Loving Thoughts

Annabelle Stamps April Challenge

I think I will send this to my mother for Mother's Day.

Blues and Butterflies

Love the colours of the Colour Me ... Playful Challenge

and mixed the it with the Sketch Saturday Challenge

I used the Hero Arts Inks : Pool, Soft Pool, Cornflower and Soft Sky.

Twin challenge Take 2

Another take on the twin challenge of Runway Inspired Challenge and CAS(E) this Sketch!.

I will also enter this in the Hero Arts Sketch Challenge, following Sketch #1.

Sow seeds of Kindness

For CAS-ology Challenge.

The message inside is Sow seeds of kindness ...

Will also enter it for Simon Says Stamp Keep it Clean and Simple Challenge.

Our sunshine

Love the inspiration of Marion Vagg on the Muse Challenge

Her card made me think of sunshine and blue skies. So cheerful. We don't have sunflowers, but we do have sun, blue seas and skies.

Twin Challenge

I love the twin challenge of Runway Inspired Challenge and CAS(E) this Sketch!.

To get the black and white grid look, I put black paper behind my doily. I swore that I would not buy more stamps BUT this new Hero Arts stamp and matching die cut was just perfect for this!

I will also enter this in the Hero Arts Sketch Challenge, following Sketch #1.

Magenta ATC's

I joined in on the Magenta ATC swap with the theme of "Colors that makes me happy".

For my first, I played with some Gelatos to create the background.

My second ended up very different to what I had planned as I dropped my Salty Ocean ink pad! So a generous spritz of water mixed with white perfect pearls gave it a lovely shimmer (unfortunately I couldn't catch it on the camera - when I can see the shimmer through the camera, it can't cope and doesn't focus. Got to learn how to do the manual focus!) ... and hid the mess.

I used watercolouring and a distressed background with some lovely Magenta paper on my third.

For my last one, I used one of my favourite Magenta sentiment stamps. I dabbed Salty Ocean on my craft sheet, spritzed with Perfect pearls and smidged my tag in it.

I sent mine to Alida in the Netherlands. And she sent me these with wonderful colourful backgrounds created with alcohol inks.

So many stamps

I had a request for the Bath Stamp called "Later" made by All Night Media, but I don't think it's available anymore. Even though I have had it for years, I still want to keep it. Instead of selling it, I offered to send some stamped images. I added 2 other images too. The girls I stamped some in black and some in Cocoa.

I made a card to accompany them. It will also be entered in the Color Throwdown Challenge,

and the Less is More Makes me Smile Challenge because having and playing with stamps makes me smile, (I hope this is CAS enough Chrissie - if not, I'll remove it), and lastly for the Annabelle Stamps April Challenge (used the paint splatter stamps).

The sentiment is another oldie (I have to keep my stamps - they are like friends!) from Embossing Arts Co, which is no longer in business.

A note

A quick entry that I made for the Hero Arts Flickr group scramble on Saturday, but with the CASology Note challenge in mind.

The scramble theme was paper piecing and I used an inchie stamp. Really really small for paper piecing, but I love it anyway. It was the first stamp I ever used for paper piecing. The card is only 3.5 x 4.25"

Here was another take, with the 6x6" pp in the background.

If you have Hero Arts stamps, you are welcome to join in our next scramble in 2 weeks time. Go over to the Hero Arts Flickr group to check out the time - it's such a fun challenge! Gives you a great adrenaline rush!

Shadow stamping

Less is More is having a One-Layer Shadow stamping challenge. I decided to make the text in shadow rather than an image.

And here is a close up of the shadow ...

More Stencils

Creeping in with one more card for the stencil challenge at Virginia's View Challenge. (I don't envy her on judging the amazing 227 entries! She really has inspired so many of us and there are so many wonderful cards)

I mixed some Picked Raspberry in with my embossing paste and spread it in the middle of the Studio Calico Mister Huey's Masks - Circle Graph. Then I added a dash of Salty Ocean which gave a lovely lilac colour and spread it towards the edges. I love the effect!

I used a velvet brad which mixes well with the texture.

So here's the full card ...

And here's what the craft space looks like after a couple of days stamping ... hardly space to put a card down! I think my brain works faster than my hands can create, so things just pile up. I think a little tidying is on the cards tomorrow.

Rescue Notes

I made my card, taking time to paper piece, paint, punch out some flags. I added a bead of Black Accents for the eye, and set my card aside to dry.

But then I notice that I hadn't drawn in the lines for the flags ... and my fuzzy mind totally forgot about "still drying" Black Accent eye! And I smudged it across the card. Aaaargh!

Wondering how I could rescue it, I thought of music notes.

Bird tweets!

Yay! I also had to add a circle punch out to cover the big eye smudge. Then I did another Black Accent eye. And put the card OUT OF REACH!

Lucky for me there is a Notes challenge as CAS-ology this week!

Happiness is ...

... playing with paper, paint, stamps and ink!

I love the grid pattern of the CAS(E) this Sketch Challenge

My first thought was to use my 9 Inkadinkado butterflies with watercolour squares. I added stickles and glossy accents to highlight areas.

But wanted another attempt, so started with watercolour squares again, but went with a more mix and match theme.

Easter Basket

I loved the inspiration picture over on the Fusion Challenge.

Such pretty, soft, beautiful roses. Opened up my new WPlus9 Freshcut Florals stamp set to use the tiny flowers that would go with the sweet basket die that I was given as a gift with one of my orders. I had first thought, "I'll never use that", but it's just perfect for an Easter Basket. I thought the basket is a pretty good match for the sketch too.

I used gelatos as my paint - it has a lovely shimmer as I mixed in the metallic purple with the lilac and blue. I added glossy accents to the flower centres and the little dots I had made with a Copic marker.

I made that tiny bow with just the 2 inner prongs of a fork!

Double embossed Stencils

Still playing with stencils for Virginia's View Challenge. This time I did the embossing paste in two steps as I was using 2 colours mixed in with the paste (Mowed Lawn and Festive Berries Distress Inks). I tell you, it was not so easy to keep the paste out of the shapes I was trying to avoid. So I let the first colour dry before I attempted the second. Then I let that dry before I stamped my text background with versamark and embossed in white. So I used embossing paste and embossing powder on this one.

I was inspired by Vicki's Muse Challenge.

In fact I started this card first, but as it took so many steps with the drying time, it will be my second card for the Muse Challenge. I went with the design and the colours ... with text printed over the florals. 

I will also enter this for the Hero Arts Sketch Challenge ... a loose interpretation of sketch No 2 ... a square tag?!

Make a Splash

I have been playing a lot with my stencils for Virginia's View Challenge. This is the first one finished.

I mixed in Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers into two blobs of embossing paste, then smeared them on alternatively across the stencil giving two grades of colour.

I used the fun Hero Arts Curly Alphabet mixed with the Bird Branch Alphabet to make the sentiment.

A strip of washi tape and a few sprinkles finish the card.

I will also enter this in the Hero Arts Sketch Challenge, using the sketch No. 3 on the right :

and the CAS-ology Wet Challenge.