Thank you!

How is your weekend going?

I have been doing some crafting which always makes us happy!!

For Christmas my dear friend Nonni sent me some crafty goodies and I was itching to try out this grungy clock image.

I used the sketch from Happy Little Stampers for my lay out. I stamped some gold splashes first and then heat embossed the clock stamp. I really wanted a grungy look and think I have pulled it off. 

A huge thank you Nonni for this set.

I will enter this into:

AAA Cards-use Gold

Crazy for CAS-Use splatters

Happy Little Stampers-sketch challenge

Darnell's NBUS #3-new clock stamp.

edited to add Less is More-metallic, black and one other-grey (thanks Loll x)

Enjoy your Sunday x

Inkspirational #72

A very Happy Weekend-the last one before Christmas!

It is time for our photo challenge at Inkspirational and I just love this photo and lets see if you can guess why?



Get it?

Yep, purple and a Cityscape-you know I love both!! Sort of weird then that I feature neither on my card!!

The splatter stamp is from Paper Artsy and the sentiment stamps are from STAMPlorations

This stamps really does look like fire works to me and the pink does sparkle IRL as it is covered with Wink of Stella-shame you can't see it so well.

This week we are joined by one of my favourite crafters Karen. Her blog Made by Meadie is full if the most inspiring projects. I am so very blessed that Karen and I have recently become blogging friends and her Christmas card was my first Holiday card this year arriving just as December hit. She is very organised! I hope you have your card now Karen!

Our DT have all made fabulous projects and you can check them out here

I am entering this card into the sketch challenge at STAMPlorations and their Dec challenge (July-stamps and glitter) and their AG challenge.

And Crazy for CAS-Anything Goes

Fusion

I hope you are all having a good weekend.

I have a card today for Fusion's last challenge of the year. As many of you know I love to play along with Fusion but this challenge I found a challenge! I loved the photo and really wanted to go with the gingham however creativity escaped me. After thinking of ideas for over a week I decided just to forget about gingham and re-look at the photo. This turned out to be a good idea as I immediately came up with this idea and combined it with my favourite sketch out at the moment from STAMPlorations

I went with the pine cones!

The cones are from Clearly Besotted Stamps and the sentiment from Uniko

Just simple stamping plus a touch of white pen, Wink of Stella and sequins for a little touch of interest. I was pleased how it turned out and especially pleased that I got to play along in the last challenge this year at Fusion.

I will also enter this into:

Crazy for CAS-something old (my CBS are over a year old)

Crazy for Challenges-Winter Themed Birthday card-this is for a Birthday in Jan

     

Inspiration Galore!

Yesterday I had a day when I just felt like getting out my water colours and joining in a few challenges. My card is very CAS today and has water colouring that had to be quite detailed to get the look I wanted. First the card then the huge amount of inspiration that was drawn on to create it!

First off I used the photo from Fusion. I immediately loved the bunch of flowers in the photo and used the stunning splashes of blue, green and yellow as my starting point. I have used all these colours in my flowers, gradually blending from green, to blue and yellow. This was not my normal splash it on water colour painting but very specific and subtle. I love the texture of the water colour card and this was a nod to the wood grain in the photo. 

My card is one layer and only uses 2 flowers (not my normal 3) so I could enter Less is More and Crazy for CAS

All my stamps are from Uniko Studios and I have used 2 of their challenge colours so this will be entered into their challenge.

And finally I will enter Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is to use water colours.

Strange how you see one challenge (Fusion) then a few more pop up and a card comes together.

Even for me this card is very CAS and I did wonder if it was too CAS but then I went with my gut that was telling me....you like it!!

    

I've been painting again!

Yesterday I was in the mood for doing some more water colouring. I recently decided to invest in some paint brushes as so far I have been doing all my painting with just one tiny brush. I am enjoying drawing and water colouring without stamps so decided to make this investment.

I really like the photo this week at Fusion and wanted to paint my own flowers in a jar. I found a tutorial by the The Frugal Crafter on utube and gave it a go with my own twist! No stamps used here, all done free hand and I really enjoy it! I wanted to enter the water colouring challenge at Crazy for CAS so once I had finished the painting I made it into a CAS card:

Again the light here in London is not good. One minute we have rain then the sun is out for a few mins and then more rain. This is the best photo I could get after trying all day and remember what I said on Friday...enough is enough!!

I will also enter this into Seize the Birthday Challenge-anything Goes

Inspired by many!

