Just keep swimming

Hello, crafting friends!

 

After a long walk on Saturday morning with Eva and her spaniel pal, I thought the rest of the morning would be good for ignoring the chores and instead having a catch up with some challenges that have caught my eye this week! Please don't judge! 

 

So this card was started by cutting a panel and taping an arch die cut upside down onto it. I then positioned Uniko's Tiger Print stencil over the top of that and sponged blue ink into it. The stencil was taken away but before removing the arch mask, I sponged more blue ink over the top of the stenciling. I wanted it to look like swirling ocean waves.

 

In the upside down arch shape, I coloured a sky and sea with more sponged ink and some coloured pencils. I stamped a fish from Clearly Besotted's Under the Sea on a snippet of white paper, coloured it with coloured pencils and fussy cut it. The sentiment is from MFT's You're Fin-tastic, stamped in dark blue ink and heat embossed and the fish was popped up on a dimensional pad next to it. The panel was glued onto a yellow mat, attached to a card base and the card finished with some lovely shiny enamel dots for a bit of extra detail :)

CHALLENGES

Jen Mitchell's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches intrigued me and I had to join in there; The inspiration photo at Inspired By dictated the theme, along with Allsorts where Brenda's challenge is All (Real) Creatures Great and Small; I'm also playing along with Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Goes.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When Eva found out the title of this post, she assured me that she has every intention of keeping on swimming!

 

I think she's enjoying her summer!

Sending hugs,

I'm always Blowing kisses

Hello, crafting friends!

Welcome to Saturday and another fun-filled challenge from Addicted to CAS! It's Jaydee's turn to host the challenge and let's see what code word she has chosen:

Hopefully you're in the mood for splashing about in the sea - I know I am! 

This little scene was created with the Scenic Borders stencil by Funky Fossil and the Under the Sea stamp set by Clearly Besotted. I sponged ink into the waves part of the stencil and added more ink to the edge of the card base once the stencil was removed. The scene was built up with sea plants which I coloured with coloured pencils.

I masked a bit of the seaweed off so one of the fish could appear to be behind it when I stamped it and coloured it. I stamped the fish again on scrap card, coloured it and fussy cut it. These fish are pretty symmetrical so I was able to position this one upside down so that she is facing the original fish. To finish, I stamped a sentiment from MFT and added bubbles with a Posca white acrylic paint pen.

So now it's over to you and I can't wait to see all your fabulous fishy creations! Do pop over to  the Addicted to CAS blog and see what my teamies have made to inspire you. The Linky Tool is at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your creation. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with Watercooler Wednesday where Marsha is hosting the All About Occasions challenge; I'm also joining in with The Male Room where they are celebrating their 8th Birthday - congratulations everyone!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Making this scene reminded me of a trip to Mexico when I snorkelled with what I called 'happy fish' because I had never seen or imagined such brightly coloured creatures swimming about in the warm waters. It seems as if it happened in a completely different life, and to be fair it was actually half my lifetime ago!

Sending hugs,

Birthday fishes

Hello, crafting friends!

My youngest nephew will be 15 in a minute which seems crazy to me - did I fall asleep for ten years or something?! Anyway, I wanted to make him smile and thought a punning little card would do the trick:

I started this scene off by sponging pale blue ink down two thirds of a card panel, adding yellow and kraft inks for 'sand' and finally adding depth with a darker blue ink round the edges. The sunlight-through-water effect is achieved with a sunshine stencil (Sunny Day by Clearly Besotted) positioned upside down and with that pale blue ink sponged into it over the initial inking. Once I'd finished the inking, I clapped wet hands over the panel to create a bit of texture and movement.

The fish and seaweed are from Clearly Besotted's Under The Sea. You may have noticed that I use coloured pencils a lot at the moment, and this is where they really come into their own. No need to stamp, colour and cut out with oil-based pencils; you can simply stamp directly onto an inky background and colour over the ink as they are pretty opaque.

I trimmed the card panel to size with a stitched rectangle die, then stamped the fun sentiment from MFT's Your Fin-tastic. The panel was then attached to a card base. 

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So happy that this card won the Watercooler Wednesday Rockstar award!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card yup with The Sisterhood of Crafters where the theme is Water Water Water; also Watercooler Wednesday where Heidi is hosting the All Things Masculine challenge; and As You See It which is also looking for Masculine cards.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I'll leave you with this photo...

"Waiter, there's a puppy in my soup!"

Sending hugs,

Pisky fish

Hello crafting friends!

There's nothing like back-of-the-mind worry to strike the mojo down and, over the last week or two, I've done my share of looking at crafting challenges, looking at my stash and thinking 'um...' But today, ideas happened and I had a lovely crafting session! Come and see:

I started off by inking the sea using a mask made with one of the Lawn Fawn Stitched Simple Wavy Border dies. Holding the mask down, I blended a blue and a blue-green ink upwards, moving the mask a small amount each time. The panel was cut out with a Stitched Rectangle die from Heffy Doodles and trimmed at the top with one of Lawn Fawn's Stitched Puffy Cloud Border dies.

The fish is from Under the Sea by Clearly Besotted. I stamped him, coloured him with alcohol markers and fussy cut him. The sentiment was stamped in Memento black ink over the sea and the fish popped up on a dimensional at a jaunty angle :)

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
I was very proud that this card was picked as the winner at CASology!

