Sweet Stampin' ~ Cute & Cuddly

Hey there my lovely blog buddies. It's been a silly week, as I mentioned on my last post. So I'm flying in quickly with my DT make for Sweet Stampin' tonight. As you know, you must 'stamp' to enter our challenges, so I do love to use my rubber stamps whenever possible for my DT makes and I picked up this cute Stamping Bella chick recently with this fabulous sentiment too and just knew I had to use it for my best bud in Sweden. 

      (sorry about the wonky angle - held up to the Sun to catch the daisy sparkle)
   

I sent my Swedish pal this card recently with all the family news in it. Needless to say, I had to add several additional pages! I do love snail mail, it's still my favourite way to communicate with my pals abroad. There's just something special about an actual letter you can hold and even nicer with a sweet handmade card! I just think this wee chick is super cute and with that sentiment, it quite stole my heart!

                 

I kept the design very CAS and used some digital paper from Pixel Scrapper as the background. It's from the Strawberry Fields set by Janet Scott. I've coloured the image with my Promarkers and added a touch of Wink of Stella to the centre of the daisy. A few distressed edges, a simple yellow bakers twine wrap to finish et voila. 

Come on over to Sweet Stampin' to join in our 'Cute & Cuddly' challenge. I'd love to see what you create. I'll be back again when time allows. Things are about to get a whole lot crazier at mine for a little bit, so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to check in over the next few weeks. But fingers crossed I won't be too knackered in the evenings to check in with you all. Thanks for all the lovely messages you leave me, I don't say it very often, but they always TOTALLY make my day. Big hugs to you all, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Lemon Shortbread: #23 ~ Anything Goes
Crafty Catz: #337 ~ Anything But Square
The Ribbon Girl: September Card Challenge
Cute Card Thursday: #442 ~ Animals/Creatures
Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #41 ~ Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments: #163 ~ Anything Goes + A Sentiment
Simon Says Monday Challenge: STAMPtember ~ Stamp It
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: STAMPtember ~ Stamp It
City Crafter Challenge: #328 ~ Photo Inspiration (Red, Yellow, White, Flower)

Fab 'n' Funky ~ Fall Colours

Hey there my lovely blog buddies. I have had a full on week and I'm knackered! I almost forgot that I needed to whip up a wee make for my Fab 'n' Funky DT spot today. But then I remembered about a sweet card I made a pal a while back and was yet to blog, which lucky for me, fits the theme perfectly!! I've been at a funeral today so I'm going to just pop this up as a holding page, until I can get back to finish the post. Sorry, too many balls in the air today!

Be sure to head over to the Fab 'n' Funky challenge to check out what my awesome teamies got up to for the challenge and come and join us for some Autumnal fun. Big hugs until I can get back to finish the post, Wends xoxo

Update: Right I'm back, funeral was beautiful, heartbreaking, but beautiful. Thank you all for your sweet wishes. It was the passing of someone beloved from my extended family.

Detes for the card follow and I failed to mention previously our wonderful sponsor for this challenge. We have the lovely Di's Digi Downloads sponsoring us with her sweet and enchanting images, so that's a treat for the winner! Do come and join in the fun with us this challenge for our 'Autumn Colours' challenge. There are some lovely combo's you could use and you don't have to use them all. I went for the reds and golds on my card.

Card Recipe:

Papers: MME
Glass Heart Charm: Stash
Colouring Medium: Promarkers

Scalloped & Oval Frame: X-Cut Nesting Die

Blooms: Wild Orchid Crafts & Prima Fabric Bloom
Border Punch: Martha Stewart Doily Lace
Image: Zoe ~ Saturated Canary
Black Velvet Lace: Stash

Challenge Entries: 

Crafting By Designs: Ribbons!

