HERES TO CHEERS - WETLANDS - WATERCOOLER WEDNESDAY CHALLENGE

I've used this stamp set a few times now and not once has it been used for its intended purpose of New Year or Christmas gifts.  I love it when stamp sets are so versatile.  Especially when we can use Christmas style ones all year round.

The challenge set by the Watercooler team this week is a masculine card anything goes set by Kath Ricks.

Before I show you my card I must just display my badge for last week - I was thrilled to get an Honourable Mention.

And so on to my card.  I think its a recognised fact that we all struggle with male cards at one time or another.

I've turned to the Wetlands stamp set again.  These little birds are just so adorable and I've used some of the Serene Scenery DSP here.  Not the usual beach scene, but I wanted to use that lovely circle paper to offset the circles of my stamping.

The Cheers sentiment is from Here's To Cheers.  See, not just for Christmas.

 Do pop along and play with the Watercooler Team - they are a great bunch and always take the time out to comment on your blog - something sadly missing these days thanks to FB but its so nice to receive comments and know that there is someone out there!




 

RAK - GLOBAL DESIGN PROJECT

The Global Design Project has a great challenge this week - Random Acts of Kindness.  I've been making lots of these box cards with attached tealights - they make great presents and so far I've made a New Home one and a 60th birthday one - 

My entry for the GDP is a Christmas one.  I've used the lovely Candy Cane Lane DSP and Real Red cardstock.

 The size fits three little tea lights perfectly - I think Yankee Candles are slightly bigger than these ones though.

 I cut out the house from the DSP and attached it to one of the Merry Tag Framelits and attached to the card with some lovely Candy Cane Lane Baker's Twine.  I used  Banners for Christmas Framelits for the sentiment and the sentiment itself came from Jar of Love.

The ribbon is Very Vanilla Stitched Satin - so beautiful to work with.

The whole card is then presented in a lovely box - I used Real Red Cardstock for the base and Candy Cane Lane DSP for the top.  A belly band was made in the same DSP and I used the Decorative Label punch with sentiments from Sweet Home stamp set.

If you would like to purchase a PDF tutorial for this project for £1.50 please lick on the paypal button below.

 

WETLANDS - WATERCOOLER WEDNESDAY CHALLENGE

A suitable stamp set for the Watercooler Wednesday challenge this week don't you think -  Wetlands! 

Their challenge this week is a Fall challenge, known as Autumn here in the UK, but also simple stamping - no folders, embellishments, tags.  You'll find their challenge here

I love the imagery of this Wetlands set and have seen some lovely examples of the little birds on the Serene Scenery DSP.  I've used the Goose here though - just before he flies away for the summer!  This could also be quite a good masculine card - something we are always on the hunt for.

 

HERE'S TO CHEERS

Do You Remember? The 21st Night of September? I hope you are now humming the famous Earth Wind and Fire song.  I certainly remember the 21st of September because its my Wedding Anniversary.  31 years today - can't believe the time has gone so quickly.  I know everyone says that but its true!

A nice fun image of myself and my ushers back in 1985!  Sadly so many of them are no longer with us.

So hubby and I have taken ourselves off to a lovely place in Dorset, England called Lulworth Cove - just us and the dogs for a few days together.

Its a beautiful part of the county and we used to go a lot when the children were little.  My card today is a Celebratory card.  Also from the Winter Catalogue but maybe more New Year than Christmas but, as shown here, could also be used for Anniversaries or any Celebration.

  
 The colours have been inspired by Sam Hammond's Colour Challenge this week which is to use Flirty Flamingo and Mint Macaron and Tip Top Taupe.  You'll find the challenge here

I've used one of the framelits from the Merry Tags set to cut out the bauble and the sentiment fits exactly.  Marvellous!!  The Decorative Label punch was used for the cute image of the wine and the glasses.  Might be some of that being drunk tomorrow!!!

I finished the bauble off with a touch of Flirty Flamingo Ruched Ribbon - I love this ribbon - it's so pretty and nice to work with.






 

LOVELY STITCHING

 
I'm taking a quick break from Christmas related products - it won't be for long though I promise, and joining in with Addicted to CAS this week with a set I've not used much yet.  At £15 for 16 Polymer Stamps its a real bargain and I bet it gets overlooked in the SU catalogue for its showier cousins.

It was perfect for the challenge this week which is Stitched and this set is called Lovely Stitching. Click on the logo below to be taken to the challenge.

 
 
 

 As this is a Clean and Simple challenge and they like a lot of white space and not many embellishments I hope this card isn't too busy.  The addition of the enamel dots proved a necessity to cover a blemish from the ink - don't you hate it when that happens!

