Glamour, Sparkle and Pearls!

All the things a girl wants! And all these combined with handbags......now Christmas has really come early!!

My card today was inspired by 3 fun challenges this week:

Less is More-Glamour and Glitz
Eclectic Ellapu-Celebrate with Sparkle
52 Christmas Card Throwdown-Embellishment Challenge-pearls.

I saw these challenges last weekend and knew what card I wanted to do but only got down to it yesterday. It is a perfect card for one of my handbag loving, girly friends!

The digi is from Pink Petticoat. the sentiment and snowflakes from PTI.  And the sparkle paper from my stash.

Hope you have a fun weekend planned x

CAS-Colour and Sketches

Hello crafting chums,

Today I am super excited to tell you about Jacqueline's fantastic new challenge site. Plus I am super, super excited to tell you that I am on the design team for this challenge-my very first DT!! I feel very privileged to join this team of very talented Ladies.
The challenge site is CAS-Colour and Sketches. Yep, that's right, you get to play along some weeks with colour combos, some with sketches and then we have 'The Double' where we have both a colour combo and a sketch!
And to start us off with a bang we are having 'The Double'. That is this sketch:




And this colour combo:



Your challenge is to make a card using the sketch and colours as your inspirations. Only cards for this challenge and keep as close as possible to the colours. There are a few other rules that you can view here on the blog. BUT the main thing is to have fun!

Enough of this rambling, here is my card for you this week:

Now, I know these colours scream Autumn but I decided to go Christmas for a change. I didn't have 'cherry cobbler' ink so went for a colour as close as possible. I flipped the sketch and took very CAS interpretation of it using these little PTI border stamps to represent the squares. The verse is a Verve stamp. All the card stock has been embossed using my, much loved, PTI linen impression plate. A few little gems to match the 'pumpkin' sentiment stamp and there you go!
And it being a very special day, I have decorated the inside:

Now pop on over to the other DT members site Jacqueline, Louise, Kylie, we would love to know what you think of our cards and this new challenge site.

Happy Crafting x

Inspiration!

Isn't it amazing where our inspiration comes from? I am inspired by so many things but when I saw the 'cover art' Papertrey challenge hop on Saturday I couldn't think of anything. Then later that day I was reading one of my magazines and the cover just inspired me! However I couldn't get to my craft area as hubby was building my desk and I was banned from the room!
Then yesterday I saw the colour combo at ColourQ and it reminded me of the magazine cover. So I decided to make a card using these colours and inspired by this cover:

I did start off making a Christmas card but then things changed and I ended up with this:

And yippee to the bow-improving right?

I decorated the inside (an inside secret for you...the half circles at the top and bottom are from the bauble I started to make when it was a Xmas card!)

Thanks for popping by and please come back tomorrow as I have some news!

My D.I.Y man!!

Happy Monday,

I am happy today as I have a new crafting desk that my hubby spent all weekend building. Well, I say building........it was a flat pack! But he is no D.I.Y man and I was amazed and super pleased he did it for me, and it is perfect. As a thank you I mixed a Manhattan cocktail and made him a 'builder's tea' of pie and mash! And if you know me I hate to cook, so this was an effort for me (not so much mixing the cocktail, this I don't mind doing!!).

Naturally his hard work deserved a card and I had a lot of fun making this with quite a few Paper Smooches stamps. I have had the 'my guy' set for a while and am so pleased I got to use it and for this week Paper Smooches Sparks challenge. I saw their inspiration picture and the whole idea for the card popped into my head and I just got inky. I think I must have smiled the whole time I made it.....I so love it when a plan comes together and just at the right time. Here is the photo:



The chevrons, colours of the cushions and flowers plus the 'love' sentiment were all inspirations that led to my card. One of the hammers I stamped in a different colour and cut IT out and used foam pads so it pops off the page.

I have also, over the last week, discovered a few new fab challenge sites and I am going to enter this card into one of these called Addicted to Stamps and More. They have a CAS challenge this week. I think this card is pretty CAS and is all stamping-no ribbon, gems, twine etc, just good old funky stamps and inky ink!!

I have some exciting news to share with you later in the week so please keep checking back!

Thanks for stopping by x

Snowflakes!

Yes, we are still on Christmas card week! And today I am moving from scripture cards to 'snowflakes. I came across a new CAS site and wanted to join in the fun. The site is Addicted to CAS-if you are a fan of CAS go and have a peek. Their cue word this week is 'snow'.
My card today is perhaps not as CAS as I had started out but although it was quite fiddly I still looks CAS to me! Over on another newish site, Eclectic Ellapau, the challenge is layering, openable or interactive. Well my card really needed to have extra layers to make it look just right to my eye so I thought I would enter it into this challenge. Then the DT team at Ladybug Crafts challenged us to snowflakes, so enter this I must!
And here is my CAS layered snowflake card-I stamped the background then used my linen impression plate. Die cut the 2 snowflakes then embossed then with a swirly embossing plate (can't remember its name!_

And a close up of the layers

Have a fun Friday Eve my friends x

My First Mojo Monday!

