Hi there

Apologies for the radio silence.  I've completely lost my creative mojo lately, I'm hoping to sit down and have a proper look for it later!

In the meantime, I thought I'd pop on and share a card I made last month.  I was commissioned to create a card for a friend for her son's wedding, I was waiting until after the day to share it here then it completely slipped my mind.

Here it is, the brief was an A5 wedding card with a cute theme featuring owls...


As a CAS cardmaker I really struggle with larger sizes such as A5, as I find it difficult to fill such a large area whilst maintaining my usual style.  As I opted for the textured frame I was really happy with how this turned out.

I began by cutting the upper panel, from a sheet of embossed stripe cardstock, and die cutting the stitched aperture.  This way I could be sure that the focal point was positioned correctly on the card base behind.  I roughly marked the focal area with a pencil and then stamped the branch, owls, leaves, hearts, top hat and flower, before then roughly masking and creating the clouds with a stencil and Distress Ink.  Before adhering the panel, I wrapped some decorative ribbon around the panel and topped with a bow.  The panel was then adhered on 3D foam strips.

I printed the wording onto some white cardstock (using a font called dearJoe 5 CASUAL) and cut the two hearts out with a stitched heart die to tie in with the stitched aperture.  I adhered these, popping some 3D foam squares behind the parts that overlapped the aperture, and to finish added some Glossy Accents to the owls' eyes...


Materials used:

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Paired Up (branch/hearts/leaves), Woodland Pals (owls); Mama Elephant - Three Amigos (hat); Penny Black - Salutations (flower)
• Ink: Altenew - Lava Rock, Mocha, Morning Frost; Versa Color - Olive, Pink, Rose Red; Distress Ink - Tumbled Glass; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Stencil: MFT - Cloud
• Dies: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles; MFT Die-namics - Stitched Heart Stax
• Accents: Glossy Accents

Thanks so much for visiting, hopefully I'll find some crafty inspiration soon and be able to share more with you.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! :)

Good evening

The February CAS challenge over at Happy Little Stampers is just starting so I'll get straight to it and share this month's cue card...



This challenge, along with the rest of the HLS challenges (most to start over the next few days) will run until the end of the month so there's plenty of time to play along.

I kept my card super simple, using just an inlaid die cut and a stamped sentiment...



I began by die cutting the stitched rectangular panel.  I die cut the flower from the panel, and again from textured green and coral cardstock.  I secured an adhesive panel to the reverse and inlaid the coloured die cuts into the negative space.  I stamped the sentiment in black before adhering the panel to the base on fun foam.

Materials used:

• Dies: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles; Creative Expressions - Scribble Flowers
• Stamp: Mama Elephant - Ella & Friends
• Ink: Versafine - Onyx Black

Hi guys

These weeks are flying by and we're back with another new challenge at Less is More this morning.  Our Recipe challenge this time is...





One of the techniques Sarah, Sharon and myself were playing with at the Happy Little Stampers retreat earlier this month was making light up cards.  We had great fun making our circuits and it was perfect timing to make our samples for this week's challenge.

Here's mine...



You can find a tutorial on YouTube here by Kylie of Happy Little Stampers which will explain how the circuits are created.  All you need are LED circuit stickers, self-adhesive copper tape and a battery.  I used three white LEDs for my card shining through a snowscape trees die.  I heat embossed my sentiment in white which is the press location for my battery.  I then topped the black panel with the tree die and snow bank die.  The most difficult part is working out all the placement initially, but other than that it's pretty simple, and really effective.  I'll certainly be making more of these!

Materials used:

• Stamp: Happy Little Stampers - Christmas Joy
• Ink: VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Opaque Bright White
• Dies: Craft Emotions - Landscape Pines; Mama Elephant - Landscape Trio
• Tools: Chibitronics - White LED Circuit Stickers (plus adhesive copper tape and a CR2032 battery)

Challenge entries:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #269 - Clean and Simple
Happy Little Stampers - November Anything Goes with Dies Challenge
Creative Inspirations - Challenge #283 - Sparkle
Daring Cardmakers - Trim the Tree





Please do check out all of my teamies' great creations this week, including the light up cards also made by Sarah and Sharon.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of shine in the gallery this week.

Good morning

It's time for another get together with the Honeys, and we've all been creating with another great kit of crafty bits and bobs.  Grab a coffee if you like, there's lots of pics below!



For those of you that don't know what this is all about, one of the gang put together a surprise kit which then gets posted to the rest of us.  We then get creative with the same goodies and share our makes here on our blogs.

The latest fab kit was compiled by the lovely Sarah P of Sazzle Dazzle Crafts and mailed out to the rest of the Honeys...

Mama Elephant: Carnival Cupcakes (plus dies)

Other Dies:

L’il Inker: Smile

Mama Elephant: Columbus Circle

Neat & Tangled: Hooray word dies

Other Items:

Hobbycraft Basics: patterned paper

Action Wobbler

Doodlebug: bakers twine

Anita’s: half cut pearls

So, here goes with my makes this time..


Card 1:


I used the Mama Elephant Columbus Circle panel backed with some of the polka dot paper and adhered these flat to my card base.  I then used the Mama Elephant die cut cupcake and teddy bear, coloured with ProMarkers and some clear Wink of Stella and popped the teddy bear up on the action wobbler.  I then die cut the Reverse Confetti sentiment using an MFT stitched rectangle and coloured with the same pink ProMarkers and adhered to the base on 3D foam.

