Sweater Weather or More Sunshine?

I've used the autumnal papers from the Sweater Weather collection in today's card to create something that actually feels more summery.  I had a birthday card to make in a hurry and I dug out a stamp set, Apothecary Art, that I haven't used for ages.

I coloured the flowers in a mixture of markers before die-cutting the frame out with a Label die.  The sentiment was stamped on a separate piece of card and then added to the centre of the flowers.  Both papers are from the beautiful Sweater Weather collection (which I really love), mounted onto More Mustard card (this has retired, but a girl has to use up her snippets if she's going to play in the Playground!).

Supplies
Stamps: Apothecary Art
Ink: Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight markers, Soft Suede
Card: More Mustard (retired), Whisper White
Paper: Sweater Weather Designer Series Paper
Other: Labels Framelits & BigShot

I'm off to have a rummage through my stamp sets now to dig out some other old favourites to have a play with!

Thanks ever so much for visiting.  An extra special 'hello' if you're new here - do leave a comment so I can come and visit you.

Snippets of Everyday Enchantment

Another quick card from me today, using up some snippets from the lovely Everyday Enchantment papers.  This is so I can play in the Snippets Playground with Di and Co.  I have toffees this week, girls!

Supplies
Stamps: Apothecary Art
Ink: Basic Black
Card: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla
Paper: Everyday Enchantment Designer Series Paper
Other: linen thread, stamp-a-ma-jig, Simply Scored board

I do like the card but it only uses three tiny squares of snippets.  At this rate, it's going to take me years to get through my snippets box.  In fact, I often think I make more snippets using up my snippets than I get stuck on a card.  Ah well!

Hope you've had a lovely weekend!  Here's a nice uplifting cat picture to round off your Sunday:

Thank you so much for visiting,

Let's Strip!

Now I've got your attention... ha ha... that's the title of this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge, which is to use strips of colour or pattern in our cards.  I had to smile when I saw it this morning :) and I bet Darnell is grinning from ear to ear too!

I was musing about what I could do when I remembered a Splitcoast Stampers tutorial about pleating paper... such a simple technique really but ever so striking.  So I dug out a strip of my beautiful Everyday Enchantment paper and came up with this:

I scored at 3/4" and then another 1/4" after that, so basically at every 3/4 inch and inch mark you come to right down the length of your strip of paper... this length was 10" but only because I messed up the bottom two inches!  Then I folded it up so it looked like pleats, secured to a Pool Party matt and tied some linen thread around it.  The little tag was added for a little bit of extra detail, using the tiny flower shape from Fresh Vintage (now retired - sorry!), also tied with linen thread.

The panel was secured to some Whisper White card and the greeting from Apothecary Art added in Poppy Parade to match the paper.  The two sentiments in Apothecary Art really are turning into my go-to sentiments.  I love their elegant design.  All that was left to do was assemble the card and add the rhinestones.

Supplies
Stamps: Fresh Vintage (Sale-a-bration 2012 - retired), Apothecary Art
Ink: Poppy Parade
Card: Pool Party, Whisper White
Paper: Everyday Enchantment Designer Series Paper
Other: circle punch, linen thread, rhinestones, stamp-a-ma-jig


As always, do get in touch if these or any other SU goodies have caught your eye!  I'd be delighted to assist you with your crafty makes and place an SU order for you.  Just give me a ring on 07977 141605 or send me an email.  Remember that, during July, if your order comes to £45 or more, you receive two 9-yard spools of organdie ribbon and a box of 30 gorgeous Everyday Enchantment brads for absolutely free!

I quite like how the card turned out... a bit 3D without being too 3D, and these aren't my normal colours either so I was pretty pleased to have stepped out of my comfort zone and made something I'm happy with!

As it's Friday 13th, I'll leave you with a nice scary picture of impending kitty doom:

Thanks as always for visiting,

Some Enchanted Evening

Hands up if my title got you singing!  Today's card uses the gorgeous Everyday Enchantment papers which are back to order during July only (or until stocks last).  You can even get FREE coordinating brads and ribbon if your order is £45 or more!  And we're not talking about a piddly little amount either, but 30 brads (6 each of 5 designs) and 2 spools of ribbon, each measuring 9 yards!