I have for a long time admired the sketches on Mojo Monday but to be honest have kept away from them as they have scared me a bit because they appear quite fancy for my CAS brain! However when I saw the sketch this week a CAS version just popped into my head and finally I get to play along!

I think this week is officially my Christmas card week especially as I have just a few more to make and I am done.Then I need to move onto to some Xmas gift creations and 'thank you for your gift' notelets. Then finally I get to a stash of Birthday cards I need to make.

This card is another scripture card and therefore I will enter again into the 'scripture verse' 52 Christmas Card Throwdown challenge. Plus enter the the weekly 'uplifting' challenge at Word Art Wednesday

So enough chatting and onto my card-notice the sparkle!!

Glory to God.

Happy Tuesday crafting buddies,

My card today is another religious Christmas card. I have a few of these to make so have been getting down to it the last few days. I am super chuffed that my last one here was in the top three at A Twist of Faith. It always nice to be recognised and I did love this card.

Today's Xmas card is again using a Verve scripture stamp and is therefore perfect for the 'scripture verse' challenge at 52 Christmas Card Challenge blog. I knew this was the verse I wanted to use but was stuck for colours. I was hunting through different colour challenges when I saw the combo of pumpkin, olive, brown and ivory on Just Us Girls. Now, I know, this shouts an Autumn card but I decided to use it for my Christmas card. A challenge this was! But I kept it simple and used my orange, olive green and brown inks plus some brown twine (check out the bow.....improving don't you think???). I decided to dust off my wood grain impression plate and think it really matched the 'earthy' feel to the card.The hardest thing about this was getting a good photo and I am afraid I failed-the light is so bad at the moment, I left it until this morning as I thought I might get better light than last night but it is so dull and miserable here I think I should have done it last night. Still I hope you get the general idea. I also decided to decorate the inside.

And the inside:

I am also going to enter this into the 'plain and simple' challenge at Totally Gorguss-I love this funky name!

Have a fun Tuesday x

Anyone for Christmas Pudding?

I know a touch early for Christmas pudding but perhaps not!

My card today is for the challenge at Polka Doodles. They have challenged us this week to make a square card with a round element. I was keen to give this a go as I like to use different shaped cards just for a change. Plus crafting friend Asha has just joined their DT. It was actually this card from Asha that inspired my creation.

This is just 2 circle punches-one in pudding brown and one punched in sparkle paper. I just cut the sparkle circle to make it look like cream. That left me with another half of cream so I made 2 of these cards!
You can just see that I have embossed the background paper.

This was such fun to make and super quick and easy but I love how it turned out.

I am also going to enter this into the 'lets have sparkle' challenge at Crafty Catz and the 'I'm Hungry' challenge at Jellypark.

Hope your week has started well x

Winter Blues!

Happy Saturday,

You could easily have the Winter Blues today. It is rainy, cold and miserable. However we can not let this get us down. I am off into town for a bit of retail therapy, do lunch and watch 007 save the world!

But first my 'Winter Blues' card for this week challenges at Cas-ual Fridays, the 'keep it cool' challenge at Charisma Cardz and the 'Winter Wonderland' challenge at QKR Stampede.

Again when I saw Karen's card here I was inspired and got down and inky!

And here is what I came up with and my in much loved CAS style!

Now, off to brave the rain but will seek comfort in viewing Mr Bond!!

Bow Tying!!

I haven't felt very crafty the last few days but today decided to try to improve my bow tying! Why do I find it so tricky?? I watched this tutorial a few times but I think a few more times will be needed. As my  mojo is being a bit snail like at the moment I decided to make a card similar to one I made last week, one that I really liked. I made some alterations-different colours, words and fonts. This bow is a slight improvement but I need a little more work!

I am going to enter this into the new challenge site Eclectic Ellapu. The challenge this week is 'pink and brown'. The cards on this site are stunning with lots of detail, so my CAS card is a bit different but I love this colour combo so wanted to join in the fun. My blogging chum Asha is on the design team so pop over to Eclectic Ellapu and check out her gorgeous inspiration for this challenge.

I am also going to enter this into the 'thanks' challenge at CASology.

Have a good day and thanks for popping by x

Merci!!

How is your weekend going?

CASology's word this week is 'ORANGE' and, as I love my 'tangelo' memento ink, I wanted to play along.

I have for a while been following Karen who makes the most amazing cards. She often masks off areas and blends ink. The cards are stunning and I love the CAS style. If you don't know her work take a peek at
this card.

I decided to give this masking and inking a go in 'Karen's style'. I masked of a small area using post it notes then used a blending tool with my 'tangelo' ink. I used the same colour ink to stamp the background (this is a Verve stamp). Then added the sentiment in black to give contrast.

