Hey,

Well it is almost Christmas, my cards left a long time ago and have been slowly landing with their new owners!

Today's cards are accidentally gorgeous!!

I had stamped and masked off the frame with the banner and added the stenciled dots. Then I coloured and fussy cut the cat and dog to sit in each frame.

I decided that it all looked a bit bland and flat...

Cue the translucent paste. I put the frame/banner mask back down and the stencil and applied the paste through the stencil. I was worried that I was going to smudge the dots, but it was fine and once the paste dried, the dots ended up with this amazing shine. Yay!

Now I feel like a genius, even though it was a random idea and I was crapping myself a bit as I did it, worried I might ruin my perfectly fine card because I was a brat!

Oh and the wonderful set is 'Seasons Greetings' by Lil Inker Designs and the stencil is by Clearly Besotted.

Cx

Hey,

I wanted to show you another set of fun Christmas cards I made two weeks ago.

This time slightly more elaborate..

Two weeks ago the girls (aka Craftgang) and I went to the Mama Elephant birthday bash at the Westbeth Center - major fangirling moment for me, as I got to meet Kathy Rac, my colouring heroine and the creator of the Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge.

I bought the fab Whimsical Winter set that I used for these cards at the event, it was on super bargain sale WITH THE DIES!!!

I was making Christmas cards over Labor Day and used texture paste through the Clearly Besotted 'Snow Day' stencil for a snow effect and as I had the paste and the stencil out, I made a few extra - smart.

So the backgrounds I used for these x3 cards were the extra ones. I really must remember to do this more often.

As I have mentioned before, I do the prep first and the fun stuff later - meh. To prep these cards, I stamped and die-cut the trees, the Deers, Squirrels and Robins first. Then I affixed my backgrounds to the card blanks.

I coloured all the stamped elements and started arranging them on the x3 cards, so I would know where to stamp the sentiment, before I affixed everything down.

I think they came out really well, there was a fair amount of prep, but the outcome was worth it.

Fun times ahead, it is my birthday on Saturday and my Goddaughter Amy arrives tonight to spend the weekend celebrating with me..it's going to be interesting with the crutches and the boot!

Cx

Hey,

Welcome to May!

It has been AGES since I played along with a Simon Says Stamp challenge.

But my good friend Cheiron is on the design team for the Monday challenge and I LOVED her tag and it reminded me how much I love making tags.

In case you haven't figured it out, this week's challenge is Tag it.

As you can see from the main photo I got totally carried away and made x3 tags!

But my entry for the challenge is the middle one -

Cx

Hey,

I am back from my trip, it was SO much fun, despite the travel difficulties.

I'll tell you all about it later in the week, but I was very sad to say goodbye to JT and to the crafty ladies that we spent 2 days with.

Today's card is actually for Cheiron's Sister, she got engaged recently and I wanted her card to be fun and a teeny bit girly.

I used a Simon Says Stamp Mosaic Heart stencil and mixed glittery texture paste with Picked Raspberry distress ink. IRL it is super shimmery.

I was a bit indecisive about the sentiment, I tried EVERYTHING and finally settled on the Simon Says Stamp 'Congratulations' die, which I cut out of kraft paper to co-ordinate with the card blank.

A pretty simple make and because I had so much of the pink paste mix, I made a ton of the stenciled panels for use another time.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Saturday - I am probably in Mexico as you are reading this.

Nearly there with the Margate series of posts..just a couple more to go..I mean this is what happens when you make 24 cards!

Today's post is all about stencils.

I took a load as did JT and we mixed and matched and played with different techniques.

Main photo was to show JT what her new pot of Glitter paste would look like - sparkly is what! I love Glitter paste, its amazing.  The thank you die is JT's and I had to buy the set when I got home, because I used it SO much over that weekend (she's lucky I didn't pinch it!).

Below I used a different stencil - Dina Wakely - and just a mustard seed oxide ink. Simple, but so wonderful.


Fun to play with stencils, I am still slightly embarrassed by how long it took me to get the hang of them and now they are used all the time!

Cx

Hey,

Today has been a slow day, following the super fun day Hubby and I spent with Cheiron and her husband.

I acquired several new goodies from Cheiron's sale pile :)

I made today's card for a work colleague and his soon to be wife.

