Whimsy Wednesday ~ Coffee Break

Hey there my lovely friends. We are in the middle of Spring Break here in New Zealand and I have my in-laws visiting this week. So we've been out and about with the kiddos having some fun. But I found a few minute the last couple of nights to pull together this rather sweet Penguin having a Hot Cocoa break for my Whimsy Stamps Inspiration post today. It is week 2 of our New Release showcases, so this is my second creation with a new image. This cutie was designed by our awesome Crissy Armstrong. She's created some utterly charming characters for this release, many of which are perfect for Christmas creations. 

I've used Copic Markers to colour up this sweet image and at the kiddies suggestion went for green. I don't need much convincing, because it's my favourite colour, but I do love this green. I've snapped the shades I used above for those who like these details. 

I decided to create a snowfall background with a mix of snowflake stamps and Stickles and Gelly Roll spots. I kinda went to town! LOL. The sentiment is from a new sentiment set also created by the lovely Crissy which had a fun icy finish on the 'cold' word, so I added some of the silver Gelly Roll to give that added sparkle.

The delish green paper is also Crissy's creation. I just love this paper and it worked so well with this sweet wee guy in his green sweater! You may note the 'H' on his sweater. This was waste from a Hogwarts diecut I had on my table recently, which I thought would be fun to add to the sweater for a bit of interest. This made me think of the Hogwarts houses and Hufflepuff, which starts with 'H'! So I coloured up his scarf as a Hufflepuff scarf. I added Wink of Stella to the 'H' on the sweater for a little added sparkle.

This latest release has some seriously darling images and as I said earlier fabulous images for Christmas creations. Do head over to the Whimsy Store to check out these gorgeous images and be sure to check out our Facebook page too, as their has been some super fun for October going on this past week. We've had World Cardmaking Day celebrations on the 6th and as part of that the giveaway of a super cute Halloween image. It's still possible to download it, so if you are a Whimsy Stamps Facebook member be sure to stop by and grab that gorgeous image. If you want a sneaky peek at that, be sure to click through to my last post using that same lovely image. 

Thank you so much for stopping in today. I hope you found some inspiration and welcome your comments. Stop in again soon as I'll be back with my next crafty adventure before too long. In the meantime, do check out the fab latest release via the banner link above and happy crafting!  

Challenge Entries:

Winter Wonderland: Anything Christmas Goes

The Holly & The Ivy: #38 ~ Anything Christmas Goes

Christmas With The Cuties: #20 ~ Theme - For A Child

Sparkles Christmas Challenge: #93 ~ Christmas is for Kids

CAS Christmas Challenge: October ~ Birds (penguin birdy)

ABC Christmas Challenge: V is for 'Very Quick' ~ Quick CAS card

Merry Little Christmas Challenge: #3 ~ October ~ Anything Christmas Goes

Christmas at Sweet Stampin' ~ Fa la la la la la la la la

Hey there lovely crafty pals. Tonight is quite the night for posts from me! I have a London bus situation, as it's 3 in a row!!! We have a new challenge kicking off at Christmas at Sweet Stampin' today, so I'm sharing another Christmas creation with you in the hopes it gets you in the Christmas crafting mood.

I've used the cutest little Christmas caroler for my creation tonight from a Penny Black stamp set. This wee hedgie is in full swing, singing Christmas carols, so I thought I'd use this inspiration in my design and surround him with sentiments that reflected Christmas carols. Lili of the Valley had a wonderful clear sentiment set that was perfect for this creation and comes in these fun wavy shapes. So it was so easy to finish up this design with a bit of plaid paper and those caroling sentiments. The image was coloured a while back with my Promarkers and I've done this on kraft card. I've added white gel pen where I wanted the white to be brighter. I layered the wee circle of kraft over a white felt doily to finish the design. Very CAS, but sweet I think for a quick Christmas make.

I hope you'll come and join us this month at Christmas at Sweet Stampin' for our 'Anything Christmas Goes' challenge. We aim to inspire you to get ahead with your Christmas crafting, so come and check out what the rest of the super talented DT have done for their creations and do come and join us with your own Christmas creations this month. 