Challenge entries:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #269 - Clean and Simple
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Food and/or Drink (Mama Elephant)
Happy Little Stampers - November Anything Goes with Dies





Card 2:


I used the Reverse Confetti die cuts and sentiment for this one.  I coloured the doughnut and icing with ProMarkers and adhered these together.  Then, using Glossy Accents I adhered lots of the half cut pearls to the icing die cut and then smothered over the top with more Glossy Accents and left overnight to dry.  On a panel of white cardstock I stamped the sprinkles from my own Clearly Besotted 'With Sprinkles' stamp set in grey ink.  The sentiment was die cut with an MFT pierced square die, adhered to the stamped panel and I then suspended the doughnut from the top of the panel using some twine from the kit.  Here's a close up of the gloss and 'sprinkles' on the doughnut.



Card 3:


This was the simplest of all to make.  I adhered some of chevron patterned paper to the card base, leaving a slim border.  I then used a pink ProMarker, close to the colour of the paper, and coloured over the Neat & Tangled Hooray die cut, which was then adhered over the co-ordinating shadow die cut.  I then used a sentiment from my own Altenew 'Celebrate' stamp set which I heat embossed in white on a strip of black cardstock.  The hooray and sentiment were both popped up on 3D foam.

Challenge entry:

Seize the Birthday - Monochromatic




Card 4:


Using an MFT pierced square die I cut the boy image and some of the polka dot paper and layered these up on a card base.  The image was once again coloured with ProMarkers and topped with some clear Wink of Stella.  I then took my Clearly Besotted 'With Sprinkles' set and stamped the sentiment at the base and within the speech bubble, using a die from Clearly Besotted 'You Said It' die set.


Card 5:


On a panel of white cardstock I used some Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone and spread this through a Hero Arts 'Sprinkles' stencil.  I then coloured the Avery Elle sweet images from the kit and fussy cut these out before adhering around a sentiment from the kit which I die cut with a die from MFT Stitched Sentiment Strips.  The panel was adhered to the base on fun foam and the sweets and sentiment with glue dots.

Challenge entry:

Creative Inspirations - Challenge #283 - Sparkle



I hope you like what I did with the kit, and I'm now ready to go and visit my fellow Honeys to see what they created with the same goodies.

Thanks so much for visiting today, I'll be back shortly with details of the new challenge at Less is More :)

Good morning!

Another Saturday is back with us which brings around another new challenge over at Less is More.  We're back with another Theme challenge this week, and here's our cue card...




Happy Little Stampers continues to be our sponsor for this month so please do play along as it will put you in the running for our monthly prize!



Only one card from me again this week.  I was hoping to find more crafting time this past week but I've had my mum staying with me so my routine has been a bit all over the place and I wanted to spend some time with her in the evenings.

So, here's my DT card and my interpretation of the 'Take Flight' theme...


I chose dandelion spores flying in the wind as my theme idea.  I started by stamping my images in VersaMark on a piece of white cardstock and heat embossed the dandelion, spores and sentiment in white.  I then did some emboss resist and blended with blue and purple Distress Inks to create an ombre background.  To continue the curve theme of the dandelion stem I used some stitched curve dies to cut my panel down and then adhered flat to the card base.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Dandelion Dreams, Flutterby Dreams
• Ink: VersaMark; Distress Ink - Salty Ocean, Dusty Concord
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Opaque Bright White
• Dies: Mama Elephant - Landscape Trio

My LIM teamies had some great ideas this week so please do pop over the the main blog if you have time, and follow the links for more info.

That's all from me today, hopefully I can find more crafty time this week and share more with you.  Have a lovely weekend.

Good morning, crafters

As usual it's time for a new challenge over at Less is More, but we have something a little different for your this time.

As it's week two of the month we have our usual One Layer challenge (oh, please don't groan! lol) but this one will run for two weeks.  Here are the details...



And as well as this being a two week challenge, we're also linking up with AAA CAS Card Challenge.  So you can enter two challenges in one!



Please pop over to the main LIM challenge post, here, for the full details.  There will be one joint winner for this challenge and you must link up to both LIM and AAA to be in with a chance of winning.  The winner will also be invited to guest design for both challenges!

Happy Little Stampers are continuing as our Sponsor for the month of July, and we have the lovely Kylie joining us as a Guestie this week too, so please do pop over and show her some love.


Right, onto my cards, and I have two for you this week.  And both have just a single image and sentiment, and a similar layout too!

For my first I chose a pretty shade of lilac for my card base, in a textured cardstock...


I used pigment ink for this card as I especially needed the white to stand out.  I stamped the outline of the flower first in white, then used a lilac shade of ink to stamp the second layer.  As it was pigment I had the lilac ink sitting over the white which didn't look right so, once dry I went back over the original outline with more white pigment ink to define it.  Luckily I managed to line it back up ok! Next, using my MISTI I stamped the sentiment in the same lilac, then shifted my cardstock very slightly and re-stamped in white to create a shadow effect.  I finished by splattering some white and lilac watered down ink.

Materials used:

• Coloured Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Premium Cardstock (assorted pack so shade not known)
• Stamps: Altenew - Golden Garden; Mama Elephant - Brushed Florals
• Ink: Hero Arts - Unicorn; Versa Color - Heliotrope

Challenge entries:

STAMPlorations - Summer CAS Card Challenge
Stamping Sensations - July Challenge - Anything with Flowers
CAS on Friday - Challenge #111 - Flowers




For my second card I made a Christmas card (two weeks running!) using stamps by our sponsor, Happy Little Stampers...


I stamped the sentiment and the poinsettia in VersaMark ink and heat embossed with copper powder.  I then used a gold coloured pencil to add the shading to the petals and leaves.  Gold Stickles was added to the centre.  To add some interest I included some score lines along two edges to help ground the image.

Materials used:

• Coloured Cardstock:  Bazzill Card Shoppe (assorted pack so shade not known)
• Stamps: Happy Little Stampers - Christmas Joy
• Ink: VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Metallic Copper
• Accents: Faber Castell Polychromos - Gold; score lines; Stickles - Gold