Have a purrfect day

Here's a second posting from me for today, this time using another new Stamp Addicts set - Purrfect Day.  I'm not a cat lover, but this set was fun to play with, here I paper pieced the bins, masking them as I stacked them up.  The bin lid is popped up on Pinflair glue.  Sentiment and fishbone stamps are both included in the set.  The background is inked with Distress Inks, DP is an old one I've had for ages; I used a Martha Stewart punch on the corners, and added twine and tiny buttons.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Simon Says - buttons
Paper Sundaes - rectangle
Allsorts Challenge - anything but square

It's all falling into place - I don't be-leaf it - no trees!

This evening, instead of trees, I have leaves to show you:).  By good fortune this card fits the challenges for several of my favourite blogs, where I try to play along as often as I can.  Midnight Madness has a fab prize of House Mouse stamps this week and since the lovely America is also part of House Mouse Monday she suggest combining the sketch with their Fall challenge.  This little chap is a Joanna Sheen stamp, never seen ink before and I think I've had him for about a year - shameful!  Cupcake Craft is where I won my first ever blog hop candy; I also one one of my first ever Top 3/5 awards from them so I love to join their challenges and this week they have leaves as their theme.  Add to that Anything Goes at Basic Grey and Simon Says and I cover almost all my favourite challenges in one here.
About the card:  coloured with Copics and Distress Inks.  DP is Basic Grey, border punch EK Success, leaf and button punches Woodware. Sentiment is Dimension Fourth, strip ribbon from Stampin' Up.
This has been the strangest autumn for weather, we had that lovely sunny hot Indian summer, now it's mild but damp and we have a second bumper crop of mushrooms in the field where we keep out horses - unheard of so late in the year!  Tonight I took my hat off and filled it with mushrooms in the absence of a clean container!
Challenges for my card:
Midnight Madness - sketch
House Mouse Mondays - Fall
Cupcake Crafts - take a leaf out of my book
Simon Says - anything goes
Basic Grey- anything goes
Creative Inspirations Paint - inspired by Fall
Quirky Crafters - autumn leaves
Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Fall colours
Craft Your Days Away - autumn
Pattie's Creations - Halloween or Autumn colours
Whimsical Wednesday - Fall cuties
Shopping our Stash - autumn colours
Crafty Creations - fall and leaves

The one that got away?

Another card using new stamps from Stamp Addicts, this time a  masculine one that uses the background and the boat from the On the Water set, with a tree from the new Tree set sneaked in as well.  The detail fisherman at bottom left is also from On the Water.  The scene is mounted onto brown card embossed with a Tim Holtz tree bark folder, the edges are torn.  DP is from a Joanna Sheen CD Rom, Times Gone By I think.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Kenny K's - autumn colours
Pile it On - Fall is for fun - my fisherman is having fun, but it must be an early Autumn, I think salmon fishing finishes 1 October!
Sweet Stampin' - go masculine
Stamptacular Sunday - anything goes
Creatalicious - distressed edges

Pink Peony

 

I love using the pre-coloured Fred She Said images for decoupage and the Peony works so well, I printed the sheet out, cut out the 5 layers and added them to a Marianne Creatables die.  The sketch is Midnight Madness, the DP Basic Grey and I've added some brown pearls and a Craftwork Cards sentiment.

My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness  - sketch
One Stitch at a Time - use a digi
Crafter's Companion - pink & green
The Emerald Faeries - punches & dies
My Sheri Crafts - think pink
Deep Ocean Challenge - happy birthday
Everybody Art Challenge - pink & brown
Paper Sundaes - lots of layers
Simon Says - anything goes - trying for 1,000 entries

Snowy Village gets the blues

Here's a quick card, very clean and simple, using the Snowy Village set   from Stamp Addicts again. This time I've embossed it and just used a little Distress Ink brushed onto the image.  The wide fibre ribbon works well with the chilly blue and white, the layout is from this week's Midnight Madness sketch.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
For Fun Challenges - Christmas in August
Samuel Taylor - Christmas card using a rubber stamp (those amazing Prima pads for the prize!)
Crafty Catz - monochromatic

Phindy's Place Challenge #69 - Something New

Welcome to today's Phindy's Place Challenge, which to to make a card/creation for something new:  a new home, new baby, new job, what will you celebrate with your card?  I've made a card for a new baby girl, using the adorable image Brand New, which Phindy drew while awaiting the birth of her grand-daughter Frances.  My card is fairly simple, it follows this week's Midnight Madness sketch.  The embossing folder came from Craft Barn, I've inked it to give a bit more definition, sentiment is LOTV, and a few Prima flowers and punched leaves complete my card.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Glitter Fairies - pretty in pink
KB Cute Monday - babies

Creative Inspirations Challenge 66 - back to school

The theme at Creative Inspirations Challenge for this week is Back to School.  I've used a cute image from Phindy's Place called Ready to Go. I've teamed him with some Basic Grey DPs and Cosmo Cricket tape measure DP.  The sentiment is Stampin' Up.

