Trimmer; Scissors

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

It is such a long time since I have shown you some colouring that I thought it would be a great excuse to use my new Mini-Magnolia stamp. This isn't quite an ATC as it is very slightly longer than it should be but I just loved the edge on my rectangle stamp I didn't want to cut it short :)

Details: I've inked up the rectangle stamp with Colorbox chalks, teal and coral pink and then over stamped with the fabulous music script stamp from Artistic Stamper (ok, I 'fess up it was another new buy from the Olympia show). The roses were made using papers coloured with inks and following the fabulous tutorial from Nancy at Scraps and Inks.


The image was coloured with a mix of Colorbox chalk inks and Koh-I-Noor watercolours.


I used Shimmerz Angel Wings paint to highlight the wings and 3D-glue to accent the bee body and the little rose.


Materials:
Stamps - Magnolia Mini; Artistic Stamper Music Script; Whispers Rectangle; Stamps Away Bee
Inks - VersaFine Onyx Black
Colouring - Koh-I-Noor Watercolours; Colorbox Chalks
Usual Suspects - Scissors; Silicone Glue
Others - 3D-glue; Shimmerz Angel wings Paint

A Paper Bunch Of Flowers

Wahoo a NEW card for you today! A bunch of stamped flowers highlighted with Shimmerz Sunflower, Angel Wings and Celery and made from the GCD Studios Whoop De Doo paper range.


I love the way the Shimmerz paints catch the light.


I now have a corner rounder punch! No more drawing around a template and cutting out corners by hand :)

Have a fabulous weekend.

Materials:
Stamps - Stamps Away
Inks - VersaFine Onyx Black
Papers - GCD Studios Whoop Dee Doo
Paints - Shimmerz Celery; Angel Wings; Sunflower
Usual Suspects - Silicone Glue; Paper Trimmer; Corner rounder punch
Other - Rafia; Hemp string; Kraft Card

Ah Craft Shows :)

Back from the Olympia Stitch and Craft Show (apologies to Sarah if you have picked this up again LOL) and managed to not spend all of my money - I know I'm just as suprised!

Bargain of the show for me was some mixed textured threads/yarns that I needed for my embroidery and they were on special offer. Wahoo.

And for the papercrafters amongst you - I also bought myself a couple of very, very cute mini Magnolia stamps but it wasn't my fault - Jo made me do it LOL!

Heart Felt Thanks

Last of the cards from last year that I haven't blogged yet but you might have seen it in Papercrafts Essentials :) and on my new slideshow - which I uploaded yesterday and just realised that I hadn't blogged this card yet - D'oh. Thought I better post the card quickly before anyone noticed ;)

This one uses BasicGrey Recess Paper pack, which I really like but you don't really see a lot of.


Materials:
Stamp - HOTP; Studio G Alpha
Ink - Versafine Sepia brown
Paper - BasicGrey
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; Double-sided glue

Is It Really Spring?

Hey folks, we have had a few lovely, sunny days here in London so I'm kinda hoping that Spring has Sprung :) The daffodils are out in force and the parks and gardens are a wash with Spring flowers.

A change to the usual pace, no card today, but a photo I took of the Daffodils in Hampton Court a few years back.

Hope the weather is fair with you.

Olympia Stitch and Craft

Anyone planning to go to the Stitch and Craft Show at Olympia this week and fancies meeting up for a coffee, and to compare shopping bags of course (LOL), then drop me an email. It would be great to start putting real faces to bloggy names :)

New Shimmerz Colours And Website

Shimmerz Paints has some lovely new colours: Shimmerz Blueberry Cobbler, Caramel; Choc-o-lot and Fire Engine Red and some fab new Blingz colours: Mellow Yellow and Under The Sea to add to their 39 Shimmerz and 11 Blingz colours.

You can have a look at these fab new colours and the other yummy colours in the range at the new website http://www.shimmerzpaints.com where you can order the paints directly from the shop.

Oh but wait there are some even cooler stuff on the Shimmerz horizon. What cooler than these lovely new colours? Yep! I can't really say any more except you might want to watch the Spritz space on the website - Tee Hee!

I can't wait - too impatient me :)

Inky Impressions 1st Design Team Call

Inky Impressions has a it's first design team call going on until 22nd March and I thought I would join in the fun :) There are three stages and the first stage is to post a couple of your favourite cards with coloured images.







So guys, if you want to join in, just pop over to the Inky Impressions blog and challenge blog to find out more.
Thanks for looking :)

Paper Star

Another all paper card today and this one uses the lovely Cosmic Cricket Get Happy Paper Pack available from Sassy Crafts. I've distressed the papers with paper files and then inked the edges with the Tim Holtz Distress Inks Soot Black.

Thanks everyone for the lovely birthday greetings :)


Really I should be showing lots of cards with coloured images seeing as I have some copics now LOL.

