HAND STAMPED SENTIMENTS - SC289

Our challenge over at Hand Stamped Sentiments SC289 this week is a sketch.






I chose to turn the sketch around for my card - I've used retired Stampin' Up's Lotus Blossom - I think this set missed me first time round but I've had lots of fun out of using it lately.  The colours I used for the flower are Crumb Cake, More Mustard, and Early Espresso.  The butterflies are from the same set and punched out with retired SU's butterfly punches.  

I've used SU Stitched Framelits and some of the DSP from the gorgeous Coffee Break.  The background dots for the flower comes from Painter's Palette and has also been stamped on the Early Espresso cardstock in Versamark.  The sentiment is from A Touch of Nature - I think this one retired in 2006.  I've carried on with the stitching theme with a white gel pen around the edges and finished it off with some Glitter Enamel Dots.

Do have a look at the rest of the Design Team offerings and we hope to see you play along with us.


 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG CANDY JOY OF SETS GIVEAWAY

Happy 5th May - Cinco de Mayo - my Birthday.  No, I couldn't possibly say how many years?  

To thank all my lovely members of my Facebook Group - the Joy of Sets - all 3,012 of them I'm doing a little Birthday Blog Candy giveaway.  To be in with a chance of winning the Candy you just have to be a member of my Facebook Group and then come on here and answer the question and leave a comment.  The draw will be done at random on 12th May which gives us a week.

If you would like to join the group and join in with the Blog Candy just click on the image above and request to join.

To be in with a chance of winning two sets of stickers, a brand new SU Ribbon in Real Red, and a Papermania Chipboard Album saying LOVE, please leave a comment below saying which, of all the Albums we have showing on Joy of Sets, is your favourite. 

Good luck and thanks for stopping by! 


THE WINNER OF THE BLOG CANDY CHOSEN BY RANDOM IS SARAH CULLEN.

 

SUNSHINE AND BUTTERFLIES

I've been playing with two favourite Stampin Up sets today for the one card for two challenges - the sets are Kinda Eclectic and Watercolor Wings.  The challenge over at TGIF this week is a colour challenge - two of my favourite colours.  I never expected to like Lemon Lime Twist when it came out but it soon became a firm favourite.  Sad to hear its going but, as I'm no longer an SU Demonstrator I can continue to use it and show it - as long as my supplies last though.  Eek!




The second challenge is Addicted to CAS #135 and their theme is Gold.  Thinking about it though I'm not sure my card is CAS enough for their challenge.  CAS cards to confuse me a bit as some of the examples I see are not what I think are CAS so I'll add it anyway and I'm sure they'll let me know if it's too busy.

I used some SU Gold embossing powder to emboss that beautiful sun stamp from Kinda Eclectic.  The leaves were inked in Lemon Lime Twist.  The butterflies were made with Lemon Lime Twist and Berry Burst and Lemon Lime Twist cardstock was used as the base.




 

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!






 

INLAID TECHNIQUE

In the crafting world where everything has been done to death it's a real thrill to come across a new technique.  This is what happened when perusing Pinterest, you know the way we do! I found a card which led to a blog which wasn't the right blog but then I found the correct blog by the person who had actually made the card - called Lindsey-Doodlings and there I found the Inlaid Technique.  This one has passed me by.  I'm sometimes phased by fiddling with small bits, especially as the eyes aren't what they used to be, but then hey I did used to run an inchy challenge blog!

So I had a play and I didn't find it quite as fiddly as I thought I would.

I've done my card using the colours asked for by CAS Colours and Sketches - 




I'm also adding this one into Watercooler Wednesday's Anything Goes challenge 

I used one of the Bold Butterfly framelits from SU and its quite a small little framelit which makes the little pieces even tinier.  In case you don't know what this technique is - its basically taking a framelit with lots of pieces in it, pushing out the inlaid pieces which have been coloured and reinserting them in the correct order in a white version of your framelit.  

As this was a colour challenge I inked up a piece of Whisper White with Soft Sky and Berry Burst.  My Soft Sky ink is very dry and doesn't really give a very true indication of the colour.  I went over the pieces once they were inlaid in the white butterfly with a blender pen inked in the two colours just to give a bit more definition.  The butterfly was then simply layered onto some Stitched Framelits and the sentiment is from Feather Together inked in Sahara Sand.


Thanks for stopping by - let me know if you do a similar technique and I can come and visit.

 

MONDAY BLUES AND YELLOWS

After the brief showing of the sun in the UK last week where we went from winter to Summer with no spring and now back to winter its almost like I've got the Monday blues.  The poor old blossom on the apple trees which tentatively poked their heads out when that lovely warm weather was here are now wondering what's hit them as its so cold again.  However, my Monday blues were blown away by finding out that my woven butterfly card has been chosen as this week's winner over at Inspired By challenge.  It's a real boost when our cards get chosen isn't it?  

