Sweet Stampin' ~ For A Child's Birthday

Hey there lovelies, how has your week been? This year keeps whizzing by, so fast I'm dizzy! But it's time to take a pause and tell you about our latest challenge over at Sweet Stampin'. We have such a lovely theme this week. It's 'For a Child's Birthday', so I'm sharing the card I made for my darling little man's birthday back in May this year. 

Zac is growing so fast and is so full of cheek and mischief now, but he's still such a soft hearted lil' dude, that when I saw this sentiment on the lovely MME paper pad, I just knew I had to figure out how to work it into my small dude's birthday card. The paper is My Mind's Eye ~ Lost & Found 2 Collection/Breeze. The page is called Boyish Handsome.

I can't quite believe he's 7 now. My kiddos childhoods are going so fast and I longed for my babes for too many years to say. I still can't quite believe I have two gorgeous kiddos! Beyond blessed and they're both such awesome kids, it's a blast watching them grow and develop. Seriously so blessed for a girl who (not so long ago) thought she might never have her own babes. I love my 'mummy journey' and I don't take it for granted for a single minute! But let me get onto sharing detes of his card...

Zac is a little gamer, he's loved it ever since he was super tiny, we have some uber cute images of him gaming with his papa when he was really small. So when I saw this adorable 'The Greeting Farm' stamp I just HAD to have it for my lil' guy. It makes the perfect card for him.

I coloured it with my Promarkers and added a little shadow to the actual paper on the card before mounting him, to ground him a bit. He's popped up on foam pads for a bit of dimension. It's an older stamp and no longer in stock, so I can't link it sorry.

 

I recently bought a Hampton Art Stamp Perfect tool and yes, I wanted a MISTI, but it's prohibitively expensive here in New Zealand, so I chose this option and I have to say I am not in anyway disappointed! It does exactly what it says on the box! All those pesky stamps I had trouble getting a good image from first time, are now stamping beautifully with two or three passes on my HSP. It isn't too big, which suits me, as I always craft with an explosion of stash around me, so I have a tiny working surface. I do clear my desk, but I seem to do my best work when I've lots of 'stuff' around me to look at and spark my inspiration. Apparently I'm in good company too, Einstein was famously messy! LOL. (Abi our resident 'Creative Genius', would like that bit of info' too!)

I made a shaker card as I think it's fun to have a 'tactile' element to kids cards. I love a shaker card, but I often shy away from doing them as it can be fiddly cutting all the matching layers, but this came as a 'ready to put together' kit with the foam precut along with the paper elements. So all I had to do was add the patterned paper. So I flipped it over and using my craft knife cut lines into the hole of the star shape so that I could fold the paper back over each point of the star. I thought this would give a really tidy finish to the card and it really does!

I marked where the star was on the paper by drawing a pencil line around the star before adding my stamping, so I could get it exactly right on the paper beneath. The '7' comes from a stamp set the kids and my hubby gave me for my birthday from a local craft store and the 'Happy Birthday' is from a Penny Black clear set called 'Sprinkles & Smiles'. I really love this set!

Zac is super into Pokemon right now, so I threw him a Pokemon party this year, it was huge fun! He just loves going on Pokemon hunts with mummy. It helps my step counter too, so I don't complain! I was so elated when my daughter Georgie was born, because she was my first breathtakingly spectacular miracle and I just never thought I'd love again quite like I love that lil' girl, until my wee boy was born. Isn't it amazing how the love just multiplies?! This lil' dude is such a blessing to us, an adoring sibling to his big sis (he worships the ground she walks on, it's seriously too cute!) and the snuggliest, funniest, cheekiest, sweetest lil' dude I could ever have hoped for. So I loved that this card captured a little of the sentiment we all feel as a family towards our littlest miracle. I made myself cry writing this, so I'll dry my eyes, stop the sop and wrap up this post. Hehe, sometimes you just have to be still and acknowledge life is pretty amazing though right?

