Time for some good news...

Hello, crafting friends!

Yes, I have some happy news to share with you today: I have been invited to join the talented design team at the Tic Tac Toe challenge! For those of you that haven't come across it before, it's a weekly challenge which inspires you to create using options on a tic tac toe board. It's great fun and winners get the chance to become a guest designer, so do come and play along!

It's not actually my turn to submit a design team sample this week, but I can't resist playing along anyway! I chose the bottom row: Doily/checks/ice cream (see challenges below for the full board.) 

Everything I used for this card was found in the snippets box! The doily had been hanging around for ages but I cut the good bits out of it and used it to peek out behind my background layer which had been stamped with Gingham by Kaisercraft for some project or other, but not used. The ice creams were a little bargain I picked up at Hobbyycraft for just pennies! I stamped and cut them out of very small snippets of card stock, and decorated them using markers and a little heart. 

Finally, I added a sentiment from  Clearly Besotted's Sweet Berries, stamped in versamark on black card stock and heat embossed in white, then snipped into a banner.

CHALLENGES

I'm playing for fun at the Tic Tac Toe challenge *waves hello to my new teamies*; I'm also linking up with The Snippets Playground, where we must make a card using off cuts and scraps (everything on my card was a scrap from my snippets box except the card base; I'm also joining in at Addicted to Stamps and More where they're celebrating Any Occasion.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When my children were growing up, an ice cream parlour opened in our little market town. I am a huge fan of good quality ice cream - and the lady that ran this establishment made the ice creams by hand, using organic milk and cream, fruits in season and other luxurious flavourings. They tasted SO good! The children and I used to make an outing of it; we'd walk down to the town, spend what seemed to be hours choosing our flavours, then walk down to the river to eat our ice creams while chatting and laughing in the sun. Such good memories! 

Sending hugs,

For a berry good friend

Hello, crafting friends!

It's coming up to that time of year when berries are overflowing in the shops and markets. I adore a berry and could eat them at every meal, but I also like them on cards! Like this one:

I took the strawberry image from Clearly Besotted's Sweet Berries and stamped it on opposite corners of a card panel. The images were watercoloured with diluted inks and left to dry.

When everything was well and truly dry, I added detail with coloured pencils and added seeds in the strawberries with a Posca white acrylic paint pen.

The panel was trimmed to a size just smaller than my card front and I added a sentiment from my new favourite sentiment set Perfect Sentiments by Pinkfresh Studio. A simple card but hopefully one that a lovely friend will enjoy.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with Joanne's CAS challenge at The Paper Players where her theme is Fruit and/or Berries; I took my sketch from Inspire Create where we are CASEing Verity's gorgeous card; I'm also linking up with Happy Little Stampers' Watercolour challenge where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The sunshine has popped her happy little face back out today and Madame La Floof was delighted!

"If you need me I'll just be getting on with things in the garden...!"

Sending hugs,

Sweet summer strawberries

Hello crafting friends!

So, it's the summer, the season of hot sunny days, ripening those delicious sweet berries... Well that's what's supposed to be happening anyway! I'm just embittered because Eva and I got caught in a heavy shower earlier on and got soaked! Here are the summer berries of my dreams:

These strawberries are from Sweet Berries by Clearly Besotted and I thought I'd give them the watercolour treatment today. The berry image was stamped onto watercolour paper with Stazon ink, and I used Stampin' Up inks for the watercolouring. Once it was completely dry, I cut it into a panel with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die.

For the background, I painted a square (ish!) at an angle which grounds the image nicely. The 'berry' part of the punning sentiment comes from the same set as the strawberries but the 'thank you' and the 'much' are from Concorde and 9th's Beautiful Branches - I love making my own sentiments out of different ones :)

CHALLENGES
I was totally inspired by Narelle's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week so I'll link up there; I'm also joining in with Addicted to CAS, where the code word is Berry; There are lots of watercolour layers on this card which I'm entering at Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I was so pleased that people were interested in my fresh fruit 'ice cream' recipe (click here and scroll down to 'AND IN OTHER NEWS'). Did you try it? I made it again the other day and remembered to photograph it this time!