My card is for:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Sparkles Forum - one for the boys
My Sheri Crafts - back to school
Dutch Dare - back to school
Pixie Dust Studio - boys will be boys
Little Darlings - school days
Shelly's images - back to school
Amber's Crafts - back to school

Time to kick back and relax...

Don't know if you missed me (or my blogging at least!) but I'm back from a lovely week away on the Isle of Skye with DH and older son.  We were extremely lucky to have good weather for virtually all our stay on the island and it is a magical place in good weather.  I don't return to work for another week and I am planning lots of things to do this week, including some crafting, but also a bit of relaxing.  My nearest craft shop, Stamp Attic, now has a coffee shop (a bit like this one lol) just a few yards away and I am planning a coffee and shopping trip soon...

Image is called Sit and Stay Cafe and it's a Phindy's Place design, coloured with Copics, Distress Ink and Glossy Accents.  I used this week's sketch from Midnight Madness, turned it on its side and made it into an easel card.  Sentiment is from Elusive Images, DP is Basic Grey and the flowers are tiny white flowers coloured with Copics.  More cards from me tomorrow I hope:)
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Paper Playthings - summer
Creative Stamp - summer
Dream Valley Challenges - summer
Craft your days away - fancy folds (easel)
Just some lines - easel
Fussy & Fancy - summer
Fairy fun Fridays - on holiday
Delightful Challenges - fancy folded cards
Simon Says - anything goes 

I'm nuts about you

 I know, it's a corny sentiment but I had to do it lol!  Good morning and welcome to this month's Tiffany Doodles Challenge, which is All Creatures Great and Small.  There are two great chances to win a Gift Certificate from Tiffany Doodles: a $10 TD Gift Certificate to the winner who uses a Tiffany Doodles digital stamp and a $5 TD Gift Certificate to the 2nd runner up - no matter what stamp you've used.

Tiff has some stunning animal images, fun and realistic and I have chosen the Squirrel for my card.  Somehow, even though it's high summer (in theory anyway) he has ended up as an Autumnal card, with Basic Grey Indian Summer DP, some tiny punched out leaves and lots of stitching.  Midnight Madness, CPS and Critter Cards have ALL used basically the same sketch this week so I'm entering my squirrel in all three!

My card is for the following challenges:
Basic Grey - stitching
Simon Says - a stitch in time
A Spoonful of Sugar - stitching
Paper Sundaes - stitching
Critter Challenges - sketch and use red
CPS - sketch
Midnight Madness - sketch

Aspirational new home card

 I love my Design Team work, don't get me wrong.  After a few early forays I know to restrict it to using artists whose work I love, in fact even calling it "work" is wrong, it's playing really isn't it!  But just occasionally something else reaches out and grabs me, in this case it is stamps by Lindsay Mason who I met at Craft Barn's Extravaganza at the start of the month.  I loved the way Lindsay created and this is really an attempt to copy her style.  If you check out her blog you'll see it's a bit of a pale imitation, she's seriously talented and was also so friendly and generous with her tips and ideas.

I've used Distress Inks on glossy card for the background.  I smudged my sentiment slightly so stamped again on the lower part of the card and matted it over the smudge.  Just the edge towers are glued down on the big castle so it has lots of dimension but it can still be squished down to post.  Background stripe is My Minds Eye, DIY style brads are Joanna Sheen and I've used Swiss Dots embossing on the frame.  The screw brads are because everyone ends up doing some work to their new home, even if it's a castle:).
 Enjoy your day.

My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
The Paper Shelter - anything goes
Totally Papercrafts - spots and stripes
Sew Many Cards - dry embossing
Sweet Stampin' - something old (swiss dot folder), something new - Lindsay stamps
Secret Crafter - embossing

How are you duck?