I'll be back again very soon, as I have three DT posts going live tonight, so do come on back to see my Whimsy Stamps creation later on. Hugs and happy crafting, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Winter Wonderland: Anything Christmas Goes

The Holly & The Ivy: #38 ~ Anything Christmas Goes
Christmas With The Cuties: #20 ~ Theme ~ For A Child
Sparkles Christmas Challenge: #93 ~ Christmas is for Kids
ABC Christmas Challenge: V is for 'Very Quick' ~ Quick CAS card
Merry Little Christmas Challenge: #3 ~ October ~ Anything Christmas Goes
The Merry Christmas Challenge: Sep/Oct Challenge ~ Anything Christmas Goes
Penny Black & More: October ~ Autumn Splendour (Christmas card, but in Autumn colours)

Fab 'n' Funky ~ Autumn Colours

Hello my lovely crafty pals. I'm here tonight with my Fab 'n' Funky DT creation. Our challenge theme this week is Autumn Colours. I love Autumn Colours, I wear a lot of them! I also love creating cards in Autumn Colours. I've had to visit the vault for this challenge however, as we are in the middle of Spring break here and I have family visiting. So I had a wee hunt through some creations I'd made but was yet to blog and found this sweetie, which was made some time ago for one of my besties kiddos. I LOVE this sweet creation. It was such fun to make and was perfect for the occasion as her birthday was 'Forest Friends' themed. So this wee foxy was just perfect.

This sweet fox came in a lovely freebie set from Making Cards magazine a while back. I just love the sweet creatures that were in that lovely gift, but most especially this sweet faced fox. He is of course in the perfect Autumnal colours, so I surrounded him with Autumnal hues of green and added some hessian and real Autumn fallen foliage from our school walks. I often pick up little seed pods and bits of bark or wood that look like they'd fit nicely on a card. 

I've used an assortment of Wild Orchid Crafts flowers including a Daisy, an Almond Blossom and some Poppies, but my favourite elements in this floral array are the real seed pods with their mossy coating. I tucked in some cute Autumn mushrooms in two different sizes to complete the floral element. I tucked in a bit of cheesecloth behind the image for extra interest and the pretty doily die is from Marianne Designs. 

I used a Mama Elephant Mini Messages sentiment for the cute lil' tag. I diecut the tag with the matching Mini Tag Die from Mama Elephant. I punched a tiny heart into the tag above the sentiment with a little handheld heart punch to finish the tag.

The little mushroom border is from a Magnolia Doohickey magazine. I added pearlescent white paper behind the wee caps to create the white spots. I also used a Magnolia Doohickey Fence die to create a little fence that I tucked behind the mushrooms on the right and behind the flowers on the left. The tiny butterflies I've used are waste from a Memory Box die. The barren tree branches were also from a Magnolia Doohickey magazine and so was the sunshine. 

I personalised the card by adding the wee girly's name and her age. The letters were cut with MFT Upper and Lower Case Die sets. The number was cut with an older Marianne Designs number die set. I used a lovely Autumn green pearlescent paper for the doily and the name and number. It has an almost goldy fleck to it. Close up, it's very shiny and pretty. The beautiful papers I've used as the main layers are of course Maja Design. They're very easy to recognise and I do love them so.

Thanks for popping in to visit today. I hope you like this wee Autumnal creation and do come and play along with us this week if you're in the middle of Autumnal creations too! We'd love to see what you're inspired to create with these beautiful hues. I'll catch you again very soon with my Whimsy Stamps Inspiration post later tonight. So watch this space. Hugs and happy crafting, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Love To Scrap: #114 ~ Fall Back

Craft Rocket: #53 ~ Autumn/Halloween

Daisy Chain Challenge: #24 ~ Autumn/Fall

Crafty Calendar Challenge: October ~ Autumn

Always Happy Birthday: October ~ Anything Birthday Goes

Creatalicious: #148 ~ Anything Goes + Texture (real foliage & hessian)

Sunny Day Challenge: Sep/Oct Challenge ~ Anything Goes with an Animal

Whimsy Stamps ~ World Card-making Day

Hey there my lovely crafty pals. I've an 'extra' Whimsy delight for you this evening. Today as a lot of you will know, is International Card-making Day. How cool is that?! A day that celebrates what we all love to do, hand-make cards! So at Whimsy, we thought we'd celebrate this day in style and bring you a special image to mark this day. The artist is Kirsten Winkelbauer. I really like her whimsical images. There are quite a few of them currently in the Whimsy Stamps Retiring Vault at really good prices. So if you like them too, snatch them up!

The paper I've used for this creation just had all the right Autumnal shades in it to make a truly delish backdrop for this fabulous Whimsy Stamps image. I even picked out the aqua shade and used it to colour her hair! I thought that would be a fun detail. It's from a digital paper set by DanibyDesign called School House and you can find this at Snap Click Supply. I used warm blacks to colour her dress and hat, rather than the cool shades I'd usually use, as I wanted the whole piece to exude warmth and joy. In my house, we do 'too cute to spook' Halloween. No sleuky stuff!! (Sleuky is my daughter's word for scary. Coined when she was about 3 and it's kinda stuck in our house!)

