Mojo Monday 119 and a little RST tutorial!

Firstly a very Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2010 brings you health and happiness. Many thanks for stopping by here this last year and leaving your comments - they are very much appreciated.

It's been fun having a couple of weeks off work and have a chance to do a bit of creating and take part in a few challenges. This one is for the Mojo Monday - a sketch I haven't done for a while.

I haven't had my rubber stamp tapestry sets out for a while and so had a fun half hour stamping this set. I thought I would try using some Papertrey inks for a change to see how they worked out. There is a quick photo run of how I stamped them off at the end. I'm still not convinced with the two flowers - I took them on and off a few times before leaving them on - what do you think?

Here's a closer look at the stamping. The background leaves are stamped in Versamark on to Spring Moss and Kraft cardstock and the tapestry stamps are on Gina K white card - just love that card as it's so smooth and creamy and takes the PTI ink so well.

If you've scrolled down his far - well done!

If you are a fan of these tiny stamps as I am here is how I did it - do let me know if this is useful! You can see many more great examples on the Rubber Stamp Tapestry blog here and get a chance to win a set

Have a good holiday this weekend!

Pretty Petal Pocket

Now Christmas is over and the presents unwrapped I can show you this that I made as a Secret Santa gift for my friend Lana.

The purse is made from one of Lauren Meader's Timeles Templates called Pretty Petal Pocket and I used Papertrey card and papers and a JustRite monogramme stamper for the detail. I filled it with some lovely Champney' body butters. Apart from the very wobbly stitching I liked how this turned out and I know I'll use this template again.

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge - 50

I hope you are having as good a break as I am - this week is so much calmer here at home and thankfully all the slush and ice has gone. Santa was very good to me this year and so DD and I hit the shops in Windsor - me to visit the Pandora shop and she to Links to add a charm to her Sweetie bracelet! Unfortunately the Queen wasn't at home for tea so I got these lovelies to add to my necklace - aren't they so pretty?








I may just have to make a card in these colours!

Anyways after all that gorgeousness on to the card!


Today I had a try at Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday sketch - a blog I have long admired. This was the challenge -

and here is my card. I have been storing my Martha Stewart punches since way before Christmas and thought it was about time to give them an airing!

The other supplies are all by Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by my little crating corner today - have a good day!

Back with a Sketch Challenge

Not missing in action just sick with the flu and busy trying to get ready for Christmas! But work has finished for a couple of weeks (I love working in construction after all my retail Christmases!) and the Christmas cards are all made - now all I have to organise is lunch. I am going into a minor panic as I am cooking Christmas lunch for the family and I haven't done it since I was pregnant with my DD and she's 17 now!

It's good to put the Christmas stamps away and play a new (for me) challenge. Mercy has some great sketches here on her blog and I have been meaning to play along before and a spare afternoon this week gave me a chance.




















I'm not too sure where I thought I was going with this card - I wanted to try out these vinyl decals that I bought an age ago - they are like stickers but soft and flexible - but it looks a little stark to my eye.

The card and dp's are from Papertrey and one of my favourite colour combos! Berry sorbet and spring moss - they make me happy!





















Many thanks for stopping by this week. I hope you have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas and a very happy holiday time.

Blue Giga Birthday

This is my second play with my Giga Guidelines set - I'm really pleased with how it came out as I don't often use blue in my crafting.

I stamped the giga stamps in fresh snow ink onto the enchanted evening card and filled in with the matching stamp from guidelines II stamped in versamark. A bit of white embossing for the sentiment and some matching ribbon completes it - there's also my new favourite punch there too from EK Success!

Happy Birthday Penny!

Upsey Daisy Duo

It was such an awful day here yesterday it was the perfect time to stay indoors and play! We had terrible winds this weekend across the South East and yet again we lost another tree - my favourite Californian Lilac. Paul very kindly spent all day chopping it up for recycling whilst I stayed in the warm!

The Sunday challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers is to case but change two things on a card from the featured stamper and this week it was the very talented Dawn Easton. I chose this card to case - love those colours! It was a good excuse to get out my SU Upsey Daisy stamp which hasn't seen much love for a year.






I went for some good cheery colours - berry sorbet and sweet blush along with some Papertrey dp's and dark chocolate cardstock.






Whilst I had the stamp out on the table I was playing with other colours and so finished off another card for my stock with some bright sunny yellow and burnt orange.

















A nice diversion from making Christmas cards! Have a great week and as always thanks for stopping by.

Holiday Button Bits

I made these two cards using the Holiday Button Bits stamps for two challenges this weekend, one from the lovely Lana who put a sketch up on our forum and one over at A Passion for Papertrey, both designed to kick start the holiday card making.

