Stampin’ Up Evenin’

I had a great time at Hayley’s place this evening! If you don’t know Hayley, her blog is over here at All Things Pink and Fluffy.

Hayley is a Stampin’ Up demonstrator that has come back to the fold after a little break and so to get started again she had an open house where you could come along and meet some like-minded crafty people, make some cards, have a cuppa tea and just enjoy a good old natter with friendly people!

I ended up making these three cards…

I think that the first one below is my favourite, it is a z fold card and I just love that wintry looking Church on the front – you probably can’t see, but there are little bits of glitter strategically dotted about the place!

This red wreath was the first one I made tonight and I rather like how it has turned out – clean and simple indeed.

The last one looks a bit flat, but what you really can’t see in the picture is that the two green baubles are popped up on foam stickies.

What this one probably needs is a bow or two on the tops of some of the baubles – the cards that Hayley showed us did have bows but I didn’t fancy putting a bow on at the time.

Although they are a bit expensive, the more I use the Stampin’ up stuff the more I love them – I just need to play a bit more! Anyway, thanks for a great evening Hayley, I look forward to many more!!

New stamp!!

I, like many crafters I am sure, have more stamps than I know what to do with! But when I spotted some cards made using the rather fabulous Dasher stamp, I just knew I had to have it.

Unfortunately my trawl around the internet did not immediately reveal where I could get it from – I looked in all sorts of online shops and blogs. Eventually I discovered that it was a Stampin’ Up stamp so I dashed to my catalogue, but it wasn’t in there!! Hmmmm, this was turning into a right palaver.

Well, what eventually happened was that I found a fab example of a card made using the Dasher stamp on Melissa’s blog – In Stamping Mode – and discovered that Melissa – alllll the way over in Texas was a SU person and after much discussion she agreed to to send me a Dasher stamp in exchange from some stamps from Elzybells! (and I am sure that she will eventually be showcasing her cards using the stamps).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Dasher stamp arrived the other day (thank you sooooo very much Melissa!) and today I used this weeks CPS sketch challenge to create a card with it – I am not keen on this card for some reason. (But as I have said before, we all have different tastes and so I am sure that someone will love this card!)

Stamp with us challenge

I quite liked the look of the sketch offered on Stamp with Us this week and I knew that I could definitely do something with this one, particularly as I had a a “do not open until Christmas” round stamp that would go perfectly with the sketch which looked like this…

and the card I made looks like this…

The presents are coloured in using my new copic pens (yes I finally bit the bullet and bought some through a fabulous company that has a good deal on copics - www.graphicsdirect.co.uk – and if you look carefully on the website you will also find a code for an additional 10% off – no, they aren’t paying me to promote their company but I have NEVER seen such a good deal for copics anywhere else!)

I have yet to blend my copics to create the fabulous colour shading I see on other blogs but I will get there, it is as much as I can do to create solid blocks of colour without feeling nervous that I am going to get it wrong!!

Square

There’s a square challenge on No Time to Stamp and that simply means that the card must have no rounded edges and use square shapes!

Well after spotting a rather fabulous card made using the star outlines of the nestabilities shape and entwining them together I thought that I would try something similar but using the squares nesties. (and I am so sorry, but try as I might, I cannot find that fabulous card!)

Anyway – this is my square card and I am not entirely certain that it is finished, but I like it as it is – do click to make it bigger if you can’t quite see the detail!

I have to say that it was a bit fiddly trying to glue it down exactly as I wanted it, but I think that I managed it!

Yes I won!

Like I said yesterday, some of us do actually win those amazing blog candys – they are most certainly not figments of your imagination!

I was fortunate enough to win some lovely Stampin’ Up goodies from the generous Amanda at Inspiring Inkin’. I won the Circle Circus stamp set, the mat pack, a stabby needle thing (!) and a choice of paper and ink – I chose the earth elements paper pack and it took me absolutely flippin’ ages to choose the colour ink!! After changing my mind several times I settled on Close to Cocoa and I think that the card I have made for my uncle perfectly showcases all of that!!

I just love that colour and the mat pack…..I just love it – I have always liked seeing those pinprick effects on other people’s work but haven’t dared try it myself as I knew that I would go quite wonky. With the mat pack, I don’t have to worry – I can stab paper to my hearts content and know that it will turn out wonderfully!! ;-) You can’t really see it very well in the first photograph, but the second shows the pinpricking fairly well although I am quite surprised at how the two photos make the card look like two different ones with differing shades of brown. The right lighting is clearly important - naturally it looks better in real life!

Anyway…thank you so much to Amanda for sending me this, I will most certainly get the most out of these goodies!

Hmmmm….

….it’s been about a week since I last blogged – I just haven’t made any cards this week even though I have spent a bit of money on this fantastic hobby!! (by ordering SU stuff and visiting a small local craft fair)

But today, I am here to tell you about some candy being offered by A Crafting Journey. It looks like this….

and you need to go visit before midnight on Halloween to be in with a chance to win!!!

I will be back tomorrow to tell about the lovely stuff I won earlier this week – you see – people do actually win the candy that is offered up by all those fabulous people!

New Techniques

I like learning new techniques, particularly when they don’t require a lot of know-how!! I was looking at the Hero Arts Club Blog earlier this week and found out about paper piecing.

