INSPIRED BY......

Joining in with the Inspired By Inspired By challenge today and their image.

I've used an old stamp by Tracy Evans called In the Bucket and used various marker pens to colour it in including some Tim Holtz Distress markers.  I've kept it clean and simple and not thrown a load of my usual mixed media style at it - that was very tricky for me! 

I'm also adding this into the following

 Krafty Chicks - Clean and Simple 

 Craft Rockets - Flowers 

INSPIRED BY.....

I was inspired by the new challenges over at Inspired By and thought I'd try and have a go at the Christmas one.  It feels like winter here in the UK anyway with dark skies and rain and I even had to put the heating on yesterday!

I realised that I really don't have very many Christmas foliage type cards or dies so had a hunt in my stash - most of it is in boxes ready for moving but I managed to come up with something which I think fits their sketch and the Christmas image.

I started off by using a Sunny Studio stamp from their Holiday Style set which is the lovely fir branch - I used Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough and stamped it in a circle.  I used the Tim Holtz Wreath Die and some Holly dies from Mixed Media Christmas to create the holly wreath and the foliage behind.  The candy canes came from another Sunny Studio set called Mug Hugs which I cut out and tucked behind the bow, which I covered in Dazzling Diamonds. I added jewels as holly berries.

I added a Tim Holtz stencil with the Christmas Foliage in Peeled Paint and added an old sentiment stamp from my stash.  I layered it onto some kraft cardstock, 

I'm also adding this into the following challenges:

Merry Little Christmas - AG 

Addicted to stamps #142 - Christmas 

The sisterhood of crafters - use leaves 

Watercooler Challenges - Occasion

The Holly & Ivy Xmas - AG 

christmas Kickstart - Photo Inspiration

SirStampALot - Celebrate Christmas 

Excited to say my card was chosen as a Top Sister for The Sisterhood of Crafters 

My card was chosen in the top 3 at Addicted to Stamps

COUNTRY HOME

I love this set from Stampin Up called Country Home - mainly for the jug and the urn.  I spotted the challenge over at Inspired By which had a gorgeous image of a pink jug and flowers and knew I wanted to use this set.  I also followed the sketch on A Place to Start which I actually found quite tricky to follow!

I started by using no line water colouring on the jug in Distress Ink Hickory Smoke and coloured it in with a paint brush and some Tattered Rose Distress Ink.  I stamped the flowers in Pear Pizazz Archival and coloured them in Spun Sugar and Crushed Olive.  I added some shading behind and cut it out with a stictched circle die.  That was the easy part.

I found the background paper in my stash and it is some old SU DSP which is black and white so I coloured it with Spun Sugar and used Tattered Rose for the flowers.  I used the little tile stencil from the set just to give some interest in the bottom corner and used Versamark ink.  I added the same stamp to the little banner.  The Happy Birthday die is really the only word die I have that isn't Christmas so I think a purchase may be needed.  I added it in black.

I'm still not sure I'm really happy with this - it may have to grow on me.

I'm adding it into the following challenges:

Inspired By

A Place To Start

I'm delighted to say my card was chosen as a Top Sprout at A Place to Start 

ANYONE FOR COFFEE?

I was inspired by the lovely image over at Inspired By Challenge on this wet and cold Friday here in the UK.  I love blankets and am actually snuggled under one as I type.  What annoys me the most about the menopause is the hot flushes and the fact that I can't curl up under blankets for long before I have to throw them off again - anyone else suffering like me?  lol!  Maybe you're not at that stage yet ....but it will come!





So for my card I used an old set by Clearly Besotted called Warm Solutions which also came with matching framelits.  I started out with some SU Soft Suede card stock and used a TCW stencil called Mini Honeycomb for the background - simply inking the same ink onto the card stock.  I inked and cut out my three mugs and stacked them as in the picture.  I used some SU Really Rust - a very old ink but one of my favourites and also some Soft Suede.  I also added some Tri Spectrum Sparkles in Smoked Quartz to the circles on the middle mug to give it a bit of sparkle.  I added the sentiment in Adirondack Espresso ink, sponged the edges and roughed them up a bit and added it to the matching card stock base.

