Whimsy Stamps ~ Tiny Crafting Adventures

Hey there my lovely crafty pals. It's a balmy Sunday afternoon here in Auckland, papa and the boy have gone off to have some dad and boy fun and my girlie is at the beach with friends. So this mama has some moments to herself to catch up some blogging, woohoo!

I've had fun creating some 'little' cards recently, sweet tiny ones, perfect to top a present or give a friend a smile. They're dinky in size, actually just over 4 inches long and just under 3 inches wide. A cute tiny canvas for some quick crafting fun! I'm going to share with you two of my tiny canvas creations. The first went to my amazing sister in law, who has just had her second baby, so is juggling all the balls right now! She's amazing and I think this sweet image hat tips that early baby days juggle quite nicely. 

My sweet niece is a very happy and loving big sister. She's three now and at a really lovely age and stage, but it's still a lot to juggle a toddler and a new baby, so I thought this card might bring a smile to my lovely sister in law's face and if not the card, then the chocolate it came with! 

I used to love watching the squirrels run and play in our London days. I miss those sweet creatures and the English Robins too. So when I saw this set by Krista Heij-Barber come out, it went on my wishlist straight away! Super fun to colour up, which I've done with my copic markers. I fussy cut the image and laid it over a loosely applied distress ink background. I'm really enjoying my new Blending Brushes for these sorts of techniques and trying to be more adventurous with ink. So this tiny canvas was a fun little size to 'play' with. A very simple, but I think fun background for this juggling squirrel. As you can see in the pic, it was Stormy Sky distress ink I used.

Now my second creation is obviously destined for a crafty friend. A crafty friend who has a thing for Tomten just like me! There are a few of us out there, judging by the number of stamps and posts containing these cuties! I have to confess, there are some I wasn't so keen on. I've been collecting Tomte since my London years, when my Swedish bestie introduced me to these cute creatures. So I have a clear idea in my head, of how these creatures should look. Much to my hearts joy, the artist who captures this best for me, is one of my favourite Whimsy artists, Crissy Armstrong. Her Tomte, are just how I imagine these cuties to be! I have quite a gorgeous collection of these wee fellas, in felt now, which I pull out every Christmas. But I'm also managing to collect quite a number of these cuties as stamps now too, thanks to the talents of Crissy Armstrong. She captures their whimsy and mischief perfectly I think! She's just released some Spring stamps featuring these cuties and I can't wait to get my hands on those!

This card is another fussy cut design, which I layered over strips of washi tape. I don't use my washi enough and I love cards that have washi on them, so I'm trying to be a bit more adventurous with using washi tape. I think it worked so well on this card with this cute crafty Tomte. The washi with the postmarks worked so well with this kraft card base and the swedish themed washi and plain red satin finish washi were perfect to pull this design together. I was heavily inspired by a card created by the talented Jennifer Dove using this same image. Her colouring of the paper and heart was SO awesome. Mine just manages to look 'grubby', but oh well, I TRIED! 

Quite a number of our awesome Whimsy artists have 'Tomte' or 'Gnomes' as they're called in English, in their collections. So I've shared a few with you via the banner above if you'd like a peek of what's on offer. They're all fab! The elements I've used are linked below. I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure. I'll try to share again very soon. Hugs and happy crafting xoxo