The ABC Challenge: O is for Open

The Ribbon Girl: September Card Challenge

Aud Sentiments: #163 ~ Anything Goes + Sentiment

Crafty Gals Corner: #88 ~ Let's Hear It For The Girls

Mod Squad Challenge: Colour Inspiration ~ Fall Colours

City Crafter: #328 ~ Photo Challenge (Reds, Golds and Flowers)

613 Avenue Create: #189 ~ Anything Goes + The Colours Of Fall
Creative Inspirations: #257 ~ Anything Goes + Sketch (Sketch flipped)

Deep Ocean Challenge: #137 ~ Bingo (Lace - Black Velvet Lace, Diecuts - Ticket & Scalloped Oval, Charm - Glass Heart Charm)

Southern Girls ~ Anything Goes

Hey my lovely blog pals, I'm stopping in today with a DT post for the Southern Girls Challenge. We have a new challenge starting today and it's an 'Anything Goes' challenge hosted by the Team Lou lovelies. That's right, another 'Anything Goes' so there's no excuse not to play along! We are being sponsored by Rick St Dennis, and I've used a sweet stamp generously provided by our sponsor for my DT creation. A real cutie called Summer Wind. For those of you who enjoy the delicious darker images, Rick has plenty for you to enjoy. I'm not keen on the 'sleuky' images (my kiddos word for spooky/scary) so I chose a sweet image from his Zibbet store. Rick has two stores, an Etsy store and his Zibbet store, the Etsy store has more of the 'dark side' images. Fabulous, especially with Halloween now just around the corner, but sleuky!

I found some gorgeous brightly coloured paper, which I thought would be lovely with the florals in this sweet image. I cropped the image to fit a circle frame and coloured it with my Promarkers. The gorgeous heart circle frame is from the Sue Wilson range by Creative Expressions called Italian Decorative Frame.

The above photo was taken in the shade, so shows the colours of the image well, but the paper looks a little darker than it actually is. I took the following shot in full Sun out on the driveway. The image looks a little bleached out, but the rich colours of the paper came up well here. Did you spot the wee birdies I inked in the bottom left corner to just add a sneaky detail and bit of interest? 

A little collage follows of some of the features. The sentiment, diecut Sun, the birds and the posy of flowers. I added Wink of Stella to the flowers, but it hasn't shown up well in any pic I took, so you just have to imagine the gentle sparkle when it catches the light. 

I hope you'll come and play along with us for our 'Anything Goes' challenge. We'd love to see what you come up with. My teamies have been hard at work on their gorgeous DT creations to inspire you, so do stop by the blog to check those out. 

I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure, in the meantime, have an awesome week. I hope yours holds some fun crafty adventures too. Big hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Mod Squad: Use Foliage
Crafty Gals: #87 ~ Anything Goes
The Paper Shelter: #262 ~ Make it Digital
Lemon Shortbread:  #23 ~ Anything Goes
Simons Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments: #163 ~ Anything Goes + Sentiment

Little Red Wagon: #357 ~ Let's Get Inky (Edges of papers inked and bird bottom left of paper)
As You Like It: Favourite Shaped Card-base. I LOVE shaped cards, but I do use square card bases more than any other. So I really have two favourites, the Go Kreate Frilly #10 and a plain square card base. Always so quick and easy and I think the plain 6x6 square base has such a nice balance and is a good size when creating a card.

Sweet Stampin' ~ No DSP

Hey there my lovely blog pals, my laptop is misbehaving today, I've had to copy and paste the 'e' into every spot you read it here on my blog today, as 3 keys on my laptop have suddenly stopped working!! (So forgive me if I miss a couple.) It's Saturday, so it's time for a new challenge at Sweet Stampin' and our theme this week is 'No Designer Series Paper'. We are sponsored by the lovely folks at Freckled Fawn this challenge, so our winner is in for a lovely treat!

I made a thank you card for 'new' friends who had us over for dinner on the weekend. Man oh man, I have never had such good Brisket, ever! It was a fab night, the food was delicious, I got to try out a new recipe, (would you believe I'd never before made a potato salad?!) the wine flowed, the conversation flowed and we all had a fabulous night. So a thank you card was most definitely in order. Our friends own an art gallery, so I thought it was fitting to do a little 'arty' piece myself for their thank you card. I love how it turned out and kept the card style very CAS to allow the ink work and stamping to feature.

The sentiment I've used is from an Inkylicious set called Journey. I made a second card on the same day with an Inkylicious Thank You sentiment, which I had originally thought I'd give these friends, but when I finished this card, it was far more 'arty' looking, which I thought would appeal to them more. 

