Flower garden

February is the month when the new craft products start arriving in the shops and personally, after a lack of mojo throughout the dreary January we've had in the UK, new goodies do always help reconnect with my creative side!

New to my stash this month is the gorgeous Flower Garden stamp by teamie Julie Hickey. Of course I wanted bright colours to go with it to chivvy spring along...

Thoughtful Valentine

Happy Valentine!

I am just in time to show this tag… I had fun with a bit of Mixed Media and embossing powders on this make and I tried to use some old stash too…

Another Birthday

This little guy is a stamp from a set by Creative Stamping magazine, it has all sorts of animals and humoristic sentiments.

I simply stamped the llama and masked it, then I overstamped the grass from the same set. To finish  I used Distress inks to give a sky and grass impression around my scene.

For the llama I started colouring the image with Distress Inks and added details with coloured pencils.

No prob-llama....

Excuse the poor photo quality, but I am struggling with the low winter sun to get enough light or true colours. I always place a piece of white card underneath my cards, which, as you see, looks very much like a blue-grey in the photo!

Still, I hope you will like this card and thank you for visiting,

I am entering the Addicted to stamps, Paperbabe, Stamping Sensations, Penny Black and more, Unikostudio challenges.

Turn back time

Yes, it's time, time for my second inspiration make for the Country View Challenge and the theme of today's card. I had planned something totally different starting with a black base but halfway through I just didn't know how to make it look good and abandoned the idea.
Instead I reverted to a CAS design which is a lot easier when working with the colour constraints.

I used the Somewhere in Time stamp set by Visible image with Black Versafine and orange dye ink.
The splat stamp, cogs stamp or number stamps are partially stamped (no masking involved), I just inked the bits I wanted, no need for precision here.

I created the sentiment by inking only "turn back" from one of the set's sentiments above the "Time" image. I'm not sure why but the song Turn back time imposed itself to me and I thought maybe if one managed to turn back time all clocks would explose!!!

Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the Craft Stamper challenge.

Love birds

Welcome to our new STAMPlorations Theme & Sketch challenge!

For February the Theme and Sketch are:

 

The deep blue sea

This month at Country View Challenges we have a theme of  Black & White plus another (your choice of 1 more colour), chosen by Sue. With Valentine's day coming up the colours pink, red or even gold will be popular choices but me I'm thinking of summer and the deep blue sea...

My background has been embossed with Tim Holtz/Sizzix 3-D Texture Fades Folder - Lumber.

My focal image is a stamp from the set Little Boats by Picture This. I simply placed a "wave" mask before stamping the boats and painted the sea and sky with watercolour pencils and a water brush.

I added appropriate words from TH Sizzix Thinlits Vacation words and Adventure Words Script sets to finish.

Clean and simple... I hope you are inspired to enter the challenge, and if you do you could win a £20 voucher to spend in the Country View shop!

Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the Addicted to stamps, Paperbabe, SSS Wednesday, Fashionable Stamping and Craft Stamper TIMI challenges.

Lady in black

I know, I know, it's been quiet over here for the last 2 weeks... No particular reason just a host of things (of the boring variety) have kept me away from the crafting table. Normal service should resume in February but in the meantime I did manage a fairly quick Clean & Simple make with an old favourite stamp.

I used the Dancing girl image from  the large Art Nouveau silhouettes set from Flonzcraft, which I believe is also available as an individual stamp.
The sentiment is from the Rubber Dance set "Adore me" and I embossed it with Wow embossing White Twinkle.

To finish I punched the corners with a Martha Stewart punch. Ahhhh… feeling nostalgic now!!!

Let me know in your comments if you have some of Martha Stewart punches and if you still use them!
Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the  SSS Wednesday, Craft Stamper, Lost Coast Designs, Stamping Sensations, Fashionable Stamping, Uniko Studio and The Artistic Stamper challenges.

Stamplorations 1st post Bird tag

Happy New Year to all STAMPlorations fans! Today we kick off our new Theme & Sketch challenge.

The theme and sketch are:
 

Crafty Town High Street

Welcome to my second post for the January Country View Challenge, where the theme is Landscape/Cityscape, which I am hosting. Let's meet up on the High Street here at Crafty Town to observe the architecture...