This adorable duck is part of today's new release at Tiffany Doodles, isn't he sweet?  There is a choice of different Nestie Labels shapes in the set; I don't have this die so I cut round it instead.  And how funny is that sentiment, which is a Joanna Sheen stamp.  The duck is coloured with Copics, he was very easy to colour so I did some stippling with my Copics on the background for fun.  The card is based on this week's Midnight Madness sketch and uses Stampin' Up DPs, stitching and some dew drops.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch

Copic Creations - doodling
Little Darlings - favourite colour combo (blue & green)
Crafts & Me - stitches
Hooked on Craft - anything goes

A Little (Claire) lapse from the stash diet

Little Claire do very cute sets of square stamps and last week they had an offer for four of them at a third off and I'm afraid I fell off the wagon...   I stamped the adorable Westies twice onto white card and once onto a Wild Rose Studio paper.  I mixed up elements from both this week's Midnight Madness sketch, added some card candy and an Elzybells sentiment.  Cute stamp, I'm sure you can see the temptation:).

My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Ladybug Crafts - use orange
Karen's Doodles - bright and bold
One Stitch at a Time - anything goes
Scrappy Frogs - anything goes

Oh Baby!

Here's another card using that Memory Box Brioche DP, honestly this one was never intended to have Brioche DP but I saw that the plaid worked perfectly with the image and I had to use it for the background layer!  The image is one of the very generous freebies from A Day For Daisies, matted onto some dry embossed and inked Basic Grey DP from Porcelain.  I added some Prima flowers, which works for the Midnight Madness Sketch and sneaked in some ribbon which doesn't!  Zig-zag stitching secures the two layers.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
A Day For Daisies - oh baby
Bearly Mine - beautiful babies
Stamping Vacation - very vintage sewing
Card Creations & More - embossing
Sketchy Colours - pink, blue & green
 The Cheerful Stamp Pad - little girls with curls

Birds in a row

When I saw the current Midnight Madness sketch I immediately thought of using bird images and here is my card, just in time!  The three birds are all from Tiffany Doodles, they are Woodpecker, Bluebird 2 and  Warbler Cherry Blossoms.  Having had my bright idea, reality then hit home about just how small the images needed to be unless I made a monster sized card!  I tried painting these in watercolour at 2" but was not happy with my work, I couldn't get the detail.  So I used my Copics and these squares are just 1 3/4".  The fact that they have worked so well (or at least I think they have) is tribute to the design quality, they were much easier to use so small than I epxected.  I plan to use them again at a more normal size, watch this space...

The sentiments are Whiff of Joy, the leaves are a Martha Stwart punch and the dotty paper is a Fancy Pants design.

My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Fashionista - things with wings
Stamp Something - with wings
Creations by Gill - birds in my garden
The Paper Variety - polka dots

Wish you were here?

  I got some new Jenny Mayes Hobbyart stamps at the NEC and here's the first card I made with them.  They are slightly bigger than the Scene-It sets and they are on unmounted rubber, not clear.  I found them a bit more of a challenge to use, I think I was trying to combine too many at once!  I masked the deckchairs and stamped the boats out once and used them again for a partial image and added the gulls.  I watercoloured my scene using Aquamarkers and made it up using the sketch at Midnight Madness.  I like the way the corners give it the look of a photo in an old album.  DP is flairdesigns.inc.

My card is for the following challenges:

Midnight Madness - sketch

Delightful Challenges - sun, sea and sand

Challenge Up Your Life - masking

My Time To Craft - nautical

Phindy's Place Challenge #48 - All About Animals

Welcome to a new Phindy's Place Challenge, this week the challenge is to use an animal image on your card or project. While you don't have to use a Phindy's Place image, why wouldn't you?  There are so many adorable and awesome iamges in the shop, why not check them out and acquire a new animal:).
I've used one of the Mrs Comyfy series of images, this is called Mrs Comfy and Pogg,I do love these images and find them such fun to colour up and use.

I've used a bit of a quilter's trick here because I've taken my colour palette from a multi-shaded piece of DP, from my Prima Madeline pad.  However in the end I've only used the tiniest scraps of the paper on the card.  But I knew that if the colours worked on the DP they would work together on the image.
I found the sentiment online and computer generated it.  Image is coloured with Copics, Glossy Accents and Stickles, I've added tiny pink pearls and blue gems to her coat buttons.  Ribbon, and buttons are from stash, background cardstock is embossed.

