Hey,

During my period without the Big Shot, I decided to play with a smaller format.

I think the US size is 4bar - it's one I use mainly for my Christmas cards - smaller surface area is handy when you are making a ton of cards.

I created my own mask (see my Saturday 9th May post about this) and blended distress oxides through the aperture. I used Twisted Citron, Picked Raspberry, Carved Pumpkin and Peacock Feathers.

I haven't pulled out my Paper Smooches 'Space Cadet' set in a while, but it is one of my all-time faves and I have had it a very long time.

I used the little Alien from the set and I added sentiments from Unity Stamp Co, Hero Arts, Concord & 9th and Ellen Hutson. The little dots are by Simon Says Stamp and are a flower centre - way to stretch my stamps!

So simple and a lot of fun!

Cx

Hey,

I cut it close, but I made it!!

I really wanted to play along with the current Sunday Stamps challenge.

Hey,

You might have noticed that I have been posting a lot recently.

I had a bit of a mental health break from my blog this year and decided to not put so much pressure on myself!

Recently I have made so many fun things that it felt right to share them, that's really what my blog is about. For a couple of years I made myself post almost every day and that was so time-consuming and not as much fun as this is supposed to be!

I made today's card a long time ago... it has been sitting in my 'to be blogged' folder patiently waiting it's turn!

I love digital stamps, they were my go to when I first starting crafting and I was still nervous about physical stamps and inks. That has obviously changed, but I still love digi stamps.

A company I discovered this year is Graciellie Designs - I love their digital stamps and I believe they do physical rubber ones in conjuction with Unity Stamp Co. (who I also love).

I bought their 'Tea for the Soul' set on sale because I loved it and one of the sentiments 'When life gives you lemons make tea' - you can see it here.

I fussy cut the stamp out after colouring it with Copics and because I chose to make the fruits Limes, I went with a kind of green theme.

The mini cover-plate die (Scalloped Stripe) is by Reverse Confetti and it is an all-time fave of mine. I die-cut it out of green cardstock and mounted it onto my card blank.

I cut my cardblank down to a kind of 4bar size. The excess that I trimmed off I used to stamp and heat emboss my sentiment which is by Hero Arts and then I fussy cut that to size. I hate to waste a decent sized scrap!

I love how bright and cheerful this card is and it has long since left to make a friend smile.

Cx

For this one, I used gold embossing powder, distress inks to watercolour with and added some inky splatters when I was done. The stamp I used is from Ellen Hutson and is called Mondo Sakura.

Here's a little photo of me and my parents last year on Momma's birthday when we went to Runnymede and had a very English day out - picnic, feeding ducks, drinking tea and listening to the cricket.

Happy Birthday Momma Bear, I love you.

Cx

Hey,

So I thought I'd play along with a challenge tonight.. and I was looking at some of my faves and this popped up over at Addicted to CAS..


Just so happens I had a gorgeous Penny Black Snowflake die sitting on my desk :)

I thought it would make a great CAS card for a friend.

I die-cut the snowflakes (there are x2 pieces to the die) out of scraps of gold paper. The black background was die-cut using a stitched rectangle die and the card blank was a lucky find in my stash, it's a bronze/gold-ish colour. WHOOP!!

I stamped the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp 'Four Seasons Saying' using Versamark embossing ink and used gold Pearl-Ex over the top (still learning, hence the shimmer in the photo!). I then die-cut it out using a tag die.

Once I had affixed the snowflakes and the tag together, I punched a hole and tied it all together with a piece of gold thread.

I love how simple and impactful my card is and it was a great way to use a Snowflake not on a Christmas card.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday!

I am looking forward to being home in NYC this weekend and getting some QT at my desk AND watching NFLSunday with Hubby.

I was lucky enough to be in London to celebrate my friend and colleague Harry's birthday. None of us understand how he is only 30!! He has a wise head on his shoulders.

I thought it would be fun to use one of the LePetiteMarket 'Mermaids and Sailors' stamps, as Harry has a beard and I felt sure he would love to own a pipe (he confirmed this when he opened the card).

I printed the main part of the sentiment on my computer and added the 'Harry' the 'Vintage is in' sentiment is new and by Scrapbook.com I bought it as part of my birthday haul and the set has all these awesome birthday phrases.

I especially love 'have cake for breakfast' I can't wait to have a play with it!

It's always fun to make a card with someone in mind.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

It's time for everyone's fave  -

Watercolor Wings by Stampin' Up is a fave set of mine and when I first got it in 2015, it got totally overused..sadly it's been a bit neglected over the last 6 months or so.

I stamped the pink and black parts of the butterfly using ink and the white parts were heat embossed. Once I had finished heat embossing, I spritzed it with water, to get the pink 'bleed'.