This is a 4" by 4" small card-continuing my effort to use different sizes and styles of card.

I am also entering this into the 'Thank You' challenge on Party Time Tuesday

Lets Chat!

Yippee, Friday is finally here and the cocktail hour approaches! Well it has to be 5pm somewhere??? But perhaps we should wait until we have our tea and toast!!

I have a very girly, pretty pink card for you today. It was inspired by paper smooches sparks 'typography' challenge. When I saw this I thought, what a great opportunity to mix and match some of their sentiment stamps I have. Recently in blog land I have seen quite a few of my fellow crafters repeating the same sentiment and loved the way this looked. So I decided to have a go. I have based the card on the colour pink after browsing this week's challenge on Less is More.

I actually used ribbon but I won't tell you how long it took me to tie the bow, but lets just say, I remember why I don't use ribbon too much! Still I love the way it finishes the card, so perhaps you will see more ribbons and bows!

Thanks for popping by and have a happy Friday x

Mid Life Crisis???

Happy Friday Eve,

My friend's chap is hitting 60 in a few days and my card today is for him. Now I am 46 (between you and me!) so I like to think he is just hitting mid life-I know, who I am kidding!!

BUT you assess for yourself. He drives around in a Porsche, zooms around on his motorbike and wears lots of leather jackets.......and your conclusion is????

I think my card is perfect for him!!

The stamps are all from papersmooches and the patterned paper is from the retro collection at Stampin up.

I was looking through my stash of cards the other day and came across different shapes and sizes of cards and decided it was time to have an experiment with them. Today I used this long, thin card which seemed to suit the car stamp.

This is my entry this week for CAS-ual Fridays  'masculine' challenge, Allsorts 'for men only' challenge and Cards for Men 'anything goes' challenge.

Have a zoom, zoom day!!

Happy Birthday Lynn!

Today I want to shout across the pond......Happy Birthday Lynn!!

Lynn and I are cousins and therefore have always been connected although we live in different countries. But over the last 18 months, and through our love of card making, we have become a lot closer and I feel blessed to have her in my life. Our new connections means the world to me, so today we are raising a glass to you Lynn!

And my card today is for Lynn. Hopefully it has arrived in the post o.k-if not Lynn, read on to see what it should have looked like!!

I wanted to use the leaf dies and stamps as Lynn has often commented to me how much she loves these.  I have used the colour combo set by Mynnette for the third card in her DT call (details here). This was a tough combo-suede, baby blue and olive. I did have to think a while on this one but had the idea of looking through my stash of buttons to find a suede one and actually found one that I think is a pretty good match. I then die cut a flower from, much neglected, blue felt. I masked off the strip and did some inking and stamping in the colour combo.

And here is my card for Lynn and my third card for the Mynnette's DT call.

I am also going to enter this into the Totally Gorguss 'button' challenge, and Crafty Catz 'add texture' challenge.


Have a fun day Lynn xx

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Remember, Remember the 5th of November! Guy Fawkes night tonight-are you off to a Fireworks display or, like here, did all the sparkle and fun happen over the weekend? I am afraid we didn't go out into the cold but we do have a bird's eye view of all the local displays from the warmth of our lounge!

I have a card today inspired by this photo display from Jay Gee's Nook



I loved the gingham garland with the red and white stars. I took these elements from the photo and followed clean and simple sketch #215 and came up with this:

I do love this sentiment is from Verve and it is the first time I have used it.

I will also enter this into the 'twinkle, twinkle little star' challenges at Cute and Girly and Totally Papercrafts

Have a fun and sparkly Guy Fawkes night!

Crafty Sunday!

Happy Sunday,

Today hubby and I have had a crafty day (after doing the supermarket shop!). He is one corner of our craft (spare) room producing his 'drum and base' music and I am the other side, getting inky! I made some more bauble cards, a twinkle star Xmas card, a get well card and decorated some gift bags! Goodness where did all that inspiration come from!!

Today I am going to share some more of my bauble cards. I have used different die cuts, colours and sentiments but stuck to the same stamp.

Here is my first one, which I am going to enter into the 'Christmas' challenges on Crafty Ribbons

And my second version which I am going to enter into CAS(E) this sketch, this is my second card but I decided to enter it as I think it is actually closer to the challenge sketch than my first card.

I will be back over the next few days to show you the other cards I made today.

Thanks for popping by x

CAS(E) this Sketch #4

Gosh November already!! Better get going on those Christmas cards!

I have had a few days off from Christmas cards but today got the urge to use my new die cut baubles and Lisa's sketch on CAS(E) this Sketch gave the inspiration I needed. I combined the die cut with some stamping to come up with this:

This was fun to make and I got to use my new toys!

And here is Lisa's sketch:



Enjoy the rest of your day x