Say it with love

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome to another Thursday at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge and another board full of card inspiration! Just look at the fabulous elements Elizabeth has come up with for today's board:

 

 

I chose the left hand column, Heart/Red/Stitching and used it to make a bold valentine.

 

I began by watercolouring a piece of white card with a variety of pink and red inks. When it was dry I used a stitched rectangle die to cut it into strips, glued it to a piece of paper and cut it with a X Cut heart die. I cut another couple of red hearts the same size, glued them together and attached my stitched medallion over the top for some nice dimension.

 

The stitched medallion was stamped with a leafy stamp from Stampin' Up's Season's Blessings and then topped with a sprig from The Greetery's Wildflower Mix die set, with tiny hearts added instead of flower heads. I spelled out the word LOVE using the Slim Alphabet Dies, also by the Greetery. The medallion was mounted onto a red panel and then attached to a card front inked round the edges with green ink.

 

 

Okay, it's over to you! Which column or row takes your fancy this week? Or are you going for one of the diagonals? Whichever you choose, do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and check out the cards my team mates have made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your own creation with us. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I was very much inspired by the beautiful graphics at Inkspirational and at Double D Challenge where the theme is Hearts, so I'm linking up there.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

At the weekend I joined my daughter and her Maid of Honour on a hunt for the perfect wedding dress. It was a wonderful day, full of fantasy gowns, bubbles, laughter and feasting (as always in our family!!) I can't show you the dress that my daughter has chosen yet, but I can show you the interior of the boutique she made her selection from...

 

 

... a riot of pink and roses and femininity!

Sending hugs,

Seriously in love

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and time for another blast of inspiration via the Tic Tac Toe Challenge! Come and see the fab board Felicita has devised for your crafting pleasure this week:

 

Isn't that a great selection of suggestions?! I chose the left hand column to make a CAS valentine - Red/Heart/Sentiment.

The first thing I did was splodge diluted ink all over a piece of card stock using light and dark reds and a pink. While that was drying, I stamped Uniko's Background Blocks Arts Decoratifs onto a kraft card base using red ink and coloured it with light and dark red coloured pencils.

 

When the watercoloured panel was dry, I die cut a heart out of it and stamped it with a fun sentiment from a retired Stampin Up set. To finish the card I attached the heart to the background and added a few enamel dots. How simple was that?!

So now it's your turn! Which line of the board will you choose? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site and check out the fabulous inspiration from my talented team mates. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to link up your own creation when you're ready. Have fun!

 

CHALLENGES

I'm playing along with Double D Challenges' Hearts challenge - if you're making some last-minute valentines this weekend, check out their gorgeous mood board! I'm also joining in at Little Red Wagon where Chrissy wants to see our valentines and love projects; and Cardz 4 Guyz where Pamela's theme is Love Cards - for guys of course!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I've had a humdinger of a day. I'd just finished a dog walk and returned to my car to find a flat tyre. Luckily the owner of the other dog I was walking had come with us today so I didn't have a car full of anxious dogs - just Eva who hates anything out of the ordinary :/ I phoned OH as he was only up the road and he came and efficiently changed the tyre but, as I was driving away, I became aware of a horrible noise under the car. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the car has had to be towed to a local garage and is being looked at as I type. Please send positive thoughts my way!

I'm at home now and have been pressing this bell for ages...

 

... but I think it must be faulty!!

Sending hugs,

From the snippets box with love

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Happy Thursday and welcome to a shiny new challenge at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge! My friend LeAnne is in charge of the board this week and she has got all your valentine bases covered as well as plenty of options for any other kind of card you choose to make!

I've gone for the left hand column, Pink/Valentine or Heart/White, and have added in a few of the other ideas too! 

This card was made entirely of snippets except for the card base. I cut a heart out of a scrap of pretty pale pink striped paper and stamped up the side of it with a floral stamp from So Much by Uniko, adding colour with coloured pencils. 

The 'love' sentiment comes from the same stamp set. I stamped it in red on a tiny scrap of thick white card, heat embossed it with clear embossing powder, snipped it out and decorated it with a tiny die cut heart. I arranged some gold thread on my decorated heart before adding the sentiment label.

 

For a bit of extra dimension, I die cut a few more hearts out of off-cyuts of red card and glued them in a stack, finishing with the DSP one I'd decorated. I found a gold die cut 'you' in the snippets box, which I'd trimmed off a Lawn Fawn birthday sentiment in the dim and distant past, and added it to my sentiment label. To finish, I added gold dots around the flowers with a gold Uni Paint marker.

So now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and drool over the amazing inspiration from my team mates. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to link up your own creation when you're ready. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with the penultimate Ruby's Memory challenge at The Snippets Playground; and at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where Anything Goes this month.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Eva has a new friend! When we walk in the fields behind our house, we sometimes meet a lady who brings her granddaughter to play there. The two year old is not remotely nervous of Eva - her grandmother tells me she's used to dogs - but Eva has been cautious around the little girl knowing that toddlers can be unpredictable. But after meeting them in the fields a good few times now, Eva and the little girl have struck up a friendship. It is so sweet! Eva lays down beside the little girl to make herself smaller and the little girl strokes her and makes kissy noises. Sometimes she naughtily takes off her hat and gives it to Eva who runs off with it! The grandmother shrugs and tells me that's what washing machines are for!