Do stop into the challenge blog and check out what my amazing teamies have been up to for this challenge. They really are a madly talented bunch, so you're sure to leave inspired! I'll be back very soon with another crafty adventure, but in the meantime, have a fabulous weekend and take some time for 'you'. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Crafty Catz: #375 ~ Anything Goes

Allsorts Challenge: #420 ~ Birthday Boy

City Crafter Challenge: #366 ~ Frame It

613 Avenue Create: #198 ~ Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Challenge: #23 ~ Anything Goes

Always Fun Challenges: #10 ~ For A Male or Dad

Passion For Promarkers: #399 ~ Add A Sentiment

Crafty Cardmarkers: #190 ~ For A Special Man/Boy/Father's Day
Aud Sentiments Challenge: #182 ~ Bingo (Patterned Paper, Stamped Image, Fav' Colour)
Stamping Sensations: June ~ Use Your Favourite Stamp (Ooh I've got lots of fav's! But this stamp stole my heart when I bought it which you'll see why I'm sure from my post.)

P.S. If you made it all the way to the end of my mammoth post, I found a few pics to share of my tiniest gamer... the wee man that inspired this creation, my lil' lad Zac hanging out with his papa.

Southern Girls ~ Sticky Business

Hello lovelies, I'm back again already, and I'll be back on Saturday too! It's the London bus syndrome again! LOL. Today though, I'm sharing my DT creation for Southern Girls with you. We have a super fun challenge this week, we'd like you to use all your 'Sticky Stuff', so pull out your washi tape, your thickers, enamel dots, flat back pearls and gems and show us what you've got! We have two lovely sponsors this challenge, the fabulous Ppinky Dolls and Krafter's Cart a New Zealand based craft store. I've worked with a lovely set of Krafter's Cart dies called 'For You With Love' for my DT creation.

I created the swirly marbled background with nailpolish, yes nailpolish! I dropped a couple of shades into water and then marbled the watercolour paper with it. Gosh it was fun! Stinky, but fun!!

I embossed the lovely Penny Black sentiment onto the 'hill' with Ranger Super Fine White Embossing Powder. Then I randomly stuck some lovely holographic gems around it for a bit of sparkle and interest. The 'hill' was cut with a Paper Smooches 'Stitched Border' die. 

The silvery moon and strip down the side of the image panel were cut from American Crafts POW! Glitter Paper. I love this stuff. It's super sparkly and lovely but it doesn't shed! Really easy to diecut too. I added a strip of black and white chevron washi tape alongside the glitter strip to my 6x6 card base et voilà, fini! It took me ages to put this card together, I was stuck in 'concept and planning' mode for the longest time. But once I actually figured out what I wanted to do it flowed really easily. Do you have creations like this?

Pop on into the Southern Girls Challenge blog to see what my fabulously talented teamies have been up to. We would of course love to see what you would create for this challenge too. So do come and join us with your 'Sticky Stuff' creations. I'll be back again this weekend, so enjoy the rest of the week and do pop back Saturday to see what other crafty mischief I've been up to! Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Crafty Catz: #374 ~ Anything Goes

Allsorts Challenge: #419 ~ Use 2+ Dies

The Ribbon Girl: June ~ Card Challenge

Crafting By Designs: Things With Wings

Dream Valley: #158 ~ Square Cards Only
Lemon Shortbread: #43 ~ Anything Goes

Colour Crazy Challenge: #23 ~ Anything Goes

Moving Along With The Times: #47 ~ Embossing - Wet or Dry

Deep Ocean Challenge: #157 ~ Diecuts, Chipboard and/or Punches

Simon Says Monday Challenge: Touchy Feely - I've used Glitter cardstock on this card which creates a very tactile rough texture to those areas of the card.

