Double Rainbow!

Well today I experienced something amazing, not only did I see a whole rainbow, right across the sky, but there was also a second rainbow which went about 1/3 of the way across too. The main rainbow was SO vivid and amazing, and it made my day! Amazingly I was wearing my cute rainbow t shirt, which is covered in mini rainbows!Unfortunately we were on a train at the time and I couldn't take a photo.
 As I have said before I love rainbows, and I was going on and on about it to my 6th form students and they were telling me about a song called Double Rainbow, and one let me listen to it on their ipod! It is so funny, and puts across some of the emotions linked to seeing the double rainbow, as well as being really crazy and auto-tuned! If you want a look its on youtube (but be warned, the guy keeps saying 'Oh my God' and there is a bleeped out word at the end, so if that will offend you, maybe give it a miss).
So onto my card. After such an experience I was so inspired to do a rainbow card, and was reminded of one Kirsty Wiseman did recently for her QVC show. When I saw it I knew it just had to be CASE'd! You can see Kirsty's card here.
Here is my rainbow card

I started by using my nestabilities circle dies and cut out different rainbow coloured circles. Then I cut each in half, helping me make 2 separate rainbows.

It was my plan to ass the little sentiment circle on top of a rainbow colours scalloped circle, and this is what I made with my promarkers and little wreath die.

However, when I put it onto the card I felt there was a little too much rainbow going on (who would have thought it possible?!!!)

So instead I cut a scalloped orange piece and made it look like a sun. I had borrowed Kirsty's cloud punch a few weeks ago and cut myself loads of clouds, and so used one above my rainbow.

Finally I added some polka dot yellow ribbon and a sky blue paper background. I hope you like my homage to rainbows!

If you want to see a wonderful double rainbow image go to http://www.missouriskies.org/rainbow/february_rainbow_2006.html

Autumn Colours Thank you card

Here is a quick card I made a little while back which suits many of the current autumn colour challenges. Its using my Waltzingmouse Teeny Trees stamps.
This is being entered into the following challenges:
Artistic Stamper - Halloween/Fall Colours
Crafty Emma - Autumn Colours
City Crafter - Harvest
Thanks for looking!

Less is More week 37 - Cocktails

Welcome to this weeks Less is More challenge, which is to incorporate a cocktail into a card. At first I thought this challenge wasn't for me, as I didn't even think I had a glass stamp. Then I had a look at some of the cards people had made and suddenly remembered I did have a little glass in my Doodlebugs Wedding set. 

I wanted a nice and simple card, and I also wanted to have a try at embossing a nestability into my card, and here is the result!

I hope you can see the embossed Label 1 around the glasses. I had used my promarkers to colour the champagne in the glasses, and then used some glossy accents to make them stand out a little more.

I added a Banana frog sentiment and then layered onto a cream card base!

Hope you like my little cocktail!

Speedy the Cats Friend Challenge 77 - Seeing Double

Welcome to this weeks Speedy the Cat Friend challenge - seeing double! How appropriate that I was needing to make a card for some friends who have just found out they are expecting twins (they're going to be seeing double for years to come!!!)

The backing paper is from Matt Stack, the central piece is a nestability label 1 which was embossed with the die still in using my polka dot 'That Special Touch of...' mica mask. I then sponged with both forest moss distress ink and some Brilliance lime pearlescent ink. The ribbon is from a set of ribbon I bought by VV Rouleaux. I stamped my new Anna Griffin Monogram circle stamp onto some dark green card and embossed with white superfine powder. The central image was then stamped with a Papermania sentiment from the Sunflower sets. I also punched some little feet  into the other two circles. I hope you like it!

Waltzingmouse blog waltz - Gratitude/Thanksgiving

Well welcome to my October contribution to the Waltzingmouse blogwaltz! I just love waltzing every month, and hope you enjoy it too. This month is a theme very close to my heart, Gratitude and Thanksgiving. I am always really keen on showing people how much you appreciate them and the things they do for you, and I think sometimes these days people take for granted so many things. Every birthday/Christmas I make sure we thank people either personally or my letter, and especially so since our little monkey was born. People always get hand made thank you cards (by me at the moment, but hopefully in the future Monkey will be making them too!).
So onto todays card!

I headed straight to my trusty Teeny Trees stamps and stamped the tree and bird onto some grey recycled paper. I had to stamp with dark colours as this paper seemed to drink the ink! I had to stamp the tree trunk 3 times!!!

 I cut the tree image out using my circle nestabilities, and then also cut a white circle and embossed the edge, and then some burgundy paper circle which I then sent through my cuttlebug with a plastic polka dot mask from That Special Touch of. I sponged the edges of the white circle with antique linen and then layered the three circles up.

The background is the inside of a cereal box which I have sent through my cuttlebug in the Swiss dots folder and then sponged the edges with some Antique Linen distress ink.
I have some beautiful ribbon which is burgundy with a gold edge which I ran across the card, and the tied a separate bow over the top and then added a lovely old button over the top. You can see in the close up that it is so old its all crackled on the back! I threaded some burgundy twine through the button and finished it with a tiny tag (which I simply hand cut out of some scrap white card) onto which I wrote 'thanks'.

I hope you like my little thank you card...now to decide who will be getting it!

This card is also being submitted to the Card Patterns sketch challenge, Paper and such Colour challenge and the Stampin Bees challenge to include a bird.

Rainbow CAS cards

When I see a rainbow it just makes me smile- even if its raining! There is something just so joyous about them! When I came across Our Change of Art during the recent Gallery Idol competition I just loved her style, especially her rainbow colours! Just look at this and this, and you'll see what I mean.
So when I was 'in the crafting zone' during World Craft Day I decided to have a go myself and make some beautiful rainbow cards!