Here is my card... you saw the beginnings of it yesterday in my WOYWW post:

I used my much beloved postage stamp punch (which is currently retired, but I'm hoping it'll be back in the next Idea Book and Catalogue) to punch out six squares from a piece of Crumb Cake card.  I drew lines on the back in pencil to make sure I lined them up properly.  Then I punched six pieces of Everyday Enchantment paper out and stuck them to my Crumb Cake base.

Top Tip:  Blu-tack your card with the negatives punched out to your base card.  Then you can stick your positives into the gaps and they'll line up exactly when you position your top piece of card with dimensionals.

This is another snippety make for Di and friends in the Snippets Playground.  Hope I can get an extra 5 minutes on the swings, and maybe a go on the slide, for entering a second card!

Supplies

Stamps: Apothecary Art

Ink: Basic Black

Card: Crumb Cake

Paper: Everyday Enchantment Designer Series Paper

Other: Postage Stamp Punch (retired)

As always, do get in touch if these or any other SU goodies have caught your eye!  I'd be delighted to assist you with your crafty makes and place an SU order for you.  Just give me a ring on 07977 141605 or send me an email.

Today's cat photo is as true of crafters as it is of cats:

Thanks so much for visiting - and an especially big wave to my new followers Buttons from Pushing the Right Buttons and Jules from Always With A Heart,

So Grateful

I'm out of thank you cards again so I rustled up this quick card tonight, using the sketch from Try Stampin' On Tuesday (a new challenge for me) and the colours from Colour Q.

Here is my card:

I stamped this wonderful frame from Apothecary Art in Chocolate Chip ink.  Do you know this is the first time this particular stamp from the set has seen ink?  I've just fallen in love with the stamp which is the next size down, completing ignoring the others!  Time to rectify this, I think!  The flowers are coloured in Daffodil Delight and More Mustard, with the leaves in Pear Pizzaz.  I will miss Pear Pizzaz when it retires at the end of this year... it's such a lovely shade of green.

I cut the frame out with my coordinating Framelits dies and layered it onto an oval made from textured Chocolate Chip card.  I don't have any oval dies or punches so I drew around some kitchenware!  I scored seven lines onto my base card before adhering the oval.

Nothing complicated today!

Supplies
Stamps: Apothecary Art
Ink: Chocolate Chip, marker pens in Daffodil Delight, More Mustard and Pear Pizzaz
Card: Whisper White, textured Chocolate Chip
Other: Framelits Labels dies, BigShot, Simply Scored board, stamp-a-ma-jig

As always, do get in touch if these or any other SU goodies have caught your eye!  I'd be delighted to assist you with your crafty makes and place an SU order for you.  Just give me a ring on 07977 141605 or send me an email.  Remember that, during July, if your order comes to £45 or more, you receive two 9-yard spools of organdie ribbon and a box of gorgeous Everyday Enchantment brads for absolutely free!

I couldn't stop laughing at today's cat picture.  Do you remember the photo I showed you of my wonderful Stampin' Up starter kit when it arrived?  So much loveliness spread across my dining table!  Well, this is a slightly different starter kit... one I don't think Socks would have been as happy with!

Right, I'm off to catch up with your blogs!  Thanks for stopping by today,

Bingo!

Thank you so much for your support for our first ever Addicted to Stamps challenge!  This week it's Addicted to... Bingo and here is my card:

When I made it I had in mind the line stamp/free/flowers but, now it's done, I see it also fits in with stamp/emboss/blue and gems/free/emboss.  I'm a genius and I didn't know it.

I stamped the gorgeous Apothecary Art image, coloured it using the colours from this week's Simply Stampin' challenge and die cut it out using my Framelits Labels dies, adding another frame in Bashful Blue to match the sentiment banner.  I wanted to make another banner from Crumb Cake and ran it through my Big Shot with my lattice embossing folder to provide some contrast.  I added some punched flowers to the stamped image for dimension, as well as a little Embosslits butterfly, layering one butterfly over another.

Supplies
Stamps: Apothecary Art
Ink: Soft Suede, marker pens in Bashful Blue and Lucky Limeade
Card: Crumb Cake, Whisper White
Other: Big Shot, Embosslits Beautiful Wings, Framelits Labels Collection, lattice embossing folder, pearls, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch set

As always, if any of these goodies have caught your crafty eye, do get in touch either by phone on 07977 141605 or by email.  I'd be delighted to assist you with your crafty makes and place an SU order for you.  A reminder that there are only a few more days during which you can take advantage of the fantastic free designer paper offer!