Fab 'n' Funky ~ Vintage

Hey there lovelies, how has your week been? It's time for a new challenge at Fab 'n' Funky and this week we have the lovely Neva as our hostess and she's chosen the theme 'Vintage' for this challenge. I'm not fabulous at 'vintage' creations, but I do love them and deeply admire those that can pull off that vintage feel. I had a little extra inspiration for this challenge though, as one of my bestie's little girl turned 7 recently and they had an Alice In Wonderland party for her. So I went all out on a vintage Alice In Wonderland creation. Man I loved making this and I was SO happy with how it all came together. I had lots of left over stash that didn't make it onto the card, so I'll have to revisit this theme again down the line. 

Our fabulous sponsor for this challenge is The Paper Shelter and I of course used their utterly enchanting 'Alice' for this creation. The stamp is called 'Drink Me'. I just love the wee table with the bottle on it, so I coloured Alice with my Promarkers, fussy cut her and the table and added them to my creation. I had all sorts of things running through my head when I was creating this, like trying to hint to Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, which I did by creating a tumble of the letters in the birthday girls name and some umbrellas and hearts. When I asked hubby if he 'got it', he said he totally did, and he's a pretty good gauge for me usually of whether an idea is working. 

I couldn't quite get any of my ideas which included the White Rabbit to work on this creation, so I decided to go for the clock as my base, which of course references the timepiece the White Rabbit carries. I printed a clock face, vintaged it with some distress inks, added Glossy Accents to the hands of the clock and then started layering up my design. The clock base comes from an original idea I'd seen done by the lovely Annette of Netty's Cards. You can see her awesome clock creations here. The fab thing with her creations is that they actually are working clocks, mine is a hat tip to that. The base design of the clock was created using Annette's wonderful template. Thank you Annette! Mwah xoxo 

I tucked in some vintage Alice In Wonderland printables around the clock face, distressing them with inks first and mounting them onto postage stamp edged mounts. All that was left, was to decorate the back of the clock. I decided to give the clock some stability when it was standing, not have it fully openable, so it didn't 'flop open and refuse to stand'. I therefore, added the greeting on the back of the clock,

I had created an 'Ace of Hearts Card' costume for Zac to wear to the party and this little red heart was left over from that, so I added it to the back along with a multicoloured sentiment. This was done with a Kaleidacolor stamp pad in Creole Spice and the sentiment is from Penny Black, from her lovely set called Sprinkles & Smiles.

I really did have fun creating this special keepsake and surprised myself at how 'Vintage' a make it was! So I hope you'll come and join in our fun Vintage challenge and show us your own vintage creations. I can't wait to see what you do! Do pop into the blog and check out what my awesomely talented teamies got up to for this challenge, they really are a creative powerhouse of inspiration! I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your week. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Crafty Catz: #374 ~ Anything Goes
Allsorts Challenge: #419 ~ Use 2+ Dies
The Ribbon Girl: June ~ Card Challenge
Lemon Shortbread: #43 ~ Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Challenge: #23 ~ Anything Goes

Passion For Promarkers: #399 ~ Add A Sentiment
Deep Ocean Challenge: #157 ~ Diecuts, Chipboard and/or Punches
The Paper Shelter: #298 ~ Tie A Bow ~ Alice has a bow in her hair! I hope this counts, because I really wanted to share my TPS make with you.
Simon Says Monday Challenge: Touchy Feely - I've added Glossy Accents for a smooth feel on the clock hands and the bumpy postage stamp edge of the cards is another fun texture. Finally the umbrellas, I 'popped up' so that they stick out from the base a bit. I used Olbas Glue to create this dimensional texture.
As You Like It: Favourite Reason To Make Cards. Second Entry - I LOVE making birthday cards, it's that one special day of the year, that's all about that one person, and I like to make my family and friends feel extra special on those days. So birthdays are my favourite. This birthday card was especially fun to create!

For those of you who made it all the way to the end of my post, here's a couple of pics of my wee boy Zac all dressed up as a playing card for his lil' gal pals Alice in Wonderland party. It was such a fun party!