Materials:
Papers - Cosmic Cricket Get Happy
Stamps - Studio G Alphabet
Ink - Tim Holtz Ditress Inks
Usual Suspects - double-sided glue; Scissors; Silicone glue

Have You Seen....

The new GCD Studios blog? I recently bought some GCD Studios paper and I can safely say that they are GORGEOUS, beautiful designs and wonderful textures.

As soon as I saw them I knew that I was a fan and wanted more, more, more :) Well imagine my joy when I found their new blog and saw that they have some blog candy running with a chance to win a whole paper pack.

But you better get over there quickly as the deadline is today.

There Is A Challenge Going Down...

At Kaboodle Doodles and this fortnight it is a sketch:


And here is my interpretation:


I've actually kept completely to the sketch for a change LOL. So hot foot over to the Kaboodle Doodles Blog to have a go and win fabby paper downloads and of course see the other DT members fabby makes :)

Materials:
Papers - Kaboodle Doodles Aliens Kit
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Usual Suspects - Scissors; Double-sided tape; silicone glue
Other - Computer; printer

I'm The Luckiest Girl :)

Look, Look, Look what I got from my wonderful OH David for my birthday yesterday :) And he always picks the perfect card for me - even if he doesn't make it himself :)

If you look carefully the Robot has an ickle cupcake in it's tummy, just like me yesterday - except mine wasn't that ickle :) :)



The card is made by The Good Life and is an eco-friendly card to boot - perfect! It now has pride of place in my craft space, as do my fab new Copics of course - wahoo! I'm going to have a play now, see you later.

You Are A Star

Bright and cheery for a three your old Nephew. Another of my old and un-blogged cards you might have seen in Papercrafts Essentials and a really simple card - bit like me :)

Lots of colours and lots of textures for this one, oh and a bit of paint :)

Hope you all have wonderful Thursdays.


Materials:
Usual Suspects - Silicone Glue; Scissors; Paper trimmer
Other - Cardboard; Cuttlebug and embossing folder; Coloured card; Acrylic paints

Paper Quilting with a Cutting and Folding Tutorial

I love sewing paper :) This design today was actually inspired by something we have been doing in my creative embroidery class. A couple of weeks ago we were using the cutting and folding of fabric to add texture and dimension to a background. I've used the same technique for the paper heart as the focal part of the card.


You can use double-sided papers or if like me you wanted to use some papers that were not double-sided (D'oh!) then cut yourself a couple of similarly sized pieces of patterned paper.



Use glue dots to stick the two pieces back to back.



Lightly draw around your template and cut the shape out.


Using a craft knife cut on one side of the shape leaving a reasonably sized border (approximately 1/4 inch or 1/2 cm).



Fold the paper over to show the underside. You can fold it over flat or to keep the dimension don't completely fold it but fix in place at one point so that it is a rounded fold.



If anyone wants to know how to do this in fabric then just give me a shout :)

Materials:
Stamp - woodware
Ink - versafine onyx black
Paper - Hot Off The Press
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; glue dots; double-sided tape
Other - buttons; sewing machine; thread; Bazzill Kraft card
Pin It

Show Me Ya Knickers

Mmm I wonder if that title will end up getting me a lot of strange hits on the blog? LOL.

A Sassy Crafts card today and have you seen the Third Coast Stamps over at Sassy Crafts? They have a sparky personality of their own with humour and quirkiness that is very cool. The papers are Basic Grey from the Eva Collection and I've done a touch of sewing and finished with lovely buttons from Buttons Galore.


Materials:
Stamps - Third Coast Stamps
Colouring - Prismacolor; Sansodor
Paper - Basic Grey Eve
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; Double-sided tape; Silicone glue
Other - Buttons; Sewing machine; thread

Craft Critique

Do you guys follow Craft Critique? I've been a subscriber of them since starting into the bloggy world last year and have enjoyed their fab critiques of crafty products and materials. When I'm unsure about buying a product I usually visit them first.

Well if you have yet to discover the joys of Craft Critique they are doing a HUGE Follower/Subscriber drive with give aways so now is the time to sign-up and see what they are about. They are on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube too.

Has It Turned Cold?

Another card from last year for you today. I haven't blogged it yet but you might have seen it in Papercrafts Essentials if you read the magazine.

The image is a cute Hamish from Sugar Nellie and he has been coloured with Prismacolor pencils then embossed to give that 'just snowing texture' :) I cut the border with a circle template and scissors and stamped the ickle snowflakes in pearlescent ink.

And as luck would have it the SugarBowl has a Christmas theme so I thought I might be a bit cheeky and enter it into the challenge :)


Ever wanted to know about the Cat Herders?
So cute :)

Have a fabulous weekend.

