It may be a little quiet on here...

I'm taking a few weeks off from blogging due to our new arrival.

Elijah

Weighing in at a healthy 8lb 11oz he is doing well. I didn't fare quite so well, but am at least home now and trying to take it easy and recover.

OLW92 /Less is more 72

Today I'm combining two challenges. For this weeks One Layer Wednesday the theme was "on the edge", and for Less is More you had to do something shiny.
Here is my little card.

The stamps I have used are Stampendous Spotz Botz for my robot and also Stampendous Ribbon builder for the sentiment, and then Banana Frog Retro Space for the Space ship.

I coloured my images with Promarkers, then my Shiny bit is the robots tummy which is heat embossed with silver embossing podwer. He also has Glossy Accents in his eyes which are shiny too.

I coloured my spaceship orange because my little boy is obsessed with Wallace and Gromit and their spaceship is orange!

I hope you like my take on these two challenges.

Waltzingmouse June Party

Well today is not only Fathers Day here in the UK, but also the Waltzingmouse Blog Party. For the first time that I'm aware of we haven't had a theme as such, but an inspirational photo to use.



As soon as I saw this I knew I would use it for my Fathers day card, as the colours really work for a masculine card.

Following last months challenge to use felt I've had my bag of felt out and around, so I went straight to it and decided to do something a little different, a felt background. I used my cuttlebug and my Spellbinders scalloped edge dies to cut out a number of felt strips which would sit together in this lovely wave pattern. I decided that to echo the scalloped edges I would use my Waltzingmouse Teeny trees concentric circle stamps for the main image. I stamped in a variety of sizes and colours, and finished with stamping the word Dad, which are individual alphabet stamps from my Anna Griffin Monogram set and sponged the edges before layering onto a final piece of felt.

 If you want to see what other people were inspired to create from the image above then head over to the Waltzingmouse blog at 6.30pm.

Hero Arts June Challenge

This month I am taking part in the Hero Arts sketch challenge, and was really drawn to all these sketches, but especially to the ribbon one. I considered using papers for the ribbon pieces, but eventually decided to stamp all my own papers.

I chose my Celebrate All Day set, and created each set of paper by repeatedly stamping an image, and then colouring with Promarkers in a colour theme. I then gently inked the edges, stamped an extra balloon which I coloured in rainbow style, and stamped the sentiment.

Here's a close up of the image section

If you'd like to take part in this months challenge, there are 3 different ways to enter, by technique, theme or sketch, so pop over to Hero Arts and see what inspires you!

CASual Fridays CFC56 - Polka dot

This the challenge over at CASual Fridays, to use polka dots in a CAS card. I saw a card over on Simplicity and to say I have CASEd it is a slight understatement, but I was so inspired to use this double stamping technique with my polka dot stamp from Waltzingmouse Offbeat Backgrounds that I tried the colour combo, and then found some matching ribbon. The only real difference is my sentiment (Hero arts - Celebrate all day) and I have used some little silver heat embossed stars either side of the sentiment to tie in with the 'Make a wish' (The stars are from Waltzingmouse Teeny trees).

Here you can see a close up of the polka dots, which are very close together.

The polka dots are stamped in Whispers Starry Starry Night and Soft Sage.

Why not check out all the other polka dot creations at CAS-ual Fridays!

Waltzingmouse sketch challenge #100!

You probably know that some of my favourite challenges happen over at Waltzingmouse, and this week they're celebrating their 100th sketch challenge, so I really wanted to take part.

 Its my friends birthday, and she's a literature lover, so I decided I wanted to incorporate some text into the card. I'd also seen a fab technique over at Simplicity using a polka dot stamp. Instead of just stamping in one colour you offset the stamp and use a different coloured ink. The waltzingmouse polka dot which is from Offbeat Backgrounds is quite a close pattern, so I wasn't sure if it would work, but it did! I stamped with some Whispers ink in Mossy Stone and Chestnut, you can see how it works below.

I also used the sentiments from Teeny trees (by masking off happy thanksgiving and Birthday wishes).

The butterfly is a Tonic Studios punch, the frame is a Labels 1 nestie frame embossed with a cuttlebug folder and the sponged. I layered one of the polka dot strips onto a brown ribbon to make it pop a little. I also stamped some very faint floral images in the background and sponged the edges. The butterfly was distressed, then I added some mica powder and some bling for its antennae!

To see all the other takes on the sketch head over to Waltzingmouse!

Beehive Cupcakes

So this week is my final week at work before I start my maternity leave, and so I wanted to bake some cupcakes for my colleagues. 

My friend found this image on Pinterest and sent it to me which was my inspiration.

This is over at Sweetopia, and its meringue icing on a chocolate cupcake. I did want to do the meringue icing, but my little blowtorch is pretty pathetic, and I didn't think it would be able to cope doing this. 

I think you could cope with that amount of meringue icing, but not buttercream, so I adapted the look and taste of this to suite me!

I started by making standard size lemon drizzle cupcakes, and some tiny miniature cupcakes to bulk out the beehive and reduce the buttercream!

I then made some lemon buttercream, gently coloured. It was actually quite tricky to pipe around the mini cupcake, I kept getting gaps between the layers.

I placed a yellow sugarpaste bee on top which I'd striped with dark chocolate drizzles and almond wings.

