A Pink Bike for Hettie!

Two posts in one day... you lucky things (ahem!)... but the Olympic owls were a bonus today!

The last time I used my lovely Pedal Presents stamp set, Sam aka Hettie asked me if I could colour it in pink.  Well, it's taken me a while but I was happy to oblige especially when I saw this morning's sketch at Less is More.

So here is my take on it:

Pretty straight forward, I cut the panel right underneath the bike to ground it easily.  I filled the basket with flowers this time, mounted on some pink card and punched a border.  I wanted it to be a generic card so chose the {friend to friend} sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

Supplies
Stamps: Pedal Presents, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: Basic Black, marker pens in Pretty in Pink, Rose Red and Regal Rose
Card: Pretty in Pink and Whisper White
Other: stamp-a-ma-jig, Leafy Lace border punch (non-SU)

As well as Less is More, I'd like to enter this into the clean and simple challenges at Stampin' Sisters in Christ and at Card Crafters' Circle.

Just to add my tuppence on the Olympics Opening Ceremony... I thought it was fantastic, a real tongue-in-cheek look at Britain through the years, though whether the international audience understood a lot of it is another matter.  As I used to be a Sheffield lass, I loved the forging of the Olympic rings, but other highlights were (obviously) the film with Queen Elizabeth and James Bond, Mr Bean, that fantastic Glastonbury Hill replica, the choirs from around the UK (nice to remember that there's more than just England in Team GB!), and I'm sure we all loved the incredibly beautiful Olympic flame cauldron.  I've been enjoying tuning into the rowing heats this morning, but I've caught a bit of the cycling and badminton too.  Watching these athletes is just awesome!

Another cat picture (yes, I know two in one day!):

Thanks for visiting!

What's Black and White and Red All Over?

No, not a newspaper, but today's card!  I wanted to do something a little bit different with the gorgeous bicycle stamp that's from the hostess set from the Summer Mini Catalogue, as all the cards I've made with it to date have been one-layer.  I don't think I have any other stamp set that can lay claim to that!

I do rather like the vintage-style cards I've been noseying at in blogland but I'm not very good at this style, so this is just a bit of a nod and a wink to vintage while playing around!

I think I'm incapable of colouring in this bike in any colour other than red!  It's just crying out to be red bike, don't you think?  One day I'll be bold and choose another colour, but not today!  This time I added the flowers to the basket (there's a choice of presents, balloons, cake, hearts and flowers as well a cute little bird that perches on the handlebars), grounding the bike with my Basic Black marker pen.  The image was die cut and layered onto a fancy circle die.

I tore a page from a copy of Wuthering Heights that I keep exclusively for crafty projects (let's face it, it'd be pretty useless if I kept it for reading purposes now... I do have another pristine copy on the bookshelf though, fear not!), inked it with a nice dollop of Crumb Cake (sounds good) and added an antique brad.  I wrapped some linen thread around some striped Real Red paper and layered all of this onto some Basic Black patterned paper and card.

Supplies
Stamps: Pedal Presents
Ink: Basic Black, marker pens in Real Red, Basic Black and Crumb Cake
Card: Basic Black, Whisper White
Paper: book page, Basic Black from the Neutrals stack, Real Red from the Brights stack
Other: antique brad, Big Shot, circle die, Picot Circles dies (non-SU), linen thread


I'd like to enter this into Le Tour de France challenge at Cupcake Craft Challenges.  I should have pulled a page out of my spare copy of L'Avare instead of Wuthering Heights if I'd have thought about it a bit more.  Ah well.


After all that gardening for others I did last week, our own garden is in a bit of a sorry state.  Naturally though, it's raining again so I am unable to get out to sort it.  I think Socks has the best idea of what to do:

When we don't have anyone staying over, I keep the clean sheets in a drawer and just cover the spare bed with a big blanket so Socks doesn't get cat fur all over the place!  So he is actually lying on the duvet folded over and four pillows on top of that.  No wonder he looks so comfy!