My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
AiFactory - under the weather
Southern Girls - add an animal
Creative Card Crew - no stamps (digi and computer generated used)
Spoonful of Sugar - ribbon, pearls/rhinestones and flowers
2 Sisters - furry friends

A little more lurve

There are so many love/Valentines challenges around that I couldn't resist making just one more card...  Still looking through the box of stamped images I found this adorable House Mouse image.  I've coloured it lightly with minimal shading because I'm fairly sure it isn't stamped with a Copic friendly ink, I've had it for longer than I've had my marker pens I think!
The hearts have Glossy Accetns on them, the DP is more of the Bearly Mine CD DP.  Wide lacy ribbon came from stash and I twisted the 3 green ribbons when I stuck them down.  The sketch is Midnight Madness.
My card is for the following challenges:
House Mouse & Friends &Totally Gorjuss Love
House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge - all about hearts
Midnight Madness - sketch
Crazy4Challenges & Stamping Royalty & Crafty Cardmakers - hearts
Crafty Emma Challenges - cute and cuddly
Stamp, scrap & doodle& Dutch Dare & One Stop Craft & Paper Crafting Journey & Bunny Zoe's - love is in the air

Crafty Ann's - love is all around
Crafty Catz -& Crafty Sentiment & Stamps R Us - Valentines/ love
Fabulous Friday - use the word love
Fairy Knoll & Sew Many Cards  & C.R.A.F.T. -  & Tiffany Doodles & Everybody Art Challenge - Valentines

Really Reasonable Ribbon - pink, red, white
Papertake Weekly - have a heart
Pink Elephant - be my Valentine

You've got to roll with it...

Here's the second House Mouse card I have finished up.  It's a lovely stamp from one of the unmounted sets but I'm not altogether happy with my colouring.  I've used watercolours and Distress Ink and I find it hard to pick out the meeces; any suggestions to get them to be more prominent on this busy image would be very welcome!
I've followed the sketch at Midnight Madness.  The mat has "paper piercing" which I did with the  sewing machine, the background DP is Basic Grey Indian Summer and the sentiment is also House Mouse.  The silk ribbon comes from a cone that I fell in love with and bought a few years back and the wide lacy ribbon from Stamp Attic.

My card is for the following challenges:

Midnight Madness - sketch
Fab'n'Funky - tempting texture (silk and the lacy ribbon)
Crafty Cardmakers - use water (watercolours)
Scrap Creations - animal antics
Critter Sketch - critters
Corrosive Challenge - red, orange, yellow

Golden Years

 This is a very clean and simple anniversary card, made using the new Fred She Said Hearts & Roses digi set.    You'll see that I have removed the wording "I love you" from the image and added my own wording.  It's the first time I've ever tried this and really, it couldn't be easier!  I've used the pre-coloured digi but there is also a set for your own colours available.   I've printed out, cut out and layered 2 further rose sprays onto the heart.  The heart was put through my Swiss Dot embossing folder and then inked with Scattered Straw Distress Ink.

The sketch is from this week's Midnight Madness.  The DP is Bearly Mine, one from the Simply Dots download and one from the Designer Extreme I CD.  Donna at Bearly Mine has a new  challenge blog and I'm hoping she'll accept this as an entry to the recipe challenge this week:  3 flowers, 2 papers, 1 image.  The image IS the flowers, though, so fingers crossed lol!  I was lucky enough to win the CD in a recent challenge, thanks Donna!

I've gold embossed an Elusive Images swirl in the corner of each DP and added some pearls, if you click on the picutre you can see them better...    There still seems quite a bit of open space, don't know if I will tinker about with this card a bit more...

I'm entering the following challenges with my card:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Bearly Mine - recipe
Flourishes - go big (this is a 5 x 7 card)
My Time to Craft - spots & dots
Papertake Weekly - ribbons and pearls
Diecut Dreams - use a digi and a rubber stamp

House Mouse Card - new beginnings

There are several "New beginnings" challenges around, as well as "new" and what could be more appropriate than a Spring card with baby birds - or at least House Meeces maquerading as baby birds LOL!  My DH bought me some lovely crafty goodies for Christmas, including a Joanna Sheen decoupage set - my "something new". Once I completed the decoupage I based my card on this week's Midnight Madness sketch.
The background card has random stampings of music on it, using Distress Ink.  I used a clear Prima stamp and didn't mount it onto a block, I just held it and inked a bit of it, which is something Sarah Anderson showed us on a workshop at Stamp Attic.  The white panel behind the decoupage is embossed with a Paisley CB folder, another present from DH.  The flower border at the top is MS and the flowers are a Woodware punch, some have button centres and some Liquid pearls.
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Simon Says - new beginnings
Creative Card Crew -  new beginnings
Secret Crafter - buttons and bows
House Mouse & Friends - new beginnings
Paper Sundaes - something new
One Stop Craft Challenge - something new
Dutch Dare Cards - new beginnings
Pile it on - brand spanking new
Craft Your Days Away - punch it out