Heart of Hearts

Hi there

I shared a shaker card with you yesterday and thought I'd come back to share another one today.

This card I made for some very special friends who have recently got engaged.

I made a shaker window using a heart die which was cut from a small die cut square.  I filled the shaker with tiny heart confetti and trapped the sprinkles inside by backing with some silver glitter cardstock before mounting the panel onto a slightly larger die cut square.  The card base and uppermost square are linen cardstock but I used smooth white cardstock for the middle square.  I adhered the shaker sandwich flat to the card base and stamped the sentiment below.

Materials used:

• Dies: MFT Die-namics - Pierced Square Stax, Stitched Heart Stax
• Stamp: Altenew - Leaf Canopy 
• Ink: Versafine - Onyx Black
• Cardstock from stash
• Accents: Little Things from Lucy's Cards - Sprinkles: Rainbow Hearts

Challenge entries:

AAA Cards - CAS Game #184 - Sketch

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #399 - Any Occasion

Addicted to CAS - Challenge #191 - Hearts

Happy Little Stampers - February Anything Goes with Dies Challenge

Time Out - Challenge #181 - Photo Inspiration

Simply Create Too - Challenge #167 - Use Hearts

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend, thanks so much for popping by.

Cocktail Shaker

Hi there

I don't usually write blog posts on a Saturday night but, quite frankly, what else is there to do?!  This pandemic has changed our lives so much hasn't it?  I might open a bottle of wine shortly (actually, there's no 'might' about it) but I'm certainly not going anywhere, just for a change!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a card I made earlier this month for a friend's birthday, so here it is, a fun little shaker card...

In my die cut upper panel I die cut an aperture with a cocktail glass die.  I then stamped the sentiment.  Sentiments are usually the last thing I add but once the foam is added on the reverse of a shaker panel it's more difficult to stamp cleanly.  The die has an inner section too so I cut it again from some silver glitter cardstock.  I then adhered this glitter die cut on the uppermost side, over the acetate.  I made the shaker window in the usual way: acetate, double sided foam barrier surround, filled with fun confetti and then sealed on the reverse before adhering to the card base.

Materials used:

• Dies: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles; Xcut - Cocktail Glass
• Stamp: Clearly Besotted - Floral Spray
• Ink: Versafine - Onyx Black
• Glitter cardstock from stash
• Accents: Little Things from Lucy's Cards - Sprinkles: Let's Polka

Thanks so much for visiting, I'll be back very soon with more to share.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend and stay safe.

Less is More - 10th Birthday Celebration! - Challenge #437

Good morning

The Less is More 10th Birthday celebrations are continuing and today is the start of the second challenge for the month.

Ok, you may groan as this time it's the turn of the One Layer Challenge, but it's a super easy theme...

And don't forget, simply by just playing along you are in with a chance of winning one of the fantastic prizes being offered by the generous sponsors.

I decided to give a 'not yet tried technique' a go for my one layer card...

A while ago I saw a tutorial by the fabulous Jennifer McGuire for dot colouring, you can find the video here.  I certainly need more practice and perhaps this wasn't the best of images to choose for my first attempt but I'm fairly pleased with the result.  I stamped the tulips first in black ink and then added the coloured dots using Copics, three shades of each, fading them out.  I did struggle a little to get tiny dots as I faded it out so I'll certainly have another go.  I stamped the sentiment alongside before adding a trio of score lines away from the image along two edges.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Friends Forever, Cuddle Buddies
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Coloured with Copic markers

As always, the Less is More challenge link up will remain open for two weeks.  For more inspiration, please take a look at the main challenge blog to check out what my teamies have created, you won't be disappointed.

Perfectly CAS February 2021 Challenge

Hi there

I'm here tonight to announce the February challenge at Perfectly CAS, the challenge where the aim is to keep your design to one third or less of your project space.  Here is your cue card for this challenge...

There are lots of different ways to interpret the word splash but I went down the traditional route and chose water...

