Lets Go Retro!

Happy Friday Eve crafting buddies,

Today I have gone all out retro....a retro phone, retro stamps, retro colours and a retro challenge!

I saw the retro sketch challenge this week and was going to go all ribbons and bows but then I saw Kasia'a card here and liked her 'CAS' take on the sketch and decided to follow suit. Here is what I came up with:

I used this weeks Colour Q challenge combo, adding a touch of yellow. The image is a freebie from Birdie Brown's blog. I just cut it out, did some colouring, added some wire from my stash to come up with this funky, retro phone..........yep they did look like this once, minus the bright green and smiley face!

Thanks for popping by and enjoy the rest of your day x

The Magic of Christmas in August!

Happy Weekend to all,

We have to face up to the fact that Summer is nearly over and Christmas is just around the corner! So best to get crafting those Christmas cards now, think of it like this...make the cards now and then you will have more time to party in December!!

For my card today I used my new the 'Tree Trimming Trio' stamp set from PTI. This is such a fun set-it is like a pick and mix set that you can play with all day!

The 'black, white and splash of lime' challenge over at The Play Date Cafe gave me the idea of using a tree stamp and adding lime coloured baubles. I will also enter this into the Bloggers Challenge of 'black, white and one other colour' and the '3-2-1' challenge at Less is More (3 green baubles, 2 green gems and 1 black gem)

Oh, sorry have to rush off now, I can here the Saturday wine bottle popping!!

Hello Again!

It seems like ages since I have posted. I have just got back from a very hot but relaxing hols in Santorini. Callum and I had a great time but now off we go back into 'London Days!'

Since coming home and doing all the holiday laundry (yet to be finished) I am writing an application for some funding and was starting to feel stressed (how does that happen only a few days after coming home??). However a little package of goodies arrived from my cousin Lynn so I decided to ease my mind and have some fun crafting.

I have for a long time now loved the 'gringe me' stamps from PTI and, as I now am a proud new owner of this set, I got them out to play. Had no idea what to do with them but remembered making a bordered stamp card form  this PTI 'Make it Monday' tutorial. So as I hadn't crafted for a while I decided to have a go following this. And I came up with a very non 'CAS' card which is weird for me but I had such a lot of fun doing it.

Now, please humour me and note how I have tried to follow the pattern of the 'retro grunge' 'stampin' up' paper when doing my own stamping design (see grunge spludges and circles??)

The chevron border is again from PTI, I stamped it on some of the background paper and cut it out to border it from the pattered paper.

As it is my Brother's Birthday next week and this card has a 'guy' feel to me I will be popping this in the post for him.

Now this is going into the challenge at A Passion for Papertrey. The package of goodies was a PTI package with a few little surprises from Lynn, one of which is the dotted stamps bordering the sentiment.

It is only 6am here so I now have a bit more time in my day for that dreaded application and hopefully some crafting stress relieve later in the day. But first I need to go and wake hubby so he can go out a earn the bacon!

Oh and before I go a picture of me and Callum from our hols.

Good to be back and have a good day x

Summertime colours!

Hello from sunny Santorini (well here's hoping as this is pre-scheduled the night before I go!!)

I am at the moment, I hope, enjoying a few cocktails and watching the sunset.

When I saw the Summer colours on this week's Colourq challenge I had to have a go and I decided to combine it with the Summertime challenge at A passion for Papertry. As these flowers have such a summertime glow to them. I have used the 'garden of life' stamp set and linen impression plate (my fave) from PTI and the sentiment from Paper smooches. I had the inspiration for the design from Nichole Heady's 'make it Monday' tutorial that you can view here. I tried out the 'bleach stamping' and was impressed but need a bit more practise. However I did use a design based on one of her cards.

Hope you like my take on the clourq colours and Summertime theme...........now what is that I hear-oh yes the clinking of glasses as hubby buys cocktails on the terrace so we can marvel at the sunset (all in my mind at the moment, but here is to wishing big!!)
Will catch you in a week or so and hope all is well with my crafting buddies.
Take care x 

CAS-ual Friday Colours

Happy Monday,

Another week begins and here in London things are hotting up with Olympic fever. The talk of the town amongst us native Londoners is not what sport are you watching but......how busy was the tube??? Well hubby has just got home in record time with no problems. Let's see what tomorrow brings!!
My card today is for the CAS-ual Friday colour challenge of lime, navy and aqua. These colours spoke 'boy card' to me and when I saw my cousin Lynn's card for this challenge (she is on the DT) I loved her masking and super CAS take on the challenge and decided to 'case' her card-you can view her card here.

I used a square block wooden stamps and had a play with some masking to come up with this:

 In real life I think it looks better than the photo and the colours stand out more. This was an experiment but I really like the funky look to it...........so thank you Lynn for the inspiration x

We are off to Santorini on hols on Thursday so I am not sure if I will get another post in. If not, I will be blog hopping and checking out your cards but may not be able to comment-so I will be MIA, but hopefully back full of inspiration and looking super brown and healthy in a few weeks.
I may chat with you before Thursday but if not...happy crafting x

Hello crafting buddies,

I have been MIA for over a week now as I have been poorly. I have been reading your posts and forever being amazed at your creations but I have not felt up to commenting very often however it is now a new week!

I have started my new week with a card for my Mum who came to stay and look after me for a few days. At 46 seems a bit silly to have your Mum looking after you but I believe we all need our Mums whatever age we are. I wanted to show my Mum how much I appreciated her help and to let her know that I love her dearly...........so what better way to do this than to make a card!

This card was inspired by the challenge photo below on Runway Inspired. Saw this photo and loved the blue pattern on the dress and the white belt space plus the bright pink slash of those 'on to die for' shoes!



And I came up with this:

I can't remember where I got these swirl stamps from and haven't used them before but all other stamps are from Paper Smooches. And as I have started an online CAS course and learning about 'one layer cards' and 'masking' I mixed and matched a few of my newly learnt techniques.

Have a good weekend and I hope to be posting a bit more this week and commenting on your gorgeous cards.

And lets all give a cheer to our Mums! x

One Layer Cards

Today I did the 'one layer cards' class of the Online Card Class course I am taking. I learnt a few techniques and then had a play to see what I could come up with it.

I decided to do a card inspired by this photo on Jay Gee's Nook challenge blog:




I just loved this photo when I saw it and, although the sparkle gem teeth really stand out, what caught my eye was the wooden medallion over the bed in the photo on the left top corner. I knew immediately that I wanted to make a card using my Mehndi Medallion stamp from PTI . This is what I came up with-inspired by the photo and using what I had learnt in the class:

And as I also used the 'Big and Bold' sentiment set from PTI I am going to enter again into the challenge at A Passion for Papertrey -they are being nice to us for the next 2 weeks with a 'anything goes' challenge and as so many of my products are from Papertrey I may well enter a third time!!

Fri-Eve is here so we are nearly hitting the weekend. Hope you have lots of plans......mine unfortunately include defrosting the freezer and supermarket shopping but I am going for a walk with a friend on Sunday, so not all bad.

Hubby is now stuck on the very sweaty London tube and is going to be super late so I am off to chill in the bath.....have a good evening crafty friends x