Sweet Stampin' ~ For Dad's (or Special Men)

Wow, it's Saturday again already and we have an awesome challenge for you this week at Sweet Stampin'. We'd like to see all your makes for a 'Special Man', it could be a Father's Day card, birthday card for a special man in your life, you're free to interpret the theme as you wish. I'm sharing a card with you I made for a dear friends 40th birthday. Using a fabulous Mo Manning image called 'Dare'.

I kept this creation pretty simple, just layered up some paper, distressed the edges, added some ink to the edges of the sentiment and image and a cool Sizzix Weathered Clock die. Our pal was pretty chuffed with his 40th birthday card and who wouldn't be with that dapper dude on the front, so it was a win. I loved colouring this cool dude with my Promarkers, lots of shades of grey! It's almost monochrome!!

The sentiment came with Mo's wonderful image and our pals (who we met in London and now live in Edinburgh) love to travel, so I thought this was quite a fitting image and sentiment combo.

I hope you'll come and join us with your own make for that 'Special Man' whether it's a daddy, or another male figure you want to celebrate. We'd love to see what you're inspired to do. Just remember there must be some stamping either digital or rubber on your creation to qualify for the Top 3 honours.

I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure, in the meantime, head over to the Sweet Stampin' challenge blog and check out what my awesomely talented teamies have been up to. There's plenty of inspiration there for you to drink in. Have a fabulous weekend. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
4 Crafty Chicks: #353 ~ Birthday
Crafty Gals: #125 ~ Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs: June ~ Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Challenge: #22 ~ Anything Goes
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar Challenge: June ~ Boys Will Be Boys
Mo's Facebook 'Dream Team' Challenge: #276 ~ Anything 'Mo' Goes!
Simon Says Monday Challenge: We're going around in circles (Clock die)

As You Like It: Favourite Reason To Make Cards. I LOVE making birthday cards, it's that one special day of the year, that's all about that one person, and I like to make my family and friends feel extra special on those days. So birthdays are my favourite. But I do love making Christmas cards too, so that's a close second! :)

Creative Inspirations: #276 ~ Your Favourite Things. I love it when I can pull off a 'masculine' creation, I don't find them easy, but I love to try. Even more than that, I love using Mo Manning images and I have far more in my stash than I've ever coloured up, as her designs are so detailed, I'm a little afraid of them! But I love, love, LOVE colouring one up well and using them on a card. I really need to do it more!

Fab 'n' Funky ~ Christmas Is Cancelled

Hey there my lovely blog pals, its time for a new challenge over at Fab 'n' Funky this week and as it's our last challenge of the month, we have a Christmas challenge and Jools is our lovely hostess. But did you hear Christmas has been cancelled? That's according to cheeky Stella over at Bugaboo.

We are being sponsored by the fabulous Bugaboo for our challenge this week and I couldn't resist this sentiment for my creation, as I've had my eye on this one for a while. I wanted to use a slightly younger gal for the image and wound up finding these three mischievous pals. I can think of several of my own darling gal pals that would have a giggle with me over this creation, so I may have to make some spares!! 

The image is called Friends Don't Let Friends Wine Alone 2 and the sentiment is from a fun Christmas stamp called Stella - Santa Died. I think the combination is pretty fun. I coloured the image with my Promarkers and then added lashings of Glossy Accents to the shiny articles, like the wine glasses, bottle and their specs. Now I know I'm becoming predictable using this same layout again, but I really love it for these CAS designs, it just adds something a little different and fun with the angle. So here it is again, but this time, with a backing paper matting the image. I still popped up the image on foam for dimension.

I added some fun MME enamel arrows to the top of the card, just for a little 'something' up there to finish it off. I really wanted some chevron arrows, but didn't have any the right colour. I think these were a fun alternative though. The paper is from a Recollections 12x12 paper pad called Navidad Falala. It has some really fun designs and I thought this Christmas Words paper gave the design a lift and hint of fun.