I took a leaf out of my youngest son's book and decorated my dessert for the extra deliciousness factor! The raspberry is from the Sweet Berries stamp set I used today - stamped, coloured with alcohol markers, fussy cut and mounted onto a cocktail stick. The flag is another cocktail stick with a piece of washi tape folded over it and trimmed into a ribbon tail. 

It didn't last long I can tell you!

Hope you are all safe and well.

Hugs,

A sweet valentine - but not too sweet

Hello crafting friends!

I've come up with another valentine that won't revolt my family too much! Come and see:

This was the best fun to make! The sweets are from You're So Sweet by Hunkydory and I just placed them all together on my stamping platform, inked them up and stamped them with Memento black ink. They were then coloured with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and fussy cut. It did take a little time but I'm the kind of weirdo that likes fussy cutting!

The sentiment has been put together from a couple of Clearly Besotted sets - 'you're the sweetest' from Sweet Berries and 'Sweet' from Apples and Pears. I used my Stamping platform to position it onto a card panel. It makes a cute little greeting but I'm sure I can get away with it if I pretend it's a joke!

Once I'd got my sentiment positioned where I wanted it, I cut it out with a long stitched rectangle by Christina Griffiths and then replaced it into the negative space to give it a nice embossed frame sort of look. And with everything ready, I positioned the sweets around the sentiment and glued them in place.


CHALLENGES
This card leapt into my head when I saw Joanne's fabulous sketch at The Paper Players this week, so I shall link up there. I'm also linking up with Just Add Ink, where there's a lovely bright colour palette to inspire us; I chose Lovely Lipstick, Blueberry Bushel and Daffodil Delight to colour my sweets.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My daughter used to play with all sorts of odd toys when she was a little girl - buttons, scarves and, memorably, saucepans because she had an audio story about kitchen implements coming to life. The pans were ordinary stainless steel from my cupboard but she called them Bubble and Squeak and loved them so much that she once persuaded me to take her to the shop to buy cakes and treats as it was 'Bubble's birthday'! Hence a conversation between OH and I yesterday.
OH: I'm just nipping down to the shop to get a packet of biscuits.
Me: Why? Is it the saucepan's birthday?!

Have you, or someone you know, ever had a non-conventional toy? I'd love to hear about it!

Hugs,

Look - no hearts!

Hello crafting pals!

I like the idea of sending love via a piece of folded card stock, but I know that not everyone is a fan of hearts or cute images. I've had an idea about that though - come and see:

This is the card that blows a raspberry in the faces of the cute valentine! (Sorry, couldn't resist!) To start the card off I stamped an off-cut of card stock with the Gingham background by Kaisercraft and glued it to a card base. Next, I stamped the raspberry image from Clearly Besotted's Sweet Berries twice on a card panel, and had fun colouring it with alcohol markers. I trimmed the top and bottom of the panel away and attached it to the card base, allowing some of the leaves to overlap the gingham.

The sentiment comes with the berry set and the shape of the raspberries made a nice area for stamping it. Oh dear, it's a pretty cute sentiment isn't it, so it looks like I've undone all my good work!

I didn't want to detract from the image with any embellishments but, to ground it, I embossed a straight line on the berry panel and drew a line either side of it with a ruler and a black fineliner.

CHALLENGES
There's a new Make Your Mark challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More so I shall link this card up there; The colours come courtesy of this week's Paper Players challenge and seemed so perfect for this idea - although the Rich Razz looks quite purple in my photos, so perhaps the fruit is some kind of mulberry/ raspberry cross...?!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I think I'm going to draw a line under today. First Eva put a muddy footprint on a throw before I could ask her not to, so I had to do an extra wash; then later, when we went for our main walk in the flooded fields, I discovered my beloved Sealand wellies had a hole in them at the ankle so I had to walk with a soggy sock; in the afternoon, I made a mad dash to an upcycled furniture shop in a nearby town, only to find that the info on the internet was wrong and they closed earlier than stated.

On the other hand, I read somewhere that it's not our right to be alive every day, so each day we wake up is a gift. That certainly puts it into perspective! Compared to the alternative, it's been a BRILLIANT day!

How has your day been?