Art Deco Eiffel Tower Card

Here is the card I made for my mother in law. It is perfect for her, because she loves the art deco style ladies and we're going to Paris together in a month! I used some of my lovely Waltzingmouse Paris Nouveau stamps: the lovely art deco border stamped in Peacock Feather Distress ink, the Eiffel tower stamped in Archival Black, and the Paris word. The art deco lady and the Best Wishes sentiment are from a free set by Claire Coxon that came with a Docrafts magazine this winter. I stamped the art deco lady onto some Stix2 masking paper and cut her out so I could stamp the Eiffel tower behind her.

I stamped some more Peacock feather distress ink onto my craft mat and then painted with it like a water colour. I also mixed some Antique linen with some Barn door distress ink to make her skin tone. Peacock feathers tie in with her hair piece and dress really well. I sponged around the outside with more distress ink.

Finally I added some Fantastic Ribbons Aqua Organza. A little white tag and some nice pins, and a little turquoise gem on her headpiece finished it off.

Be Less Miserable!

So me and some of my work friends went to see Les Miserables, and I wanted to make some little treat bags for everyone.
I have always thought Les Miserables sounded like less miserable since I was a kid, and thought I would do a play on words. I used some simple kraft luggage tags, cut these amazing mini eiffel towers on my silhoette and used some Fantastic Ribbons washi tape to add to the french theme, and then added some handwritten humour!

I used some envelope sleeves for the sweets, and did a little mix of haribo, malteasers and cadburys buttons!

Everyone thought they were really cute, and very tasty!

Vintage Ribbons and buttons

Over at Addicted to Stamps and More they are having a vintage challenge, and this fit perfectly with my lovely wallpaper I got from my dad. This amazing floral panel is cut straight from a border, and all I had to do was add the ribbon and button! I made the ribbon flower but cutting a 1.5inch circle, adding strong double sided tape and folding the ribbon on itself (think I may do a tutorial on this when I have more time) and then securing with a staple in the centre, then I added a button and some twine. The little sentiment is an art deco one from the front of a Docrafts magazine my MIL bought me for Christmas. I hope you like this, and I also hope that my photography is improving, I've been reading the tutorials over at Damask Love, and I hope they're working!
This card is also being entered into the A Blog Named Hero - Vintage challenge and Make My Mondays Ribbon and buttons challenge

Vintage postage bottle label

Here is a vintage tag I made for a friend. I love the look of kraft, and using versamark on it is a great way of stamping. Most of the images you can see are from the Papertrey Ink Postmarks set. I have the matching stamp die which I used to cut out the little bee stamp. The polka dot background is from Waltzingmouse Offbeat Backgrounds. The main stamp on this is the Fragile, as it will be attached to a bottle of wine!!

Candle Stamping Part 2

If you haven't already, you have a little time left to enter this weeks candy here.


Earlier this year I saw a great idea of stamping candles for presents, you can take a look at my first attempt and also a tutorial here.
I have made a few recently and thought I'd share them!

The first one was for a friend who's my age, and I used some of my new Minds Eye stamps Bloom and Grow stamps. They're a lovely selection of leaves, flowers, birds and sentiments. I started by stamping all the images I wanted to have on the candle onto tissue in Forest Moss distress inks. Here they are all laid out ready to attach.

Next is the finished candle, with its matching tag.

And finally it all wrapped up. I think the tag was a little big for the size of the candle perhaps!

Next was a present for my friends daughter who was turning 16. I wanted this to be a little bit trendy, and wanted her name on it. I used a whole variety of stamps for this, so there are Waltzingmouse polka dots around the top and bottom (Offbeat backgrounds), a Banana frog frame for the name plate (can't remember which set!) and then just some cheapie alphabet stamps for the name.

The name plate is being held on either side by a Kirsty Wiseman Lila Bug, and the hearts are from a freebie set I got with a magazine. I think it looks good in black ink, more trendy!

 At the back I have indulged and put a little Stampendous bee!

Finally is a little candle I made for myself. Its very simple, but I wanted it for Christmas. The sentiment is from Papermania Christmas sentiments A Silent Night. The lovely vine like top and bottom are from the Minds Eye Bloom and Grow set. This was very quick to make as I kept it simple, and would make a lovely advent gift for a friend.

Why not try some candle stamping with your favourite stamps this Christmas, you can even make coordinating packaging and cards!

Waltzingmouse blog waltz - Winter/Christmas

If you'd like to have a chance to win some blog candy ribbon leave a comment over on my bloggiversary post here.

Welcome to this months waltz!


The theme this month is winter/Christmas, and what better set to use than the ever versatile teeny trees. I remembered seeing someone on the gallery use the teeny tree trunks to make a snowflake shape and I knew thats what I wanted to do. As I'm a little short of time at the moment I decided to combine a few challenges, and also to keep it simple. I decided to do a kraft tag with white embossed stamping.
Its all pretty self explanatory, I used the smallest of the tree trunks, but all of them would make a snowflake shape. I used versamark to stamp with, and white Wow embossing powder. To finish it off I used some antique linen distress ink around the edges and some gingham ribbon!