Sending Hugs,

Nuts about you

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I've been enjoying making a few valentines this year! This one features a pair of bushy-tailed cuties from a new-to-me stamp set from Clearly Besotted called Foxy Friend.

 

 

The squirrels are supposed to be skunks but they make excellent squirrels! I coloured them with coloured pencils, fussy cut them and attached them to a die cut stitched circle that I'd masked with a stencil and sponged with blue ink.

I wanted to create an interesting border to the card base so I trimmed 1/2" off the front flap using a large stitched rectangle die. Pale blue card stock was glued underneath the flap and then ran a heart design washi tape along the edge. The squirrel circle was placed slightly overlapping the border and I finished with a die cut heart and a sentiment from MFT.

 

CHALLENGES

I was inspired by Lisa's photo choice at this week's Just Us Girls challenge, using the background and swapping the snow couple with the squirrels; I'm also joining in at Just Add Ink where there's a Just Pick Two challenge - Fancy Edge/Circle/Twine - and I've gone for Fancy Edge and Circle; I also made this card for Time Out Challenges where the theme is In Love; and am sharing at Darnell's NBUS challenge, the place to show off our Never Before Used Schtuff!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I had to whisper the word 'squirrels' in case a certain young lady got a bit excited but...

 

 

... having had a long walk this morning with an impromptu swim in the river, nothing other than the rustle of a cheese wrapper would have had the power to rouse her!!

Sending hugs,

My precious

Hello, crafting friends!

It's time for another fun challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches and this month's host Bhavya has designed a great sketch to inspire you this week.

I've been waiting for the right moment to use a beautiful set called Precious Trimmings I got in a clearance sale at Clearly Besotted and now is that moment!

I used a neutral card stock (Sahara Sand by Stampin' Up) to create a card base and stamped four of the gemstones and a sentiment down the centre of the card front, using a stamping platform to get everything lined up.

The gems were coloured with coloured pencils and I added detail with a Posca white acrylic paint pen. That's it! A very simple card that was great fun to make :)

Are you inspired by this fabulous sketch? There's lots of inspiration as always from my teamies at the CAS Colours and Sketches website. Do check it out and you'll  find the Linky Tool there too so that you can link up your own card with us. Remember that we are a clean and simple challenge, so do keep your creations uncluttered with plenty of clear space - and above all, have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Addicted to Stamps and More where there's a Make Your Mark challenge and we are asked to get out our colouring tools; I'm also joining in with Retro Rubber where Anything Goes using stamps at least a year old (Precious Trimmings was released November 2018); I shall also share this card at Darnell's NBUS challenge where it's all about using our Never Before Used Schtuff!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I think it's appropriate to leave you with a picture of my most precious gem...

,,, my golden treasure!

Sending hugs,

Hearts and Showers

Hello, crafting friends!

Happy Saturday and welcome to another fortnight of fun at Addicted to CAS! Love is in the air this time as Nancy hosts our new challenge with the code word Hearts.

This is not the year to hold back on sending love to all those we care about and I liked the idea of a whole deluge of heart rain! I started by inking pale blue ink from the top of a card panel and fading it out a third of the way down. The same ink was used to stencil some hearts on the ink blend using an old Stampin' Up stencil from many moons ago, then I added tiny stamped hearts from Uniko's Big and Bold Love.

The umbrella and sentiment are from Stampin' Up's Under My Umbrella. The umbrella was stamped in red, the canopy coloured with an alcohol marker and I used that tiny Uniko heart again to over-stamped it with a heart pattern. Once the umbrella was cut out and positioned on the panel, I used a stamping platform to stamp the sentiment. The edges of the panel were scored before attaching to a card base with dimensional pads.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to make a card featuring hearts? You'll find heaps of inspiration from my teamies, and from this fortnights special guest designer Joyce, here on the ATCAS blog. Don't forget we are a clean and simple challenge so make sure there's plenty of breathing space on your design! I can't wait to see what you  come up with!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where Love Is In The Air!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have posted more valentines cards than I have ever in my life this year! I really do think sending someone a card to tell them you love them and appreciate them is a very good thing to do. I notice that Galentine's Day (where women celebrate their girlfriends) has become more and more popular, and now Palentine's Day has taken off so you can celebrate ANY of your friends!

And yes, Eva, that does include you!

Sending hugs,

Its a wonderful world

Hello, crafting friends!

I'm very much on board with the idea that valentine's day is not just about romance but also about the other kinds of love and appreciation. In my experience, no-one ever seems to mind being told that they are appreciated! Today's card was made for a lovely friend who always cheers me up.