 I've used Rich Razzleberry for the cardstock base and the darker ink, an old SU colour Regal Rose for the pink and Pear Pizzazz for the green.  I love the stitched sentiment especially.


Normal service will be resumed tomorrow with a Christmas example of an Origami box using 6x6 paper

HAPPY CRAFTING

 

WATERCOOLER BLOG HOP - NEW CATALOGUE

Hi Crafters - Welcome to the Watercooler Blog Hop for September - I'm thrilled to be a part of this blog hop again this month.  We are focusing on all the great new products in the Winter Catalogue so here are three of my favourite projects so far.

My first one is a cute little tag box - so quick and easy to make.  I've made the box out of Crumb Cake cardstock and used some of This Christmas Suite Designer Series paper.  This is a lovely set of papers with the main colours of Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler - two of my favourites. I'm a traditional girl at heart and love Red and Green for Christmas - they are nature's colours after all for this time of year.

I've filled the little box with some tags using the Merry Tags framelit dies and the Merriest Wishes stamp set which come as a  bundle.  I love them - I can see they are going on everything this Christmas - cards, boxes, tags, even the dogs if they are not careful!!  A touch of our red twine from the Baker's Twine Trio pack finishes off the tags.  This pack comes with red, green and gold.  Yummy!

For my second project - I've been playing with the Sweet Home Stamp Set which also comes in a bundle with the Home Sweet Home Thinlet Dies.  I've switched to Hallowe'en for this project.  Although not as popular in the UK as it is in the US it is gaining in popularity as the years go by.

I do wonder though how many know the real reason for Trick or Treat at Hallowe'en?  Our ancestors believed that All Souls Night was a time when our departed loved ones would come back to visit - they used to set up the table as if their loved ones were still there and leave food out for them.  Hence the idea which developed into giving out sweets or candy at the door.  I still set the table for all my family members who are no longer with us and I have quite a few close family who have left me too early.

Anyway I have turned my little house into a Hallowe'en Ghost house.

I've used  Basic Gray for the house and Basic Black and Rich Razzleberry for the accents.  The ghosts have been made out of Very Vanilla.  I've used a touch of white gel pen on the roof and the door and a basic pearl for the door handle. 

 Don't you just love the way that ghost is peeking through the window!

     

I found these houses quite tricky to do and needed some help from a UK Demo Elizabeth Shannon to guide me through with her videos.  And then I was off and running.

My final project is also a card.  This time in Rich Razzleberry - I know not traditional red or green but so gorgeous at this time of year.

This set is Christmas Magic -a set of 8 rubber stamps - with three sentiments.  I love a stamp set I can colour in at this time of year and the traditional images in this set are right up my street. Reminds me of that lovely film Polar Express - I've told the story on my blog previously about the magical evening when we lived in Houston Texas in 2004 and went to the cinema Christmas Eve to see this film with the children.  When we came out there was snow -in Texas!!!!! We couldn't believe it and it was so magical after watching the film.

There is also a lovely tree stamp in this set and I've used Versamark to stamp it onto the background - hope it shows up well. 

 I hope you like my projects and are inspired by them to use some of these sets.  If you are in the UK you can purchase from me by clicking on my Online Shopping button above.

For your next batch of inspiration - click on the forward button to be taken to the fabulous Penny

 or if you are hopping backwards pop to see Martha

 or click on the Home button to go back to the beginning

 HAPPY CRAFTING

 

POOTLERS BLOG HOP - NEW CATALOGUE

 Welcome to the Pootler's Blog Hop - I hope you are ready to see some wonderful Christmas inspiration.

In case you hadn't heard our new Winter Catalogue went live on 1st September.  Full of lots of Hallowe'en , Christmas and New Year goodies and also some lovely autumn stamp sets too.

I absolutely love making Christmas cards and what better job than to be able to make them in August/September!


For my card today I am sharing this lovely card made with a few of our new sets and some adorable accessories.

I started out with a card base made from Smoky Slate.  I used a new Versamark pad to stamp some of the sentiments and a lovely accessory stamp from the Banners For Christmas set.  Regular readers to my blog will have seen the state of my Versamark pads.  And whilst they still work when they are covered in ink - its no good if you want to do tone on tone so I had to bite the bullet and buy another one!

I then added some of our Warmth and Cheer Designer Washi Tape - this then gives such a versatile card base for lots of different ideas.

 I'm a traditional girl at heart - so Christmas to me is reds and greens and traditional style stamps - so I adored this stamp set Christmas Magic when I saw it.

