Shades of Growing Green

Since I've been enjoying a long Easter break with my family, I haven't been able to join in with my usual challenges this week. But there's just time to squeeze a card in for the Less is More colour challenge: to use Three Shades of Green. Come and see:

Green is my favourite colour - I even used a stamp set with green in the title, Growing Green, which must have been a subconscious decision! The Stampin' Up greens are all gorgeous but I eventually narrowed my choice down to Certainly Celery, Old Olive and Garden Green. The central masked panel was supposed to be sponged in Certainly Celery but I think there must have been Old Olive ink left on my sponge! The dotty strip layered over it is one of three lovely, long stamps from the Borderlines set. (Borderlines is only available until the end of this month, by the way, along with everything else in the spring mini catalogue.)

I'm always fascinated by green flowers! These were given an Old Olive wash with an aqua painter and the centres coloured with Certainly Celery and Garden Green markers. Its easy to add matching leaves because Stampin' Up inks, markers and card stock come in all 50 colours and embellishments and designer papers are designed to match too.

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

Stamps: Growing Green, Borderlines, Happiest Birthday Wishes (hostess set)

Ink: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Growing Green

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Garden Green

Other: Markers, 2-step bird punch, Little Leaves die, paper snips, 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).

It's lucky I didn't live in Victorian times (which I didn't, despite my children insisting that I must have!) as I would certainly have chosen to wear a green dress. Unfortunately the green dyes of the time apparently contained hefty amounts of arsenic and a green dress could kill!

It's always lovely to take a break but it's great to be back too. I know that I'll never be able to catch up on everything I've missed in Blogland so please forgive my lack of commenting this week. Normal service will resume next week!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you soon,

Masculine Monday Borderline circles

Good morning! I hope you've had a lovely weekend. Mine improved a great deal since the frozen pipes incident on Saturday and I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who left messages of support. I'm starting the week with a masculine card as usual and today I've been inspired by Susan's challenge at One Layer Wednesday: to make a one-layer card with at least 5 circles in it. Hmm, I had to think about this one for a little while but I'm quite pleased with the result. Come and see:

The design started with the 'happy' wrapped around the brown circle outline, which is part of a stamp from the Happiest Birthday Wishes stamp set. (This is why I always recommend markers - they give you the ability to pick out any portion of an image you want and that makes your stamps work so much harder.) I sponged in the green circle using a mask made with a punch and added the blue circle which is a stamp I made by running spare bits of rubber from a new stamp set through my Big Shot with the Fun Flowers Bigz die.

The dotty leaf is from Borderlines and is stamped within the brown circle outline using the mask again. Finally I added the 'Birthday' and grounded the design with a pierced line using the template from my mat pack - more circles!  Oh - and I rounded the bottom corners too to fit in with the rounded theme!

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Borderlines, Happiest Birthday Wishes (hostess set)

Ink: Bashful Blue, Pear Pizzazz, Island Indigo

Card stock: Naturals Ivory

Other: Early Espresso markers, mat pack, paper piercer, corner rounder, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these supplies for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I am committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to help and advise. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

Click here to see all the free Sale-a-bration sets and don't forget to let me know which ones you'd like - remember, you get one free item for EVERY £45 spent!

It's half term here so I have my lovely children and their friends popping in and out which always makes me happy. Naturally this means that I'm running a full-time soup kitchen and my chauffeur duties have intensified but I shall back with more crafting fun tomorrow! Hope to see you then,

Hugs,

Masculine Monday one layer Borderlines

I'm delighted to see that One Layer Wednesday, a favourite challenge of mine, is back! This week Susan is challenging us to create one layer male cards - which fits in very nicely with my weekly series Masculine Monday! Today, I've been experimenting with my Borderlines set from the spring mini catalogue - come and see:

I started off with a neutral palette of Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake and Baja Breeze, colouring the rubber of the long stamp with my markers. I found the final result looked best if I coloured each tile in the pattern randomly. I'd chosen to get this set in clear mount and find it's so easy to position the images without using my stamp-a-majig. Here's a close-up of the pattern I made:

I love these muted shades and often wear clothes in them! I wanted to avoid too regimented a look so I took time choosing a sentiment...

...finally coming up with a combination of two stamps from the fabulous hostess set Happiest Birthday Wishes. Having one word overlapping the pattern gave this one-layer card a bit of interest and dimension, and stamping it in Cajun Craze ink made it pop a little.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Borderlines, Happiest Birthday Wishes (hostess)

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Baja Breeze and Cajun Craze markers

Card stock: Naturals Ivory

Other: Corner rounder, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these supplies for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I am committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to help and advise. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. 

I hope you've had a lovely weekend! Thank you for your good wishes for recovering our health; you'll be pleased to know that we're all much better now after a very quiet weekend. I've even had the time to enjoy my new carpet - although the trouble with having a new carpet is that it makes you realise that your whole house could do with a lick of paint! Oh a woman's work is never done!

Tomorrow is the start of Sale-a-bration and I shall be unveiling the gorgeous free items on offer! For every £45 you spend with me, you'll be able to choose one free stamp set or designer paper pack - so don't forget to get your wish lists ready!

See you tomorrow,