I have not been so well since last Sunday night and have done a lot of sleeping in the last few days and creativity seem to have escaped me! However today I was doing some blog hopping and saw this card by Bev my fellow DT member at TIME OUT challenges. I loved this card and as I had just this week received the same Butterfly stamps from Bev's Uniko Studio store, I thought I would see if my mojo was coming out to play! With a little help from a few more challenges I created this card:

I went looking for a layout and came across the card this week by Therese at the Muse Card Club challenge. I loved the one layer design of Therese's card with the flowers overlapping the sentiment. I changed the flowers for butterflies but followed the general layout. It has been ages since I played along at Muse so I am pleased that today it helped inspire me. I used the colours this week at Colour Q. I loved the combo of the colours and think they worked perfectly for my card. I love the touch of bright green sparkle I added to the butterflies.

I will also enter this into the challenge at Crazy for CAS who are this week asking for Butterflies!

      

Time Out Reminder

Good Morning crafting friends,

Today I am here with a card to remind you that our 'Inspired by Words' challenge is still up and running at TIME OUT Challenges. Our words this week are:

'Time Flies, Love Lasts'

Today I have used bird charms to represent 'flies' and a glossy heart to represent 'love'. You can choose any word you want from this phrase or be inspired by the whole phrase.

I think this might be the first time I have used charms on my card but I have always admired how my crafting friend Pia uses them on many of her cards. So I decided to give it a go when my sister gave me these adorable wooden charms.

I am going to enter this into the 'ribbon or twine' challenge at Crazy for CAS

You still have a week to enter our challenge at TIME OUT, so why not take some TIME OUT for yourself and join in the fun x

Lets Celebrate!

Over at Time Out challenges we are announcing our winners of all those lovely goodies from Uniko Studios. Just pop on over to our site here to see if you are a winner!

I wanted to make another card for our current challenge here which is to CASE the fab card Virginia made for us (see her card at the bottom of my post). I challenged myself to make a more CAS version this week but keeping to Virginia's lay out and this is what I came up with:

This was made by masking off the strip and then using 2 different circle stamps from Uniko Studios to make my pattern, masking each one as I went-took some time but I liked the effect.

I came up with this by hunting around blog land. I found 2 photos that inspired me to create this card.

First off this photo from Just Us Girls inspired my use of yellow and green and patterns.

And then this photo from Crazy for CAS inspired my use the black and white stripes and circles.

I will also enter this into the 'three thirds' challenge at CAS-ual Fridays as I have used 3 stars and 3 colours.

I hope my card has inspired you to take some TIME OUT and play along at TIME OUT

Watercolouring Take 2!

Yesterday I shared with you my first 'real' go at watercolouring inspired by Virginia's new challenge and Shery's video tutorial. As I was on a watercolour kick I decided to challenge myself just a bit more.....make it one layer so I could enter 'Just Add Water' the One Layer Simplicity Challenge. I followed the sketch at Crazy For CAS-this sketch did stump me a bit until I started the watercolouring and suddenly an idea of how to interpret it popped into my head.

I have coloured in the sentiment with watercolour pencils and added some gems and enamel dots..sorry I just can't resist doing this at the moment. I am sure I will soon kick this habit but for the moment at least I combined it with a something different for me...watercolouring (I think I must think I am an artist now, but can you just about make out they are roses??)

I will also enter this into the One Layer Challenge with Spring Flowers at Less is More

Have a fun day xx

Time to take Time Out and sneak a peek 2!

Hello crafting friends,

It is time to for you to take a sneak peek at our second challenge at Time Out Challenges. Today the fabulous crafter Lynn has a card to inspire you! I know you want to take a peek at Lynn's card and find out all about our next type of challenge. And to do that you just need to click here and take just a little Time Out!!

I also have a couple of cards for you today. The first one was inspired by the sketch at Crazy for CAS. I saw this sketch and knew exactly what stamp would be perfect for it! I think this grunge stamp set from STAMPlorations is becoming one of my favourite. I decided to make this into a Valentines/love card by adding some kissable lips...thanks to glossy accents and Fresh Squeezed Stamps!

I am also going to enter this into the following challenges:
Dynamic Duos-pink and pool party. I don't have a baby pink colour so I am hoping this will be o.k
CAS on Sunday-lovey dovey (such a cool name!)

I don't usually post 2 cards in one day but I realised that the deadline for CAS(E) this Sketch is this morning. I liked this weeks sketch but hadn't really thought of an idea until I saw the really fab code word at CASology this week-Contrast-the DT have made 2 cards one that contrasts the other. I thought this was a unique idea and really got my mojo in gear. I decided to follow their lead and looked through my cards on Flickr for a non CAS card (I had to go back a long way!) and then did a CAS version of it.
Here is the CAS version using STAMPlorations stamps:

The original was posted in Dec 2011 and here it is, same colour scheme but definitely not CAS! Plus this time my dancers are not digi images but heat embossed to give texture. This was such a fun challenge, I may have to do another 'contrast' card!

And before you leave, don't forget to see what the lovely Lynn has created for our sneak peek at Time Out Challenges

Sketch from Crazy for CAS         Sketch for CAS(E) this Sketch