I  love this stamp and die set by Simon Says Stamp, I use it a lot! The heart stencil is by Dutchdoobado, I used Bo Bunny glitter paste - it is so shimmery!

I'm happy that the idea I had in mind worked.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday.

It's not really a frenzy!! But I did feel like all my Christmasses had come at once, as I got to make TWO baby cards at once (joy).

I LOVE making baby cards.



These are both for my colleague Jim and his wife, who finally welcomed their Daughter a couple of weeks ago.

You will remember Jim from baby quilt fame.

I made two cards, one from hubby and I and the other from my other NYC based work colleagues to send to him.

The main card is my one, I used the Studio Calico 'Celebrate Animal' stamp set, I love it, I love Studio Calico stamp sets. To make everything pop a bit, I used distress ink through a stencil to create a soft background.

The second card was so much fun to make. I used Bo Bunny glitter paste through a spotty stencil - I love glitter paste, it ends up so shimmery when it dries. The onesie / babygrow is by Clearly Besotted and I wanted it to stand out a bit more from the background, so added a loop of twine. The sentiment is by Simon Says Stamp (stamped slightly wonky..oops).

Both cards were fun to make and are really nice modern baby cards, perfect for a designer and his newly expanded family.

Off to Philly tonight to hang with friends all weekend, then next week I will be in Rochester for work, so all posts will be scheduled.

Cx

Hey,

Recently I started working out of an actual office (not my craftdesk) with two colleagues.

It's nice, but I miss being at home..

I thought on the first day that we were all together it would be nice to give them a gift, but as I don't Nicole that well, I didn't want to be too personal.

So I settled for 'initial canvases'.

I started with Blick 2x4 canvases and added texture paste to them through different Tim Holtz mini stencils.



Pretty right? That white 'palette' is a laminated piece of scrap paper, I have these in all different sizes and use them for ink, paint, messy mediums and when they wear out I just recycle them.

Final step once the paint dried was to add the initials, I had originally planned to spell out our names, but I thought just an initial was more impactful. I have these ancient black sparkly Thickers that worked really well here. I affixed them with Glossy Accents, because of the paste I wanted to be sure they held.

I love working with small canvases, it's a little slice of art.

My colleagues loved them BTW.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday, back to work for me on Monday, after 5 weeks off. It's been an uphill battle, but I am well on the way to recovery and ready for work!

I love this week's CASology cue card -

It made me think of a stamp set  bought last year by Unity Stamp Co..I bought it simply for the sentiment that you see on my card today.

Looking through disarray and seeing the one you love, that's romance to me.

I used some texture paste through a heart stencil (Dutch doobadoo) and once it dried I went over it with Festive Berries distress ink and then die-cut the panel using an MFT stitched wonky die.

I wanted the sentiment to shine, but I didn't want to lose the hearts, so I die-cut a piece of vellum using MFT oval stitched dies and stamped the sentiment on to it.

Fortunately I had pink staples in my stapler already ;)

Simple and pretty romantic to me..I wonder can I use it as an Anniversary card..

Cx

Lots of fun to make and I used lots of pre made items, which is nice to do, sometimes I don't want to have to wait for things to dry (impatient? me?)

 I hope that my friend likes them, along with the other 'tropical' things that are in the box I sent her.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Labor Day!

I am in Mexico with Hubby this week, so my posts are scheduled.

I like holiday post time, because I get to show you things that have been languishing on my camera for a while LOL.

Today's card hasn't been hanging around too long.

I need a congratulations card for a colleague and I wanted to make something a bit different for her.

I used my new fave Dutch Doobadoo Fan stencil with some texture paste and once it was dry, I die-cut it to size using a stitched rectangle die.

The little border dies were cut using random scraps of paper and they are new because when I was last heading home JT asked me if I needed anything as she was doing a Craft Superstore order..I didn't 'need' anything but these awesome dies were on sale... She kindly bought them for me as a gift, but she was a bit ambivalent about them..

I really like them and thought the 3 I chose to use here worked really well, I secured them to the paste panel using mini staples.

I thought I had a couple of congrats dies to choose from, turns out I totally do not, I only have the one you see, which is nice, but was not what was in my head (cue purchase of new die). This one is part of a Simon Says Stamp set that I love  (don't think they sell it anymore), but I was thinking of a chunkier die here.

