INSPIRED BY....

On my Facebook Group recently one of our members posted a lovely card which used some fab papers that really caught my eye. Turns out they were called Festive Chalkboard by Craftwork Cards and I was lucky enough to be able to find a pack.

They arrived today and whilst I was drooling over them, the challenge over at Inspired By popped into my feed and this is their image this week - 







Well the flask on the far left is almost the exact copy of one of the papers so that became my inspiration for my card.

I wanted to use the Little Robin stamp again from Wild Rose so I decided to do a Gatefold Card with the robin front and center.   I used some Night of Navy cardstock for the base and the checked patterns of the new papers.  The sentiment comes from Stampin Up Warmth and Wonder.

I coloured him in with SU Watercolour Pencils and added some Frosted Lace stickles to his hat and his pom pom.  The inside stamp was a free one from a magazine with all the little robins.  

            

VERSATILE STAMPS

My card today is showing the versatility of stamps and taking one stamp and making it do something other than its original purpose. I've challenged my members on Joy of Sets  Facebook Group to give some more examples.  I can't wait to see what they all come up with.  If you love Stampin Up retired and current , and other stamp companies, why not come and join us.

My card was inspired by the imagery on Inspired By Challenge this week 




My card has used a stamp from the Stampin Up Build a Bouquet retired set - the stamp in question I believe is a wood grain stamp.  I've used it here to create the picnic blanket.  I used a total of 5 SU colours to create the blanket - Early Espresso, Crushed Curry, Cherry Cobbler, Fresh Fig and Pacific Point.  I even frayed the edges to give them the effect of the blanket.

I used the retired Apple of My Eye set for the apple image and kept the colour theme going with the embellishments.  I wanted it to look really autumnal and hopefully that's what I've achieved.



I'm also including this card into The Paper Players #pp408







             

READY, STEADY, GO!!!

The Challenge over at Inkspirational this week is make a card in 10 minutes or less.  Not very difficult for me because I do tend to rush through my cards - so I popped the timer on and decided to see exactly how long it would take me.  The challenge over at CAS Colours and Sketches is a double whammy of colours and sketches lol!  So I decided to combine both challenges and do a CAS card in under ten minutes!  These are the colours and the sketch to work to - I didn't have the correct SU colours but used some similar retired ones of Certainly Celery, Close to Cocoa and Regal Rose.





I used some of the new DSP and used the Stitched Circle framelits to cut out the apple stamp and the background.  I used a new SU pearlized doily behind.  The leaves and stalk were cut out and added with dimensionals to the back of the apple.  I used the framelit from Colourful Season to add the detailed DSP.  All in all it took my a little over 8 minutes to do.

I'm also adding this into the Inspired By challenge which is back to school - that doesn't happen in the UK yet until September and, as my kids are now grown, school is no longer an issue.  I do remember the days though, as a stay at home mum, that I never wanted them to go back - no honest I didn't!  I loved having them home.  I quite like the idea though of giving the teacher an apple at the start of the year!  I wonder how that practice started and if it is ever done still.



 

ON THE BEACH

Another scrapbook page from me today.  I love this picture of my daughter and her dog Cooper at the beach last week - I can't take credit for the lovely photo - it was taken by her partner.

I've taken my inspiration from Let's Get Sketchy and their challenge for my page.  
















I'm also including this in the CSI challenge 




And also for the Inspired By challenge 


And Time Out Challenge - taking inspiration from those lovely striped blues

I used a page from Bo Bunny Love and Lace for my background paper and then added various Kaisercraft Beach Shack papers and accessories.  I love the sentiments they give you with this paper - it's so fitting as my daughter is a real water baby.

Thanks for looking.

    

ALL ABOARD

I've been inspired by two challenges today for my scrapbook page - the first is Inspired By who gave us this great image :



The second is a sketch I found at Sketches In Thyme 

Inspired by the imagery of Inspired By I chose to make my photos black and white and they fit with the whole era of this page as we were actually on an old Steam Train - it runs evenings as a Real Ale train and my hubby loves both - real ale and steam trains so it was a perfect birthday present for him a few years ago.  He would much rather have been driving the train but I'm not sure that's allowed!

I've used papers from Kaisercraft here and laso some old BoBunny pieces I had in my stash.  The tickets were hand made and the rub on is an old one I had also in my stash.