Do pop over to the Addicted to Stamps challenge blog to see what the rest of the talented DT has come up this week.  This is the first bingo challenge I've ever done, so if I can get out of my comfort zone, so can you!  I look forward to seeing what you create.

A big hello and welcome to my new followers Irene from All Occasions Cards, Papers and More and Claire aka Happy Days from What Shall I Make Today?  Two talented ladies so go and have a nosey at their blogs!

Thanks for popping by today,

The Sweet Spot

Mmmm what a nice way to start the day, thinking about The Sweet Spot.  I wonder why they call it that.  Maybe because if you eat too many sweets you get spots?  Anyway, I predict that this week's CAS-ual Fridays polkadot challenge will be very popular so I'm getting in early with this little card.

It's not too often that I make a DL sized card but they work perfectly for this.  These are such easy cards to make but look quite striking.  All you need is a piece of double-sided patterned paper and a circular punch.  Punch out lots of circles, fold in the sides of each circle to the centre and stick in a row.  Voila, jobs a good 'un!

The paper I used has little polka-esque dots on, plus I've punched circles (aka big polka dots) so extra brownie points for me.  And brownies would definitely hit my sweet spot.

These were the particular supplies I used in this case:
Stamps: Apothecary Art
Ink: Riding Hood Red
Card: some old hammered white card procured from I don't know where, but it is nice and heavy so good for bases
Paper: Twitterpated Designer Series Paper
Other: 1" circle punch, rhinestones

As this card was made with some snippets, I'd like to link up again to Di's Snippet Playground.  They seem a mad bunch over there so I think I'll fit right in (as would many of you, my loyal followers!).  And I've just realised that I've made this using red, blue and white so I'll enter this as a last-minute card into Less is More.

Thanks for visiting again - I'm really churning them out this week, aren't I?!

Velveteen Stamping

Mynnette from On A Stampage has started a new challenge called Technique Tuesday based on a new tutorial each month.  Last month's was Velveteen Stamping, which I was keen to try but didn't think I'd make the deadline as I've only just got my mitts on my Whisper White Craft Ink pad so I was delighted when I read that she's extended the deadline to the 15th!

I won't go into how I made it - you'll have to check out the Technique Tuesday blog for that!  It was a fun technique to try.  The effect is a bit like emboss resist but more subtle.  I went with bold colours for the overstamping as per the suggestion but just musing now I wonder whether it would work with pastel shades too or whether I should stick to emboss resist for those.... hmmm... if I get chance, I'll have an experiment...

Anyway, here's the card:

Definitely not my usual colours, but I was flicking through the Colour Coach for some inspiration and thought I'd try this one.  If you don't know what the Colour Coach is, it's a great little book with every SU colour in it and two different combinations which work well with it.

Here's a close-up of the velveteen-ness (but take my word for it, this is one of those techniques that's much better in real life than in a photograph):

And here's my mini rosette:

Supplies
Stamps: En Français background stamp, Apothecary Art, Greenhouse Garden
Ink: Perfect Plum, Marina Mist, Rose Red, Basic Black, Whisper White Craft ink, marker pens in Perfect Plum, Marina Mist, Rose Red, Wild Wasabi
Card: Whisper White, Certainly Celery
Other: Edgelits Adorning Accents, Framelits Labels Collection

As always, please do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like to place an SU order or have any questions about SU supplies.  I'd be delighted to help you!  Just give me a ring on 07977 141605 or drop me an email.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks of The Velveteen Rabbit when I hear the word 'velveteen'.  If you have never come across this delightful children's book, it is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read.  I hope you'll forgive me including such a long quote to finish.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.


"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"


"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."


"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.


"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."


"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"


"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."


"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.


But the Skin Horse only smiled.

Isn't that lovely?!  I'm all teary-eyed now!  I'll be back tomorrow with a copied card (but it's ok, I'll explain why!) and a couple of photos of Socks.  It's been so long since I posted a picture of him, you'll be getting withdrawal symptoms!

Thanks for visiting!  A big wave to my new follower Lynda from Zippy's Zone.  Lynda makes some really lovely cards and has only started blogging this year so do pop over for a visit!

All Quiet on the Blogging Front

Did you miss me?  I bet you thought you'd gone deaf not hearing from me for so long!  It's been a topsy turvy couple of weeks as I've been helping out with lots of different things leaving me very little energy and time at the end of the day to indulge in some crafting.  Hopefully things will be settling back to a degree of normality now...

