Snowy Days Are Here!

That is right, snow is creeping towards London and my card today is to celebrate this! Yes, I like to celebrate snow as it rarely visits us and a snowy winter walk in the park would be a great way to spend Sunday-so it had better hurry up and start falling!!
My card today is my 2nd Christmas card of the year for the challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. I only have 50 to go! This week the very talented Ruth set the funky Christmas colours of purple, metallic silver and white. I just love this combo for Christmas and here is my card:

I was hoping you would be able to see the sparkly glitter hills as IRL they really do stand out. I stamped this funky Xmas tree and added a few metallic brads and some purple gems. The sentiment is from PTI

Love how this turned out and so happy I made it to week 2!!

I am also going to enter this into the 'winter' challenges at
Casology
The Sisterhood of Crafters
Fab 'n' Funky

If you are a lover of all things CAS Jackie Rockell  is starting a new CAS challenge blog-so keep your eye on her new blog here.

The snow has not yet fallen but we can hope. Happy Sunday crating chums!!

Inkspirational End of Week Encouragement!

At last the weekend is here, time to relax, chill and get some time getting creative!
I am here to inspire you to get inking with my 'end of week encouragement card' for our 2nd Challenge at Inkspirational. There is still time to play along! Lat week I had so much fun visiting your blogs and seeing all the gorgeous entries, it was so hard to choose a top 5!

Here is our inspiration photo:

When I saw this photo I had one of those moments we all love....I have an idea NOW! 

I saw the heart and the ladder leading up to it plus the flowers below and the sentiment 'All things grow with love' from PTI popped into my head. Isn't it great when that happens!

So I went with this idea and came up with:

I managed to take a photo that actually shows the linen impression plate I so love.  I do like how this card came out. I think it really shows my CAS style and I am super happy it all came together in my little mind so quickly (doesn't happen very often!!)

So what does this photo inspire in you?

Pop over to our site here and see what our fab DT have got for you-lots of great inspiration. Then get inky!! And this month A Day of Daises are sponsoring us and offering a $12 voucher to our monthly winner.

I am also going to enter this into the challenge at Word Art Wednesday-to interpret the theme 'hearts' in any way that makes you feel blessed that God loves us-and this week I think is a week to reflect on this. I interpret this in that love is all around us and we all grow in many ways through love. And, I feel,  flowers growing and blooming is a good was to represent this.

Support is all around us!

Happy Friday crafting chums,

This week there seems to be a lot of people in need of our support and love for a variety of reasons. My card is to remind those who are finding it hard at the moment, that many of us might not actually have met, but  we do care and are thinking of you and praying for you.

The inspiration for this came from a variety of sources and, again, it took a few days of mulling on some ideas until I saw this week's sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch and then suddenly I had it.....the idea popped (and I honestly had this idea before I saw Kim's DT card!)
I had the original idea when I saw the inspiration photo at For Your Inspiration-I thought of clouds and wanted to use my neglected cloud dies, plus focus on the lighthouse-my card may not have a lighthouse but the sentiment lends itself well to this!
If you follow my blog, you will know I am a lover of the linen embossing plate and therefore wanted to enter the 'dry embossing' challenge at Make My Monday. I was determined to use more than one kind of embossing. I die cut the clouds then embossed them with a dotted embossing folder before placing them on the linen embossed card. I made so many mistakes with the clouds until I got them exactly as I wanted. I now have 9 extra die cut clouds, so expect to see them over the next few weeks!
I also discovered ABC Challenges, this week asking for CAS cards, so I am entering this challenge for the first time.

For all of you who need a hug, I wish I could send this to you all, but hope this post lightens your load a little x

        

CAS-Colour and Sketches #7

Happy Friday Eve crafting chums,

It is our 7th challenge at CAS-Colour and Sketches and this week we have this sketch for you:

I decided to dust off my PTI Mendhi Medallion stamp set and mix and match them to come up with this card:

As you can see this week I followed the sketch layout almost exactly (which is quite unusual for me!). I have used 'London Fog' and 'Tangelo' memento inks, the sentiment is from Paper Smooches. I gave the card texture with the PTI linen impression plate. The right hand corner of the photo is a bit bright but this was the best photo I could get that showed the impression plate in detail. I hope you can see why I love using this- it seems to add an air of sophistication to the card!!

Our DT have all made fab cards using this sketch. Take a look here to get some inspiration and then get stamping! I can't wait to see your cards.

I am also going to enter this into the 'Thank you' challenge at A Passion for Papertrey.

Have a fun inky time x

Christmas Still???

I know that you think Christmas is over but have you thought about next year yet??? I was inspired to make my card today when I saw the sketch challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. It was really Ruth's 2012 Christmas box here that tempted me to make a Christmas card. Plus yesterday we took down all our decorations and tree so I thought it might be fun to make my first Christmas card for 2013 to keep the spirit alive!! The 52 Christmas Card Throwdown has a weekly challenge all year. I would love to be able to enter this weekly but lets see if I manage it.There are lots of offers on Xmas goodies at the moment, so a little retail therapy may help!!

Here is my card:

I used Cas-ual Friday's Merry-Kiss-Mas stamp set and just added a few red gems and coloured some of the berries red with promakers. A very CAS version of the sketch but I do like it!

I will also enter this into the 'black, white and splash of one colour' challenges at Less is More and Hiding in my Craft Room.
Here is the sketch:

Have a good week and get in some inky time when you can.....you know it keeps us sane! x

Gifts Galore!

Happy Sunday and today I have a thank you card I made for my Mum and Dad. Every year I get 'gifts a plenty' from them! The pile of gifts I get really do resemble my card! I am so blessed to have all these gorgeous gifts to open every year. So here is a little card I made to thank them (it really is a LITTLE card as it is a 10cm-10cm card)

I used some paper that I won last year in a challenge but have never used before and just stamped these gorgeous presents from the CAS-ual Friday's 'Merry-Kiss-Mas' stamp set and paper pieced them onto a black card before then sticking this onto the card stock. I had to adjust the PTI sentiment by adding my own 's' to reflect the presents were many!!

This card was inspired by Virginia's CAS-ual Fridays DT card here. I loved her pile of presents and it inspired me to get paper piecing my own gifts!

I am entering this into the 'Thank you' challenge at CAS-ual Fridays and the 'New' challenge at Casology as the paper is new as although I have had for a while it has never been used. Also every little gift that is opened brings something new and a lot of new smiles!!

Have a fun Sunday and hope you get time to do some stamping x

CAS-Colour an Sketches #6

Happy Friday Eve. Yes that is right, we are very nearly hitting the first weekend of 2013!
And do you have big plans?? Whatever you are doing? I am hoping you get some time to craft and play along in CAS-Colour and Sketches first challenge of this bright New Year! It was great to see all the entries last week. I loved checking them out and found it hard to choose my top 3.

This week we have a colour challenge for you and we are using the Stampin' Up colours-Crumb Cake, Summer Starfruit and Gumball Green. You don't have to get your colours exact, just as close as you can.

I struggled with this as I didn't seem to have the right ink colours but then hunted through my stash and came across some old pads of stampin' up paper. Now had a wealth of choices as all the paper seemed to have these colours! I chose my 3 favourite patterns and did some paper piecing and came up with this:

These stamps are from Little Claire Designs. Paper piecing is a little out of my 'comfort zone'. But this turned out to be fun and easier than I expected. This is to be added to my stash of 'guy' cards-and we know we need a collection of them!
Our DT team have come up with some fantastic inspiration cards for you so have a look here and then get creating. I am looking forward to seeing all your cards. Have fun x