A couple of birds

Hello crafting pals!

An email pings into my inbox with a challenge reminder; I look at the stamps already out on my table and a pair of ideas appear in my head... That's how today's cards came into being! Come and see:

Yes, it's a twofer! The Twofer Challenge reminder popped up just after I had used the leaves for this card and, since the leaves usually sport a bird, I thought it would be perfect for this month's Critters challenge. Let's have a closer look:

For the background, I whisked some diluted Pool Party ink over a card panel with a sponge, adding some Craft white ink when it was dry, which gives this sort of glow. Once that was dry, I used markers to ink up just the leaves of my stamps with nice autumnal colours - I do love this time of year! The stamps are from a long-retired Stampin' Up set, called Touch of Nature, that I still love to bits :)

I inked up the bird separately with a light, neutral Sahara Sand marker, coloured him with Stampin' Up Blendabilities and cut him out. I'm not sure what sort of bird he's meant to be, but I coloured him as a blue tit - such friendly little birds! The gorgeous sentiment is from one of my current favourite stamp sets - Beautiful Branches by Concorde and 9th.

My second card is a Christmas card - I never waste an opportunity to get those festive cards made!

For this one, I rootled about for some designer paper and came up with this beauty! It's from a pack of retired Stampin' Up papers called All is Calm, and those snowflakes are silver foiled onto the paper. I sponged it with Pool Party ink, stamped some trees on it (Spruce Trees by Inkylicious), then polished it up with a tissue to make a lovely shiny background.

The background was matted onto Tangelo Twist card stock so my Robin didn't have to make everything merry and bright all by himself! I stamped a good-to-honest sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Cityscape and popped it up on dimensionals.

Robins have sharper, pointier beaks than blue tits, so I adjusted that with a fineliner, gave my bird a longer tail and coloured him as a robin, using Spectrum Noir markers this time. I perched him in a snow drift made by punching out white circles and trimming them to fit the background. It amused me to have him looking up at the sentiment as if to say "Who put that sign there?!"

This is my second go at The Twofer Card Challenge this month - I find it a lot of fun to make different cards, for different occasions, using the same stamp, stencil or die!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My youngest son has been asked to clear out his room before going off to uni. It is a slow process! I recently bought a new vacuum cleaner, a Henry, which I'm delighted with. Henry looks like this:

The state of my son's room will probably be clearer when I explain that today is the first time he has met Henry! He suggested that Henry can be a son substitute when he goes. "Let's face it," he said. "He'll be better at cleaning up than I ever was!" Henry IS very cute. But not as cute as my son!

Thanks for visiting me today - always lovely to have you here :)

See you soon,

Apples and using up the left overs

Hello crafting pals!

One of the things that I love about living in small-town England at this time of year is that you often come across a box of apples outside someone's front gate with a note on it reading: Help Yourself! People have apple trees and plum trees and they can't keep up with jam-making/freezing or whatever, so they share. I thought a thank you card would be nice! Come and see:

This is a proper snippets card! The background was intended for this Christmas card but I messed up was a bit too creative with the sentiment, so I cut it off to make it a square. To reflect the apple-ish nature of the card,  I added some leaves to the background using a long-ago retired Stampin' Up set called Touch of Nature.

The basket from my Hen Pecked stamp set was stamped twice: First, directly onto the background where I coloured the handle with Spectrum Noir markers (I knew it would be too skinny to cut out successfully); then again, on separate card stock, where I coloured the lower part of the image before cutting it out. The basket of apples started life as a basket of eggs but with a dash of colour and a few stalks, you'd never know!

The sentiment (from Clearly Besotted's Blossoms in Bloom) was stamped on a tiny snippet of white card stock - I'm always delighted when I can use those up! I stapled it to the edge of my basket panel and glued it to a square card base.

I am entering this card into Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge where using up your snippets is the order of the day! I understand Miss has been celebrating a birthday so I will be bringing along a box of birthday cupcakes to share - they're only very slightly shaken up (oh crumbs!)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I've got one week with my youngest son before he goes off to uni. Today he appeared in the kitchen musing about what he fancied to eat (he makes himself lunch these days and is a very good cook.) "There's some chilli on the stove from last night," I told him. "You could make loaded nachos with it." He stared at me as if I were a goddess. "Yes," he said in awed tones. "That is the exact thing I want!" Oh my goodness, I will miss him!

