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,

There's a cat under my umbrella!

Hello crafting pals!

One of my favourite things about stamping is that you can combine images from different sets to create something unique - and often quite amusing! Come and see:

I absolutely love my new Under My Umbrella set from Stampin' Up and am enjoying finding new ways to use it. Cats are famously anti-water so I thought it would be fun to have this little cutie from Clearly Besotted's Fluffy Furball warding a shower off with the umbrella from the set!

I coloured the cat and grounded her with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers then added a paper pieced umbrella - so easy to do with the coordinating punch :) The expression on the little cat's face is absolutely priceless isn't it?! But hang on a second, why is the rain coming from only one direction? Could it be that the prankster pup next door has found out how to turn the hose pipe on?!!!

The rain is just a small stamp but with a little masking and a little patience you can easily cover a larger area with it. I added a 'thinking of you' sentiment but would have liked to have used 'Consider me your umbrella in the face of life's showers!' instead. What a shame SU didn't consult me about what kinds of sentiments would go well with this set, lol!!!

CHALLENGES
I'm linking up with the fabulous Festive Friday where they're celebrating the First Day of Spring. Your card doesn't have to be about spring though - the festivity is just a great excuse to list some inspiration prompts! I've chosen Green, Cute Animals and Rain/Umbrellas for my three.
Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge also has a great challenge this month - Use Your Favourite Technique. Like most crafters I suspect, I have lots of favourite techniques, but if I have to pick just one, I'll say alcohol markers (for the next ten minutes at least!)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
As you know, I like to cover the important issues of the day, so here's more hat news: The hat I'm now using is looser than the two I lost and Eva has a new game... if I bend down to pick up poop (sorry non-dog-owners, it's just a fact of life!) or to pat another dog, she whips the hat off my head and stands with it in her mouth, looking at me and wagging slowly. She has a sense of humour that one! Sometimes I let her carry it home for me because I love her, and that's what washing machines are for aren't they?!

Hugs,

A little Kitty in a basket

Hello crafting friends!

I am such a proud crafting lady today as I'm guesting at Addicted to CAS, shoulder to shoulder with the talented design team there :) Come and see what I've made:

Yep! It's a kitty. In a basket. (And I think we know a song about that don't we?!) But that's beside the point!

The code word for this clean and simple challenge is 'Creature' - SO much scope there! I bet your brain is already running through your stamps and coming up with all sorts of ideas!

My card started off with a wash of diluted So Saffron ink over a damp watercolour panel. When it was dry, I added a touch of crumb cake ink along a straight line mask to create a surface to stand my basket on.

The basket was inked up with a marker so I could leave out the eggs it normally contains, but I stuck to a pale neutral so it would be easy to colour over with Spectrum Noir markers. It was stamped twice: first on the watercoloured panel, where I coloured in just the handle; and then again on scrap card stock where I coloured the body of the basket and cut it out.

The little cat is from Clearly Besotted's Fluffy Furball and he's probably the cutest little puss I've ever seen! He's coloured with Spectrum Noirs too and cut out. I tucked him tenderly into the basket so that he was able to peek out, and I added a blue twine bow to the handle to match those baby blues!

The sentiment was put together from two retired sets. I love doing this and you do get a unique result!

It's been brilliant to be a guest at the wonderful Addicted to CAS which has provided me with so much inspiration in the past. Thanks for having me!

I can't wait to see what you're going to make of this code word! My personal hope is that someone will replicate The Creature From The Black Lagoon...!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Here's a picture of our very own local Creature From The Black Lagoon:

Of course not! It's just my little Eva, admittedly as a young girl, showing off to her rather intrigued friend! She is a proper water baby, and if it's muddy water, so much the better! If it's inky black, stinky mud, then that's better still!

Thanks for visiting me here today. I'm really looking forward to seeing your Creatures and if you have a mucky pup story, do let me know in the comments below!

Hugs,

Double Fluffy Furballs

Hello crafting pals!

It's probably just as well that while I was making today's cards, my charming assistant, Eva the Golden Retriever, was having a gentle snoozle. She'd had a busy morning swooshing post it notes off the coffee table with her tail. Every time she did it, I was gripped with the giggles and that made her tail wag harder and harder until there was a snow storm of post it notes and I was helpless with laughter! Anyway, I digress - come and see my creations, which feature *mouths words silently* a pussycat:

Yes, not just one card but two! It's because I'm enthusiastically playing along with the Twofer Card Challenge in which we are asked to make two cards, each for a different occasion but using the same stamp. This month the theme is Critters so I've chosen one of the cats from a very cute stamp set called Fluffy Furball by Clearly Besotted.

The first card I made was a birthday card:

I stamped Harry (I've named him after the red-headed prince), added a doodled smile and a paw, coloured him with Spectrum Noir markers and cut him out. I gave him a paw because he had to hold this balloon which I made by colouring inside a circle mask with the markers and adding the bit you blow into.

I had to draw a cushion as I don't have a stamp for that (does ANYONE have a cushion stamp?!!) Harry was asked to sit on the cushion against a scored background which reminded me of a venetian blind - cats always sit in the window don't they! A few punched stars and a sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Greetings and the card was done!

My second card is a Christmas card and Harry has had a makeover for this one:

We'll call him Robinson (after Smokey Robinson!) I liked the idea of lots of Christmas presents coming into the house and Robinson having to make his way out from behind them.

There he is, looking a bit "What did you put these here for?!" I had great fun making the presents out of snippets of left-over Christmas papers from yesteryear. They were decorated with tiny punches and bits of washi tape.

Do come and join in at the Twofer Card Challenge! It is so much fun, coming up with two different cards to make with the same stamp!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When Eva was a puppy, I trained her not to chase cats. Whenever we came across one, I'd say "Have you seen the pussycat?" and deliver a treat into her mouth. Eventually, she would look at me when she saw a cat because she'd know there was a nice treat coming. The instinct to chase is still there though and if she were off lead and a cat took off in front of her, all the treats in the world wouldn't stop her! She is a dog after all :)

Do you have a dog? Or a cat? Or maybe both? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below :)

See you soon,