 

MR & MRS - 1985

33 years ago in September hubby and I said I do - and we still do!  The challenge over at Inspired By is 




and it inspired me to do another scrapbook page.  I happened to be going through some old photos on the computer and this one popped up - I'd obviously scanned it in sometime earlier as, when we were married, there was no such thing as digital photography.

I've used some more Kaisercraft papers for this layout - I think I may need to go and search out some new papers - this was from a Kit from Charmed Crafts and Cards an online shop Ive found and this was their monthly kit back in January and luckily they still had some left.  I've added a couple of sentiment stamps from Stampin Up and the flowers and butterflies are SU thinlets and punches.


 

INSPIRED BY - FLORAL CLUSTERS AND WOOD

The imagery over at Inspired By never ceases to inspire me - I'm sure that is Laurel's intention and it certainly works.  Her gorgeous image for this week's challenge of Floral Clusters is as below:





The challenge at TGIF this week is Wood.



I decided to do a U fold card and have my flowers on the outside panels of the card.  I started off with SU Very Vanilla and some of their Wood Textures DSP for the panels and some of the Delightful Daisy DSP for the background. 

I'm nearly down to just scraps of all my SU DSP now!!  I used a scrap of some of the Falling in Love DSP for the flowers which were cut out with the Colourful Seasons thinlets.  I sponged round the edges with some retired SU Regal Rose ink and added some non SU pink pearls.  The stem and the leaves were also cut out with the thinlets.  The inside panels was sponged on the edges with Tim Holtz Bundled Sage and the sentiment inked in Tim  Holtz Tattered Rose and another flower added to the bottom.

I love how this card turned out - it's very pretty in real life and looks like my clematis climbing up my pergola in the garden.




 

THE SUN IS SHINING

The sun is shining here in the UK today - and it looks like its going to be a lovely Bank Holiday weekend - which is great as it's my birthday tomorrow. There will be a little offering for my Joy of Sets members tomorrow on my blog with a blog candy giveaway!

I've done two cards today for two different challenges.  The first one is for the Tic Tac Toe Challenge #tttc046






I chose to use the Flip Flops, Sunset and Free which I presumed allowed us to do our own thing.  The sunset was created with lots of different oranges, yellows, reds and a touch of purple.  It actually looks a lot more orange in real life - some of its colour seems to have been lost.  The little Relax Flip Flops stamp is from an old SU one called A Little Love - I knew it would come in handy one day!  The remaining images are from SU Colourful Seasons inked in Rich Razzleberry.

My other card is for the Inspired By challenge which has offered an image and allowed us to use any of the elements of that image 





I chose to go with the colours of the image and the textures on those balls.

I've used an embossing folder here from Sizzix and inked it up in Tempting Turquoise, Berry Burst and Pool Party all from SU.  The little embellishments are retired Honeycomb Embellishments. I've added a tassel made from some thread - I think this card may be on its way to a friend who loves her gardening and I can add a pack of Forget Me Not seeds in there too.




 

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!






 

PAPER WEAVING

I tried a new technique for my card this week - Inspred by the Inspired By challenge's image this week and the Color Throwdon's #CTD489, challenge I went for the stripes of the tea cloths and used up some old pieces of DSP.  The Paper Players gave us a sketch to follow which matches my card! 







I used a variety of about 6 pieces of DSP size 3/4" x 4 1/2 " approximately.  I wove them all together and was going to leave them just as a woven piece but then had a bit of an Eureka moment. I took one of the Bold Butterfly framelits from Stampin' Up and cut it out of the woven piece.  I loved the look it produced.

I used some of the retired DSP for the background and the stamped dots are from Watercolour Wings.  The summer sentiment is from retired set Season by Season and the days word is from a retired Project Life Date It set.  A button and some ribbon finishes off the card.



 

RETRO - GOING BACK TO 2004!

As nice as it is to start using new stamps, there is a special relationship with old stamps that maybe we have forgotten to use for a while.  This was my thinking behind starting my Facebook group - The Joy of Sets where we celebrate all stamps, not just Stampin Up, old and new.

The challenge over at Retro Challenge #rrcb84 this week is a photo image :




The challenge over at Inspired By is also very similar 




This one had me scratching my head thinking I didn't have anything that was old enough to do with rain or showers.  And then I remembered a little set I've used recently for an inchy swap which has a cute little umbrella in it.  This one hails from a Stampin Up Set called A Little Love from 2004!

I've used a retired SU embossing folder and some retired ribbon also.