Watercooler Wednesday Challenge - WWC128 - Heidi's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

 

Our challenge over at Watercooler Wednesday this week is by Heidi and is another Masculine Anything Goes Challenge. I love the challenge of a masculine card cause I'm sure I'm not the only one who struggles if you don't have masculine images as such.  I used to use Wetlands as my go to Masculine stamp set but that retired and at the moment I don't have much in my stamp collection.  So I went with papers.

Here I've used a collection of our new Wood Textures Designer Series Paper layered onto Early Espresso Card Stock.  The sentiment is from Colourful Seasons. I've added some Burlap Ribbon and some Enamel Dots in Island Indigo just to give all those browns a lift.

This card will be going to hubby when he least expects it.  He always makes me smile!

 Come and join us at the challenge this week and pop by the rest of the Design Team to see what inspiration they have for you.

HAPPY CRAFTING

 

POOTLES NEW CATALOGUE BLOG HOP - DAISY DELIGHT

Welcome to The Pootlers Team Blog Hop to launch the new 2017 Catalogue - we have some great projects for you showcasing some of our wonderful  new products.

I have chosen to go with Daisy Delight Stamp set and the wonderful Delightful Daisy Designer Series Paper - I seriously love this paper - I have used a whole pack already.

There is a Daisy Punch to go with this set which is getting a lot of the attention.  I wanted to focus on the other stamps in this set which are so pretty. 

 I have used Old Olive and one of our new inks Lemon Lime Twist for the stems.  I have stamped the daisies in Daffodil Delight and Tangerine Tango.  These daisies are two step stamping which gives you co-ordinating stamps to produce the pretty flowers.  I've layered the DSP onto black cardstock and it shows you the two sides here of this lovely paper.

The sentiment stamped onto one of our banner framelits is from another new set Colourful Seasons.  I have wound some of the lovely Copper Metallic thread around the base of the stems.  Some Enamel shapes finish off the card.

 Pop along to Joanne's Blog to carry on the blog hop.

If you are going backwards click here to go back to Suzanne's Blog.

HAPPY CRAFTING

 

DELICATE DETAILS - TIME OUT CHALLENGE 76

One of the wonderful sets in Sale-A-Bration is Delicate Details. I must admit I overlooked this set the first time I browsed through the catalogue but now I love using it.

 This card started out as a piece of Very Vanilla and I inked it up - yep I went mad with the inks!  Pink isn't normally my colour but hey - it's nearly Valentine's so love is in the air!

I'm afraid I used quite a few stamp sets here for the various backgrounds but it does show how versatile all your sets can be.

After I had inked the background I used the Versamark to edge the paper with the Delicate Details and used White Embossing Powder. Do make sure to use an Embossing Buddy before hand otherwise all your inked paper will take the powder.

I used Painter's Palette and Best Birds for some of the background images.  

The Elegant Butterfly Punch and the Bitty Butterfly punch were used for the butterflies.  I punched them out of Designer Series Paper Stacks  and then inked them up.  They have a touch of Dazzling Diamonds on their wings.

I used Jar of Love and Painter's Palette for the sentiments.  The little heart comes from Bookcase Builder - and there are a few Enamel Shapes on there also.  Phew!  Don't think this will be going in to a category challenge of Clean and Simple lol!

However, I am going to put it forward for the following challenges:

 Time Out Challenge 

FabrikaFantasyDigis 

SUOChallenges 

  Thanks for stopping by and do leave a comment - I love to hear from you.

As usual all products can be purchased from me if you are in the UK or parts of Europe - just click on my Shop logo above or browse the SU catalogue shown on the side bar.

 HAPPY CRAFTING

  
 

POOTLERS BLOG HOP - NEW CATALOGUE SPRING SUMMER 2017 BOOKCASE BUILDER

 Hi Crafters and welcome to the Pootlers first blog hop of 2017 - I hope you are as excited about the new products in the catalogue and Sale-A-Bration as much as we are. 



There are going to be a few sets which are definite winners in this catalogue and that I'm sure we will see all over blog land and Pinterest.  My card for you today though is one of the sets you may have overlooked or not been sure what to do with.  Bookcase Builder.  This is a fabulous set of 27 Polymer Stamps with lots of lovely images that can be used away from the Bookcase style and with 5 fabulous sentiments.

I've gone out of my own comfort zone here and produced a baby card. I can't remember the last time I made one -  as there aren't a lot of babies in my family at the moment I've not really needed an excuse to make one.  But these images were just too cute to leave unloved and unstamped!  I've written the words Baby by hand with a marker pen on the banner.

