52 Weeks of Crafting

This week at Sketch Saturday we have a lovely little sketch. I was struggling to make it work until I rotated it on my side and then it was a Eureka! moment:


Our sponsor is The Paper Nest Dolls, and I love them. I think their images are so cheery and sweet. I went for something a bit seasonal and colored her with ProMarkers before fussy cutting her out.

I added a strip of orange punched pumpkins as a border down the side to work with the sketch and then added a Tim Holtz sticker for the sentiment. I have a few vertical stamps but I like that this is a bit different. The background paper is ancient, I think I've had it for 6 or 7 years as I bought it with Claire following one of our very first playdates.

I added glitter glue to the sunflower on her shirt and a Wink of Stella touch for each of the pumpkins and her hair band. It's sort of lost in the image here but it looks great in real life.

I love that pumpkin punch and was delighted to have the opportunity to use it (especially since I used a scrap of orange paper exactly the right size, score!) so it was a card of perfectly found pieces coming together.

Hope it works for your inspiration this week!

I love when I see Claire's sketches in our Sketch Saturday challenges and I thought this was a really fun one to play along with:

This week it is my 8 year wedding anniversary and I wanted to make something fun but simple as a card for my husband.

I love these Gorjuss stamps, I have about 4 or 5 of them and they are so lovely but I find them a bit hard to use sometimes. Maybe I just don't try hard enough. Anyway, this one is a personal favourite, I think she was my first Gorjuss stamp and I love the little heart card she's holding. I decided it was perfect for the anniversary card.

I colored her using Spectrum Noir pencils and tried to make her hair a bit like mine (but hers is glossier and shinier as I'm too lazy to blow dry) and then I fussy cut her out as she's a simple shape. The heart is a giant punch and I stamped over it using a love stamp set that I got at a craft fair earlier this year. I added the sparkly 8 for our 8 year anniversary as it's the same color as the heart.

It's simple but sweet and I think it's perfect for the occasion!

I like something a challenge that makes me think differently about my stash and the challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch made me think about how to put something on the diagonal.


I looked through a dozen images and stamps and things before remembering that to get a rectangle shape you don't have to have a rectangle-shaped image, the great DT cards showed that in the challenge and I decided to make a shape out of multiple punches. The balloon stems, sentiment and punch are all Stamping Up and I decided to go for a classic rainbow color scheme.

Sometimes the simplest things are the cheeriest. The purple stripe and the very light hexagon-print background paper are all scraps from my stash, years old, and I decided the light pattern kept it from being boring and added a touch of contemporary print.

I like the sentiment being so blunt without a happy birthday or anything so I can use it as a congrats card or something other than a traditional birthday. Why not keep the options open?

Very fun to play with, thanks for the sketch inspiration!

Hello everyone and happy Saturday, another chance to play with Sketch Saturday. I LOVE our sponsor, Oddball Art Co, every time I go on their site I fall a bit more in love with their collection of quirky but sweet images. 

Another happy Saturday to you all - and happy Sketch Saturday day! 

I decided to play along with some challenges this weekend to make a Bridal Shower card for one of my best friends. She's Beatle-mad and I thought this All You Need is Love sentiment + die set would be perfect - I just needed to make a card around it.

So the combination of colors at The Paper Players and the layout at CAS(E) This Sketch were a perfect combo as she loves pink and orange:



I made an umbrella out of pink and orange papers to go with the 'Shower' theme (it is tradition after all) and I used a heart stencil to add some raining hearts to the background paper. I die cut the 'love' sentiment in yellow and orange for texture. I added a lime green border of heart scallops to add the fourth colour.

So while it's a wedding card it is super summery and cheerful - not the usual white-on-white. I think she'll like it and it was a fun way to get some inspiration this weekend.

I've been crafting in the margins rather than making it a priority lately and it's made me a bit sad - I love to craft and love to make time for it but sometimes life gets in the way. Sighs. Anyway - I saw the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and thought it was perfect for a play:


I decided to make a colourful birthday card - and although my result is pretty simple I really couldn't decide for ages what to do. I must have looked at every single stamp I have, every die, everything that could be a big vertical feature before returning to one of my first ideas to use a bunch of balloons to form the exclamation point.

The balloon set is Stampin' Up - I used the stamp and punch set to match the colors to the fun paper that I've had in my stash for ages. I love bright printed papers but when they feature text it can be really hard to make it work. Even though the paper is busy it is the paper doing all the hard work and the balloons are all lovely solid colors (punched from paint strips if you want to know!).