Anyway, I love the end result, leaving the paste as it is makes everything else pop and the random mix of colours and patterns in the border dies is fun.

Cx

Hey,

So I am now in London for the next week, which will be nice as it's Momma's birthday on Sunday, so I get to celebrate with her this weekend.

I thought as I am travelling I would give you another peek at what I have been colouring / making for the latest The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge..they are not in any particular order :)

The main photo today is Day 16, I love the digi stamp by Dearie Dolls..how cute is the bunny and her Carrot dress (I totally need a Carrot dress), it was so much fun to colour this image and turn it into a card.

The next card is Day 21..I was very tired post yoga and so opted for the bare minimum colouring..I love these new Avery Elle fish, they are so ugly and fun.

The sentiment stamps are by Snarky Stamps and they have some stamps in there very suitable for my potty mouth. I made the background for the card using a Tim Holtz mini stencil and texture paste. When it dried I laid the stencil back down and blended distress ink over the paste, to kind of get a sea effect for my ugly fish :)

Finally Day 10, I love these great watercolour panels by Suzy Plantamura for Simon Says Stamp.


I got a whole bunch of them in a cardkit and they are so easy to colour using distress inks and an aquabrush, they make super easy and impactful cards.

I will put all of the cards up onto Flickr when the 30 days are up.

Have a great weekend, my posts will be mainly scheduled this week, so I'll see you live a week on Monday :)

Cx

Hey,

So I had a super fun weekend, as JT was here for the weekend and we went to Providence to Jenn's last loft art retreat - she is moving, so I believe there will be Art Retreats, but no more Loft.

We had so much fun and it was great to spend QT together that is not work related :) We managed to lose JT's phone on the way to Providence, but all credit to JT, she just waved it off and got on with the weekend. Bill the super helpful Amtrak guy helped to make it all feel a bit better too, so a big shout out to Bill where ever you are, you are the hero of the weekend.

The collage, shows us getting inky, Mister Harley, our tags mid way through and some of the food that we ate - we ate and drank a lot, none of it was good for us and I am having to eat a LOT of vegetables to balance out the badness of the 3 days.

It was great to do the mixed media loft art retreat together because we were both a teeny bit out of our comfort zone and it was good to have my all time fave craft person with me, JT knows me so well, she just laughs when I get all weird...

JT used stencils for the first time ever and I managed not to freak out too much about my fingers being so dirty / inky..it was hard, but my new Ranger craft scrubby is going to help me deal with this moving forward.

It was a lot of fun, our table was a hoot. We learnt so many new techniques, which I'll be showing over the next couple of weeks, as I had a post class play at my desk on Monday - seeing if I had retained all that we learnt.

My fave new technique is the one where you create a blended distress ink panel, spritz a stamp with water and lay the tag onto it. It reacts and kind of bleaches it, like this -


I put my canvas together on Monday, because I didn't want it to get damaged on the train and I love how it looks -




I can't wait to hang it and visit JT and see her's hanging up too.

JT and I were lucky enough to win prizes in the raffle - I am very pleased with mine -


Fun times.

I just want to say to JT - thank you for coming all that way, you made me so very happy, hanging with you is always awesome and playdates are the most fun, especially when they involve Fried Pickles and Flower Monkey Sliders...

Love you man.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday.

I am looking forward to my first full weekend at home, at my desk for several weeks.

I will be firmly glued to my desk, playing and finishing off my mini re-org..I realised I had some dead space on my desk that is crammed full of crap, I honestly have no idea what is in that corner..

I wanted to share a card I made earlier in the week for the Unity Stamp Co. Facebook Show and Tell group.

It's a really cool idea, it's a weekly themed challenge using Unity stamps, you don't need a blog, you just post to the group.

I had ordered some new Unity Girl stamps before I left for London, so this week's challenge 'Use a Unity Girl' was perfectly timed.

I love this stamp, I have a Unity Girl colouring book and this was the first Unity Girl I coloured when I got the book. This one is called Erica.

It was so lovely to colour, I love all the details in the stamp. I used a mix of Promarkers and watercolours to colour the stamp. I added some Ferro metallic paste through a Tim Holtz stencil to add a bit of texture.

