Monday 31 December 2018

TRY STAMPIN ON TUESDAY - SKETCH CHALLENGE

Well the New Year is fast approaching - I always get a little sentimental and nostalgic at New Year. This year it is a quiet one with hubby and I are on our own. I hope 2019 is a great year for your all - I know I'm going to be very busy with the challenge blogs. My own one for my Joy of Set's Facebook group starts on 5th January so I hope you will look out for it and come and play along.

Our challenge for Try Stampin on Tuesday is a sketch challenge with the option of Happy Birthday.  Phew a non Christmas Card but fear not - the Christmas stamps are not going away thanks to the Sparkles Design Team I'm part of which is carrying Christmas through our hearts the whole year through.

But for now I've used a Stampin Up Set Watercolour Wings and it's matching thinlet.  I've used some Kaisercraft paper for the background and sponged some retired SU More Mustard ink on the edges.  The ribbon behind the Butterfly is non SU.  I used three ink colours for the butterfly - Mint Macaron, Tempting Turqoise and Bermuda Bay.  The little butterfly was cut out with an old SU punch.







There just remains one more thing for me to say and that is 


HAPPY NEW YEAR 





 

Sunday 30 December 2018

IT'S STILL WINTER THOUGH!

Oops - I'm not quite ready yet to let go of the Christmas style cards - but in fairness this is more a celebration of Winter than Christmas. My inspiration came from the challenge over at Inspired By which is as below




I used the Cable Knit embossing folder from Stampin Up for the base of  my card in white and then heat embossed the snowflakes from Gina K Designs Season of Joy set - I loved this set it was my to-to for Christmas.  Once the snowflakes were dry I used a few inks to ink up the background and make the snowflakes pop.  I started off with Tim Holtz tumbled glass but it was too pale so I added some SU Night of Navy on top.  The sentiment is from the same set and this was simply inked in black and then I ran a Spectrum Noir sparkle pen over the top of the words and also the snowflakes.






 

Saturday 29 December 2018

WHAT'S NEW FOR SWEET STAMPIN

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and received lots of new crafty goodies to play with for the New Year to come.  Our challenge over at Sweet Stampin' this week is NEW.  So I decided to get out a new stamp set which I hadn't inked yet - its called A Little Something from Clearly Besotted stamps.

Now that Christmas is over I have lots of Thank You cards to send out and this little set is going to be a great help.



I've used white on white here for the card - the inks I've used are all Stampin Up - Wild Wasabi, Melon Mambo and Fresh Fig.  I've also used a retired SU embossing folder for the hearts - just embossing the bottom part of the white card stock.  A touch of Baker's Twine and some embellishments and a touch of Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen finishes off the card.

I'm looking forward to your take on this NEW challenge.

Wishing you all a very successful and happy 2019!




 

Thursday 6 December 2018

GLITTER AND SPARKLE

My card today is all about the Glitter and Sparkle.  I was inspired by a challenge by my friend and  SU Demo Angie McKenzie on her Facebook Group Nature's Inkspirations and this was one of the four images I chose as my inspiration.


Image may contain: tree, snow, sky, outdoor and nature











I've used silver glitter paper for the background.  The trees are cut with Stampin Up's framelits which match Winter Woods.  They have been cut twice and layered and some glitter added.  The snowbank was made with a retired embossing folder by SU.  The sentiment is from Kaisercraft Wonderland papers.

The photo doesn't really show how fabulously shiny this card is in real life.

I'm also adding this into the following challenges:

Global Design Project - T'is The Season
Make My Monday - Traditional Colours
Inkspirational - Anything Christmas
The Paper Players - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas



 

Tuesday 4 December 2018

HAND STAMPED SENTIMENTS - SC304

Another sketch for you today from Hand Stamped Sentiments - SC304





I chose to use some of these lovely Festive Chalkboard papers from Craftwork Cards - I love the image of the robin on top of all those signposts.  I used some Stampin Up Real Red cardstock for the base  and a Stampin Up Stitched Framelit for the circle.   The reindeer was stamped in Early Espresso with some red sponging around the edges. He has been given a bit of glimmer with a Spectrum Noir sparkle pen.  I'm not sure what set he is from - its a lovely winter wonderland set with images of reindeer, trees and animals but I can't remember where from and I can't find it in my searches on the internet :( 




I added a strip of some different papers from this Festive Chalkboard set and the sentiment is from Kaisercraft Wonderland.  I added some stitching with a white gel pen round the edges.

So who is getting excited now for Christmas - have you done all your shopping and preparations?  I've made my Christmas pudding and mincemeat and it's all maturing nicely.  Christmas decorations in the house will probably go up next weekend. This is my first year of having no children at home to help me as they've all grown up and have homes of their own and I'm feeling quite nostalgic.

 

TRY STAMPING ON TUESDAY - SKETCH

We have a sketch for you today over at Try Stamping on Tuesday - #TSOT387.




I started my card with some Kaisercraft background papers from their Wonderland collection - cut and pasted onto some silver cardstock.  The jar is from Stampin Up Jar of Love.  The stamps for the snow scene are from Hero Arts Winter Scene.  I've added glitter and snow in the jar to make it sparkle and some sparkly twine around the top.





The sentiment is from the same Hero Arts set and has been embossed in Silver Embossing Powder.  The little trees were punched out with a punch in the same silver cardstock.  

I look forward to seeing what you all do with this sketch.


 

Monday 3 December 2018

TRY STAMPIN ON TUESDAY - SKETCH #TSOT386

We have a sketch for you over at Try Stampin on Tuesday for you this week. 







I've used some gorgeous Christmas Papers called Festive Chalkboard by Craftwork Cards.  I then used a Stampin Up Stitched framelit to make the circle and heat embossed some images from a small little stamp set I had in my stash.  I embossed them in Silver and then coloured them in with marker pens. I attached it all to a silver doily and added a small die cut silver snowflake in the top corner.  Grey is a very unusual colour for me to work with but I thought it complimented that chalkboard paper.




Thank you for playing along with us and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this sketch.

 

Saturday 1 December 2018

SWEET STAMPIN - SNOWMEN/SNOWLADIES

The challenge over at Sweet Stampin this week is Snowmen/Snowladies - that's funny I've never seen an actual snowlady stamp.  

The stamps I've used here are from an old set by Stampin Up called Flaky Friends.   I started sponging a background winter scene - making it look kind of stormy with the added greens and yellows.  I kept the colours of the snow people to two colour blues - the pale is from Kaisercraft  and is called Lagoon - the darker is Stampin Up Island Indigo.

I added lots of glitter for sparkle including some sparkly ribbon and some extra embellishments on some of the snowmen.



Over at my Facebook Group The Joy of Sets we celebrate all things Stampin Up both retired and current as well as other stamp companies.  It gives you the chance to still use the retired stock and not leave it un-inked and unloved!  There is a special give away going on for our December Challenge with a $25 voucher from Lawn Fawn.  




I'm also adding this  into the challenge at Cards In Envy who want to see our Christmas cards - they could be inundated lol!


 

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS.....



Wow it's getting busy for us crafters!  I haven't had a chance to join in any of the challenges this week.  However over on my Facebook Group The Joy of Sets we are running a Christmas Tag a day for until 16th December - there are so many gorgeous inspirational tags there that everyone has shared.  Our Challenge for December is also sponsored by Lawn Fawn - I'm so excited that they agreed to sponsor a challenge for us.  So why not head over to Joy of Sets and join in the fun.

Here are some of my Tags for the tag challenge this week.






I'm adding my tags into the challenge over at TGIF this week who are asking for anything but a card #tgifc188