A quick Reason to Smile...

I know - I shouldn't be here! I have a hundred and one things I'm supposed to be doing but I made the mistake of just quickly looking at the Less is More challenge and this is what happened:

This is a very quick sponged and stamped scene. For the flowers, grasses and 'leaves', I've used the fabulous Reason to Smile, an exclusive set which will be available during August only. (You can get it free with a £60 order or you can buy it for £18.95 wood mount or £14.95 clear mount - email me here to order, or for more information.)

The sentiment is from the lovely Trendy Trees set - which I haven't used for ages but must play with soon - and my scallops are cut with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch. You can see the lovely texture of the stamps in this photo and the way the two step flowers work.

This beautiful dragonfly is from Nature's Nest. I have a stash of these ready stamped in Stazon on vellum, so all I needed to do is to cut him out with my sharp paper snips and colour the back of him with markers. I added a little glitter to catch some of this fabulous sunshine we're having!

Oops, I forgot to mention it's a sketch challenge at Less is More this week... and what a great sketch (right) it is!

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

Stamps: Reasons to Smile (available during August only), Nature's Nest, Trendy Trees (sentiment)

Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Old Olive

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, vellum

Other: Markers,  Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, 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. Your free brad and ribbon set will be added automatically to any order of £45 or more during July only!

Did you see the Olympic opening ceremony last night? Wow! I must confess to have felt a little cynical about the whole thing beforehand but my family and I were blown away by it. It was uplifting, visually stunning, quirky, moving, funny and incredibly impressive in turns and I thought the cauldron of fire was the most astonishing piece of design work. It all made me feel rather proud to be British!

I'll be back on Monday with a male card using Reason to Smile - hope to see you then!

Hugs,

Three minute Nature's Nest shell

One of my favourite images in the Nature's Nest stamp set is a gorgeous shell, perfect for scrapbooking beach photos and for summer-themed cards, and now there's a single scallop shell in the summer mini catalogue that works beautifully with it too! I've had an idea in my head for the Nature's Nest shell for four years and thanks to this week's challenge at Make My Monday, it's finally made it onto card stock! Come and have a look:

The Make My Monday blog is celebrating its first birthday this week and Jacqueline has chosen 'A birthday card with pearls' as the challenge. My card was very quick to make: I used a card stock with bits in it and sponged a background using a torn piece of scrap paper as a mask; the sentiment and the birds were added and the shell popped up on dimensionals...

... topped with a large self-adhesive pearl. There is only one pearl on my card but it does take a starring role so surely it must count!

This handwriting-style birthday sentiment is my current favourite. It's from a hostess set which means it's only available to party hostesses. But what if you don't want to hold a party? Well you can still get hold of hostess sets by placing an order of £150 or more but if that's more than you wanted to spend all at once, why not spread the amount over six months by joining my Stampers 6 club? It's like a virtual party and you don't even need to know the other guests! Click here to find out more.

Are you wondering why I'm showing you a close up of these birds?! Well they're my favourite thing! They're from the Up Up and Away stamp set and, to be honest, it's quite hard for me to restrain myself from stamping them on everything!

I'm also linking this card to a new (to me) blog called Craft a Scene which is looking for 'Beach Scenes - a bit of sand and water'. I'm excited about this site - you know how I love to make a scene!

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

Stamps: Nature's Nest, Up up and Away, Happiest of Birthdays

Ink: Marina Mist, So Saffron, Basic Grey, Blushing Bride

Card stock: Confetti White

Other: Basic Pearls, grey watercolour pencil, 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.

It's half term here so I'm enjoying not only the company of my lovely children but also the privilege of chauffeuring them around the countryside to their many social events; I've also been away for two weekends in a row and found on my return that the garden is trying to get into the house and it seems that someone has cleaned the surrounding houses and emptied the dust into ours! Does anyone have a housemaid I can borrow? Or a few extra hours going spare? No I thought not... I'd better go and empty the hoover myself then!

Have a good day and I'll see you tomorrow,

Masculine Monday using Nature's Nest

Good morning and welcome to my weekly Masculine Monday post! Have you seen this fabulous sketch over at the Clean and Simple Stamping blog this week? I got quite excited by it and can see it being a frequently-used sketch for all sorts of cards, but today I used it for a male birthday card. Come and see:

I really like the colour scheme that happened when I made this card! I like to check pictures when I'm colouring a 'real' thing like this peacock feather and noticed that there can be a mustard or caramel coloured bit on them. I love the effect with the Pacific Point and Garden Green. Here's a close- up of that gorgeous feather...

... and you might also notice that gorgeous Basic Grey textured card stock - I love this stuff! I added a strip of More Mustard card stock to tie in with the mustard bits in the stamping.

Here's my sentiment! I used my stamp-a-majig to put various parts of four different stamps together to make this message. Do you like how 'handwritten' it looks? Some of the fonts already looked quite scribbled so I wrote over the others to make them look less 'printed'. I wanted a little swirl at the end and was SO happy to discover this one in the Petite Pairs sentiment set!

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Nature's Nest, Happiest Birthday Wishes (hostess set), Petite Pairs

Ink: Pacific Point, Garden Green, More Mustard, Soft Suede markers

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, More Mustard, Basic Grey textured

Other: 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 free Sale-a-bration set or sets you'd like - remember, one item for EVERY £45 spent!

My youngest son sometimes makes me a cup of coffee if he thinks of it - he's just done it now! I didn't get any biscuits on this occasion but, as he placed the cup in front of me, he said: "Mummy - what do you call a man who likes a biscuit with his tea?" I told him I didn't know and he gave me a grin. "Duncan!" he said triumphantly. Where does he get his jokes?!!

Talking of jokes, I'm in a punning mood tomorrow! Hope you can come and join me!

Hugs,