The sentiment was an ad hoc stamp purchase I got in Paper Source a while back - it's an older wooden block stamp and therefore makes it a bit trickier to use when you're used to lovely perfectly aligned clear stamps. I am really pleased with it though, it's cheerful and bright but just about unisex...maybe. Pleased I got a chance to play at the desk all the same.

I have a housewarming party today and decided it would be fun to make a little card to take the couple. I saw this card on pinterest and thought it was perfect - I have dozens of balloons punched from paint chip cards and thought this would be a fun way to use them up.

I hand-drew the house and cut it out - I wanted something smaller than the house stamps I already had. I was going to use a sentiment but then left it off - it felt more CAS that way.

Simple and easy, which is just what I needed as I'm feeling a bit delicate today!

My niece's birthday is coming up and I decided early on to make her an owl card. I have given her a lot of owl gifts and books and decided that it would be perfect to match this with her birthday present.

I chose a Unity Stamp Co image that is 2 years old (maybe 3?) and I loved the challenge at Retro Rubber - the sketch was perfect for a cheerful kid's card:


The owl is heat embossed on a white circle (in hindsight I think it's too big and I should probably have cut it down smaller) and then I added some punched balloons with hand-drawn strings. I added the blingy 1 for my niece as well. The backing paper is from my stash - I've had it for years and years and thought it was really fun for the card. The sentiment is die cut from a Sizzix set.

I love that little owl, I think it will go so well with the little owl gift I have planned for her present :)

Claire and I always like to show off in our cards for each other and even simple-looking cards should feature some hidden complexities.

As it's her wedding anniversary I wanted to make her something fun and cheerful. This card features a few fun things, including a new toolset she gave me this summer. She introduced me to Distress Oxides and this card features three colors though the yellow all but disappears with the pink and orange. I then spritzed a stamp with water and laid the card on top to get a bleached chevron. I then used punched hearts (that I think I got when Claire lent me her scalloped heart punch years ago) and then used a die to get the sentiment.

It looks simple but it's cheery and fun and the colors of a Tequila Sunrise - perfect for recognising their honeymoon in Mexico!

I have so many friends with September birthdays that I am always making very individual cards in the first week of the month. I don't normally do challenges for special friend birthdays but this week everything came together really well, with the colors from Color Throwdown and the Freshly Made Sketches design providing layout:


I decided to use an X-Cut die set champagne glass, cut out in white and layered over a stitched red circle. The sentiment is from Creative Stamping magazine, I think maybe the June or July issue. The border is punched using a really old American Crafts punch from their Knock Outs series. The red plastic gems are from Poundland, they were a great find in the kids' section.

Really happy with how it came together, I think my friend will love it next week!

As I was on a craft date with Claire this weekend I was feeling more brave in my card makes. These might not look very brave but look! The paper is torn, not trimmed! Small things.

We made the headline card as a joint challenge with repeated image/text in a resist and a watercolored background and her card is pretty awesome, I hope she shares it soon. I got a bit bored with the heat embossing as the stamp took quite a lot of powder but otherwise I liked the combination of colors I got from Peacock Feathers and Blueprint Sketch Distress Ink. The little tag is covering an oops where I messed up my stamping. I liked it better neat on the card but then had to hide the mistake. Oh well!


The next card uses the ripped scrap from the headline, painted in Mowed Lawn ink. The image is a new Tim Holtz that I heat embossed in black. I embossed a yellow scrap in a woodgrain folder to go with the leaf. The little tag is a new punch from EK Success.


Finally I thought I'd share this just as a freebie. The frame is cut from the headline card from yesterday. I used a flower freebie from a card magazine and a thank you from a set I got second hand. I colored it all using ProMarkers and added some pearl and glitter accents to the flowers and sentiment. It's a girly but I like it, it's very different from my recent makes.

I saw the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and thought it would be fun to try some different ideas:


The headline is a very CAS version. I inverted the sketch and used a Tim Holtz stencil to create a sunburst at the top. For the two panels, I used Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and used alternative brush strokes to create the effect of differrent sections. I added some little sentiments from the Tim Holtz Ranger collection and I know just the friend to send it send it to.


This is an alternative version that is a bit less CAS but I do love it more. I used the color inspiration from Color Throwdown as i thought they'd be perfect for my sister's 30th birthday card.