The first is so CAS I am amazed at myself. A few months ago I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from adding more to this, but I'm fully embracing CAS now, and my husband loved this when he saw it - gutted he saw it though, as I had planned to put it away for his birthday, but he came home whilst I was still taking the photos!doh!
I simply stamped my Hero Arts candles straight onto the cardstock, coloured with promarkers and then cracked open my new glossy accents and used on just the flames. Unfortunately you can't see it on these pictures, but it makes a nice little addition.

Next I used the same stamp and coloured in the exact same way, but added a sentiment from the same stamp set and cut from the cardstock to layer over rainbow coloured embroidery thread.

 I love the finished look of this, it is so cheerful!!!

 The first card is going to be entered into the CraftyJC challenge, which this month is Simplicity. I think this card definitely qualifies!

WMSC #68 and OCC Fall Colour Challenge Birthday Card

Welcome to my blog, and I hope you like my take on two challenges, the first is the Waltzingmouse sketch challenge, and the second is the OCC Fall Colours.

I wasn't sure how I was going to use the colours from the OCC challenge, but it was made slightly easier in the fact that I had some wallpaper scraps from when my dad closed his wallpaper shop which were almost the perfect colours! Only the pool party colour was missing, so I added some ribbon and some background paper to include these colours.

Here are some new stamps I bought from the QVC warehouse, they're Anna Griffin Monogram stamps and you get 6 circle outers, and 2 alphabet sets (you can see half of the scrolly set here, there's also a Times New Roman type font too) I love circles, and thought these looked gorgeous, and they were reduced to £6 so you can't grumble!

I chose to use the dotty circle outer and combine with two of my other stamp sets.

I used a cupcake stamp from my Hero Arts Birthday set, and a sentiment from Waltzingmouse teeny trees.

I enjoyed stamping in versamark and heat embossing with white embossing powder, it gives a beautiful effect. I think I need an antistatic pad though as I battled with a few fingerprints!

The birthday sentiment was bigger than the circle outer, so I stamped the sentiment first, masked with a thin slip of paper and then stamped the circle over the top, I think my paper should have been slightly wider, I'll try that next time!

Overall I'm really please to have been pushed out of my comfort zone with this challenge, because the colours were completely new to me, and I'm obsessed with odd numbers, so really wanted to add another circle stamp, but stuck to the sketch!!!

OLW67 and Stamping Bee Challenge 131

Stamping Bee challenge this week is to create a one layer card, but it musn't be white. The One Layer Wednesday challenge is Thoughtsgiving, to send a card to someone struggling with a battle, and to donate to a cancer charity. 

I started with a piece of A4 craft cardstock, and stamped a Stampendous maple leaf in Versamark, and then added some cosmic shimmers in reds and oranges. I then stamped a Penny Black sentiment from the Salutations set and added some cosmic shimmers to that also. I punched some small leaves from a variety of types of cards, some textured, some patterned.

 I was completely inspired for this card by Susan over at Simplicity, you can see the card here. I also made a similar one with a white card base, and a different sentiment from Bananafrog. 

Here is a selection of the things I used.

I know who will be receiving this card, as they are definitely on my mind and in my prayers alot at the moment. The cancer charity I am supporting is The Christie, who looked after my mum, and who I ran a charity half marathon for two weeks ago.

CAS Christmas 2

I was still in the zone after World Card Making Day, and the following evening got down to some more crafting! I was so excited to try for the first time my new Martha Stewart border stamps. I'd bought these from QVC when they were the TSV and they were my treat for doing the half marathon. I resisted using them before the race, but then since running it hadn't had an opportunity to sit down and give them a try. My two favourite designs from the 4 had been the snowflakes and the leaf trails, and so these were the two I tried out.

Here is the little stampy setup to line up your stamps.

 It allows you to stamp corner pieces and then the middle pieces. Your paper needs to be multiples of 2 inches for it to marry up, so my first try was 4"x6". Unfortunately I musn't have been exactly right, because you can see a gap in the bottom left corner!

It didn't help that I was stamping this in clear versamark as I was then using my cosmic shimmer mica powders, so I couldn't see where I had stamped very easily!

 Next I went to 4"x4" and this worked much better, and I wasn't paranoid about the ink drying before the mica powder went on. I used a lovely pewter colour which works well. I stamped a Hero Arts Christmas sentiment in the middle to finish it off and then layered onto some navy card and used some straight silver peel offs to finish.

 Next I tried the leaf stamps using forest moss distress inks. I kind of find that distress inks are too watery and pool on some stamps, and sometimes it irritates me, but I think it actually gives a nice effect for these, a little vintage!

I used the same Hero Arts sentiment on this card too as I think it really suits the stamp. I then used my quickie glue pen and some super fine red glitter to make it look like holly. I think it would look really cute with some pearl ones too to look like mistletoe. 

I finished it off by simply sponging the edges with more forest moss and then adding to a cream square card base.

I hope you like my CAS Christmas cards, I'm very tempted to make a batch of these holly leaf ones!!

I'm entering the leaf one into the Less is More eye colour challenge (what with me having green eyes) and both into the Stampendous CAS Christmas card challenge.

Sunflower CAS card

Here's another card I made for World Card Making Day. A friend of mine loves sunflowers, so for her birthday card I wanted to use some papermania sunflower stamps I got last year in the sale. I haven't used the stamp images much, mainly the sentiments, but I love this big sunflower.

Wanting to keep it CAS I stamped the image onto some white cardstock with black memento ink and coloured with my promarkers. I then stamped the sentiment from my penny black stamps 'Salutations'.
I then cut to size and layered over some lovely bright polka dot ribbon onto cream cardstock. Here's a slight close up.

This card is going to be entered in Marks Finest Paper, Speedy the Cat's Challenge, to use polka dots.