I was originally going to use a stamp set with dolphins with this splash stencil but the proportions were all wrong, the dolphin was far too small for a splash this size!  So I chose a mermaid tail instead. This wasn't the easiest to create as both are stencils.  On a die cut panel I began by stencilling the mermaid tail, which is part of a stencil of a whole mermaid, in two shades of Distress Ink.  To stencil the splash I then had to make a mask of the masked tail before inking up the splash so it would appear behind the tail.  Once inked up the tail looked a bit lost so I replaced the stencil and inked over the coloured ink blending with a light layer of silver pigment ink which lifted it a little more.  I stamped the sentiment and popped the panel up on fun foam but it still needed something else, so I used a white pigment ink pen to add some detailing to the water.  I attempted to add some detail to the tail with a silver pen but the silver ink meant it had nothing to grip to, so I only managed to add a few details, as you can see below.  Not the finish I had hoped for but it does add a little something more.

Materials used:

• Stencils: Funky Fossil - Mermaids; Clearly Besotted - Splash It
• Stamp: Clearly Besotted - Make a Splash
• Ink: Distress Ink - Peacock Feathers, Dusty Concord, Salty Ocean, Chipped Sapphire; Versa Color - Silver; Versafine- Onyx Black
• Die: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles
• Accents: Signo Uniball pen - white, silver

Challenge entries:

Happy Little Stampers - February Stencil Challenge - Anything Goes

NBUS - Challenge #23 - First time using the splash stencil

Uniko - Challenge #63 - Anything Goes - Option: use a stencil(s)

This challenge will end a few days before the March challenge starts so there's almost a month to take part, so what are you waiting for?

Birthday Bunny

Hi there

This is a birthday card I made recently for a very special friend.  It's been so tough not being able to see each other this last year.  Here's to hoping we can very soon as we have so much to catch up on.

I began with a die cut panel (no surprise there!) and stamped the bunny right at the bottom.  Next I stamped the sentiment as the balloon string and then ink blended through a balloon stencil.  I coloured the bunny with Copics and then stencilled the clouds in the background, just inking either side of the images, the blue was light enough not to need any masking.  I finished with the sentiment on the balloon and then adhered the panel to the card base.  It's only now looking at this photo that I realise I forgot to hand draw the balloon string ties and I also didn't realise there was a break in the sentiment...let's pretend it's a magic balloon! lol

Materials used:

• Stamps: Mama Elephant - Up and Away, Three Amigos (happy birthday); Altenew - Thinking of You (someone special)
• Stencil: MFT - Big Balloons, Mini Cloud Edges
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black; Versafine - Onyx Black; Distress Ink - Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass
• Die: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles
• Coloured with Copic markers

Challenge entries:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #398 - Birthdays

Happy Little Stampers - February Stencil Challenge - Anything Goes

Uniko - Happy 9th Birthday

Uniko - Challenge #63 - Anything goes (use a stencil)

Thanks so much for taking a look.  I'll be back again very soon.  

Less is More - 10th Birthday Celebration! - Challenge #436

Good morning!

It's a celebration today as Less is More is celebrating a big birthday this month!

It was 10 years ago that Chrissie and Mandi created this fabulous challenge blog purely aimed at clean and simple designs, and how lucky are we because they are both joining us for this challenge to celebrate this milestone!  We still have so many participants every week and some have been with us from the very beginning, and I'm honoured to have been a part of the Design Team for almost 6 of those 10 years!  Wow, where does the time go?

Ok, for the first of this month's challenges we have a Colour challenge.  Here's the cue card...

Please do remember that this is a colour challenge, not a theme challenge.  Of course chocolate can be used as your theme, just keep the predominant colour(s) to chocolate shades.

And now for the best bit.....we have a fabulous array of wonderfully generous sponsors joining us for this birthday month, so check out all the details over at the main blog, here, to see what's up for grabs.  Just by playing along during February will mean you're in with a chance of winning a prize.

Ok, now for my card.  I'll admit, I was a bit stumped by this colour challenge, it's not a colour I reach for often and I have very little cardstock in shades of brown.  I almost went down the woodgrain route but instead I looked online for chocolate colour designs and I loved those that were combined with gold, so that was my starting point for this one.  So here you have milk and dark chocolate, with a little gold luxury!