Thanks for reading my nonsense! I'll be back soon,

A splash of Autumn

Hello crafting friends!

There's still an autumnal feel in the air here so I've cracked open the warm yellows, greens and browns for today's card. It was a lot of fun to make although I learned one thing from it - The Crafting Square Metre needs more stamps!!! Come and see:

The sketch at Freshly Made Sketches is a beauty this week and I really wanted to play along. 

Large autumn flowers would work in this lay out, I thought. Hours later, after rootling about at the back of the cupboard, I finally came up with a flower from long-retired Stampin' Up set, Touch of Nature. There were no leaves with it though, so I had to draw some! I coloured everything in with Spectrum Noir markers, fussy cut them and laid them aside while I made a background.

That strong circular element in the sketch was easily dealt with - I just inked up the rims of some glasses and stamped them! Don't worry, I gave them a good wash afterwards, so no-one's going around with a surprise moustache! I felt the card needed a bit of texture, so I had a go at flicking inky water at the card. I think it worked quite well!

Once the background was dry I stamped a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Blossoms in Bloom onto a scored piece of card stock and assembled all the elements onto the card panel. The finishing touch was to add a sprinkling of coloured gems and attach the panel to the card base.

The Allsorts challenge this week is to create something with Autumn colours, so this card is for them too :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I'm off to London to visit my daughter and it is possible I might just pass a real live craft shop! If so, I think a flower or two - WITH leaves - might just be on my shopping list... Do let me know if there are any you think I should visit :)

Thanks for joining me today. I'll be back soon with more inky nonsense!

Hugs,

Three minutes with free papers!

Hello! I hope you had a wonderful Easter break. I've had a few days off to celebrate with my family but I'm back in the saddle for today's Three Minute Thursday slot. Stampin' Up is giving away a free paper pack with orders of £45 or more this month and I've been having a play with my favourite from the range, Beyond the Garden. Come and see what I came up with:

Sometimes a paper is so striking that it easily stands alone with minimal embellishment - and that's just what's going on here! Wow - this paper is amazing isn't it?!

I simply cut a panel for the front of my card base and added a ribbon-tailed sentiment strip and some bakers twine which stays perfectly in place because I've made a tiny notch at each end of the paper. The four-petalled flower in the Itty Bitty punch set did that job for me - it's amazing how many uses each punch has!

And if, like me, you've been wishing for bakers twine in Stampin' Up colours like this gorgeous Island Indigo version, be patient and watch this space!

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Thank You Kindly

Ink: Garden Green

Card stock: Pacific Point, scrap of Whisper White for the sentiment strip

Other: Island Indigo bakers twine, Itty Bitty punch set, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. And don't forget to add a free pack of designer paper if your order is £45 or more (Offer limited to one pack per qualifying order - click here for details).

Buckingham had comedy weather over the Easter weekend but we had a lovely time indoors enjoying great company and good food. I made a huge treasure hunt for the children, with cryptic clues which they had enormous fun solving. It ended in a mountain of chocolate eggs and after that things became strangely quiet (apart from the sound of munching and slurping!) 

I thought you might like to see our Easter tree - we went for something a bit different this year. The children and I stamped birds (from Nature Walk, Young Vermillion and Touch of Nature) and coloured them using an ancient bird book from our bookshelf as a guide. Then we cut them out and stuck them to our Easter tree with glue dots - you can see a blackbird, robin and grey wagtail in the photo below.

While we were making these, my oldest son kindly shared his bird impressions with us. The first one was supposed to be some kind of hawk but sounded like a demented parrot. He came out with five more bird impressions which all sounded exactly the same until we, helpless with laughter, had to beg him to stop!

Thank you for coming to see me today. I shall be back tomorrow with something floral - do come and join me again!