I was thinking about those lovely fabric hearts that you can hang on the dresser handles of your French Country interiors (oops, took a dive into fantasy land there!) I was a little handicapped by not having any heart dies but I wasn't going to let a tiny thing like that stop me! I folded a piece of scrap paper in half, drew half a heart, opened it out, used it as a stencil on kraft card stock and on a snippet of designer paper and cut it out. (And after all that faffing about I put in an order for some heart dies!)

To decorate my heart, I cut off the top of the floral paper heart and stuck the bottom bit onto the kraft heart, using another snippet of paper to cover the join. I had some flowers and leaves left over from Monday's wreath card and tied a black twine bow to it, glueing it to the bow of the heart.

The 'planks' panel was another snippet of designer paper, trimmed to size with a stitched rectangle die by Heffy Doodle. I stamped a Clearly Besotted sentiment  directly onto the paper, drew a line to 'hang' my heart up with, and finished with some clear gems.

CHALLLENGES

Nope, still can't resist the photos at Inspired By! This is my entry for their Krafty Love challenge; I'm also joining in with the Paper Players where Anne Marie has come up with a hearts or flowers theme this week; and The Day of the Month Club Challenge where the team want to see valentine's day cards.  I've used lots of snippets so I shall ski down to The Snippets Playground too!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It may have been freezing cold today but the sun was out, the sky was blue and the ground was hard under my feet! After months of rain, grey skies and mud, I could believe in a wonderful world again! Cue the fabulous Louis Armstrong and a mesmerising crafty video:

Sending hugs,

Valentine wreath

Hello, crafting friends!

I have always loved the creativity of crafting. Just because a product is designed to do one thing doesn't mean it can't do something else as well! 

My friend lent me Stampin' Up's Wreath Builder die set for the weekend and I've had so much fun with it! The set features two wreaths that you can use separately or layer together. But instead of looking for ways to step things up, I prefer to look for ways to pare things back and this card features one of the wreaths cut in half and attached to a thin circle cut with a circle punch and a circle die. I love the effect! I embellished the half wreath with some of the pretty flowers from the die set, that emboss as they cut.

To display my wreath, I masked off the top and bottom of a good thick card base and stamped Hardwood, a retired Stampin' Up background stamp, into the gap. I finished the card with a popped up sentiment from MFT's Floral Focus, stamped in dark grey ink and fussy cut, and a sprinkling of clear gems.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

I was so pleased that this card won Top Pick at As You See It!

CHALLENGES

It was Jan's colour palette at As You See It  and Karren's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches that started me off with this card, so I'm linking up there; I'm also joining in with Just Us Girls, where Valentine is the word prompt, and Allsorts, where Love Is... is the theme.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We had dusting of snow last night but it has a very different feel from January's jolly, snowman-friendly snowfall. It is bitterly cold and you daren't take your gloves off for too long for fear of losing a finger or two (I may be slightly prone to exaggerating...!) I took mine off for long enough to capture this fair snow princess :)

Sending hugs,

A love of pastels

Hello, crafting friends!

I do love a pastel don't you? I don't mean a fruit pastel (although they're very nice too) I mean pastel colours. They make me think of ice cream and sugared almonds and spring and Easter, and they just generally cheer me up.

This card features three hearts from Uniko's Big Bold Love, stamped in pastel colours on a paler background, then fussy cut. The focal heart is from Stampin' Up's Wreath Builder dies. I didn't have the colour card stock I wanted, so I used a lavender alcohol marker to colour some white card and cut the heart from that. The 'LOVE' gets cut out of the heart when you die cut it - isn't that fun?! I cut another of the hearts out of pale yellow card stock and refilled my lavender heart with the yellow letters.

When I arranged my hearts across the card base they looked silly just floating about there! It took me ages to  work out a nice way to ground them, but eventually I masked off the edges of my card base and blended a little grey ink in from the edges. For extra interest, I added itsy bitsy die cut hearts in pastel colours, using my Tiny Cuts Dies from Neat and Tangled, and a fussy cut 'you' I found in the snippets box.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with The Color Throwdown, where I was inspired by Lynn's mouth-watering colour palette; I'm also joining in at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where Love Is In The Air; Little Red Wagon where the theme is Total Eclipse of the Heart; and CAS on Sunday where the theme is Love.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Talking of delicious things to eat, one of my friends has been cheering her neighbours up one mince pie at a time! Just before the Christmas before last, she held an informal drinks and nibbles party at which her new neighbour tasted mince pies for the first time. She told my friend that she couldn't imagine why we don't all eat mince pies all year round! So after this Christmas, when everyone was struggling with more January blues than usual, she surprised her friends by leaving little tins of mince pies on people's doorsteps. I applauded her for what I called her 'Mince Pie Therapy'. I eat gluten free, so I wasn't expecting to get involved, but this morning, the doorbell rang and when I opened the door, there on the doorstep was a tin of the prettiest little gluten free mince pies ever!

Sending hugs,