I tried lots of different sentiment stamps before settling on a Tim Holtz chitchat sticker.

I'm going to be using it as a birthday card for a friend. I can see a lot of cards being made with this Erica Girl stamp.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Hey,

I am in London now, hanging with my folks.

My Ma loved the main card from this post so much that she asked me to make something similar for a friend.

So as it was going to be a CASE I wanted to change it a bit, so it wasn't identical.

I used a Tim Holtz stencil and randomly applied the texture paste through it.

The butterfly is a fave die by Poppy Stamps, that I don't use as often as I should! I channelled my inner Cheiron and put distress inks onto my craft mat, spritzed them and then smushed the paper into the inky mess, dried it and die-cut it.

It came out way better than I expected - yay me!

Here is a close-up for you -


I was planning on cutting the numbers out of the left over inky paper, but when I went to get the number dies, the 60 you see was waiting in the die pouch..it was meant to be.

To jazz it up a bit I added some bling (of course).

I love it. I have to try and make more butterflies using this method, but you know they will all come out horrid!

Ma loves it too, so all is well :)

Cx

Hey,

Hope you had a good weekend.

I had a nice one, chilling with Hubby and attending class at The Inkpad NYC on Friday, taught by my good friend Cheiron.

I love her classes they are fun - there is a regular crowd of ladies and they are great to be around.

I love the cards we made in this class, the main photo was my fave card from the evening. Here are the rest.




So much fun to make, we used pastes, paints, inks, stencils, multi-matt medium, markers, stamps and a few paper based items.

It was great on my table, we were very collaborative and helpful, it was a nice fun way to spend Friday after a crazy week at work.

I also managed to empty my wallet in The Inkpad - but in my defense there were a lot of great things on sale as well as full price items, alongside class discount :)


Cheiron and I will be seeing each other again in two weeks when we do another road trip to Jenn Shurkus' Loft Art Retreat - cannot wait!

Cx

Hey,

Hope you are having a nice weekend.

So this post is a twofer...

Anniversary -

Hubby and I are heading to DC to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary which is today..

The main photo is the card I made for him. The journaling card came in one of my Simon Says Stamp cardkits and just reminded me of all the things Hubby and I enjoy.

I wanted to make it more 'anniversary' so used texture and translucent pastes through a heart stencil. To make it 100% more male, I stapled it to a metallic card blank, using blue staples...

Halloween -

Hey,

Hope you are all well.

It's been such a busy week already.

Hubby and I spend the weekend just outside Philly to visit some good friends that have just moved there from the UK - it was a surprise for him, as he didn't know where we were going.

I also did another card class at The Inkpad on Friday - with Cheiron as our teacher, she is so awesome! It was also great to connect with a few people I had met before (Lisette you know I am talking about you!)

We managed to make a whopping ten tags!! Using all different Ranger items and techniques. We used stains, paints, inks, markers, sprays, stencils, stamps and pastes.

The main photo shows two of the ten tags - on the left it is a new technique for me, ink up the stencil, spritz with water and then flip it onto your tag - eek! It works and is stunning. The one on the right is a translucent paste resist which I have done before.

Here photos of the rest of my tags..





Final tags!! I love the second one way more than the first one, but that is because I didn't listen... The second one uses rub-ons and then the smooshing technique to add colour. The lady is stamped on after. LOVE this, need more rub-ons now, normally I dislike them.

Fun times. I love doing classes at the Inkpad. If you are based in NYC you have to do a class there. You should also check out Cheiron's blog, she is so super talented.

Cx

Hey,

Happy Friday!!

Before Ma was here, I had an epic play at my desk.

One of the things I made is today's main photo.

I created my own watercoloured background and then stamped over it with pale blue and pink inks with 2 difference size ball stamps by CAS-ual Fridays.

I used a fun stencil by Crafters Workshop with texture paste and embossing powder. Once it was dry I heated it to get the shine.

I die cut hello in white and inked it up in the same blue and pink inks and mounted it onto the card on top of a piece of washi tape.

Here's a close-up so you can see the inked die-cut -


This card ended up being perfect for a friend, so it has already left my desk..

Hope you have a great weekend, I am going to be continuing on with my OCC Maskerade class.

Cx