Thanks so much for visiting today,

Three for the Price of One!

That's right, you're getting three cards in this post, though admittedly two are pretty similar.  Make My Monday are kicking off a new month of challenges on the colour wheel with primary colours.  Blue and yellow work well and the recent spate of challenges around the Jubilee proved conclusively that red and blue work... but all three colours together?  Now this was a challenge!

What came into my mind first when I thought of these colours?  Answer: Lego!  So that is what I made:

I followed the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches as I loved its clean lines.  I cut a rectangular block in each primary colour and then punched out circles with my handy circle punch from Itty Bitty Shapes.  I added a little shine mark with my white gel pen and then adhered the circles with dimensionals.  The rest of the card is fairly self-explanatory, layering up with yellow, white and blue card and making the border out of a piece of embossed Whisper White card, run through my Big Shot with my favourite lattice embossing folder.

My first attempt didn't quite work out but I didn't want to discard the Lego bricks so I made them into the card below.  The sentiment is made using a Lego font that I downloaded from the internet, which I coloured in using markers.

Supplies (for the two Lego cards):

Ink: marker pens in Real Red, Daffodil Delight and Marina Mist

Card: Marina Mist, Daffodil Delight, Real Red, Whisper White

Paper: Real Red from the Brights Designer Series Paper stack

Other: Itty Bitty Shapes punches, white gel pen, computer sentiment, lattice embossing folder, Big Shot

The other thing that I think of with primary colours is balloons, so although I've done quite a few cards like this now, I couldn't resist making this quick one-layer card.  So easy yet so effective... at least I think so!  I'd like to enter this one into the 'clean and simple' challenge over at Simply Stampin'.

Supplies
Stamps: Pedal Presents
Ink: Basic Black, marker pens in Basic Black, Real Red, Daffodil Delight and Pacific Point
Card: Whisper White
Other: white gel pen, stamp-a-ma-jig

As always, if these or any other SU goodies have caught your eye, please do not hesitate to drop me anemail or give me a ring on 07977 141605.  I will be delighted to assist you with your crafty makes and to place an SU order for you.  Remember that all orders of £45 or more qualify for free organdie ribbon and Everyday Enchantment brads!  Click here for details.

Another day, another cat picture... don't worry, I'm no danger of running out of them any time soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Pedal Presents

Red, white and blue is the patriotic colour choice over at Less is More this week and I've had a fab time playing with my new Pedal Presents stamp set.  I think it's my new favourite.  At least until I open my next set...

In fact I had so much fun I made three different ones - all one-layer - with the various basket combinations.  Come and have a look:

I think the first one's my favourite and I definitely prefer a shiny red bike to a shiny blue bike!  They were very straightforward to make: simple stamping and colouring in really.  Most of the colour was added direct to card, but for some bits I picked up the ink with my blender pen to soften it.  I grounded the last two with a Crumb Cake marker.

Supplies
Stamps: Pedal Presents (hostess set from the Summer Mini)
Ink:  Basic Black, marker pens in Real Red, Poppy Parade, Island Indigo, Marina Mist, Crumb Cake, Basic Grey
Card: Whisper White
Other: white gelly roll marker, stamp-a-ma-jig

If these supplies or any others have caught your eye, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by email or by phone on 07977 141605.  I'd be delighted to place an order for you and have goodies delivered directly to your address in the UK.

As well as Less is More, I'd also like to enter these into the 'Cool Britannia' challenge over at Moving Along With The Times.

If you're in the UK, I hope you're having a lovely bank holiday weekend.  We are having a relaxing day today after a busy Saturday.  We had a barbecue in our garden for our church and we had 25 people come.  It was fantastic fun but hard work too.  We have a cream tea tomorrow afternoon too and I have been very busy researching and preparing a display on Queen Elizabeth's 60 years which has been fascinating.  I really do have a renewed appreciation for her.  I'm so glad it's all done ready now though as I can put my feet up a bit!

Thank you for visiting - do pop back again soon!