I watched a wonderful tutorial recently after seeing some double diamond fold cards around the blogosphere. I love something that is quick, simple and oh so eye-catchingly effective and this is for sure all those things! A happy accident in design by the crafter whose video I will share here. I just love this ever so clever design. It really does 'pop up' and sits so nicely. You do need to use a good heavy cardstock for best effect though. The one I used I believe is 300gsm. It's a lovely heavy pearlised cardstock from my local art store here in NZ. It was perfect for this design. 

I hope you'll come and join in the fun with us at the Whimsy Stamps Facebook page. There is a bloghop happening and prizes to be won and if you are a part of the Whimsy Stamps Facebook community, a very special surprise awaits you! So get in!

Hugs and happy crafting, especially on this very special day that celebrates what we all love to do! 

Challenge Entries:

Love To Scrap: #114 ~ Fall Back

Cut It Up Challenge: #158 ~ Halloween

Craft Rocket: #53 ~ Autumn/Halloween

Daisy Chain Challenge: #24 ~ Autumn/Fall

Dragonfly Journey's: #128 ~ Happy Halloween

Crafty Calendar Challenge: October ~ Autumn

Creative Inspirations: October ~ Autumn Glow

Creative With Stamps: #31 ~ Halloween or Leaves

Double 'D' Challenges: Scare'n Up Some Pumpkins

The Cutie Pie Challenge: #128 ~ Going Girlie (Halloweeny, but still so girlie I think)

Sweet Stampin' ~ Use A Stencil

Oh my, this week has flown by so fast! The kiddos are on school break, so it's go go go entertaining them! But as always, I LOVE having them at home. In fact, I got so caught up in them this week, I totally forgot it was a 'Team Abi' week to post! So I've pulled this sweet creation together rather quickly today. But I have to say, I LOVE it! I've been wanting to use this sweet stamp set ever since it arrived in the post. I bought the Dies for this set from a lovely crafty pal who was destashing them, so I was able to cut out the wee ellie's very easily. Thank you Sue.

Here's the first wee cutie. From a lovely Mama Elephant set called Fly With Me illustrated by artist Aida Zamora. I LOVE her enchanting characters and have been following her on Instagram for a while, so I was super excited when I realised she had some images available through Mama Elephant! 

Here's the second ellie I used on this card. The set actually has four sweet wee Ellie's in it floating on balloons. But these two worked perfectly for my creation today. Our theme this week at Sweet Stampin' is actually to use a 'stencil', so I've used my handmade 'clouds' stencil. I use this whenever I'm creating cloudy backgrounds. It's my 'go to' stencil, which was very easily made with a cloudy edge die. I used Salted Ocean Distress Ink and a stencil brush to create the clouds. I don't do it often enough and forget to 'dust off' the excess first, so there are ocasional 'splodges'. But avoiding that comes with practice and I don't do enough!

The sentiment I've used for this card, actually came with another Mama Elephant stamp set called Love Quotes and as this is actually intended for my sweet niece who recently turned 6 months old, I thought this sentiment was just the sweetest to finish this card. I'd actually made her another card for the occasion, but when I'd finished this, I just knew it was meant for her!

As you can see in the pic above, I've popped the wee ellie's up on foam for a bit of dimension, but stamped the sentiment directly on the base. I've distressed the edges of the cloudy paper for that added bit of interest. The ellie's and their balloons were coloured with Copic Markers and if you'd like a peek at the process of creating this card, you can click through on the 'Read More' link at the bottom of the post to take you to the tutorial. Be sure to stop by the challenge blog to see what my teamies got up to, their stenciling is fabulous!

Sending you hugs and wishing you a happy, crafty weekend. I'll be back very soon with a special post later today in honour of World Cardmaking Day! So watch for that!! xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Love To Craft: #27 ~ Anything Goes

Colour Crazy Challenge: #40 ~ Anything Goes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge: #108 ~ Dies & Punches

Always Happy Birthday: October ~ Anything Birthday Goes

Sunny Day Challenge: Sep/Oct Challenge ~ Anything Goes with an Animal

Southern Girls ~ Stripes

Hey there lovely crafty pals. It's time for a new challenge at Southern Girls and this week Team Lou would love you to come play along with your 'Striped' creations. How fun and easy is that?! I do love a good stripy paper! Or maybe you'll create stripes with ink, whatever you're inspired to do, we'd love to see!

I've used a fun striped paper from Whimsy Stamps that was a freebie on their Facebook Page. If you haven't joined their Facebook page make sure you do, as there are often little treats for their followers and just between you and me, there might be one coming up very soon! So get in!