I used a couple of different ink pads to create the colours for this background. The main background was created with Distress Inks in Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers and Squeezed Lemonade. I then added a grass line using Bundled Sage. I added some water splashes to create texture. Then I used a Tsukineko Kaleidacolor inkpad in Creole Spice to ink the grasses. I used the first two colours on the pad only, turning the stamp to ink it. So the colours shifted between the warm gold and copper colour, giving a nice variation in the grasses. I let the little dragonfly reach onto the green portion of the ink pad to set him apart a bit. Then randomly stamped the little dandelion clocks in darkening shades above the grasses. The sweet little dandelion grasses stamp was from a Practical Publishing magazine cover gift, which had a fairy template and a mix of fairy and foliage stamps. I can't recall which magazine it was, so if anyone knows, please do tell me! The taller grasses on the side are a Joy crafts stamp called Silhouette Grasses.

Thanks for popping in today. Do head over to the Sweet Stampin' challenge to see what my talented teamies have been up to. We've had two Sweet Stampin' birthdays this past week, so if you're stopping into their blogs, be sure to wish Cass and Abi a happy birthday! See you again really soon with my next crafty adventure. Big hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Fantasy Stampers: #70 ~ Sunshine Colours
613 Avenue Create: #188 ~ Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday: #440 ~ Words/Numbers

4 Crafty Chicks: #313 ~ Let's Get Sentimental

Moving Along With The Times: Clean & Simple

Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #40 ~ Anything Goes
Squirrel's Not-So Random Challenge: #1 ~ Anything Goes

Fab 'n' Funky ~ Anything Goes

Hey lovelies, I'm sneaking in today, with a post I should have had live a week ago, but life wouldn't let me. So here I am, late, but as they say, better late than never! I had planned to join in with the Team Fab girls over at Fab 'n' Funky, for their Summer break challenge, as we are being sponsored by Kenny K and I was so looking forward to colouring up this new Kenny K image called Santa Baby.

I got it coloured in time, but had no time to complete the card. So here it finally is. CAS for a quick make, but I kinda like that look for this image anyway. Don't you just love her? I think she's so cute!

You can check out all the other fabulous Kenny K images that Team Fab used for the challenge by clicking the links alongside their names. They've made some truly gorgeous creations for this challenge. Click on the blog name to take you through to the Fab 'n' Funky Challenge. Come on over and join us as it's an easy peasy 'Anything Goes' challenge as we'd love to see what inspires you to create. 

Last pic taken under the kitchen lights to bring out the sparkle. It's still not brilliant. There's some lovely snowy sparkle at her feet and I used Cosmic Shimmer on the furry bits of her boots and clothes. I just couldn't get this to show up that well. Wet and miserable here, so no good natural light.

I'll be back soon with another crafty adventure. Have a beautiful week. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Recipe:

Image ~ Kenny K ~ Santa Baby

Tartan Paper ~ Craftwork Cards ~ Traditional Tartans

Sentiment ~ Lili of the Valley ~ Christmas Handwritten Phrases

Fur trim on boots and clothes ~ Cosmic Shimmer ~ Glitter Jewels

Colouring Medium ~ Distress Inks & Markers

Enamel Shapes ~ My Mind's Eye

Challenge Entries:
ABC Challenge: N is for 'Noel'
Crafty Catz: #334 ~ Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create: #188 ~ Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday: #440 ~ Words/Numbers
Crafting By Designs: Get Ready For Christmas
Stamping Sensations: August ~ Anything Goes

Moving Along With The Times: Clean & Simple
Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #40 ~ Anything Goes
City Crafter's Challenge Blog: #326 ~ It's All About 'You'
Creative Inspirations Challenge Blog: #256 ~ Christmas In August

Update: I was more than a little excited when the lovely Elena, Kenny's wife messaged me to ask if she could add this card to their Kenny K online store as an example card for this image. Woohoo, so totally made my day!! Thanks Elena, you're a sweetie xoxo

Sweet Stampin' ~ Use Your Favourite Stamp

Hey there lovelies. It's time for a new challenge at Sweet Stampin', another Saturday rolls around so fast! This week, we are being sponsored by the fabulous Crafts & Me store and they stock some of my favourite images, I adore the works of their artists Hannah Lynn and Sara Burrier, and they have many more fabulous artists too. Their digital stamps are very reasonably priced too. So go check them out!