Here's what it should look like!

And here's a bunch of them, they're not very consistent!

I'd also tried to make some decorations out of the left over dark chocolate. I'm not great at piping lettering so it was quite tricky, but the results are quite cute!

I did sneak one of the more shabby looking cakes to try, and it was delicious, but SO hard to eat, think plates and spoons/forks will be a must!!

Waltzingmouse Blog Party - Felt or Cosy Fabrics

This months challenge over at Waltzingmouse was to use felt or cosy fabrics, and although this was quite a challenge for me I have definitely been converted to felt! I knew that I wouldn't want to go with flowers or the other usual ways to use fabric, so started out by considering a whole felt background (which I even made and will be made into a future card) but then decided on a rainbow themed card (you know how I love a rainbow!!)
I love rainbows because they signify Gods love for us and his promises for us even when things seem to be a disaster, and often the time after we have troubles is the most blessed.
So I used my nestie circles to cut out varying sizes of rainbow coloured felt I had and pieced together. When I have made a card rainbow in the past I've just layered up the card, but with the felt this isn't so practical, as it ends up about an inch thick, so I had to cut out thin bands of the felt instead, using two nesties at once.

I glued them to a circular piece of card, and once dry cut in half. Below is the original, and the one I distressed for the card - the yellow and orange were just too vivid for my liking!

I used the Teeny trees set to stamp a sun and come clouds onto some white card and cut out, and once I'd sponged the background with Broken China and Forest Moss distress inks I used the smallest tree trunk stamp to stamp the trees.

The sentiment is stamped using a stationers stamp set where you have to take each letter and lodge in a plastic holder until you make your phrase. It takes a while, but I like the look it gives, and also means you can customise any sentiment you like.

I hope you like this card, and head over to waltzingmouse to see the other people taking part in this months waltz.

There's also still time to enter my blog candy draw for reaching 25 followers (26 now!)

OLW88 - Mini Masterpiece

So this weeks One Layer Wednesday challenge was to create a mini masterpiece, limited to a 2 inch square, but with a sentiment allowed outside this limit. I'll be honest, I was inspired by Susan over at Simplicity to give this a go, and I'm so pleased I did, because I really enjoyed playing around a little with this challenge. Here I'm sharing 2 cards which use the same stamps, but highlight how small changes can completely change the look of the card.

Up first is the portrait version in mainly blue. I die cut the stamp shape in a piece of card using my cuttlebug stamp die. I then used it as a mask to sponge and stamp inside. I used Cracked Sapphire, Broken china and Tea Dye distress inks to sponge my background. I then used a music note stamp in broken china at a diagonal. I have a beautiful Papertrey stamp set called Postmarks, and it has these tiny little images that mostly I never use, but thought they would be perfect for such a small area. I also used a sentiment from this set.

Here is a close up of the 2 inch image. 

Here's the landscape version of the same card, with the sentiment going into the little frame.

I tried stamping the music notes in versamark this time, but it didn't show up very well at all. Inks this time were Tea Dye and Walnut stain.

I hope you're inspired by this mini masterpiece, I will definitely be using this technique again very soon. I might venture a little bit bigger than 2 inches, and choose a Spellbinders label for the shape!

LIM 68 - Childrens card

Here is a quick card for the Less is More challenge. Although it didn't need to be a one layer card I was on a roll with one layer ones, so chose to do this little robot like that. He's from a Stampendous set where you take all his individual body parts and make a robot, which leads to hundreds of combinations. I'll be honest though, I tend to stick with this combo! I coloured him with my promarkers.

 The balloon and sentiment are from a cheap set I got from the Range, the stamps are really poor quality and squidge with the slightest pressure, but hey ho!

I finally did it...

I was chosen as the top 3 in a challenge I took part in!!! In the last 18 months of blogging and doing challenges I have never before been chosen as having a top card, and on one particular challenge I was getting so disheartened at never being chosen (not that I think I'm like the best card maker ever, but I always make such an effort and think outside the box for their challenges) but hey ho, I don't craft for recognition, so I suppose its just nice for someone to say they like my card. I wouldn't mind, but the card that got me top 3 was a very CAS card, and took very little time to craft. Maybe thats where I'm going wrong, I must try too hard!
Anyway, that, along with recently hitting 25 followers has prompted me to get some candy going!

So if you would like to win some cuttlebug squares dies (very useful for making mini quilt patterns on cards!), brand new in the pack, then just leave a comment below. I'm willing to post anywhere for my lovely followers.
Oh and if you're interested I won the Passion for Papertrey Challenge here, and can't wait to proudly display my blinkie soon!

Sunflower birthday card - LIM/CAS-fridays

This card combines the challenges over at 'Less is More' (Yellow)and also Cas-ual Fridays (Birthday cards).
I've had this Papermania sunflower set for a couple of years now and rarely use it, but its a lovely big stamp that can either be a background stamp or a main image, and it definitely fits the Yellow theme! I coloured it with promarkers.

The sentiment is from Banana frog, and as I wanted to add something extra to this, I used the stamp with some versamark ink and then used mica powder for the background. Its very subtle, and very hard to photograph!!! I have also outlined the main image with a fine line marker.

Can you see the subtle mica?!!
The polka dot ribbon ties together the card.
Hope you like it!