Hugs,

Natures Touch - a fond farewell

You could hear a pin drop in my house today. It seems very quiet and empty without my lovely children who all piled off to school this morning. But I have had lots to do and naturally I am able to work much more efficiently when they're not here!

Today I'm going to show you a card made with the beautiful stamp set Touch of Nature. I could hardly believe it when I saw this set on the Last Chance List  but it's true - Touch of Nature is only available until the end of this month!

Stamps like the ones in Touch of Nature are perfect for the sponged and stamped cards like this one that I'm so fond of making.

Here's how to make this card:

• Cut a 9cm x 7.5cm piece of Whisper White card stock.
• Stamp the bird branch first and then stamp just the leafy sections of both branches around it in Chocolate Chip ink. Colour you images using a variety of inks and a blender pen.
• Sponge Old Olive and Garden Green ink around the edges of the card stock over the leaves.
• Sponge Bashful Blue in the gaps of 'sky' taking care not to sponge over the bird. (Usually you would sponge the sky first, but I like this way because it gives an intense backlit effect.)
• Sponge Chocolate Chip ink round the edges of the card stock - this will intensify the lighting effect.
• Stamp a few branches in versamark ink onto an Old Olive card blank and mount the panel onto the centre.

Supplies
Stamps: Touch of Nature
Ink: Old Olive, Garden Green, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Really Rust, Bashful Blue, versamark
Card stock: Old Olive, Whisper White
Other: Blender pen

Of course there are all sorts of other things you can do with the Touch of Nature set. Here are some other cards I've made with it in the past:

The branches from the set are so handy! Here's one of the branches with the apple from Tart and Tangy.

And here it is again, cut out this time, with the lovely fox from Fox and Friends. Look at that gorgeous designer paper! That's on the Last Chance List too - grab it while you can before it's gone for good at the end of the month! Chocolate Chip ribbon won't be available after September either... what am I going to do without that?!

Here's the butterfly from the set looking fabulous in Elegant Eggplant and Pink Passion. Don't forget that lots of the colours are retiring to make way for the exciting new Stampin' Up colours - check the Last Chance List to stock up on your favourites.

Here's a card using the delicate fern stamp - the image is strong enough to use on a one layer card.

If you're interested in Touch of Nature or any of the other stamp sets and accessories on the Last Chance List, my advice is don't delay as they do go very quickly. Check the Last Chance List here! To order, just drop me an email when you've chosen your items.

Thank you for stopping by today.
I'll have more cards here for you tomorrow.
Hope to see you then!

Book marks using Touch of Nature, Autumn Days, Pocket Silhouettes

How many times have a used a torn scrap of used envelope to mark a page in my book? Well, I've been thinking - my books deserve better! So I set to work on a bookmark...

... and got a bit carried away!

These are made by sponging a strip of Whisper White card stock with ink using sponge daubers. I used Bashful Blue for the sky and Old Olive and Soft Suede for the ground. The foliage images are from various sets and are stamped in Old Olive and Always Artichoke over the top of the sponged background. The flowers are punched from bright card stock with the Boho Blossoms punch and attached to the stamped strip with coordinating brads. The corners at the top of the strip were rounded and then it was matted onto coloured card stock.  I stuck a matching 1/2" circle to the top, punched a hole through all the layers and threaded it with 1/4" grosgrain ribbon. And there we have it - really quick and such fun to make!

Supplies
Stamps: Touch of Nature, Autumn Days, Pocket Silhouettes
Ink: Bashful Blue, Old Olive, Soft Suede, Always Artichoke
Card stock: assorted colours
Other: Boho Blossom, 1/2" and 1/4" circle punches, 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, brads

Of course, I didn't stop there...

Here are a couple using the wider grosgrain ribbon attached with staples. Doesn't that All a Flutter butterfly look gorgeous in blue? It's so easy to add soft colour with your ink pads and a blender pen.

It seemed a waste not to use up these scraps of the beautiful Cottage Wall designer paper! I stamped the paper with leaves from the Pocket Silhouettes stamp set, matted it onto Rich Razzleberry card stock and attached flowers punched with the Boho Blossoms and 5 petal punches using silver brads.