I have used a gorgeous image by the artist Hannah Lynn and coloured it with my Promarkers and some Wink of Stella. I love green, it's my favourite colour, rich dark greens in particular, so I was in a little bit of bliss colouring this up. I've been collecting Hannah Lynn images for a while now, but only recently felt confident enough in my colouring to actually colour them up. You might have noticed I've coloured a few lately and I'm really loving them. So when faced with choosing a 'favourite' image for this challenge, I thought this gorgeous Hannah Lynn mermaid image called Fire & Ice was perfect.

I used a lovely emerald green matt behind the image which I diecut with my Lil' Inkers Silly Stitched Die set. When I'd finished up colouring the image and found the paper I wanted to use, I realised the emerald green was a little too 'bright' for the card, so I used my Holly Promarker to deepen the colour a little bit. I was going to leave the design there, with a very CAS finish, which looked great, but I was having so much fun colouring with my Promarker and altering coloured card, that I had a play with altering a Wild Orchid Crafts Gardenia and two green Mixed Colour Open Roses. The blooms were too light and too bright for this make so I used the Holly Promarker again to recolour them into the deeper tones you see here. I coloured one stem of the White Spray Flowers from The Ribbon Girl but decided to leave the other two in their original white and green for a bit of contrast. I really love how this came out. I also coloured the leafy swirl that was cut with a Cheery Lynn Fanciful Flourish die, as this too was originally cut from emerald green paper.

I added some velvet finish enamel dots in a similar tone (because ya'll know I love those subtle touches!) I roughed up all the edges of the papers and then tucked a sentiment which I cut with a La La Land Tab die. The sentiment is from Little Darlings Rubber Stamps from their Warm Fuzzies Friendship set. These sentiments are quite tiny, so they fit into the Stitched Tabs die really well. They're on sale right now I notice too. 

I used some letraset metallic markers in her hair where the pearly dots are and then decided the shine wasn't enough, so added some glitter glue. Later I added some Wink of Stella over some of the strands too, as I wanted to give it that little bit of extra shine. In the right light, it's gorgeous. I tried to snap some pics on my phone under the spots, but they came out very dark. But you get a better idea of the shine and the shades of pink in her hair in the pics below. Just click on them to blow them up to a bigger size. I was playing around with sentiments when I took these shots, so ignore those. The shots are very grainy due to the lowlight, sorry.

So that wraps it up. Come on over to the Sweet Stampin' blog to join in the fun with your favourite stamp. Remember you need to use stamping on your creation to be eligible for the prize. I look forward to seeing what your favourite stamp is! 

I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure, but in the meantime, have an awesome weekend and I hope you get to enjoy some crafty fun too. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Deep Ocean: #135 ~ Seaside/Beach

Crafts & Me: August ~ Anything Goes

Lemon Shortbread: #21 ~ Anything Goes

Stamping Sensations: August ~ Anything Goes

Passion For Promarkers: #358 ~ Hip To Be Square

Crafty Calendar: August ~ Summer Fun (Mermaid Hunting)

The Paper Shelter: #259 ~ Punches & Dies (Lil' Inkers & LaLa Land)

Mod Squad: Sew Easy (Green matt I used Lil' Inkers Silly Stitched die)

Simon Say Wednesday Challenge: Let's Go Wild (I'm wild about green! As you can see here)

As You Like It: Favourite Flower - I love Wild Orchid Crafts flowers, I've used them for years, but my hands down most used bloom is their Gardenia. I just love this bloom and it works a treat on so many creations, alone or in a bunch. You can check out some of my previous makes with this bloom here.

Southern Girls ~ Team Lou ~ Anything Goes

I hope you've all had a good week, I've been busy with the kiddos, but have enjoyed a bit of crafting this week too. This year is screaming past at breakneck speed though. I swear time really does speed up the older I get! It's already time for a new challenge at Southern Girls and I have to confess, that snuck up on me a little bit! Fortunately, I had some time today to finish my DT card. Which was a real pleasure, as we are being sponsored by Crafts & Me this fortnight and I LOVE their gorgeous stamps. So I had great fun colouring up this beautiful Hannah Lynn image. 