My card won the challenge - how lovely.




 

INSPIRED BY.... INSPIRED BY CHALLENGE

I was inspired by Laurel's image over at her challenge Inspired By




I have had this little stamp set with a typewriter on it for years and never really used it - as soon as I saw this image I knew it had to have an inking.  However, because of the age of the image of the typewriter it spoke to me of more of a vintage theme so that's what I went with.

I have an old book I use to cut the pages out when I want to add some background interest and I tore the edges and then inked it up with three Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Antique Linen, Old Paper and Tea Dye.  I stamped the typewriter directly onto the paper but it didn't show up well enough so I restamped it and cut it out.  The paper clip is also a stamp and I used a sentiment from Stampin Up Thankful Thoughts for the note of thanks tucked into the paper clip.  I used another stamp from SU Background Bits and one from Kinda Eclectic directly onto the crumb cake card stock using Versamark ink to give it some interest.  I also used a few more stamps from SU's Timeless Textures.  I also used some of the letter stamps from the little stamp set.  With a nod to the blue colour I added a few little blue pearls.

 

INSPIRED BY....LEMONS

It's been a while since I've joined in with other challenges that I wasn't on the Design Team for - there doesn't always seem to be enough hours in the day.  However I was inspired by Inspired By when it popped up on my FB feed and I had just purchased another new little set from Clearly Besotted which had a lemon in it - so it was just the think to be given some ink!

I found the lovely striped paper in my stash and sorry I have no idea where it's from - but I loved the stripes.  I cut the front of the card slightly smaller and layered the stripe on the inside just to give the card a bit more interest.

I then used the Clearly Besotted stamp set called Feeling Fruity for the little mouse with the lemon and stamped them twice.  I used some Tim Holtz Distress Oxide in Pumice Stone to colour in the mouse and some of the Tri Spectrum pens for the lemon and the touch of pink.  The sentiment is from another Clearly Besotted set called Pawly Pals and I thought this went well with the lemons as we tend to head for lemons when we have a cold.  This was inked in Tim Holtz Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide and I used some stitched framelits to layer it.  I added a retired SU heart.


 

INSPIRED BY....

....the challenge by Inspired By I've moved away from those bold colours of my last card to the more muted tones of browns and pinks.  The image they gave us were of cacti but I don't have any of the latest craze of cacti images so I went with the soft muted colours.

I chose a stamp set by Clearly Besotted called Thanks A Bouquet and the sentiment is from their set called Mini Basic Banners.  Both sets have the matching dies.

I started out by embossing my flower images with white embossing powder on to SU's Crumb Cake cardstock.  I used some SU inks and an aqua brush to colour in the images.  Although this wasn't water colour paper it still with stood a bit of water for the water colouring.  The banner was stamped onto Vellum.  I added a few pearls and layers in White card stock and Always Artichoke.



 

INSPIRED BY - TIME TO GARDEN

My entry for this week's Inspired By challenge is a little bit tongue in cheek - their challenge is Time To Garden and we have a lovely image to give us inspiration 





My problem at the moment is that I really don't have time to garden.  When I'm not crafting and looking after the rest of the household - dear old hubby, two cats, two dogs, I now have extra cats in my garden as I volunteer to look after homeless cats for our local charity.  Regular readers to my blog will have read about my cats and the one I have in at the moment who has just undergone surgery to have a front leg removed - poor little thing.

So my mind must have obviously been on my cats in my garden when I made this card for the challenge.

I used the Fun Fold as a base and some Stampin Up Designer Papers with some lovely flowers on it and the Stampin Up Pretty Kitty set with the cat sitting in all the flowers - I have lots of weeds in the garden at the moment, not so many flowers -although I do have wild garlic growing which I love to eat.  The little sentiment which you can just see says Just Peeking In To Say Hello.

The trickiest thing about this sort of fold card is trying to get a decent photo!  Any suggestions would be welcome - I think you can just see my finger on the left trying to hold it up!