Our lovely sponsor this fortnight is 'Newton's Nook Designs'. They have some super cute images, but they're new to me, so I didn't have an image in my stash I could use. I'm well jel' of the lucky winner of this challenge though, as they're in for such a treat! I decided to use a fun Tim Holtz die set to create my DT card for this challenge and have created a Halloween themed card with the Whimsy Stamps stripy paper. I used Core-dinations paper for the diecuts which had a white coating over coloured bases. So the cauldron and witches hat I left as was. I liked the look of it. The lil' white ghost was the 'beige' paper with white coating, so I diecut the eyes and mouth from the black to finish this lil' guy and ran some cool grey Copic marker around the edges for definition. The cat was also cut from that same mottled black paper, but I really wanted him to be a 'black' cat, so I coloured over the paper with my Black Copic Marker. The paper took the ink really well and gave a nice dark rich finish to this Halloween kitty.

I used an older sentiment I've had in my stash for a while from Bloom Designs. But I think it was such a nice finish for this fun Halloween creation. I think the notched corners suited this card design so well. I diecut the four apertures that the diecuts sit in, then layered another stripy strip of card in the centre, popped up slightly on foam and then added the sentiment in the middle.

Thanks for stopping in to visit and I hope you'll come and join us at Southern Girls for our 'Stripes' challenge. I'm so keen to see what you're inspired to create. Be sure to check out what the rest of my super talented teamies at Southern Girls got up to for this one. I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure, until then, happy crafting! Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Love To Scrap: #114 ~ Fall Back
Craft Rocket: #53 ~ Autumn/Halloween
Daisy Chain Challenge: #24 ~ Autumn/Fall
Crafty Calendar Challenge: October ~ Autumn
Sparkles Monthly Challenge: #108 ~ Dies & Punches

Sunny Day Challenge: Sep/Oct Challenge ~ Anything Goes with an Animal (Black Cat)
Creatalicious: #148 ~ Anything Goes + Texture (used textured cardstock & nuvo drops on cauldron)

Whimsy Stamps ~ New Release Week ~ Happy Mail

A very warm hello to all my lovely crafty pals today. Thanks for stopping into my blog. I'm excited to share my 'New Release' creation for Whimsy Stamps with you today! We have a brand new release and it's gorgeous!! I just LOVE this sweet image I got to play with for the New Release. Whimsy artist Crissy Armstrong has a truly enchanting way with her characters. I especially love her 'children' and this image totally stole my heart from the new digital release. She is called 'Pretty Girl Happy Mail'.

I coloured this cutie with Copic Markers. I then added some tiny 'sparkles' to look like falling snowflakes with an ink that toned really well with the colouring. It's subtle but adds a lovely finish in reality. 

I wanted to use a delicious paper that the artist of this image Crissy Armstrong created. It's such a lovely Christmas design, with candy canes and holly from a set called 'I Dream In Christmas'. I wanted to show off as much of this beautiful paper as possible, so I created a gatefold card with a wrap. The pic above, shows the image before I added the lil' snowflake sparkles and also before I added the writing panel inside. 

The card without the wrap looks like this when the wrap is taken off. You can see a peek of the writing panel inside here. Isn't the paper gorgeous?! I just love that you see so much of the paper with this card design.

Opening the gatefold card reveals the red card base sides on the inside and the beautiful paper with the image panel with this lovely Christmas sentiment. I used the same softly toning ink for this sentiment as I used for the sparkles on the image panel. I've edged all the pretty paper panels with Candied Apple Distress Ink.

I used an older Whimsy Stamps clear stamp set for this sentiment. It's so lovely and perfect for Christmas creations. Such a shame how fast things go out of stock! As this is a lovely set!

I love the colour combo of the aqua and red from Crissy's pretty paper. So I used those Copic colours when colouring up my image. The jacket was coloured with BG13, BG11 and BG10. The reds I used were R59, R27, R24 and R22. I decided to colour her Christmas post up in lots of colours, as when I send Christmas mail, it's always a colourful array of envelopes. I've used the 'dotty' technique to colour up the colour of her coat to make it look fluffy and did the same with cool greys on the pom pom of her hat.

This October Release at Whimsy Stamps has some utterly gorgeous images for Christmas and the October Digital Release has some super cute images and digital papers too. I'll be back next Wednesday with my second creation for the New Digital Release and I can't wait to share it with you! Until then, check out the gorgeous October Digital Release at Whimsy via the banner link above. Hugs and happy crafting xoxo

This is a retired Whimsy Stamps die, 

but there are loads of gorgeous new dies available

Challenge Entries:

Winter Wonderland: Anything Christmas Goes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge: #108 ~ Dies & Punches

Christmas With The Cuties: #20 ~ Theme - For A Child

Sparkles Christmas Challenge: #93 ~ Christmas is for Kids

ABC Christmas Challenge: U is for 'Upon' ~ Wrap 'upon' a gatefold base

Merry Little Christmas Challenge: #3 ~ October ~ Anything Christmas Goes

The Merry Christmas Challenge: Sep/Oct Challenge ~ Anything Christmas Goes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge: #108 ~ Dies & Punches