Delightfully Soft Distress Stains

Been playing with Distress stains this week.


Loved these colours from CR84FN Color Challenge, so out came Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive, Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord.

To produce this :

Liebster Blog

Thank you so much Ardyth from Mask-erade for nominating me for the Liebster Award.

What does this mean, you ask? I Googled it, but only found other Liebster Blogs, no history of the award or how it started or anything. It seems like a big pyramid of blog-discovery and kindness to me!

Here's how it works:

1) The award is given to Bloggers with fewer than 200 followers, to help them gain new followers
2) Once you've been nominated, you pass on the Award to five other Blogs.

Steps involved (how I love a checklist - it feels so good when you can put a tick mark beside something!)

1) Link back to the person who gave you the award and thank them (thank you Ardyth!)
2) Post the award on your blog
3) Pass the award to 5 bloggers who inspire you
4) Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know.

I'm passing the Liebster Blog Award on to the following blogs:

Agata at Under Construction : Love your stamping and scrap layouts. So classy, full of techniques and "out-of the box" creativity. (And lucky enough to have received a real card from you!)








Alexandra, Virginie and Pascale at Scrap Rendez-vous : Great 52 week projects, classy chic scrapping, wonderful inspiration for cards and tags and generous freebies.

Luckie at Luckie's Scrap & Spots : For your incredible artistic talent on your scrap pages. You opened my world to another dimension of scrapping.

Lynn at The Mango Boys and Me : Love your versatility and creativity, your fresh fun sharing of your world.

Deborah at Society of Stampaholics : You make me smile . . . with your creativity, your wonderful sense of humour, wonderful writing, promoting of other's creativity and the start of the Lily Pad blog.














So go and visit these blogs and be inspired!

Double Whammy & Hero Arts Challenge

The first cyclone went passed us last week, but is coming back to bite us! So we may have a double whammy this weekend. Why does it always have to be on a weekend?!

Just got my prize from Hero Arts, so had to play with my new toys. And what better inspiration, than to go for this month's Hero Arts Challenge - Die cutting technique / Hello or Friend theme and/or the following sketch :

So here's my first take, using the first sketch :

The dot,(my island)  is made with enamel accents.

February Card Chain & OLW78

I love the colours of the February Card Chain Challenge at Lily Pad.

And I decided to follow their sketch too :

Using a wonderful Hero Arts sentiment, and my new stamps from Stampin' Up florals and bracket set. 

Since the stamps have lots of dots around and in, as well as the fact that I doodled white dots on the sentiment, and brown ones here and there, I can submit it to Susan's OLW78 Challenge too!

OLW78 - Take 3

Can't stop now! There are just so many options for Susan's OLW78 Challenge which is to use MORE THAN 5 CIRCLES or dots.

There are no dots on the Inkadinkado Swan stamp, but I added plenty of black doodle dots. I would have loved to have put 3 green pearls instead of the 3 stamped dots, but I prefer keeping bookmarks flat.

OLW78 - Circles Take 2 & Cyclones

Having such fun with Susan's OLW78 Challenge which is to use MORE THAN 5 CIRCLES or dots.


And I had to stay indoors today as we were in a class 3 cyclone alert. I'm on that little dot of and island on the edge of the cloud band. It was quite a tame one so no major damage, and I was so happy to see that my mangos and avocados survived the winds!

I wanted to use the strip of dots from Club Scrap, and the sentiment from Hero Arts. Added more doodles too.

OLW78 Circles, Circles Everywhere

I thought I'd play along with Susan's OLW78 Challenge which is to use MORE THAN 5 CIRCLES or dots. When I looked at my stamps I could not believe how many I had with circles and dots. I could play with this challenge for weeks, never mind days! I just love it.

 "Using five or more circles on a card isn't that challenging, so the real challenge here is that you are NOT allowed to pop punched or die-cut circles on your one-layer card...that's adding a layer!!! Of course you CAN punch/die-cut a circle out of the front of your card. That's not adding a layer."

Here's my first one using Hero Arts stamps of a row of dots, the sun and the sentiment. I also doodled black dots too.

Late Again!

I think I'm living in a dream world. I so wanted to play with the colours of Play Date Cafe Challenge, but I missed the deadline! 

Here's my take anyway

I just love these little girls from Lily of the Valley stamps. Colouring with Copics.

I think I need to get this stamp from Hampton Art . . .

Black, White and One Colour

I know I spotted a black, white and one colour challenge . . . but just cannot find it anywhere! I was asked to make a masculine card, and thought this would fit the bill.

But I was told "Plainer - not with the rings!" So I used paper from the K & Company Roam 6" paper pack, and mounted my birthday message on foam dots with 2 brads. Whew! Passed the test.

Scramble and Palette Challenge

Well I've been MIA since Christmas due to . . . 
 . . . holidays at the beach
 . . . holidays with the family
 . . . a week enjoying African wildlife
 . . . time with my mother
 . . . getting back to the real world!


Lucky me!


I came back to 428 unread blog posts . . . can't catch up with that many, so just dived in from the current ones. When I spotted the Hero Arts flickr group card scramble for last night, I just had to play despite my studio still being in "Santa workshop" state since Christmas.


The theme was "hearts". But not just stamped ones.


As soon as I saw hearts, I thought about the Kathy's Lily Pad Palette Challenge which is :

Now this is not a colour combo that I would have come up with myself. So thank you Kathy for helping me create this :

and this

Not the best photos, but that's what happens in a scramble! I love them!