My card today shows this lovely bird image from the lovely Cherry Blossom set from Clear Impressions - I do love this image and can see lots of uses for it.

I've inked it in Island Indigo and used some of the same coloured cardstock for the background and the little tag.  The ribbon is also Island Indigo Ombre which is just one of my favourite ribbons from Stampin' Up!  The background papers and cardstock are Crushed Curry.  There is a touch of Wink of Stella on the bird and on the water below him which softens it all and gives it a shimmer.

This card is going into the Paper Players challenge PP391 this week which is a Tic Tac Toe challenge and I went for the bottom row of Yellow, Bird and Circle.



My card for CASE this sketch this week is using the same stamp set but different images.  I've used SU inks here - Soft Suede, Regal Rose and a touch of Melon Mambo.  There is a touch of Dazzling Diamonds on the flowers just to make them sparkle.

Just Add Ink challenge #406  - A Sketch



Keeping with the theme of blues and yellows my card for Just Add Ink has added lots of ink.  I started off with some Whisper White and some post it notes and using a finger dauber I added SU's So Saffron at the top, Soft Sky for the middle and Pear Pizzazz for the bottom.  My Soft Sky ink is ever so dry and it was new last year - My So Saffron is over 10 years old - needless to say I prefer the old SU pads - I wonder what the very news ones will be like.

Anyway on to my stamping - I stamped the Lotus Blossom flower in the middle of the blue ink so that it looks as though its on water again.  This time I used slightly dark shades of the three colour choices - Crushed Curry, Island Indigo and Tranquil Tide.  The sentiments were also inked in Tranquil Tide.  I used some of the DSP from Daisy Delight to punch out the butterflies and sponged their edges with Tranquil Tide.  I wrapped some Copper Metallic Thread behind the stitched framelit and added some enamel shapes to finish off the card.  I layered it onto Pear Pizazz cardstock.

I'm also adding this card into the Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #325 - I've just found this new challenge and it was so nice to see that Diane who runs it lives near me - in a world where most bloggers are overseas its nice to see a fellow crafter less than 20 miles away!   And she is very generously offering a wonderful prize.  

 

TIC TAC TOE OMBRE INKING

The challenge over at Tic Tac Toe this week gives us lots of options as usual.  I was inspired by the bottom row of Yellow, Stripes, Thanks.





Yellow is not always my go-to colour so I decided to challenge myself and as I've been playing with the Ombre inking technique I thought I'd make the stripes myself. I used post it notes again and used three Yellows  from Stampin Up - a retired More Mustard and Summer Sun and current ink Daffodil Daylight.  I also used the More Mustard to stamp the lovely big sun stamp that comes with Kinda Eclectic.  The sentiment was inked in Basic Black and comes from SU Thankful Thoughts.  I used the butterfly punch for the butterlies and also the bold butterfly thinlets and some of the Color Theory DSP.

The thank you was colour washed with Wink of Stella and a touch of non SU thread tied around to finish off the card.



 

OMBRE COLOURWASH

I've been having a play around with some new colour techniques - this one is a colour ombre type wash using the colours suggested by Fab Friday 136  for their challenge this week





I loved these colours together - Grey is not a colour I often use or turn to so it was nice to include it in my card this week.  I used some post it notes to blank off the stripes and used an ink dauber to add the ink.  I haven't used Stampin Up's Beautiful You set in a while and thought she would go nice on these colours just simply stamped in Black and a touch of Wink of Stella on her dress.

I layered it simply onto a piece of Bermuda Bay cardstock and added the sentiments also in Bermuda Bay with a touch of Bermuda Bay ribbon.  I have someone in mind for this card - my darling daughter has to face surgery again in the next few weeks - this card will be for her once all the surgery is done.  Finger's crossed for her.


 

FOLD CARD

I love to play around with different fold cards and this one was inspired by the fabulous Dawn Griffith - love it!  As I've 'borrowed' this idea from Dawn I'm including this card in the As You See It challenge this week - their theme is Something Borrowed.

My Card is also going into the TGIF challenge #tgifc157  this week which is a Tic Tac Toe challenge - I love these challenges! - so much to choose from: I'm using the pink, pearls, flowers for the top row.



I've also used the colours suggested by the Color Throwdown challenge this week - this gorgeous image is apparently of a cafe in London - wow I've never been but as London is only an hour away from me it's definitely on my wish list now.






I've used Stampin Up Powder Pink card stock for the base along with some Very Vanilla and Perfect Plum for the cut out of the chair sponged with Perfect Plum round the edges. The chair has been layered on to papers cut with the Stitched Framelits.  The backing paper which is so pretty and has all of the colour choices in it is from a stack called Once Upon A Time by Craft Sensations.  Such a pretty paper.