Now, I’ve always thought (or assumed!) that paper piecing was simply about using lots of different layers of paper on your card. I was wrong, or at least I was wrong in this case – perhaps other people do use that term for layers on cards.

Anyways, on the Hero Arts Club blog they used paper piecing to mean stamping a particular image on different pieces of paper and then cutting them out to make the one image. Well, I thought that was rather a good idea and so I took up the challenge given to us and made this trio of cupcakes!

I really do like this card and will most definitely be using this technique again – with this card I simply stamped the image three times, cut them all out and then put them back together again! (I also stamped the image underneath onto the base paper in order to give me a guide to put the bits back together).

It is a bit fiddly if you have small images but the effect is really quite good and you can use different patterned paper to create an effect that you just wouldn’t get using colouring pens or paints. By the way - there is still time to enter the paper piecing challenge on the Hero Arts Club Blog if you want the chance to win some prizes - deadline is Sunday night I think.

Mojo Monday challenge

Once again it is not actually Monday!! I get the feeling that I never manage to make a card on the appropriate day for Mojo Monday!! Still, the deadline for any challenges that have giveaways is usually a week, so I always know that I have some time to think about the card!!

Anyways, the sketch for this week is this….

And I have just realised that I have actually done the sketch upside down as the piece going across the page is actually at the top of the panel on the right instead of at the bottom of the panel on the left!! And that's because I hand sketched a copy to take upstairs and must have turned it upside down when working on it!! ;-)

I have used more methods in this card than I think I have in most of my cards! I don’t actually have any circle dies and I am hopeless at cutting out circles (don’t worry – I plan to ask for some circle nestabilities for my upcoming birthday!!), but I did remember that I had a Bigz die in the shape of a bauble.

It is, however, a very BIGZ die and I didn’t have a card big enough so I folded a piece of A4 white card in half!! The bauble was embossed with the dots cuttlebug folder, the ribbon on the cross piece is actually a second attempt because I had stamped and heat embossed a curvy Merry Christmas only to find the the embossing powder was falling off! (does it have an expiry date – is it no good after a while???!) I would have used brads for the little embellishments but haven’t got any silver or gold ones, so I used my eyelets instead.

I quite like this card, but do think that it is a bit big – I would have to scale everything down for a smaller card or use just the bauble as the main focus.

Funky snowman stamps

I made the mistake of visiting one of my local stamping shops the other day!!! Amongst all the bits and pieces I bought this rather cool build your own snowman set…

So I was playing around with it and came up with this….

The background of this card comes from a small-ish snowflake block stamp that I stamped over and over and over (!) and I am rather pleased with how it looks.

I need to play around with it some more and find some lovely bloggy inspiration – I know that there is some out there – which is what I love about all those blogs out there as I can usually find some inspiration from someone who already has the stamp set that I have just bought!! In fact, I have just gone and had a rummage around and I now have lots more ideas although I am a bit disappointed that I just don't seem to have that creative spark that other people seem to have.

Inchies!

I was inspired by the first WCMD challenge on the CLASSroom blog, particularly as I had already done something similar last year even if I didn’t post any pictures then.

This challenge reminded me of what I had done before and so I knew that I had just the perfect stamp to use with this and here is the card…

I do like this kind of creative thinking so I though that I would do it again with a different card, although I am not quite so taken with this one…

The first one was simple, possibly toooo simple! And the second one – I love the girl hanging her stocking stamp, but I think that the rest of it has just made it too busy, perhaps I should focus on the girl alone and make her the point of the card? Whatever I do, I just know that I am going to have another go!!

World Card Making Day.

Apparently today is World Card Making Day or WCMD for those in the know…and I didn’t!! I had never heard of such a thing, but I suppose that with so many card makers out there it was bound to happen eventually! ;-)

In the spirit of the day I had hoped to make lots of cards, but I got caught up in the Whiff of Joy challenge that has driven me to distraction!! Would you believe that I spent all afternoon, on and off, on this. I never thought that card making could be so difficult!! (By the way, I have just realised that also fits the challenge fro the Little Paper Shop Blog quite neatly because the colours are definitely non-traditional, i.e. not green or red, so I hope that they will accept my entry!)

The main reasons for that is that this challenge was quite different to my usual card making style. The challenge meant that we had to use a particular layout with lots of layers and extra bits that I am not used to; and secondly, we had to use a Whiff of Joy stamp. Now…I had won Herb with Baby last year but not gotten round to using it because it wasn’t really my style.

Nevertheless, here it is! (do click to make bigger!)

As you can see – not my usual style at all so most definitely a challenge for me!! Do go and find out about the latest Whiff of Joy challenge cos you might just win something!! (and after all, it is WCMD!)

Christmas

I am just beginning to get cracking on my Christmas cards for this year. I do have a stack left over from last year, but I think that you can never have too many cards as I am sure that you will all no doubt agree!

Today I was playing around with this week’s sketch from the Card Positioning Sketch blog and I find that I am generally somewhat dissatisfied with my results.

I think that I have a lot to learn about what goes with what and what embellishments look good or how to just play round with what I have without getting overwhelmed by the choice!!

What I also find is that if I have played around with various combinations for too long then I end up not liking the final card because I was never quite happy with it at any point.

Oh well – no-one was ever an expert the first time around and I think that with hobbies like this it takes longer unless you have a knack for that kind of thing. At least I can have a lot of fun practicing; and I wonder whether the experts still occasionally make a card that they are not satisfied with.