New year, new dawn

Hello crafters, this month the theme of our Country View challenge is Landscape/Cityscape, chosen by yours truly. Regular visitors know scenes are my thing so there you are…

Big wishes

If you need more inspiration to enter the STAMPlorations Theme and Sketch challenge this month, here is my take on the sketch AND the theme. Don't worry you can choose either for the chance to win a prize!

I used double sided paper to create the shape on the sketch and the balloons and stars from A Snarky Birthday to You stamp set, stamped with coloured inks.

To colour the images I used watercolour pencils and a water brush.

The star of the show is the BIG Birthday Wishes Phrase Die - CUTplorations, which I die-cut from glitter card.

Still 2 weeks to enter the challenge, and yes I know it's a busy period but take some time out and enjoy some stamping, colouring or die-cutting. Check out today's post on the STAMPlorations blog for more inspiration, for this challenge and all other STAMPlorations December challenges.

Whenever you shop for STAMPlorations products you can get 20% off with my code: STAMPGIRLCRAFTY

Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the That's Crafty, Craft Stamper TIMI  challenges.

   

More idea with globes

Something a little different today for the Crafts U Love inspiration post. My first post used the Crealies Cardzz No. 8 Snow globe for a winter make, keeping to the traditional snow globe.
But what to do with the die set after the holidays you might ask?
Well, I thought about that too and have come up with a few ideas...

Firstly, it is possible to use the globe in the same way I did on my previous card here but with a summer theme. You can add sand for the shaker element instead of snow, and the wave die in the set can be used for dunes or indeed waves!

A house with a garden, a cityscape, a landscape and lots more themes are equally suitable for the globe.

But this die can do more than globes with a bit of die-cutting wizardry...

I'll start with a simple card base:

The steps were as follows:

With the base card folded in 2, place the die to the first "step" of the die and emboss with your die-cutting machine. This is to make the alignment easier later.

 Open the card and place the die again following the embossing lines and cut the first side of the card.





Repeat for the second side, you have now a shaped based card! Following the same method but cutting up to the second or third step you will get alternative versions of this. More on that later...

For now, this is how I decorated my card. I placed some snowflakes cut from a die-cut panel with John Next Door Christmas Die Set - Lattice (you can read here how to maximise the use of that die-set) and stamped the circled Mixed Media plate with Salty Ocean Distress ink applied with a brayer.



Since there was still ink on the Mixed Media plate I stamped the back of the card too..

For my images I used the Elizabeth Craft Stamp Set - Reindeer and stamped all the elements with black Versafine. I added colour with markers and gel pens.

For the sentiment I used the John Next Door Clear Stamp Set - Poinsettia and embossed the sides with Wow! embossing powder in White Twinkle.



Taking the partial die cutting further and cutting one or 2 of the remaining "steps" on the Snow Globe die you can create the base for an album.

Here I have created one using all the steps for a maximum of pages available and this is the result after partially die-cutting both sides.
You can also cut 2 entire globes separately and glue them together if you find this method too difficult.




Now fold along the score lines into successives mountains and valleys to obtain this:

The album can is constructed by gluing pages onto the spine created. The pages can be cut with the globe die, the smaller die in the set to fit in within the half circle cover or be any shape you wish as I die here:



Now all you need to do is decorate cover and pages to your liking...

Supplies:

Crealies Cardzz No. 8 Snow globe
Elizabeth Craft Stamp Set - Reindeer
John Next Door Clear Stamp Set - Poinsettia
WOW! Embossing Glitter - White T
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink Pad - Salty Ocean
John Next Door Christmas Die Set - Lattice
John Next Door Media Plates Set
VersaFine Onyx Black

If you fancy the Snow Globe die or the Reeinder stamp set, you're in luck as all the Christmas products are now 50% off at Crafts U Love but you'll have to be quick!

Should you purchase any of the products I have used on this card, select  'Design Team'  in the 'where have you seen us' drop down so we know we have inspired you!

Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the Fashionable Stamping, Addicted to stamps,
Lost Coast Designs and SSS Monday challenges.