Home is where the heart is

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and time for another Tic Toe Toe challenge board bursting with inspiration! The board is in the capable hands of Joanne this week and it came at a great time for me :)

 

I chose the top row Heart/House/Die Cut and made a card for my youngest son who, having graduated, has moved into a new house with a group of good friends he was lucky enough to meet in his first few weeks of uni. 

 

The medallion was made by layering up stitched circles in various colours, the central one edged with a Lawn Fawn cloud border die. The resulting background was topped with a die cut house from X Cut which was cut twice more from snippets of coloured card so that I could inlayy the windows and the little heart.

I cut a panel with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and stamped a sentiment from The Greetery's PreText Sentiments and WPlus9's New Home, leaving enough space to glue the medallion between them. To link the green part to the bold black words, I used a fascia image stamp from New Home - and then capered about feeling very pleased with myself!!

So, now it's your turn to get creative with Joanne's board - so many options! Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site and admire the sample the team has made to inspire you. When you are ready to share your own creation, you can use the Linky Tool you'll find at the bottom of the post. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies challenge; I'm also joining in at the Die Cuts and/or Stencils challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Perhaps I should send my son a nice rug for his new home. How about this one I found just lying around the house...

 

Oh, wait!

Sending hugs,

Grid Neighbours

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Another Saturday has rolled around and we have a fun new challenge at Addicted to CAS! Raga is in charge for the next fortnight and she has chosen a great code word:

 

That sent me rummaging through my stamp collection and it amazed me how many stamps I have that have grid patterns on them! I eventually opted for a very old Stampin' Up set featuring some sweet grid-patterned trees.

I made a sponged background on a thick card base using a torn sticky note and some purple and green inks. On a scrap of white card stock, I stamped one of the houses from the stamp set and a couple of the trees. These were fussy cut with sharp paper snips and glued to the background.

I have a new-to-me stamp set from Sugar Pea called Warm Welcome which I thought would work perfectly  with my scene. I stamped the large Welcome, making sure it overlapped the images, and used a fineliner pen to touch up any areas where the ink didn't take. The 'home' was stamped in yellow onto a scrap of card and snipped out and tucked into the space under the 'o' and the 'm' of Welcome.

Okay, so now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Addicted to CAS challenge blog and admire the fabulous samples the design team 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. Have fun - and don't forget to keep your card nice and clean and simple with lots of lovely clear space!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Perfectly CAS where this time the challenge is to use only a quarter of the card base!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Let's go and catch up with some water babies shall we!

 

This is Eva with her chum Koda who has shorter legs than Eva and prefers to stay in the shallow end. Eva goes and has a good wallow first and then comes out to play :)

Sending hugs,

A rainbow of new homes

Hello, crafting friends!

I'm excited to have been invited to be guest designer at CAS on Friday today after a win there with THIS card. The new challenge starts today and the theme is:

NEW HOME

I decided on a one layer design with lots of overlapping images and I used lots of masking techniques to achieve that! 

The first step was the sentiment. I wanted it to stretch across the card base, so I chose two sentiments, lined them up in my stamp platform, and masked off each part so that I could ink them different colours. Once they were stamped, I added versamark ink to the stamps (without removing them from the stamp platform,) stamped over the top of the colour and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

The next step was to stamp the row of houses from Scene it More by Clearly Besotted. I stamped with Memento black ink and used a cotton bud to carefully wipe away the ink on the sentiment. The houses were coloured using coloured pencils as these don't bleed through the card stock. For the last step, I stamped the houses again onto a stick note and trimmed around the roofs. This was used to mask off the houses while I inked in the sunshine using Clearly Besotted's Sunny Day stencil.

I hope you'll join in with this challenge! The team are always incredibly creative so hop on over to the CAS on Friday blog and enjoy the inspiration. You'll find the Linky Tool there too where you can link up your own creation. I can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I’m linking up with AAA cards where the theme is Two quarters with optional twist of Rainbow; also Day of the Month Card Club where the theme is Find a Rainbow Day.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Today I’d like to share one of my favourite photos of last year. It was taken on a wet day from the car where my daughter and I were talking very deeply and seriously. This amazing double rainbow suddenly appeared in the sky in front of us. It’s hard to capture the impact of a rainbow in a photograph but it was so huge and bright in real life, and it gave us such a feeling of comfort and hope. 

Sending hugs,

A prickly new home

Hello, crafting friends!

When a young man moves into his new house, it is important to encourage all the good vibes! My youngest son, who has just moved into a shared house ready to start his second year of university, texted me to let me know he's unpacked his bags and made his bed up, so I thought I'd send a card to celebrate ;)

I think I've mentioned that he is a keen cactus grower. I chose a tiny pot from Waffle Flower's Books and Coffee as well as one from Woodware's Succulents. These were stamped, coloured with alcohol markers and fussy cut, ready to place onto the background.

That background was made by sponging ink into one of my favourite Funky Fossil stencils, Funky Circle, and letting it fade towards the edges. I stamped over that with a banner and some hearts from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks, and a sentiment from Stampin' Up's Holiday Home.

A sprinkling of bright enamel dots and the card was done! I shall package it up with a treat for him to share with his housemates.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
Delighted this card was one of the picks at Freshly Made Sketches!

CHALLENGES
The lovely citrussy colours at The Color Throwdown are my favourites so I couldn't resist joining in there; I've used Jen Mitchell's great sketch at Freshly Made Sketches so I'll link up there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
No time to chat today because Someone is harumphing...

Apparently it was time to go out like FIVE minutes ago!!!

Hugs,