One of my favourite Christmas films of recent times is Polar Express.  May I bore you with a little story about this film.  We used to live in Houston, Texas when the children were small.  Our first Christmas out there was spent in very warm weather and on Christmas Eve we decided to go to the local cinema to see the new film Polar Express.  Imagine our surprise and delight when we came out of the Cinema to see it was snowing.  The first time in Texas in 50 years - it was so magical and everyone was out calling out Merry Christmas - which is unusual in America as its normally Happy Holidays.  A very special memory and all evoked by this little train stamp!

 I've coloured just parts of the train using a Blender Pen and Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler.  A touch of Wink of Stella on the steam makes it shimmer slightly.  I've used some of our lovely Candy Cake Lane Baker's Twine with the added sparkle and wrapped it round the card and added some of the lovely Mini Jingle Bells.

Well, there's another tale.  Attempting to thread the bells with the twine.  An Eureka moment when I used a touch of Washi Tape around the end of the twine which helped to thread them a lot easier, as shown below.

 A touch of dimensionals to pop the train onto the card base and that's my card done.

 I hope you like it and it gives you some inspiration for your own Christmas cards.
 

 Now pop along on the blog to Jillian's fab blog to see what she has for you..

or pop back to our fabulous Sam Hammond to see her project

And don't forget - if you would like to get your hands on any of the goodies shown above just click on the image of the new catalogue at the side of this post.







 

GREETINGS FROM SANTA

Ha - its a bit like buses - you wait ages and then two come along at once. Here I am now posting twice on one day after an absence of a few weeks.

Whilst browsing the challenges I came across this one for Global Design Project and really fancied having a go.

I'd made a Christmas box today - I was supposed to be hosting a class but my customer didn't turn up so I made boxes instead.  This one was inspired by Angie of ChicnScratch.  

I used some of the lovely This Christmas Suite Designer Series paper and some sentiments from Greetings from Santa to make this lovely little box.   I've added a touch of the gorgeous Natural Trim ribbon with silver and threaded some gold thread through some of the cute little Mini Jingle Bells.  The inks used for the stamping were Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green.

I loved the look of this combination so much I decided to use it again for my card for Global Design Project. Their challenge this week is a sketch challenge by Teneale Williams.




 


For the card I used Crumb Cake as my base cardstock and layered the DSP onto some Soft Suede.  The sentiment was stamped onto Very Vanilla and and also layered onto soft suede.  The scroll was fussy cut out and stuck on with dimensionals.  I've used the three twines from the Baker's Twine trio pack in Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green and Gold wrapped with a couple of the Mini Jingle Bells attached.  Tricky little things to attach I can tell you!  I've used a touch of Washi Tape on the end of the twines to help thread them through the bells.

Thanks for looking and I hope my projects have inspired you.  All projects can be purchased through my website - just click on the Winter catalogue on the right to be taken to  my store.

 HAPPY CRAFTING

 

SPLITCOAST STAMPERS CREATIVE CREW DESIGN TEAM

Hi Crafters

Wow I've been away from blogland for a while - real life got in the way with an illness in the family and .....well you know how it is.  Crafting had to take a back seat.  Thankfully now all is well and I can get back up to speed again.

I was blown away to be invited to join the Splitcoast Stampers Creative Crew Design team - for the next four months - right up until Christmas - my favourite time for crafting.  For those of you who haven't found the wondrousness that is Splitcoast Stampers - you will find them here.  It pre-dates Pinterest by quite a number of years and for a while was the go-to place to find inspiration for Stampin' Up! and now lots of other stamp companies.  You will find every Stampin' Up! set that has ever been produced on this website.  

www.splitcoaststampers.com 



We had a number of briefs and four projects to do.  I won't put all four here today - but will keep you guessing - if that's ok.

Our first project was to use some Designer Series Paper on our card.  I gave you a sneak peek a few weeks ago:

 I used the DSP from the This Christmas Suite which is in the main catalogue. 
From our new Winter catalogue I used the Merriest Wishes bundle. This comes with the Merriest Wishes stamp set  a set of 11 rubber stamps and the Merry Tags Framelits Dies - a collection of 7 dies which co-ordinate.  I'm a sucker for reindeer at Christmas and as soon as I saw that little reindeer framelit that was me sold!

I made the ribbon using the DSP and our Envelope Punch Board. A great technique to try and really easy once you get the hang of it.  See my tutorials above to learn how to make a similar bow.

 I cut out the first Reindeer and Trees framelit in Very Vanilla and then again in the DSP and then cut out the deer and the trees and adhered them to the framelit.  The 25 is also part of this set.  A touch of basic pearls just finishes off the card.

 I hope you like the card - pop back tomorrow to see the next project for the SCS Creative Crew Design.