Late for a very important date!

Hello, crafting friends!

Welcome to another crafty challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. Our host Holly has come up with a sketch for you to play with this week:

Everyone seems to be talking about 'Christmas in July'  this month and it must have rubbed off on me because I've come up with a fun festive card for my stash - and just look at the expression on this little cutie's face!

Most of my card front was masked off, leaving a two inch section for my scene. The goofy looking Rudolph is from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters and I chuckled as I stamped him because he really does look like a reindeer who has forgotten the time and is late for a very important appointment with Santa and his sleigh!

I coloured him with coloured pencils adding in a basic blue background. The snow was added with a Posca white acrylic paint pen and I stamped a sentiment along one of the diagonals. The final detail was to draw a red line on the two lefthand edges of the scene to add a bit of depth.

So now it's your turn! There's some fabulous inspiration at the CAS Colours and Sketches blog from the design team as well as this week's special guest Michal of Scrappy Hour. You'll find the Linky Tool at our website too so  that you can upload your own creation when you're ready. Have fun - but don't forget to keep your card nice and clean and simple with plenty of that all-important clean space!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with some challenge sites that are asking for Christmas themes: AAA Cards has a Twinchie theme with optional Christmas in July; Less is More is looking for clean and simple cards with a Christmas theme; The Male Room wants to see Christmas cards suitable for the males in our lives; and I'm joining in with Happy Little Stampers Christmas where there's an optional Jingle Bells theme.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I think I am just about getting over the disappointment of the England football team missing out on the European Cup trophy on Sunday night. It has been a lot of fun to get together with family and friends to watch the key games in the tournament and I applaud our wonderful team for doing so well. 

Sending hugs,

Flying by with some happy mail

Hello, crafting friends!

Are you  ready for a little colour? Okay, let's go!

I had been looking at some designer paper decorated with great big coloured circles, and it suddenly occurred to me that circles make a great background. I wanted my circles to overlap so I put away the paper, punched a circle into a sticky note and inked colour into it, moving the template every time I changed ink colour.

The little bird carrying the envelope is from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters - a set that has not been put away in the Christmas box because it has proved itself to be an all-the-year-rounder! I stamped my bird, coloured him and the envelope with alcohol markers and fussy cut him. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up's Pretty Perennials - I thought it went well with the image.

CHALLENGES

I've been a slow coach but I think I'm in time to join in with CASology's Envelope challenge; I'm also linking up with Stamping Sensations, where the theme this month is a cheery Colour My World, and Watercooler Wednesday where Tristan is hosting the popular Occasions themed challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Hmm. Well the weather has taken a turn now - it was absolutely freezing and now it's not just absolutely freezing but also WET!! Never mind a glass of chilled fizz, I'm thinking this is the perfect evening to hunker down by the fire with a hot toddy and a nice romcom on TV!

Sending hugs,

Walking in a Woodlands Wonderland

Hello, crafting friends!

With all this ice and snow around it seemed a good idea to make a Christmas card! Any Christmas cards made now mean less rushing about at the end of the year and that makes sense to me :)

To start, I tipped the contents of my snippets box out onto the table and picked out some items I'd made for other projects but not used - a deer (from Stampin' Up's retired Winter Post) that was stamped and fussy cut; the number 25 (from Stampin' Up's retired 25 Days) that was in a star shape but I cut it out with a circle punch; a couple of tiny snippets of designer paper; and some die cut snowflakes (which I later put back as I decided to stamp my flakes instead.

Before arranging my elements on the card, I stencilled in a background. I held a homemade rectangle stencil off centre and sponged in sky/snow with Tumbled Glass distress ink. Over that, I held a stencil made with the Tim Holtz Woodlands die set and inked in some fir trees.

Then I was able to build up a collage with the snippets of paper (one of which I scalloped for a bit of interest), the deer and the 25. Finally he sentiment and the snowflakes (both from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters) were stamped and I added tiny details to the snowflakes and deer with a Posca white paint pen.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So lovely to be show-cased at The Snippets Playground with this card :) It also won a Cut Above at The Paper Players.

