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.

World Card Making Day fun!

Ok, so yesterday was World Card Making Day, and I was able to set aside a couple of hours to craft in the evening when my dear husband was out, and my little monkey was in bed. I tell you, I had such a great time! It's the first time in a long time I have sat down and made 4 cards, now admittedly two are very similar, but even so, 3 unique designs is pretty good! I'm going to share one now, and the rest over the coming days.
At the moment I'm loving going back to my CAS roots, and although its sometimes a challenge not to sponge to death my cards, I'm restraining myself!

Here is a card which is for a few challenges. First of all I spotted the sketch over at Card Patterns and knew it was something I'd like to have a go with, and secondly this months Stampendous challenge is to do a CAS Christmas card.


I searched through my stampendous stamps for something Christmassy, but couldn't find anything, plus I'd already got something in mind for the sketch which used a snowflake stamp.

I embossed my cardstock with my cuttlebug embossing folder snowflakes, then used two types of ribbon and stamped and heat embossed some small silver snowflakes onto some circles I'd die cut. This would be a perfect batch card for Christmas, as it comes together very quickly.
I hope you had as much fun as me for World Card Making Day!

Mostly monochromatic and matching envelope!

Good evening, just a quick post to show you a little CAS card I made based on the CASual fridays colour scheme which was 3 shades of one colour, plus brown; and also a matching envelope for the Young Crafters Unite challenge.

This is a simple little thank you card which uses my waltzingmouse teeny trees stamps. My brown is the sentiment, although I think I maybe should have heat embossed that to make it stand out more. The envelope looks quite cream in the photo, but it didn't look that obvious when I was making it, but the light in the dining room isn't great! I was going to do a orange/red autumn colour scheme, but wasn't sure if that counted as one colour, so stuck with green!
I think I'm definitely going to enter the Young Crafters Unite challenge again, as making the envelope match was easy, but it really makes the card seem a little more special!

Bits and Pieces!

So its been about 2 weeks since I last posted, because I've been SUPER busy!!! I was so disappointed to have to miss the September Waltzingmouse blogwaltz, but due to the combination of a)not celebrating halloween, and b)not having the time to come up with an alternative, I just had to miss it. I'd done every one this year, and it was my aim to do them all, but alas, I won't now!
So last weekend I ran the Great North Run, the worlds Biggest Half marathon. After 7 months, 275miles and  over 45hours of training I felt ready. I had put myself forward following a 10km event in May which I found ok. Let me tell you, a half marathon is NOTHING like 10km! Its more than double, and so training really needed to kick up a notch. Also its a very hilly course, so I had to start doing hill training. I was feeling confident that I may actually be able to run the whole distance without stopping, although originally my target was to merely complete the course!!! The weather was almost perfect on the day with 80% of the time spent running it was raining. I was very pleased to finish in 2hours 17 minutes (I'd set myself a target of 2hrs 30mins) and even more pleased to have raised around £1500 for the Christie Cancer hospital. Before you even think it, I don't plan to do a marathon next, I don't have the time to train!

This weekend we went away as a family to North Wales, and it was the first time we've all been away as a family since my mum died, so it was a bit different, but we had a lovely time. Here's a picture of my monkey riding a mini tractor at The Green Valley Village.

Lastly, I couldn't post without a quick card, and I knocked this up quickly tonight. Part was already done and waiting in my card box, but I needed a birthday card for a friend for tomorrow, and I just haven't done any craft in weeks due to all my fundraising and training.
Its Waltzingmouse teeny trees stamps for the trees and bird, and the sentiment is Banana Frog. The background paper came free with a magazine last year, and I can't recall who its made by.

Cake Bake

Well today has been a busy baking day. Tomorrow I'm holding a cake sale at work to raise some extra money for my Half Marathon. I'm running to raise money for the Christie Cancer Hospital and every penny will be very well spent. Its coming up for 1 year since my mum died, and she was really well cared for at The Christie before she died. I have enlisted some friends to bake as well, but I have made Parsnip and Maple Syrup cake, Coconut sponge cake, banana loaf and chocolate cupcakes. Hopefully we can make £100 if we sell for £1 a slice. I'm also having a Sweepcake, where people try and guess how long it will take me to run the 13.1 miles, and the winner gets a cake of their choice! If you would like to sponsor me, you can do it easily  at www.justgiving.com/Bethan-Lycett-runs-again
Onto the cakes. I haven't yet filled the Parsnip cake as it needs a cream cheese filling, so I'll have to do that in the morning, but here's a look at the coconut cake

and here are the best cupcakes in the world (not my description, that's the recipe!).

 I almost broke my electric whisk while making the cupcake frosting, but my wonderful husband fixed it for me :)

Birthday tree - More WMSC#64

Here I have another card made from the walztingmouse sketch challenge #64.
I wanted to make a card using my beautiful tree stamps and with my waltzingmouse polka dot stamp, which is one of my favourite stamps at the moment! I stamped the polka dots onto white card with antique linen distress inks. I then sponged the edges and layered onto the card base. I stamped my tree image onto some card using my forest moss distress ink and sponged the edges as well. I layered this onto some dark green card and found some lovely grosgrain ribbon to match. I stamped the sentiment from my new penny black set onto a small banner shape I hand cut and then sponged this too. (I can't NOT sponge distress inks!!!)
I'm not sure now whether I should have put a dark green layer behind the polka dots too, but hey ho, it's done now!! Hope you like it!

Thank you trees WMSC#64 and Less is More challenge

Well I've been so busy, I haven't had chance to blog, but I wanted to sneak on and post this for a couple of challenges.
I am in the final stages of my training for this weekends Great North Run half marathon, and have been doing all sorts of fundraising. At the weekend I held a coffee and cake event, and this week I'm doing something similar at school. I have made so many thank you cards for all the people who have helped me, and will at some point post them, but for the moment I'll just post a quick thank you which I am submitting to this weeks Waltzingmouse sketch challenge, and also the Less is more Seeing Double challenge. I completely CASE'd this card from Margaret over here.

I have been really inspired by some CAS cards and especially Susan over at Simplicity, and it took alot of restraint not to put more on this card, but I really like it. The stamps are all Waltzingmouse Teeny trees.

Paper roses

I have seen a few times recently people making their own rose embellishments and thought it was something I'd like to have a go at. As far as my 'style' goes, I'm not very flowery, so I haven't really had a need for any roses, but I'm planning to make a few thank you cards and thought they would work well. I started by drawing a circle on a piece of paper (I drew around a tape roll!) and then cut out. I then cut into the circle in a spiral pattern. I have drawn what it would look like, but I just do it free hand with my scissors. It doesn't have to be neat, it probably makes it a better if its a bit uneven!

You then start from the edge and roll in until you have rolled the whole thing, you loosen off the rose towards the end and then stick the whole thing onto the little circular tab you have left at the end.

I started off using some raffia effect paper, and when my hubby got home he said "did you use book paper for that?".

 Now he wears glasses, but I'm not sure why he thought it was book paper, but it did make me think what a good idea it was. So I made a few of those too! In fact, when you get started you can't stop! I have loads now!