I have heaps of new goodies to share with you now that the new Summer Mini Catalogue has launched.... oh so many beautiful stamp sets, scented embossing powder (yes, really!), baker's twine in the in-colours, framelits wafer thin dies, edging dies and embossing folders...... as well as a fantastic offer if you fancy joining Stampin' Up! yourself.  Far too much for one blog post so I hope you will pop back soon to learn more!

To business: it's mellow yellow week at Less is More... gosh it's a hard colour to use as the predominant colour of a card!  But it's so cheerful too that it was good fun to work with.  There are some fantastic submissions this week (as always!) so do pop over and have a look for some incredible inspiration.  Not only that but it's a birthday celebration at CAS-ual Fridays too with oodles of stunning entries to nosey at!

Here is my card:

The stamp is one of the gorgeous new sets called 'Apothecary Art', which coordinates perfectly with the Framelits wafer thin nesting dies.  I stamped in Soft Suede, before colouring in the flowers with So Saffron, a touch of Daffodil Delight and More Mustard.  The greeting was added in More Mustard using my Stamp-a-ma-jig.  All that was left to do was add the gorgeous little Embosslits butterflies: I made one layer from More Mustard card and another from paper vellum, adhering pearls down the centres.

Supplies
Stamps: Apothecary Art
Ink: Soft Suede, More Mustard, markers in So Saffron, Daffodil Delight and More Mustard
Card: Whisper White, So Saffron
Other: Embosslits Beautiful Wings, Framelits, paper vellum, pearls, stamp-a-ma-jig

We had a very busy weekend as we'd lined up lots of things we wanted to achieve. One of those was climbing Ingleborough Fell as you can see it from our house... and I have a thing about climbing hills I can see from our windows.  It was absolutely glorious weather, we made good time and visibility was superb from the top.  It really was a fantastic walk!  We're umming and ahing now about walking the Yorkshire Three Peaks this year.

Hope you had a good May Day weekend too!

Thanks for stopping by,

Christmas Layout

It might be April but I've been looking for a different use for some of my Sale-a-bration papers that I have left and the rich red of one paper made me think of Christmas... so I printed off our Christmas tree photo and set about turning it into a layout.  I'm still new to all this scrapbooking lark so I followed the 'big picture' challenge at Use Your Stuff and a layout in Scrap 365 magazine that I treated myself to at the weekend so as not to scare myself too much.

It's a lot harder taking photos of a 12x12 than a card but here is the finished layout:

I measured out my SAB paper to fit the width of the textured Chocolate Chip base layer, adding in eyelets with my Crop-a-dile.  Do you know this is the first time I've used my Crop-a-dile for this?  Normally it's just an elaborate and rather expensive hole punch!  I threaded wool through the eyelets like in the magazine layout.

Now can you guess how I made the border pieces?  SU are bringing out the Framelits dies in the Summer Mini Catalogue, and I drew around the top edge of one repeatedly and cut out.  The rest of the layout is fairly self-explanatory: adding in layers of Chocolate Chip textured card, more red SAB paper and die-cut striped Crumb Cake patterned paper.  The little robin at the bottom of my journalling is from Everything Eleanor.

The tag at the bottom has been made with the coordinating stamp set 'Apothecary Art' which goes perfectly with the new Framelits dies!  I do love how SU makes everything work together!  The flowers were coloured with my blender pen and Riding Hood Red and Old Olive marker pens.  Then both frames were chopped in half and lined up with the bottom edge of the layout.

Supplies

Stamps: Apothecary Art (available from May 1st), Everything Eleanor

Inks: Chocolate Chip, marker pens in Real Red, Riding Hood Red, Old Olive and Soft Suede

Card: textured Chocolate Chip

Paper: retired Sale-a-bration Everyday Enchantment (sorry!), Crumb Cake from the Neutrals Designer Series Paper stack

Other: eyelets, Crop-a-dile, wool, stamp-a-ma-jig, Framelits dies (available from May 1st)

Do let me know if I can be of any help with SU supplies... and if you'd like a paper copy of the Summer Mini Catalogue posting to you, just drop me an email.

No funny tales to share with you today so I'll leave you with a bad joke instead:

Why is 6 scared of 7?

Because 7 ate 9 and 10...

Many thanks as always for visiting,