I decided I wanted to use Distress Inks, because I wanted to colour the background and I find it easier with DI's. I'm so glad I made that choice though, as the softer finish I think really suits this image! I am still new to Distress Ink colouring, so I did some googling to work out the best combo for skin colours etc, and I just love the combo I came up with. I didn't have all the ink colours from different tutorials, so came up with my own combo and I think the finish is gorgeous! So I'll definitely be doing that combo again. For those that are interested. I used Tea Dye for the main colour on the skin and Walnut stain to create the darker shadows. I used Tattered Rose for the cheeks, which I think came up really well, though you don't see the subtle colour as well on film. 

I chose to print this image a little larger than normal, because I wanted it to be the focal point of the card, so when I went to cut it out with my lovely wonky stitch dies, it was too large! Which got me to thinking about adding some real stitching. I LOVE stitching on cards, but haven't done any myself since I put my sewing machine away. So, intrigued by the fact that my blog buddy Kat hand stitches all her cards, I decided to give this a go. Oh my goodness, Kat how do you do it?! It took me ages to stitch all these layers and I'm getting long sighted in my old age, so the dramas threading the needle! I really had to laugh at myself. But I don't think I'll be doing this by hand again anytime soon, even though I LOVE the way it looks! I'm in awe of you Kat!

I kept the embellies to a minimum, as I wanted the image to feature, so just a bit of seam binding, and some butterflies and a sentiment die, which I cut from the same paper as the background because I wanted a subtle finish. I do love 'subtle' finishes on cards. Which of course are best up close and personal, as they don't photograph well, but I do love those barely there hints of detail.

The beautiful butterflies across the top of the card are from a Whimsy Stamps die, I've tucked them carefully into the stitching and then glued behind the solid wing butterfly. Isn't it pretty? I've had this ages, and never before thought to use it this way, but I love how it looks. 

That beautiful larger butterfly which I popped over the seam binding double bow is from Joy Crafts and I picked this up a while ago so I could use it with the pretty Butterfly Border die that has these same butterflies. I always wanted the 'whole' butterfly from that set, so I could layer it over the bigger butterfly on that border die. But it's an older die and hard to come by! So imagine my joy, when I originally hunted that one down. Even better news, I hunted down another, to add to a candy I will be offering very soon. So if you like this butterfly, watch this space! I have used some pretty chocolate coloured flat back pearls on the butterfly, which are from Flourish With A Bling. I love that they come in several different sizes on the one card.

Come on over to the Southern Girls for a fab 'Anything Goes' challenge this fortnight. We have two wonderful sponsors this time. The beautiful image I used is from our Sponsor Crafts & Me and is called Genevieve. Our second sponsor is Star Stampz which several of my teamies have used images from. Head over to the challenge blog for a healthy dose of inspiration! It doesn't get any easier than this as a theme, so we're looking forward to lots of entries. I hope you'll come and join us. A final shot of my card with a slightly more 'rosy cheeked' image.

 

I'll be back soon with another crafty adventure. In the meantime, have an awesome week and get crafting so you can join in with our 'Anything Goes' challenge. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
The Paper Shelter: Anything Goes
The ABC Challenge: 'M' is for Maiden
Creative Moments: #99 ~ Anything Goes
Lemon Shortbread: #21 ~ Anything Goes
Crafting With Friends: #26 ~ Anything Goes
Crafting By Design: August ~ Anything Goes
Allsorts Challenge: #374 ~ A Touch Of Sparkle
Crafts & Me Challenge: August ~ Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends: #38 ~ Anything Goes
Deep Ocean Challenge: #134 ~ Foto Inspiration (Chocolate colour from the Hot Chocolate & Blues - as pale as poss - from the blue palette.)

Update: Ooh, happy dance, so excited! I made it into the Top 5 at The ABC Challenge!! Well chuffed. Thank you so much ladies! Mwah xoxo

Second Update: I have won the DT Choice pick on Creative Moments Challenge. Winning a prize from Digistamps 4 Joy. Thank you so much ladies!

Third Update: I won the Crafting With Friends challenge. Such a lovely surprise. Thank you ladies.