I have this random dot stamp on my desk (I can't find the set its from...6months..) and I thought it would look fun here to add it here and there.

The sentiment is a freebie from a UK magazine that JT gave me last year. I am hoping for more 'free gifts' this week, as my Momma arrives on Thursday for a 2 week visit.

This is the best bit about Retro Rubber for me, giving an older, slightly neglected set a new lease of life.

Show us your makes and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends June 15th.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Hey,

Do you ever get a new stamp set, but are at a bit of a loss as to how to use it?

I fell in love with Hummingbird Thanks by Pretty Pink Posh, but I struggled a bit with ideas. So I did a google search and came up with the idea for my main card, which is a CASE of a card by Umichka (Anna).

I love masking and I thought her card was gorgeous and it inspired me.

I stamped all the Hummingbirds first, then using die-cuts, I masked them off and blended over the panel using Distress Oxide inks. I coloured the Hummingbirds using Promarkers and added some white gel pen like Anna to their wings.

I added a piece of tracing paper, a die-cut word and a sentiment banner to finish my card off.

LOVE the end result.

I made three more cards, using a simple formula - masked circle, Hummingbird die-cut or stamp and a large sentiment (all from a Freebie set that was a gift from JT)





A great 4 cards from 1 set solo playdate and has given me food for thought with some other stamp sets.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

Over the Christmas break, we had a bit of a theme overhaul and Debbie suggested this lovely one -

The minute I saw this cue-card I knew that I had the perfect stamp for it. It's called 'The Gorgeous Bride' and is by All Dressed Up. She feels so very Vintage with her nod to 1920's style.

I actually combined a digital stamp with a physical stamp here - it's allowed as long as they are both older than a year and there is some physical stamping too!

This card has a random story attached to it. I actually made the card and was a bit up in the air about which sentiment to use. Then a friend (male) who is getting married (secretly) asked if I could make him a card to give to his wife to be on their wedding day. He said 'give me something smooshy, with feeling' LOL..sure ok!

And then it came to me...I have this beautiful sentiment by Unity Stamp Co. that I got in 2016 and I thought it would work here and fit the brief of my friend and weirdly enough the lady on the card actually looks a teeny bit like the Bride.

I coloured the stamp using Promarkers and Spectrum Noir sparkle pens and the background paper is ancient and is really pale pink, with subtle bits of text on it.

My friend loved the finished card and I was super pleased that my card went to a great home and could be a little gift for my friend.

Show us your interpretation of the sketch (and maybe even share a random story) and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends May 4th.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Sunday to you. I am off to the Gym this morning - good way to earn the right of sitting on my butt for 12hrs watching NFL!

My Black Friday Haul was amazing, especially from Studio Calico which had the best sale ever and so I was able to acquire a lot of things that I have been lusting after for a while.

This stamp set (Large Sentiments by Hello Forever) caught my eye a while back, as I figured it would be mad fun to colour and stamp all the fun little dots / stripes.

As you can see from my photo, I went with Happy Birthday for my first road test of the set.

I watercoloured the words and then used contrasting inks to stamp the dots. I love it, it is so fun and clever.

I am going to try anniversary cards next and I was thinking about stamping onto a coloured paper and then adding dots..so many possibilities.

Cx

Hey,

It has been a while since I did a 4 cards, 1 stamp set post.

Before we left for Atlantic City, I pulled out a new Pink Fresh Studio stamp set ' Lovely Borders 2' for a little play -


I really liked this quirky set, I thought the borders would make simple fun cards.

I die-cut watercolour paper and stamped four of the borders, each with slightly different spacing. I watercoloured all of the borders using distress inks and a paintbrush.

The sentiments got pulled from a variety of stamp sets.

They are so CAS, I really like them and they were super easy to make, which is always nice!

Cx

Hey,

Happy Monday, hope you had a great weekend, Hubby and I had awesome fun with the Nixons.

I have a few Christmas gifts that need to leave now-ish, as they are going to faraway climes.

As we all know I LOVE tags - shop bought, handmade, I don't care, I just love tags.

So the starting point of any gift for me is the tag.

I had to make these very quickly, so I cheated and used ready cut manilla tags, smooshed them in some Distress Oxide ink and then stamped the cute sentiment by Unity Stamp Co and the Reindeer by Clearly Besotted.

I like to just colour bits of the image, it adds a bit of interest to the tags. I did this last year, but made the entire tag (smooshed background + tag die).

Fun and easy to make and will look pretty on the gifts.

I'll show you the wrapped gifts later in the week.

Cx

Hey,

I have this strange love for new Baby Cards...