This is also being entered into Speedy Cats Friends challenge - Favourite technique (stamping!) and Casual fridays Tags challenge

Baby card - Waltzingmouse sketch challenge #73

For todays Waltzingmouse sketch challenge #73 I have made a baby card for a couple at church who have just had their 2nd little one.
I used some pink chipboard letters for her name (although I didn't have an 'e' so had to make a 'c' into one!) and made a little banner for them to sit on. I used my Labels 4 nestabilities and my cuttlebug embossing folder to make the central piece. I used a technique where you first cut the shape from the card, then place a mask, or in this case I just used half of a cuttlebug embossing folder (by opening it out fully) on the non cutting side of the die, and then a No More Shims embossing mat on the other side and run it through your cuttlebug again. This has the effect of embossing the label, but leaving a nice clear edge. I inked this up with some pink ink to make the embossing stand out. I'll try to do a tutorial on this sometime soon, as its a technique I use alot, and having bought loads of new masks at NEC I'm sure I'll be doing more!!

I used my Waltzingmouse Offbeat backgrounds to stamp the stitching around the edges, the background paper being some Papermania mistletoe kisses. Its a very subtle pink stripe. I also took a tiny label and stamped onto it a 'new arrival' stamp from studio G. I then stamped an adorable little bird from Waltzingmouse teeny trees set in the centre. Some ribbon and a button finished it off nicely

.Remember to head over here and enter my blog candy if you haven't already

Fall card - Get well soon

Here is a card I made as part of the Speedy the Cats Friends Challenge #80 - Fall or winter.

I chose Fall as I'm still loving all the beautiful colours. I used one of my favourite tree stamps (from Crafty Individuals), stamped in memento black ink onto a white tag and then inked with distress inks (antique linen and tea dye). I used some Dovecrafts Funky vintage paper in the background and placed onto Kraft card base. The final touch was to stamp a Waltzingmouse teeny tree sentiment onto some more craft and cut to make a ribbon shape.

If you haven't already you can enter my bloggiversary candy over here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tree names Bookmark

So today I bring you a bookmark I have made for my cousins little boy. He loves trees, and even knows some of the latin names! I love it when kids become interested in stuff and want to learn, guess that's the teacher in me!
So I thought I would make him a little bookmark, and it also ties in with two bookmark/tag challenges.
Here's the sketch from waltzingmouse sketch challenge

Totally stampalicious also have a challenge to make a bookmark.

I started by going online and finding the latin names of some common UK trees. I imported them into my Digital Scrapbook Artist and played around for a while and created this background paper.

I also printed off a list of the trees to go on the back of the bookmark so he can learn them if he wants to.

After distressing the edges of the paper I layered it onto some green card and cut into a tag/bookmark shape.

I wanted to ass his name to the front, so made a background using my teeny trees leaf stamp, then stamped over the top with versamark and clear embossing powder using my Banana frog Budmo Jiggler alphabet stamps. I then carefully cut around each letter and inked the edges.

I wanted some little tree images too and so used teeny trees stamps and cut them out individually.

 I finally punch a hole in the top and added some deep green grosgrain ribbon. I hope he likes it. If it had been a card I would have added more dimension to the little trees and his name, but as its for a bookmark I wanted it to be pretty flat!

My presents!!!!

Now before you say anything, they're not Christmas presents, these are my birthday presents!!! This is the start of my craft haul which will continue on Christmas day. Honey was given the task of organising everyone with what to get me, and so far, so good!!!!
The centre piece was my gorgeous cuttlebug! All the other bits kind of revolve around it!! I got 5 embossing folders (Baby, snowflakes, stylised flowers, divine swirl and another I can't remember!), 3 sets of nestabilities (large circles, labels 1 and labels 4), cuttlebug square frame dies and a cuttlebug man shaped die.
I've had lots of fun playing around with them - especially as we had a snow day on my birthday which gave me an excellent opportunity to have a play whilst monkey was at nursery- and had put them to good use already making tags for christmas and I'm so excited for after Christmas when I can have a really good play around!These first tags are based on the ikea wrapping paper I bought, its great as its reversible, and has this lovely stripe on the back which I've attached to some black card. The larger tag also has a glitter snowflake, which I got a pack of 8 from Home Bargains.

These next tags are all based on some really cheap asda wrapping paper. I attached it to cream card, used a gold ink pad to edge it and then used a variety of my smallest nestabilities dies and stamped christmas words on them. The bottom one has a digital stamp which I made on DSA2 and printed. It was much harder than I thought getting the die to cut exactly round the circle! I then stamped a postmark in gold and embossed.

The next tags are all backed with burgundy cardstock. The top two have the digital stamps and then I've stamped with christmas images and embossed. The bottom tag is just some gold paper embossed with the Divine swirls folder.

Below we have various snowflake tags. I was just playing around with what I liked best. Using only a quarter means they go much further, but I'm still undecided which looks best. The top left had a gap along the side where the embossing folder (cuttlebug snowflakes) finished, so I stamped the sentiment and embossed. The cardstock is electric blue pearlised card.

Unfortunately I can't figure out how to rotate this next image, I should have rotated it before posting! oh well. It shows two tags, both made from a little embossing folder which I got free with a magazine recently - I wish I could remember which one actually, because it came with some really nice Christmas stamps aswell, the sentiment on the card was included! I did two different sizes just by using the top of the tree image. It looks good though any size. I then used a gold pen to go over parts of the embossing. I layered the image onto cream card which I had embossed the edges of with gold embossing powder.

I don't think any of the 40 tags I made where the same, but it keeps it interesting that way!

Next thing I was to do is some snowball gifts and cupcake flannels, so keep watching!!