I had so much trouble getting a good pic of this creation, the image printed much smaller than I intended and so it's not photographed well at a larger size. I chased the light around the garden trying to get a good shot, but not a single shot does justice to the card. In reality, the card base is a lovely 'dark' red with a shimmer and the backing paper is a fun mix of lovely bright colours, but not quite as bright as in the pic above! 

Right, I think that's enough pics in different lights, all that remains is to send you over to the Fab 'n' Funky challenge blog to check out what all my amazing teamies got up to for this challenge. Bugaboo have some super cute and fun Christmas images, and the team have picked some goodies! So be sure to stop by and check them out. I hope you'll come join us with your own festive creation, did you know there are only 30 weeks until Christmas? I know right?! Crazy!!! How far through your Christmas Card pile are you? Me, not so far, so I hope to get a few more made before December! Come and join us the last week of each month for our regular Christmas challenges. I'll be back before long with another crafty adventure, so check back soon. Have an awesome week. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
The Ribbon Girl: Use Any Image
Crafty Catz: #372 ~ Anything Goes
Catch The Bug Challenge: Colour Challenge
Colour Crazy Challenge: #21 ~ Anything Goes
Crafting From The Heart: #161 ~ Anything Goes

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes
Crafty Creations Challenge: #342 ~ Anything Goes
Crafty Gals Corner Challenge: #125 ~ Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations Challenges: #276 ~ Your Favourite Things = I've gone a little loopy over this card design lately, I've used it multiple times recently, so this is currently one of my 'favourite things'. Also really loving enamel dots and shapes, so fun!

Catch The Bug Colour Challenge Image:

Sweet Stampin' ~ Things That Go Round

Well get me! Three posts in one week!! LOL. I really ought to rename my blog, the London Bus! Hehe. It's time today for a new challenge at Sweet Stampin' and this week, we want to see all your creations that have 'Things That Go Round'. So you could create something with an element that spins, or has turning circles or it could have something on it that has wheels. We'd love to see how you interpret this challenge. For my DT creation, I chose wheels. I made this card for my birthday twin Louise. We are two crafty Kiwi mamas with young kiddos and we share our birthday! So this was her birthday card this year and the sweet thing is, I got to give it to her in person when she was visiting Auckland recently.

The image is of course a gorgeous Krista Smith image from her Saturated Canary days. Lou lives on a farm, so this image made me think of her and I had great fun colouring it up with my Promarkers and then adding it's lavender and blue clouds. I've done this a couple of times recently, alternating colours in the clouds. I've not seen it done anywhere before, but was sitting with a few of my Distress Inks on the table and I just was drawn to trying this out. I think it looks so pretty. I used this same technique recently, but chose to work with 3 colours to create the clouds. I made these two at the same time, so was experimenting with that idea of multiple cloud colours. The other make if you want to compare is posted here.

I used a gorgeous Maja Design paper to create this card, but when it came to matting the image, none of my cardstock worked, so I just pulled out my Bluebell Promarker and inked the visible edge of the mat and hey presto, perfect colour match! I did the same with the corner die too (which is La La Land for those of you who like to know those details).

I put some cheesecloth behind the image, as the mat was wider than I wanted and I felt it needed 'softening'. I ran some cream cotton lace and seam binding ribbon behind the image, tied a double bow, added a wee tag with the sentiment (both Mama Elephant, which you can find here and here) finished the tag with a wee bow of Baker's Twine and added some pearls to finish. I was so happy with this card when I'd finished. Far softer and more 'shabby chic' than I usually do.

I hope you'll come join in the fun with us this week and show us all your 'Things That Go Round' creations, it doesn't need to be a card, but it must be papercraft and have some stamping on it to be eligible for the Top 3.