First off the sketch challenge, which to be honest I didn't follow well at all! The baubles are swinging at a very jaunty angle!




















I am in love with Scarlett Jewel - it's such a deep rich colour. Here I used Lables 1 nestability dies and stamped the leaves in Spring Moss. Next time I think I'll use ripe advocado as it's a better contrast to the red.





















I've also made a Santa version but the light was too poor to take a photo of it tonight!



On another note - is anyone else having a problem stamping the Holiday Button Bits with PTI ink? I just can't get the ink to "stick" and it looks awful. I've conditioned the stamps several items to no avail - any tips anyone?

Giga Guidelines ala Debbie Olsen

I thought that Debbie Olsen's card here using the Giga Guidelines from Papertrey were just fantastic and so good that she broke down how she stamped the different layers for us all here - it was a great jump start for me to get playing!

I'm having a right old time with my camera just now and the colours seem a bit off but the ones I used were plum pudding, spring moss (new formula) and hibiscus burst.

I also made a little practice strip following Debbie's guide and the colours are really pretty in real life (but not so in this photo!) and made this two little 3.5"x 3.5" gift cards.

In case you are interested this is the order I stamped my pattern in -







Plum Pudding
















Spring Moss
















Hibiscus Burst








I've lots more colour combinations in my head - I just need to get them onto some cardstock!

Dotty Melon Berry Purse

The challenge over at A Passion for Papertrey for this week is to use polka dots in your creation. I have been meaning to try out Lauren Meader's Purse-onality Clutch for ages and pulled out my Melon Berry cardstock and bits for mine.

I used vintage cream ink on my polka dots basics stamps and paired that up with lots of buttons, twine, ribbon and lace. I found a box of these Polish chocolates in my local supermarket and very yummy they are too - well I had to check one out before I packed the purse full of them didn't I ;)

Thanks for popping in and have a great week!

Papertrey October Blog Hop

The challenge for the blog hop this month is to show our holiday cards/gifts/wraps etc and I thought I would combine this with Dawn McVeys Raspberry Suite colour challenge - such pretty colours this time around.

I wanted to try out a clean and simple design for Christmas this year that would be good to make lots of at one sitting. I still think this idea is a work in progress - the new leaf colour centres for the poinsettias looked flat so I blinged them up a bit and I need to perfect my line drawing but I thnk it has a future!!

I coloured the flowers with Copic markers after stamping them with memento rich cocoa - all the other supplies are by Papertrey.

Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Ola Espania!

Well that's what I was saying last week in Torrox! How's this for a blue sky in October?














We had the most beautiful weather - over 80 degrees every day and not a cloud in the sky. Paul and I even got a tan (I know that's really not a good thing but we used loads of protection!) and we both feel so much better for having a good rest. My dear MIL came too!

Here are just a couple of quickies I made just before I went - I found some old Anna Griffin die cuts at the back of my file and so had a peaceful evening layering up the images. I still love the colours of her collection and it reminded me to start to using all the AG papers I have stored up from my early crafting days.














I think this is my favourite.















Pretty but busy!











The sentiments are from the Papertrey set called Wishing You.

A Passion for Papertrey Challenge

The challenge for the last two weeks at a Passion for Papertrey blog is to make a card using your favourite cherished colours. I have two favourites - lilac and pink - so I made two cards rather than combine the two!

I took my layouts from a Christmas card Niki Estes made this week which you can see here which I just love! The first card has my favourite stamp set too - Spiral Bouquet.




















Double trouble here tonight - with a pink version using Everyday Button Bits -



















I made this pink one for my friend Tilly in New Zealand (it's in the post Tilly!)- she sent me the most lovely card when I lost my beautiful Chocolate Point Burmese called Jalpa two weeks ago. She was a grand old lady and would have been 20 years old next month but now I hope she is happy chasing mice in cat heaven! Here she is as I remember her best.


















It's been a beautiful weekend here - a really good end to the Summer! Thanks for taking the time to pop by and have a good week!

Today's ingredients:
Celebrate - Stamps: Spiral Bouquet, Background Basics Retro, Scattered Showers; Inks: Spring Moss, New Leaf, Lavender Moon, Plum Pudding; Papers: Lavender Moon, Plum Pudding, Stampers Select White; Other bits: Nestabilities, little gems, sewing machine.
Soaring - Stamps: Everyday Button Bits, Background Basics Retro; Inks: Plum Pudding, Spring Moss, Berry Sorbet; Papers: Berry Sorbet, Polka Dots, Stampers Select White; Other bits: Sweet Blush Vintage Buttons, Nestabilities, sewing machine.