CHALLENGES

The starting point for this card was Joanne's exciting sketch at The Paper Players so I'm linking up there; I'm also joining in with the Stamplorations Stencil Challenge where Anything Goes using stencils; Such a Deer is the theme at the Christmas Kickstart challenge and of course it's time for the Rudolph Day Challenge too (where anything |Christmas goes from the 25th to the end of the month) so I'll link up there too.  And last but not least, I shall trot over to The Snippets Playground with my snippety make, if my deer doesn't mind giving me a lift!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's been lovely having the snow for Eva to play in and the day of intense blue sky and sunshine really gave my mood a boost too . But snow turns to ice which isn't what you need when recovering from a hamstring injury, especially not when in charge of large excited dogs!! The thaw has set in now - it's drizzling as I type -  and it'll all be gone by tomorrow leaving... oh heck, more mud :/

Sending hugs,

A warming cup of hot chocolate

Hello, crafting friends!

There's no doubt that the idea of a large mug of steaming hot cocoa, topped with whipped cream and marshmallows, is extremely attractive when you've just been rained on for an hour and a half! Today's card fulfilled that desire without any of the calories! 

I painted an acrylic block with some red and mustard inks mixed with water and smooshed it onto a piece of watercolour paper, then loaded my brush with the watery mustard ink and tapped it onto a pair of scissors to add splatters. I also tapped my Wink of Stella pen against the scissors to add a touch of glimmer. The panel was left to dry while I made a cup of hot chocolate.

No, not to drink! To add to the card! I stamped the large mug from Waffle Flower's Books and Coffee and used alcohol markers to colour it. Snowflakes from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters were added using white craft ink. There's a cute little label in Books and Coffee which I stamped, cut out and decorated with the tiny heart from the set. The cream/marshmallows is a cloud from Inky Doodles' Somebunny To Love, stamped and fussy cut and the candy cane is a snippet of striped designer paper cut out with the handle of Stampin' Up's Umbrella punch - cunning huh?!

The panel was stamped with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Cosy Christmas and mounted on a dark red mat before it was added to the card base.

CHALLENGES

The photo at The Card Concept really caught my eye this fortnight and I was inspired by the red mug, snowflake motif, the blurred background and the hot chocolate to create my Mixed Media card. I'm also joining in with CAS Mix Up where the theme is Splatters and Happy Little Stampers Water Colour where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We're big fans of hot chocolate as a treat in our family. The topping of marshmallows is known as marshMELLOWS because my youngest son misheard the word when he was little. We have lots of family words that he, as the youngest, misheard. Once, the Olympic Games were being held in a year when we holidayed by the sea. We would watch bits of the event on TV in the evenings and talked  about the Olympics often. While playing in the rock pools on the beach during the day, I pointed out limpets to my youngest son. All of us now call them Olympets as he heard the word! We have Nice Creams too, possibly because of the same holiday!

Sending hugs,

Happy blue, orange and yellow Christmas!

Hello, crafting friends!

I'm skipping about with a happy spring in my step today because I'm guesting with the incredibly talented team at CAS Christmas! And what a fun challenge they've got for you this month:

I love a non-traditional colour palette for Christmas and my only difficulty was choosing which colours! If you have this problem too, my top tip is to choose your stamp set first and then let the colours choose YOU! 

I went with this utterly adorable polar bear from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters and immediately thought of some zingy yellow stars and orange accents in a turquoise and white landscape.

I started by die-cutting a stitched rectangle of watercolour paper using a Heffy Doodle die, then water-colouring a smaller rectangle in blue ink. When it was dry I added some snow using an opaque acrylic paint. The bear features a little heart which I masked off while inking the image up with black ink, then un-masked and coloured with an orange marker before stamping. I added a little shading with an alcohol marker before cutting him out and adding him to my scene. The card was finished with a sprinkling of punched stars and a sentiment from a retired Uniko set.

Now it's your turn! I can't wait to see what colours pop into your head this month. Head over to CAS Christmas here and prepare to be knocked out by the fabulous inspiration from the DT. You can link up your card there when you're ready.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at the 'Not A Creature Was Stirring' challenge at Jingle Belles; also at Merry Little Christmas where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The bear in today's card reminds me of a little white bear that my daughter had when she was tiny. She had a whole collection of bears and this one was called Polo. My daughter was an early talker and used to enjoy solemnly reciting the names of all the bears. We would weave funny stories around them and I seem to recall that Polo was always a very naughty bear which would make my daughter giggle!!

Sending hugs,

The doves from above

Hello, crafting friends!

Like everyone else that is reading this I love playing with stamps, but my favourite thing is to find a surprising way to use them!

The bird in the recently-released Christmas Characters stamp set from Funky Fossil usually carries an envelope but it occurred to me that if there were two of them, they could carry a festive banner! 

So, I stamped one bird, then used the mirror technique to stamp another, shaded them with an alcohol marker and fussy cut them, snipping off the envelopes as I didn't need those. You can see what the stamp usually looks like from the image on the right in the photo above.