I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure. In the meantime, head on over to the blog and check out what my super talented teamies have been up to for this challenge. You're gonna love what they've done! Have an awesome weekend. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Passion For Promarkers: #395 ~ Tag It
I Love Promarkers: #335 ~ Girl's Birthday
Crafty Catz: #371 ~ More Than Two Layers
Crafty Calendar Challenge: May ~ Flowers
Colour Crazy Challenge: #19 ~ Anything Goes
Crafty Creations Challenges: #341 ~ Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments: #180 ~ Anything Goes + A Sentiment
Allsorts Challenge: #416 ~ Happy 8th Birthday Allsorts!
As You Like It: Favourite Skin/Fur Colour Combo. I'm a Promarkers girl, so the skin colour combo I use most is Coral, Sunkissed Pink and Blush with Pale Pink on the cheeks. I do experiment with other combos, but this is always the one I come back to.

Update: Ooh what a lovely surprise to find my Country Mama card had made the Top 5 at Passion For Promarkers! I love that challenge blog, because I'm such a Promarkers fan. So it was super lovely to make the Top 5 this week. Thanks ladies, I'm so stoked!

Second Update: I just saw I was placed Top 3 at As You Like It! This is one of my favourite challenges to enter, so I'm so chuffed to see this today! Woohoo, thank you ladies, very honoured.

Southern Girls Challenge ~ Add Sparkle

Well hello again. I know, shock, I'm back again already! It's time of course for a new challenge at Southern Girls and our DT have been working hard on some utterly gorgeous creations with a fun and fabulous theme 'Add Sparkle', how easy and fab is that?! We are spoilt to have two fantastic sponsors for this challenge ~ Krafter's Cart and Polkadoodles. So there are two fabulous prizes up for grabs this challenge.

I used a lovely bamboo screen diecut to create my card for this challenge. I have to confess I hit a bit of a wall this week. I've been eating, breathing and dreaming Pokemon in the lead up to my small boys birthday this past weekend and everything else had to wait. So I mulled over this creation for quite a bit and then when it was time put this together, I just couldn't come up with anything! Mr Mojo had hotfooted it right out the door! But then I spotted some wrapping paper sitting on my table from a recent present wrap and suddenly an idea started to form. It was the same shade as the bamboo I had just inked with my Pear Green Promarker. So I backed the diecuts with a white panel to set them apart from the wrapping paper and then played around with some gold glitter paper trying to work out how to bring in the 'Sparkle' for the challenge theme. 

At one stage I had a gold circle behind the Kimono, however it made the Kimono fade into nothing, so I swapped it instead for a white circle and the Kimono was able to once again take the spotlight. I have a die set which contains this very intricate central circle design and it occured to me it might look good with gold glitter card behind it and popped up slightly higher than the sentiment circles. The top character means Love and the bottom character means Happiness. A wee bit of a mix of cultures there with the Chinese characters and the Japanese Kimono, but it's what I had to hand, so  I went with it. The Kimono stamp I've had for years, and I don't know who the manufacturer was, it's a very old wood mounted one. I inked the Kimono with my Promarkers and then added gold glitter cardstock to the details. All the flower centres have a tiny glittery gold centre, which I cut with my middle sized hole punch. The two tiny flowers to the sides at the bottom, I used my smallest hole punch to cut the centres. They worked perfectly for this! It's just a shame the camera didn't pick up the sparkle on them.

Do come and join in the fun with us at Southern Girls with your own sparkly creations. We so look forward each challenge, to seeing how our themes are interpreted. Isn't this such an amazing creative world?! I'll be back again very soon with another crafty adventure, but until then, enjoy the rest of your week. I'm off to NOT do anything related to Pokemon!! LOL. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

The Ribbon Girl: May Card Challenge

Allsorts Challenge: #415 ~ Ring O' Roses

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: A Bit Of Sparkle

City Crafter's Challenge: #362 ~ Photo Inspiration (The circular 'globe' shapes and blue/green colours)