I've used Colourful Seasons for the stamping and the sentiment is from Feather Together stamped in Pear Pizazz.  I've added some basic pearls to the flowers which are from the matching framelits for Colourful Seasons.

This is the inside of the card which has been stamped in Regal Rose and Soft Suede with the Sentiment from Beautiful You.  This card is winging its way to my sister-in-law for her birthday- I hope she likes it.

I'm also including this card in the Make My Monday #69 challenge which is In The Garden.


 

ALL THINGS WILD

A few cards from me today for a number of challenges.  The first are Butterflies Stampin on Tuesday challenge has a sketch challenge with the option of Butterflies  


I've gone for purple - not a colour I usually use - I've also used some old SU DSP for the background.  I've used Kinda Eclectic, Jar of Love and Beautiful You and some butterfly punches.

My next card is for a Facebook Goup called Colour Inkspiration #C132 - they gave us the following image and colours for our inspiration.

I've gone with Kinda Eclectic again but a completely different style.  I've added some of the sequins to the butterfly also - I find those sequins quite tricky to use so any chance to get them on there and I'll have a go.

My final card is for Time Out challenge and their word for this week is WILD.  I'm also including this in Try It On Tuesday for their challenge Nature's Beauty.

I went back to an old SU set - Autumn Days and the pheasant which I have inked up a lot over its life time.  It's always a great go to for male cards too.  I've used Watercolour Paper here and colour washed it with Crushed Curry, Crumb Cake and Always Artichoke.  

The pheasant was embossed in Gold Embossing powder and coloured in with SU marker pens.  The grasses are from the same set.  The sun is from Kinda Eclectic.  The Love sentiment is an old SU script stamp and was embossed in old SU Maize embossing powder.  Some ribbon and some coloured enamel dots finish off this card.

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


 

LOTUS BLOSSOM CAS

I think this beautiful stamp of the lotus blossom really lends itself to a CAS card (Clean and Simple).  It's actually a three stamping flower from Stampin Up which is really easy to use.  I've kept mine really simple here - for the CAS Colours and Sketches #269 which gave us a sketch to follow. Addicted to Stamps also has a CAS challenge this week.





The three colours I used for my flower were Basic Black, Tempting Turquoise and Pacific Point - all Stampin Up colours.  I used Stitched Framelits to cut the image out and the backing card.  The card was then simply stamped with the sentiments from the set in Tempting Turquoise. I added some glitter enamel dots and some Dazzling Diamonds to the flower.

 

LOTUS BLOSSOM ON THE WATER

Another new set from Stampin' Up I've been playing with today is Lotus Blossom - yes I'm late to the party again as this set is retired.  It's a lovely three stamping set - I just wonder why they gave us stems as Lotus Blossoms sit on water - and that's what I wanted my card to show.  So after lots of research and just a Let's Get On and Do It attitude I had a play.

I used lots of old SU inks in this one - inclding Ballet Blue, Bordering Blue, Island Indigo, and Bermuda Bay for the water.  It involved lots of colouring with ink pens and watercolour pencils, blender pens, a touch of white gel pen, Wink of Stella and some splashes of water.

The flower itself was inked in old Cameo Coral and Perfect Plum and then clear embossed.  I've used a Stitched Framelit to cut out the image.  The sentiment is from the same set popped on a tag with Island Indigo ribbon threaded through.  The background paper was made wavy with an old wavy tool I have - I can't remember what you call them - to give the feeling of more water.  A glitter enamel dot was added to the little tag and lots of sponging around the edges.  

The Wink of Stella gives it a really shimmery look and gives the water the feeling of movement.

I'm adding this to the SU Only SUOC198 challenge which this week is asking for Colouring.

I'm also adding this to Retro Rubber this week as they are looking for vintage - well my lotus flower is reminiscent of Monet's Water Lillies and you can't get more vintage than that!  My stamp is also three years old so is an old stamp.


 

SPRING

My card today uses some stamps from a new set called The Rural Springtime collection by Clear Impressions - a fabulous set of 18 stamps.  The flower stamp was actually too big for any clear blocks I had so I cheated a bit - I put it on the back of an SU stamp box - who knew?

I've also reversed the image of the little chick so he could talk to his friend the rabbit.  I've used acetate in the past to do reverse imaging but I found a fab video on Youtube by Chari Moss - she actually stamped the stamp she wanted to reverse onto another stamp and then used that as the stamped image.  Sounds complicated but was the easiest way of doing a reverse image I've ever done.  

As the wreath stamp was so big I've done a square card - not my usual size which makes a nice change.  I've used mainly old SU inks here apart from Pear Pizazz and have coloured everything in with a blender pen.  There is some Wink of Stella on the flowers to give it a bit of a shimmer.

I'm putting this card in for the following challenges

Dream Factory - Challenge of a rabbit on a card
Inkspirational  - Challenge of Play - which is what my little animal friends will do
Double D         - Friendship