I chose to use a chocolate coloured panel and then stamped the floral images which were from a stamp layering set, embossing the outline layers with gold and stamping the second layers with a darker shade of brown.  I also stamped the sentiment in the same shade of brown.  As I was going to add the panel to my card base I thought it needed a little something more, just a little.  So I used the same dark brown ink pad, direct to paper, and coloured a vertical strip along the edge of my card base.  I then trimmed a slim edge off my panel and adhered it to the card base, leaving the dark brown edge detail.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Altenew - Golden Garden, Clearly Besotted - Floral Spray
• Ink: VersaMark; Altenew - Espresso
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Metallic Gold Rich

If you're like me and are a little stumped by this colour theme then do check out the main challenge blog as my fellow teamies have some great projects they are sharing, you'll no doubt find some great inspiration over there.

Age Gets Better with Wine

Hi there

This is another card I made in December but didn't get around to sharing with you.  It was for a friend whose birthday was right after Christmas.  It's one of those you have to remember to post in good time and take into account the bank holidays!

Oh, and I've just noticed that this is in fact my 1000th post on my blog!  That's a lot of waffling! lol

I masked all four edges of the card base with tape and then blended the background in three shades of Distress Oxide ink.  I then die cut the wine glass and the 'cheers' once from silver glitter cardstock and again from fun foam.  I adhered these together to add dimension and adhered to the background.  To finish I stamped the sentiment on a flag sentiment strip.

Materials used:

• Ink: Distress Oxides - Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon, Wilted Violet; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Dies: Reverse Confetti - Clink; MFT Die-namics - Stitched Sentiment Strips
• Stamp: Clearly Besotted - Laugh Out Loud Again
• Glitter cardstock from stash

Challenge entries:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #398 - Birthdays

Uniko - 9th Birthday Celebration Challenge

I'll be back on Saturday morning with an exciting post, please check back for more info :)

How Old?

Good morning

There were a few cards I made towards the end of 2020 which got lost amongst all the Christmas cards I was making and sharing.

So here's one of them.  I made this funny card for a friend who is always making fun of me about my age, even though he catches up with me six months later!  I don't have many humorous stamps so had fun making this one.

I used two stitched rectangle dies from the same set and cut a white panel which would be mounted onto the larger brown panel.  I stamped the gull first then masked his feet before stamping the log.  Then finished with the remaining stamps.  I coloured the images with Copics and matted and layered the panels onto my base.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Create a Smile - Gull Gang; Gerda Steiner - Moody Unicorns (the how old sentiment)
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black
• Dies: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles
• Coloured with Copic markers

Thanks for visiting, I'll be back with more very soon.

Happy Little Stampers February 2021 CAS Challenge

Hi there

It's a fresh new month and therefore we have a a bunch of fresh new challenges over at Happy Little Stampers.  Here is the cue card for the CAS challenge which is kicking off right now...

I decided to go super CAS for this card, just a simple 'love you'...

I began by die cutting the 'love' from a piece of cardstock which I had already ink blended with a gradient of pink and red Distress Ink.  I then die cut a heart from some black textured card stock and stamped and heat embossed the 'you' in white.  I adhered the die cut to the heart and placed it on my card base.  Now, I love simple cards more than any other kind but this one did look like it needed a little something else.  So I just added some ink splatters mainly towards the bottom right corner using a mix of Distress Ink and water flicked off a small brush.  To finish I popped the heart up on 3D foam.

Materials used:

• Dies: Lil' Inker Designs - Doodled Love Word Die; Xcut - Nesting Hearts
• Stamp: Uniko - You Are...Sentiments Outlined
• Ink: Distress Ink - Picked Raspberry, Candied Apple;VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Brutus Monroe - Alabaster White

Challenge entries:

Moving Along with the Times - Challenge #127 - Valentines/Love

NBUS - Challenge #23 - first use of the 'love' die purchased in Lil' Inker Designs closing down sale last year

As with all the HLS challenges, the linky will remain open until the end of the month.  I hope you can join us.