This looks simple but was in fact a labor intensive card. I heat embossed each panel. The green panel has a houndstooth embossing folder and added numbers from a new freebie from Creative Stamping magazine. The panel on the right has dots from a Stampin' Up set and I did an ombre effect using Victorian Velvet and Picked Raspberry Distress Inks. Iadded a little pink balloon with baker string. The bottom panel has a sentiment from another magazine but I can't remember which. I added some Avery Elle stencilled hearts to make it look a bit less plain.

All in all I am really pleased with both of these and can't wait to get them off to their recipients.

Hello and welcome to another fun Saturday challenge at Sketch Saturday!

Here's the sketch:


This week's challenge is sponsored by Just Me Digital Stamps and her images are gorgeous. I'm featuring Fantastic Mr Fox and he's such a cutie.

I decided to make the image sentiment nice and big, and then colored it with ProMarkers. The brown card is embossed using a woodgrain folder. The green vine is a Martha Stewart punch that I punched in dark green card and then carefully cut down the line - it's supposed to be twice as wide and I thought it would work well as a border if I got it a bit smaller.

I had such fun playing with the sketch, I hope you do to. Be sure to enter before Friday!

I realised that I needed to make an 80th birthday card for Olly's grandad as we're seeing him this weekend for a birthday lunch. Panicked as my craft kit is packed away (I have a friend staying this week and my craft room is my guest room) I decided to look for a good challenge that would allow me to focus my energy on my limited access.

I loved the colors at Retro Rubber this week so thought I would give it a go.


Spoiler alert: I ended up needing to use quite a bit more of my kit and had to sift through all the carefully organised boxes I had scattered throughout the apartment in a bid to make space for my friend's stuff. Sighs.

Anyway. I heat embossed a big birthday sentiment that I have had for about 4 years. Maybe 5 or 6? It is so old I don't remember where it came from but I know I love it. I used a turquoise powder that has a hint of iridescence that I like. I punched balloons in lime green, purple and two shades of turquoise with hand drawn tails, and added a stitched frame around it. Some bling number stickers and that is one fun little birthday card. I can't believe something that looks so simple could have caused such a fuss!

Welcome to another Saturday with Sketch Saturday! As a Guest DT I'm having so much fun.

This week's sketch seemed tricky but ended up being a bit of fun to play with:


This image is great, it's from Crafty Sentiment Designs and she is great to color. I used ProMarkers and, having chosen the background paper first, I colored her to match. I chose some ribbons from my stash (I have so many ribbons - maybe hundreds? - that I love playing 'match that color') and used those instead of tags as I liked the texture against the paper. I fussy cut the image over the ribbons and layered her over foam to give her some elevation. The sentiment is stamped on a washi tape punch and I liked the way it mimicked the ribbon.

Hope you enjoy playing with the sketch as well!

A close colleague is having a baby and I wanted to make him something special for his wife to welcome their baby girl. Another colleague also commissioned a card for them so I thought I'd feature them both here.

The headline card is the one I'm giving them - I used a stencil Claire gave me and used Victorian Velvet Distress ink to get the subtle pink clouds. I punched a bunch of balloons using a Stampin' Up punch and stamped a 'Welcome Baby' sentiment on the biggest of them. I added some stamped strings, I kind of wish I had used real string but I like the bow.


This card is really funny. Our colleague's wife is Czech and they have this cartoon called Little Mole so I was commissioned to make a Little Mole card for her to give. I don't love the banner - I will keep trying it though. The top sentiment is die cut using an XCut die and the Little Mole is paper cut by hand.

Both really fun and different baby cards, I'm going to remember the balloon treatment for the future as I think that could have legs.

I wanted to make a few little cards to send to my parents and my sister's in-laws to celebrate the arrival of my niece. I decided to do something simple and cheerful and when I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I thought it would work well:


And the color challenge at CAS-ual Fridays was perfect for my modern baby card:



The pink paper is punched with an American Crafts punch that I haven't used in ages but always really like using, it's so sharp it works great for adding detail. I embossed the central blue panel in a houndstooth folder to give it some texture. The central greeting is a washi tape punch from Claire and I used a sentiment that is one of the oldest in my collection. It didn't quite stand out as I wanted it to so I added the darker pink background to give it more prominence. The bows are punched using a Tim Holtz punch and to make them a bit cuter I added white enamel accents to the bows, mimicking the pink enamel accents I added to the background paper.

Really enjoyed this as it features a lot of fun little tools but has a simple look overall.