So now reading, which is already a real luxury for me, will become an even greater pleasure! And why not make some more to add a personal touch to a gift of a book or a book token? Believe me, it's quite hard to stop once you get going!

With the holidays fast approaching is easy to lose yourself in the busy end-of-term rush. But don't forget to schedule in some 'me' time - a stamping party with your girlfriends may be just the breather you need! Why not email me to see if the date you want is free.

See you soon!

FTL 97 Challenge with Sweet Pea DSP and A touch of Nature

I love the summer - the sunshine makes me feel quite creative! My version of Natasha's FTL sketch on the Clean and Simple site this week is a summery little number. And also quite birdie - so I photographed it in a tree (not me, the card!) Here's the sketch:

And here's my card-in-a-tree:

I made a background by sponging Whisper White clouds onto Bashful Blue card stock and then stamping leaves from the Touch of Nature stamp set in Always Artichoke and  Old Olive. The edge of the card stock is also sponged with Always Artichoke just to give a little bit of definition. I cut three sizes of this charming bird from the Sweet Pea papers, mounted them onto scraps of card stock to stiffen them and cut them out. The sentiment was stamped onto a strip of Very Vanilla card stock and the birds popped up onto dimensionals.

Supplies
Stamps: Touch of Nature, Trendy Trees (sentiment)
Ink: Always Artichoke, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White craft
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Bashful Blue
Other: Sweet Pea designer paper stack

Have you noticed that this card is a bit topsy turvy? Instead of using designer paper for the background, I stamped my own; instead of stamping my focal images, I've cut them out of designer paper. All part of the fun!

Right - I must be off! I have a beautiful daughter whose hair requires styling for a party!
Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

Baroque Motif coordinated gift set

Regular readers of this blog will know that I just love matching gift sets! When I bought this little pampering vanity case it gave me the inspiration for a coordinating card:

Don't these hot orange colours make you think of sun sea and sand... (Sigh. Only three weeks to go until the end of term!)

To make the card I stamped the flourish from Baroque Motifs in Whisper White craft ink on Pumpkin Pie card stock and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. The flower stamp from Touch of Nature was given the same treatment and just the flower head cut out - I made three of these. They were arranged on the flourish, adhered with dimensionals and finished with pearls from my Pretties kit. I rounded the corners of the Pumpkin Pie panel and matted it onto Only Orange card stock with its corners rounded too. It was then adhered to a Pumpkin Pie card base.

Supplies
Stamps: Touch of Nature, Baroque Motifs
Ink: Whisper White craft ink
Card stock: Pumpkin Pie, Only Orange
Other: White embossing powder, heat tool, corner rounder, pearls from the Pretties kit

I thought this made rather a pretty little gift - but there was something missing... I know! How about a box to put it in? When you have one of the Fiskars trimmers and a scoring blade, it's easy to rustle up a box in whatever size you need!

I used Whisper White card stock for the base of the box and this scrumptious orange dots designer paper from the Sweet Pea stack for the lid. Using Sticky Strip ensures that my boxes stay firmly stuck together.  I used the 3/4" circle punch for the sides of the lid.

Here's the finished box, tied up with 1/4" grosgrain ribbon in Pumpkin Pie. I made a tag using the It's Beautiful wheel on a scrap of Whisper White card stock and stamping a sentiment on top. That was punched out with the small tag punch and matted onto Pumpkin Pie card stock punched out with the large tag punch. I pierced a hole through the tag and tied it to the ribbon with silver elastic cord.

I think we all struggle for ideas sometimes but I hope these coordinating gift sets show that there is a wealth of inspiration out there. Next time you lose your mojo why not pop out to your high street and take a look at the fantastic packaging on those shelves!

I'll be showing you some more gift boxes tomorrow.
See you then!

Bottle tag using Studio Sketches

It's a lovely gesture to bring flowers and wine to a party or when you're invited to dinner and it doesn't take long to dress them up to make them a little bit more special. This bottle tag is easy to make and there's room to write a message to add that personal touch. Here's how:

1. Cut a piece of Whisper White card stock 6 cm wide x 24 cm long, then score and fold it at 6 cm. You will get a square section on one side of the fold.