The banner is from WPlus9's Be Merry and I used an appropriate sentiment from Uniko's Pure Florals Poinsettia (retired), curving it slightly to fit. To give a suggestion of church, I stamped a stained glass window image from Stampin' Up's retired Painted Glass (retired) and added a rough plaster wall courtesy of their In Good Taste designer paper.

CHALLENGES

I shall link my doves from above up with this month's bird-themed challenge at CAS Christmas; I'm also joining in with Merry Little Christmas where as always, Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have decided The Craft Square Metre needs an overhaul! My crafting space is in the living room, so I have to be very tidy. I had cunningly interspersed the books on the bookshelves with tasteful boxes and baskets concealing a variety of exciting crafting goodies but the shelves were beginning to groan a little! So I have decided to move the crafting things to some stronger and deeper shelving in an alcove and move the CDs (yes, we still have those!) and paperbacks over to the other side of the room. I may be some time...!

Sending hugs,

Naughty or nice?

Hello, crafting friends!

What wonderful escapism card making is! While making today's card, I imagined this little grey kitten got a bit over-excited in the run up to Christmas and couldn't resist stealing his human's ball of wool to play with!

The card started with Funk Fossil's Arched Window stencil. Arched Window? I hear you cry! There's nothing arched about this window! Well that's because I turned the arch on its side and masked off the arched bit. Cunning huh?! I sponged blue ink into the panes and added snow with my Uni Posca white paint pen.

The tree is from Christmas Characters by Funky Fossil, and that cute puss cat and the ball of yarn is from Clearly Besotted's Fluffy Furball. I stamped them all, coloured them with alcohol markers, fussyy cut them and arranged them on a rug cut out of textured red card stock with an oval die. The space between the rug and the window was the perfect place for the sentiment, which is from another Clearly Besotted set, Red Robin.

CHALLENGES

I shall link this card up with Festive Friday, where I've chosen Cats, Yarn and Clean and Simple from the inspiration list. I'm also playing along with Allsorts, where they theme is Cute Christmas, and Merry Little Christmas where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's too early for snow to make an appearance here but the same cannot be said of rain! What Storm Alex lacked on the wind front, he certainly made up for with the wet stuff. After four days of pretty much permanent rain, the skies cleared yesterday morning and I took Eva to the park. She was delighted that someone had laid on some water features to entertain her and went absolutely loopy scampering in and out of them!

The photo on the left shows where the path would normally go. The river usually drops in a pretty little waterfall and flows gently along to the right of the path. There are benches where you can sit and admire the waterfall and you can just about see them submerged by the fence in the photo on the right. There are picnic tables to the left of the path, although no-one seemed to be using them today!! 

Hope you are keeping warm and dry! Sending hugs,

The autumn fairy

Hello, crafting friends!

I had an autumnal moment in the Craft Square Metre and when I came up for air, this card had happened:

I adore this little fairy from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters stamp set. She may come from a Christmas set but she's definitely an all-the-year-rounder! I made a layered background for her with three Funky Fossil stencils (Brick Wall, Fancy Trellis and Arched Window), stood her on a bit of wood-effect designer paper from SU and surrounded her with stamped leaves from Reverse Confetti's Fall Foliage.

The leaves were coloured with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and because I'd used my semi-coated card stock they have a lovely sheen. The fairy was stamped, coloured and fussy cut. I've given her the Wink of Stella treatment so she shimmers and she has a glowing amber gem on her dress. She looks as if she's summoning up a wind to swirl the leaves around but maybe she's just trying to remember where she left her keys...!

Tiny dots, added with a gold pen and with the Wink of Stella pen give that magical feel. To make the sentiment, I stamped the banner from Concord & 9th's Hello Sunshine turnabout set in Stazon ink on vellum, added a greeting from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said, and snipped it out.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

This card was chosen as the Sapphire Winner at Color My Heart Color Dare!

CHALLENGES

I'm squeaking in under the wire at The Rainbow Challenge's Autumnal Amber challenge. I will also link up at The Color My Heart Color Dare 413 where I've chosen Canary, Espresso and gold, adding in Toffee and Sundance! Allsorts are looking for Autumn Colours this week so I'm joining in there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I've been cleaning Eva's ears today. She is a very good girl about it I must say and the most difficult thing about it for me is getting her to sit in a position in the light where I can see what I'm doing. She always gets a nice treat when I've finished and she certainly looks forward to that!

It's terribly tiring though!!!

Sending hugs,