CHALLENGES
It was the Masking challenge at Perfectly CAS that got me started today and the fish represented a Pisces for CASology's Zodiac code word. Cardz 4 Guyz want to see cards with a By or In the Sea theme, and at Watercooler Wednesday there's an Anything Goes With a Masculine Twist challenge so I'll join in there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
One of our nicknames for my youngest son is The Biscuit. (Nope, no idea why!) This has sometimes morphed into The Bisky Bat (no clue about this either!) He is also a Pisces, so The Bisky Bat turns into The Pisky Fish around birthday time. We were lucky enough to have been able to celebrate his birthday outside and in a restaurant before Covid-19 hit the UK, but this card might be for him next year :)

Hope you are having a peaceful and productive weekend. What are you up to today?

Hugs,

Just keep swimming

Hello crafting pals!

I've been wanting to join in with LeAnne's sketch over at the Paper Players but every time I've had an idea, it's all gone horribly wrong! I finally found a way to make it work - deep in the recesses of my designer paper drawer! Come and see:

I had made a fishy looking panel inspired by the wonderful photo at Just Us Girls this week and had thought I could mount it on some panels of white card stock (but no, it was too messy); an ombré panel then? (no, the colours didn't work and the result was overpowering); how about embossed panels (ugh - take them away!); subtle woodgrain? (Aaaaargh!) Eventually, I found a snippet of paper that I think works okay!

The fishy scene was stamped with Clearly Besotted's Under The Sea and coloured with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I added bubbles from the set with white craft ink and added two extra fish I'd stamped and coloured separately, fussy cut and popped up on dimensionals.

All the panels were cut out with my stitched rectangle dies from Heffy Doodles. I added a sentiment stamped on an offcut.

Edited to add: Proud to say this card won Chic of the Week at Just Us Girls!

CHALLENGES
Here's LeAnne's sketch at The Paper Players - can you see the three panel background element that caused me so much trouble?! And here's the gorgeous coral reef photo at Just Us Girls that triggered my fishy scene!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
As well as that challenge photo, the fishy panel was inspired by a silk midi skirt belonging to my daughter - an amazing find in a thrift shop. The skirt is very bright and summery and I always used to ham it up and pretend to be blinded by it whenever my daughter wore it! This card will be sent to her at some stage and I know it will make her chuckle :)

Hope you're having a good week! What have you been up to?

Hugs,

A wander down Memory Lane

Hello crafting friends!

*Raises coffee cup* Happy New Year and I hope 2020 brings you happy times :)

I've been pottering about in the craft square metre today but the light levels are so low I couldn't photograph anything. I did notice that The Card Concept has a fun challenge going though: to show your favourite card of 2019 and/or your Christmas tree.

I had taken a four-year break from crafting before coming back to it in July of this year, and during that time I'd lost most of my stash. So it has been wonderful building my creative muscles back up as well as building a new stash!

I have two favourite cards this year and both were made using techniques that were new to me. Here's the first:

This background was an experiment that worked better than I had imagined! I topped it with (new) roses coloured with (new) alcohol markers - EVERYTHING was new and SO exciting and I think it's safe to say I fell in love with alcohol markers!
Details of this card are here.

My other favourite is this one:

I was having so much fun experimenting with alcohol markers and this was when I realised you could use them to create a background and combine them with water-based inks and sponging techniques... mind blown!
Details of this card are here.

Would you like to see our Christmas tree? Here it is:

I always put it in a large earthenware pot and add gravel which keeps it in place. It also makes it very stable for when we have dogs round to play with Eva - sometimes the young ones can be quite lively! It's decorated with yellow-based clear lights and red, white, silver and orange ornaments that I've been collecting over the years, and it's hung with lengths of sequins. When I was a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I had loads of rolls of this and this was the perfect way to use them!

CHALLENGES

Thanks for coming to visit me today. It's been lovely casting my mind back to July when I seriously wondered whether I could get back into crafting. Looking at my stash now, it's clear that my main problem is going to be storage... and I'm sure some of you can relate to that! I'd be very interested to hear your top storage tips for a tiny space - do share in the comments below.

I shall be back as soon as we get a bit of daylight!

Hugs,

Besotted by Clearly Besotted

Hello crafting friends!

Did you see that I'd mentioned a little bit of shopping yesterday? I have discovered a British photopolymer stamp designer and manufacturer that you probably all know about but that I'm SO EXCITED to have discovered - Clearly Besotted! I'll show you my haul in a minute but first come and see a card I made with one of the stamp sets:

Whoops, sorry, I should've asked you to pop your sunglasses on first! This was made with the cutest little set called Under the Sea and it's perfect for kids' cards but also for young adults that like animated TV and film (two of mine do.) They're also of the age where they're saving to go on 'trips of a lifetime' and I can imagine slipping some folding money in this card to pay for a square meal!

I'm still in my Spectrum Noir honeymoon period so this card was made almost entirely with my markers (I'm practising!) combined with a bit of sponging using my Stampin' Up inks. The little diver was fussy cut and popped up with dimensionals and the front panel was attached to the card base with dimensionals too.

The sentiment is from another Clearly Besotted set called Fly With Me, stamped on white cardstock, snipped into a banner shape and attached with my mini stapler. One of the (many) things I love about this company is that they do great sentiments, not too saccharine, and often in gorgeous fonts.

So, do you want to see what arrived in the post?

Looks like I'm going to be having a lot of fun! Clearly Besotted don't just do 'cute' as you can see - there are beautiful florals, quirky sets, fabulous graphic scenes... all in high quality photopolymer. And they do coordinating dies and stencils too. AND there's a clearance sale - lots of these beauties cost next to nothing! Go and have a look!

I am in no way affiliated to this company, and they have no idea I'm writing this, but I am a huge fan and I will definitely be back for more. Do let me know if you love this company too - we can enthuse together!

Thanks for coming to visit me today. I'll be back soon,