They make me so happy and I was lucky enough recently to be able to make two of them - one for a boy and one for a girl - yay!

The main card today is for friends of mine that just had a baby girl. As the female half of this particular couple is quite funky, I decided that a card to welcome her Daughter should also be funky!

In the clear out of box of shame I came across a host of ready to go backgrounds, including the one I used for this card, which is actually an oops that I couldn't bear to part with...

So glad that I kept it as it has worked out perfectly for this card. I die-cut a babygrow (onesie) from some precious ancient paper, love the sparkly stripes. I love the giant baby word die, it's by Lil Inker and I had to hunt it down after seeing it somewhere years ago. I stamped the rest of the sentiment, which doesn't show so well here, but it did pop on the card IRL.

The next card is for a client of mine and my colleague and I adore her and wanted to send her a nice personal card from us and the team. She has 3 Daughters already, so that was the theme of my card.


What do you think?

I love it, the cute stamp and die set by Mama Elephant worked out so well here. The sentiment was a gift from JT.

More babies please!

Cx

Hey,

Happy Monday.

I am back from the Margatecraftathon with JT, but this is a scheduled post, so you'll have to wait until Weds to hear all about it :)

As I start making my Christmas cards so early, the first batch usually has a few elaborate makes.

Today's card might not look elaborate, but trust me there was a fair amount of work involved!

Both the tree and Joyeux Noel dies are by Simon Says Stamp and I bought from Cheiron in her big destash.

Once I had die-cut the tree and the sentiment, I thought they would look nice on my fave mini kraft cards, but how to affix them, without a traumatic glue adventure?

I decided to go with mini staples. Cue much fiddling around trying to place the tree and the sentiment and hold them with one hand, whilst using the stapler..

Totally worth the effort, but I don't feel like there needs to be more than 2 of them!

I added some new fuzzy dots for a bit more interest.

Today I am going to Lunch with a friend and then hitting the pub for a big old reunion with my people.

Cx

They felt a bit plain, so I added some Nuvo drops to the white circles around the sentiments, I love Nuvo Glitter drops...I am totally overusing them!!

Love it when a gift triggers fun times at my desk.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday.

I thought I'd show you a fun little make that I made for a friend.

When the craftgang got together Lisette gave us a load of spare stamped sentiments and the wooden mermaids, so I grabbed one of my fave mini square canvases (super handy for making random stuff) and painted it gold using a Dina Wakely paint that Cheiron gave me for my birthday.

I cut up the sentiment and attached it to the canvas using Glossy Accents, same with the Mermaid.

Super easy and hilarious. I have no doubt the friend who it is going to will love the sassy nature of it.

Have a great weekend, I am off to lunch with Lisette tomorrow and playing at my desk and watching non-stop NFL - YAY!!

Cx

Hey,

Happy Monday...

Back to work for me, so not overly happy LOL. I like being on holibobs.. but who doesn't!

Do you think my cards are heavily cake and birthday focused this month because it's my birthday month?

I had just finished making these cards when I made today's card - I got all white heat embossing crazy..

I love the simplicity of the white heat embossing, you can do so much with it afterwards..

The candle and wish sentiment stamps are by Concord & 9th and the 'it's your birthday' is by Simon Says Stamp.

I have to say, the MISTI is really working out well. I am getting such clean impressions now, with these heavier stamps, why did I wait so long to buy it?!

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday!

Why is it that four day weeks feel like forty-four day weeks?

I am currently playing along with a 5 part challenge over at Anna / Umichka's blog.

You have to use the same stamp set for each of your cards and keep the cards CAS. You can see my first card here and card two here.

To refresh your memories, this is the stamp set I am working with -
It's from the October 2015 SSS stamp kit.

Again I felt like making the glasses the focus, but I really wanted to use two other elements from the set, so I went with the chevron and a heart.

I stamped the chevron onto the die-cut panel and was most unexcited by it, so I stamped it across a bright green card blank and suddenly I was excited again!!

I added a border of green hearts above the chevron and used a Hero Arts sentiment.

To co-ordinate with the card blank and the hearts I stamped the glasses in green, before die-cutting them out.

I love it, it all came together pretty easily. I am keeping them all together to give-away when the challenge is done.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Monday.

Hope you had a good weekend, I had a fun, crafty, hilarious weekend, spent with Cheiron at Jenn's Loft Art Retreat. It was nice to get home to Hubby yesterday.

I am still off and I am teaching a cardmaking class at my local community centre..lots of elderly people and my friend's 10 year old Son LOL.

The cards you see here today are the ones I am teaching - with the flower I will let people choose which colourway they want to make. The more boy focused ones I made specially for my friends Son.