2. Cut a piece of designer paper 5.5 cm wide x 23.5 cm long, then score and fold at 5.75 cm. Again you will get a square section on one side of the fold.

3. First adhere only the square section of the designer paper to the Whisper White card stock. Fold it and then adhere the longer part - this ensures that the bottle tag sits nicely and doesn't buckle.

4. Punch out a hole in the square section using a 1 1/4" circle punch.

5. Cut another piece of Whisper White card stock 5 cm wide x 12 cm high. Stamp a sentiment at the top and an appropriate image on the bottom. Colour in if necessary.

6. Adhere the label to the bottle tag. It's now ready for your personalised message! I made a mistake while writing my message so I turned it into a star shape with a Ruby Red marker... No-one would ever know!

I used designer series paper in Old Olive, a sentiment from Sincere Salutations and an image from the Studio Sketches hostess set which I coloured with Earth Elements markers and a blender pen. Don't forget to book your party ladies - you KNOW you need this hostess set!!!

I've used my bottle tag to turn a bottle of wine into a teacher appreciation gift - and that goes for this little basket of flowers too:

This is an inexpensive flower arrangement from a supermarket but it looks pretty classy embellished with the stunning Rich Razzleberry polka dot ribbon and a tag made with Cottage Wall designer paper and the butterfly from Touch of Nature.

Hope you've enjoyed these little gift ideas today.
I've just realised what the date is - I think there'd better be a Fathers' Day card coming up this week or I'm going to be in big trouble!
Hope to see you soon.

FTL Challenge 89 with butterflies

I love it when Natasha posts her clean and simple sketches on Fridays, and always want to get straight onto it, but life has a habit of intervening. It's Saturday and I'm just off to a Quiz night but surely there's just time to squeeze in a quick card! Here's the sketch this week:

I was at a standstill for this challenge as I didn't have an image in three sizes. But then I remembered I had that wonderful butterfly paper from the Sweet Pea stack and I thought of combining it with the All a Flutter  stamp and the butterfly from Touch of Nature. Here's the result:

It doesn't work that well because the paper butterfly isn't quite the same as the ones that I've coloured. But hey! It was worth a try! I cut the paper with the small butterfly in it and cut round the wing. The edges of the paper are faux stitched, sponged and roughed up with my fingernail. The two larger butterflies are stamped in Chocolate Chip ink, coloured with a blender pen in Pumpkin Pie and Tempting Turquoise and positioned in the triangle. Finally I stamped the sentiment, positioning it with my stamp-a-majig, and mounted the panel onto a card base made from Very Vanilla card stock.

Supplies:
Stamps: All a Flutter, Touch of Nature, Sincere Salutations
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Whisper White
Other: Sweet Pea designer paper stack, Chocolate Chip marker, Paper Piercer, Stamp-a-majig

There are more birthdays coming up in my family. Do join me tomorrow for another gift wrap/card set.
But for now it's time to zoom off and display my lack of general knowledge to the world!
Thanks for visiting!

Touch of Nature butterfly birthday

Here's another card in my week of birthdays series. This time the card is for a friend who is beautiful and glamorous and a social butterfly! These colours would suit her so well.

I was pleased with the little detail on the ribbon - here it is in close-up:

I love the way the Pink Passion 'sings' next to the other colours and I'm pleased with the touches of gold too. You wouldn't think that the butterfly would work in this contemporary style card but I think it does.

Supplies:
Stamps: Touch of Nature (butterfly), Vintage Labels (sentiment)
Ink: Elegant Eggplant, Pink Passion
Card stock: Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant, Pink Passion
Other: Gold brads, gold elastic cord, Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, designer paper (retired)

It was the most glorious day here in Buckingham, so this afternoon we went to Stowe gardens for a walk. (These beautiful gardens belong to the National Trust and are described as 'one of the most remarkable creations of Georgian England' - click here for a photo gallery.) On the way back my husband spotted a large red plastic object lying in the grass and wondered if someone had left their ball behind. My youngest son had other ideas. "Perhaps it's a red snake!" he suggested hopefully.
Hope your day was as fun as ours.