Raspberry Suite Colour Challenge 16

I nearly had a "Tena" moment when I woke up and saw that this card had been chosen for Dawn's "In the Spotlight" - I can't describe how happy it made me - thanks Dawn!



I think I might just be able to sneak this card in under the wire for Dawn's latest colour challenge - thanks goodness for transatlantic time differences!
















I love this week's colours - very Autuminal. I used all the colours from Papertrey in the sample for this quickie card - the flower is from In Bloom and the sentiment from Everyday Button Bits.


















I'm trying to forget that the Summer is nearly over and the cold weather is on it's way but I suppose it's inevitable!

Black and White

I don't often get chance to play along with the Featured Stamper on Split Coast Stampers but as I had some lovely free time today I had a go.

For the featured stamper the idea is to choose a card that inspires you and to case it but change at least two things. This week the featured stamper is Joanne and she has one of the best galleries on SCS and I chose this card here to case.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you've had a great weekend too!

In Bloom Duo

Nichole Heady of Papertrey Ink made a card for her 30th birthday celebration that really spoke to me and I thought I'd have a go at a similar one using the same layout.



I've been sitting and colouring these blooms from the In Bloom set that arrived last week and so I thought I'd use them for these cards. I changed the papers and the image but shamelessly copied everything else!



















I coloured the bloom and leaves with copic markers and layered it on some dimensionals. The paper is from the In Bloom and Polka Dots paper packs and the sentiment is from the same stamp set.

















I picked up the colours from the Polka Dot paper for this colour scheme - I love them! The bloom has a little bit of stickles glitter on it which you can see better enlarged and the saying is from Flower Garden Sentiments.

Raspberry Suite Colour Challenge 15

This card nearly went in the bin several times this afternoon out of sheer frustration! What with Paul in the lounge shouting at the cricket (out, ozsat, sack the umpire) and the grand prix (oohh, ouch, come on man!) in equal measures as he channel hopped between the two (I'm not sure why as he has them both recording on Sky+) and me shouting, ok swearing, at the umbrella as I tried to cut out the handle and sheer the ribbon, we made a right pair! But the sun is shinning and it's a beautiful day so all is really right in my little world :)


So this was made for Dawn McVey's colour challenge - these colours really remind me of lollypops for some reason and maybe I should have popped down to the shop to get one to calm me down!














I love Melon Berry and Hibuscus Burst - I think they are my favourite colours from PTI and I had a little scrap of Spring Moss card left to do a little border. I gathered the ribbon by running a length through the longest running stitch on my machine and then gathered it up - note to self - don't use silky ribbon again!


So here we are - I tried to do the rule of three but went adrift somehow, and the melon berry umbrella looks so much darker than the matching In Bloom paper in the photo but I just love the ribbon and will do that again. Lisa Johnson gives a great demo on her blog here.






















Here's a little photo of the ribbon - I stuck it to the card with a run of score-pal tape to keep it secure.

Thanks for popping in today - I hope you are having a fun and crafty weekend too!

More Button Bits!

You've just got to play with a new set haven't you? I don't like to waste a scrap if I can help it and so I made these three little ones as a batch for my basket.

The hardest part about making these was choosing which buttons fitted best!


I kept to the same colour ways to match the buttons -

Melon Berry

Raspberry Fizz

Sweet Blush

A few runs through the cuttlebug with the Nestabilities and they were done!

Every Day Button Bicycle

My baby brother turned 48 this week - Happy Birthday Martin! We don't get to see each other too often as we don't live close, so this sentiment seemed a good one.



















This is the first time I've inked up this set and I was thinking to myself - what am I going to do with that cross bar when I do a girly card? I can't see many girls cocking their legs over that bar as it's not a mountain bike! And it needs a wicker basket for the front too! Still this was for my brother so I wanted it manly, so I used ripe advocado cardstock overstamped with Background basics Retro and the last of the New Leaf buttons that my friend Chris sent me. I feel an order coming on now I have seen the lovely new release colours ;)

Clean and Simple Thank You

I'm taking part in another PTI swap over on Splitcoast Stampers and so have been practicing a few cards that I can make 6 of to send off. The cards can be Clean and Simple (CAS) cards based on a sketch from the CAS blog. I chose this sketch - fall down layout 37

The challenge over at A Passion for Papertrey this fortnight is to make a Thank You card - so that was the sentiment I went for!













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I simply stamped the flower and leaves from Friends til the End onto the Bitty Dots paper and used the sentiment from Damask Designs. It does look to me like there is too much white but I suppose that is clean and simple;)


Thanks for stopping by today!