SUPPLIES

 Cardstock -  Perfect Plum, Whisper White

Designer Series Paper - Blooms and Bliss

Inks - Early Espresso, Perfect Plum, Daffodil Delight, Blushing Bride, Mint Macaron, Rich Razzleberry Ombre

Accessories - Linen Thread, Enamel Shapes, Marker Pen (to write the words Baby on the bunting), Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, Stamp-a-ma-Jig to align the book shelves.

 

Rather than have next or previous buttons we've listed all the blogs below for you to go and have a look at some fabulous inspiration. Have fun on our blog hop.

 

Sam Hammond Donald

Jill Chapman

Lynn Ellis

Anna Sposato

Lisa Emslie

Laurie Jennings

Heidi Smith

Justyna Cieslinska

Jerim Dickens

Fiona Whitehead - YOU ARE HERE

Hannah McCurley

Amanda Charlesworth

Jillian Selwood

Keila Carver

Dee Copus-Reed

Anna Krol

Helen Griffin

Karen Taylor

Angelina Clark

 

 Thank you for stopping by.  I hope we have inspired you!

HAPPY CRAFTING

 

POST HOLIDAY BLUES

 I'm back from my week's holiday in Tuscany and I've got the post holiday blues.  Is it just me that gets them - surely not!  It was my first visit to Tuscany but not Italy and we managed to get to see Florence, the Ponte Vechio shown below and a lovely town called Lucca.

 Hubby and I at Ponte Vechio - not a lot there apart from jewellery shops but its something ticked off the list lol!

 The views from our villa.  Typical Tuscan one below I think with those signature trees.

 

And on to the crafting - I was prompted by Sam Hammond's new challenge on her blog.  Sam is my upline and its great to see her joining the challenge blogs.  Her challenge is a colour challenge and she gave us the following colours to work with - Click HERE to be taken to Sam's blog

Smoky Slate, Pool Party, So Saffron, Pink Pirouette.

I used three of the colours, including a touch of Whisper White.  I used Smokey Slate for the card base and for layering.  I used some of the lovely Designer Series Paper in Pool Party for the background and Pool Party ink for the leaves and Pink Pirouette for the flowers.

 

 

The Stamp Set I used was Love and Affection.  It has some lovely sentiments on it and with such small pretty stamps the possibilities are endless.

 

 I also used the Floral Affection Embossing Folder which works with this set.  They all come as part of the Affectionately Your Suite which also includes Designer Series Paper - which I don't have ..... yet!  I've finished it with a touch of Enamel Shapes in Pool Party.

All products as usual can be purchased via my website.  Keep an eye out for my blog tomorrow with news of some great SU Promotions for July.  Click on the catalogue below to be taken to  my website.

Happy Stamping

BUTTERFLIES - TGIF CHALLENGE - #38 COLOUR CHALLENGE

 I've found a new challenge site this week and it couldn't have been more apt as I've been playing with lots of bright colours recently.  I think its because the weather is so dull in the UK and I need a bit of sunshine.  So I loved the idea of playing with these three colours but..... I also found it quite difficult adding in that Pumpkin Pie.  Its not Halloween and I realise I only really use orange colours around Autumn time.  So this was a true challenge for me.

I wanted to do some watercolouring but lo and behold where oh where was my Aqua Painter when I needed it.  So frustrating - I turned everything upside down, found a few things I'd forgotten about but sadly no Aqua painter so I had to re-think.  I don't know about you but once I've set my mind on a particular project it was hard to think of something else.

So I looked at my new sets from the new Catalogue and wanted to use the Playful Backgrounds.  So far I've only used the brush strokes and the stripes from it so I thought it was time the circles or bubbles had an outing.  I stamped them in Pumpkin Pie and Daffodil Delight on a Whisper White background, mounted on to Melon Mambo. 

 Yesterday I had also been playing with a new fun technique of embossing vellum and already had these butterflies from Papillon Potpourri  ready made in the correct colours.  So on they went.

TECHNIQUE TIP

The technique I used was to firstly ink up my Brayer with Daffodil Delight and ink the vellum so that it is covered.  Then leave it to dry.  It does take quite a while or you can use a heat tool.    I then stamped the small butterflies onto the vellum in Melon Mambo ink and again waited til they were dry.  This is not a quick technique lol! 

When they are dry I used the Bitty Butterfly punch to punch them out.  Turn them over onto your Stampin Pierce Mat and, with the thin end of a stylus, rub firmly but gently over the back of them.  The vellum starts to crack and the white imaging comes through giving the butterflies an added dimension.

The large butterfly was stamped in Melon Mambo and inked in Daffodil Delight.  I used the Elegant Butterfly punch to cut it out and it was mounted onto another butterfly cut out of Daffodil Delight.  The finishing touches of Enamel Shapes in the three colours completed the butterfly.

The sentiment was simply layered and comes from the new Shooting Star set.  I thought the sentiment was quite apt for these butterflies.