Materials:
Stamp - Sugar Nellie; Pink Cat Studio
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black; Brilliance pearlescent
Colouring - Prismacolor pencils; sansodor
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; Double-sided tape; scissors
Other - ribbon; circle template; cuttlebug and embossing folder

What A Sweet Heart

I think my lovely OH, David, liked his birthday card as he has blogged it.

If you are interested in what I made for him then go spread some bloggy love over at Clandestine Critic where my man critics and reviews all the entertainment bits and bobs he loves. If you like your films, books, TV programs, comic books this is the place to hang-out.

(Ignore any of the soppy stuff in the post as I will go very red - LOL)

More Notebooks

I'm obviously in a notebook frame of mind at the moment so here is another one for you. Inspired by the lovely acetate covered notebook Wendy had on her blog Paper Therapy a few days ago, I thought I would do my own take with some stamping and painting onto acetate.

I also wanted to try out my fabulous new Shimmerz paints so I thought that this would be the perfect project.


Details: So I stamped onto the inside of the acetate cover with white staz-on and then painted over it with some Flashee Fuchsia Blingz Shimmerz paint. The card covers are matted with Basic Grey Euphoria papers and I made the flower and butterflies from the same papers. The flower and butterflies are all painted with Celery Shimmerz and just look at that wonderful sparkle! The button has also been 'blinged' with the Flashee Fuchsia Blingz Shimmerz


Materials:
Colouring - Flashee Fuchsia Blingz; Celery Shimmerz
Stamp - Hero Arts
Ink - Staz-on Cotton White
Papers - Basic Grey Papers
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; Silicon Glue; Scissors; Double-sided tape
Equipment - Bind-It-All; Wires
Other - Acetate; blank pages; Covers; Embroidery thread; Beads; Butterfly Charm; Button

When Inspiration Calls

Something slightly different for you today - a scribble book for when you get that hit of inspiration.

I've painted the covers with acrylic paints and a touch of varnish then decorated the front with Basic Grey papers from the Ambrosia collection, added a fab large felt flower and some distressed circles and a brad. The letters have been 'blinged' with glitter glue and I've added a small matching paper charm on a ribbon.

The book itself was put together using the fab Bind-It-All which I love to bits :)

If you feel inspired, pop over to Sassy Crafts to get what you need.


Talking about notebooks take a look at this yummy notebook from Wendy over at Paper Therapy.

Materials:
Papers - Basic Grey
Inks - Tim Holtz Distress inks
Usual Suspects - Double-sided tape; Paper trimmer
Other - Fun felt venti daisy; Brad; Zutter Bind It All, Wires and covers; Acrylic paints; varnish; Ribbon; Glitter glue; Cuttlebug; QuickKutz Sophisticate Alphabet

Pink, Black and White

Do you fancy a bit of origami? I've made some origami cherry blossoms for this card and used beads for the centres.



Materials:
Stamp - The Greeting Farm Geisha Anya
Colouring - Letraset Promarkers
Papers - Dovecraft
Usual Suspects - paper trimmer; double sided tape; Silicone glue; scissors
Other - beads; computer; printer; embossing powder; heat tool; 3d-glue

Ladies That Tea

It was my OH's birthday this weekend and we did lots of lovely birthday stuff including eating lots of yummy food and visiting places such as doing the BBC tour around Television centre. He took friday afternoon and Monday off of work and it has been a nice extended weekend.

Shock to the system getting back to normal today! Plus I reckon I need to go for a run or something to work all that food off. LOL!

So I haven't really been making a lot over the last few days and to prove it I have a card from last year that I haven't blogged yet. If you get Papercrafts Essentials you will have seen it in the latest issue as they asked me to send some examples of my work for the interview piece. Thank you those who have seen it and have left such lovely comments :)

A paper pieced Elzybells Art Stamps with some fab retro bright papers. I'm busy on a sewing project at the moment. I hope I get some time to do some cards to show you all. If not you might have to make do with a rather novice bit of embroidery :)

Happy Tuesday.




Materials:
Stamp - Elzybells Art Stamps
Ink - Versafine Onyx black
Papers - Rusty pickle (I think)
Usual Suspects - Double sided tape; Paper trimmer
Other - Brads; Lime and brown cardstock

In The Garden

Aren't stamp sets fun? I've used the flowers, bird and sentiment from The Greeting Farm's Anya Pretty Hat stamp set for this card and I love the sweet and simple lines that have come out of this design :)

Coloured the images with watercolour and glitter glue and doodled the flower stems. The matts are made from card coloured with promarkers.


Materials:
Stamps - The Greeting Farm Pretty Hat
Ink - Versafine onyx black
Colouring - watercolour
Usual Suspects - Paper trimmer; silicon glue
Other - glitter glue; organza ribbon; Letraset Promarker pen; Fine marker pen