Christmas Spaniels - Take 2

Hello!

Today I have a card made with the 2nd of the 3 stamps in the Christmas Spaniels set by Crissy Armstrong.

This little cutie is sporting a pretty bow and a pair of antlers, sooooo adorable.

I coloured this one up with golden red fur, with my distress ink markers, and also used one of the small sentiments in the Joyous Holiday clear stamp set

plus a chipboard word from Make it Crafty. I inked the lower portion in red ink and the top I embossed with white embossing powder.

The papers are  from Whimsy Stamps and the die I used is from MFT.

I added a couple of Snowflakes cut with the Layered Snowflake die set and I used the same white embossing powder on those too to give them a glossy finish. I finished up with a few glittery red enamel dots from my stash.

Stamp - Whimsy Christmas Spaniels
Whimsy Layered Snowflake Die Set
MFT Essential Cover Up Horizontal Die
Whimsy Christmas Cheer 6 x 6 Paper Pad
Make it Crafty Chipboard - Happy

Whimsy - Joyous Holiday Stamp Set

That's all from me today, happy crafting!

Cupcake Treat

Hello!

It's no secret that I love Sylvia Zet's sweet images. Honestly if I had the time I would colour every one of her stamps up as soon as they were released, but with work and other commitments sometimes I have to wait till I can get them on a card.

I adore this sweet image called Cupcake Treat, it's totally sweet and lots of fun and perfect for all sorts of cards. If you're in the UK or Europe you can buy this stamp from Dies to Die for.

Today I've made a card in my more usual softly shabby style, and kept the colouring very light along with the papers.

Coloured in my usual distress ink markers, I've mostly stuck to neutrals and pinks, though the pink is fairly bright to give it a little lift.

Frayed Burlap, Esspresso, Gathered Twigs, Antique Linen, Picked Raspberry

I used some Wink of Stella on the wings, which you can just about see in the pic below, but it's so much more sparkly in real life!

The papers I used are from the gorgeous House of Roses collection from Lemoncraft, I've linked them for you below along with some scrummy embellishments from The Ribbon Girl.

House of Roses Paper
Vintage Seam Binding Siam Pink 
Cheesecloth
Pink Trellis Rose
Pale Pink 20 mm Open Rose
Pale Pink 10 mm Open Rose
Rose Leaves
5 mm Mixed Brown Pearls

Thanks for dropping by,

Christmas Penguin in Red

Hello!

I'm so sorry I've been absent for a while. As you know my Dad died recently and I haven't really felt up to blogging and Facebooking, though I have been crafting a little as it's helped me to just immerse myself in that for a bit.

Anyway, I thought I would drop in quickly to share this little penguin card that I made a while back, this was actually one of my kits I put together for the Whimsy Craft Retreat in September and is a revamp of the card I made for the September release, but this time I went with red, white and grey.

I hope you like it, I've listed the things I used below as well as links to the places I bought them where possible.

Whimsy Stamps -Christmas Penguin - Lee Holland

MFT -Postage Stamp STAX Die

La-La Land Small Snowflakes Die

Whimsy Stamps - Christmas Cheer Paper Pad

Whimsy Stamps -Christmas Cheer Enamel Dots

Ivory Sugar Sprinkles Ribbon

Red Satin Ribbon

Thanks for dropping by,

Whimsy October Release - Crissy Armstrong - Christmas Spaniels

This is a scheduled post as I'm currently journeying down south to say goodbye to my Dad in his final hours.

This should have been 2 cards and I have another spaniel from the set all coloured up, but I didn't get time to get the card finished with everything that's happened in the last few days, so I will have to share that one separately at a later date.

So.....Spaniels....don't you just love them? We used to have a black English Cocker Spaniel years ago and she was soooooo pretty, so when I saw the Christmas Spaniels from Crissy Armstrong I just knew I had to colour these up.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with the super sweet Crissy at the Whimsy Stamps Craft Retreat and she told me she loved Spaniels too and would love to have one. I think you can tell by the way she's drawn them.
Spaniels come in lots of different shades so I chose a different colour for each Spaniel and for this one I chose a blonde colour.

I've coloured her with distress inks and paired her with some lovely Whimsy paper from the Christmas Cheer pad and some smooth white cardstock matted with a little deep red.

The sentiment is from the recently released Scripty Occasions and I finished off with a small snowflake cut with the Layered Snowflake dies, and covered with plenty of Glamour Dust and then a few red gems.

If you're in the UK or Europe you can purchase most of the supplies I've used over at Dies to Die for.

That's all from me, I may be off the radar for a while, but I hope you'll understand.

Whimsy Stamps October Release - Wee Stamps - Winter Wonder

Hello!

Do you ever feel like you're a pendulum? You're swinging waaaaaay over there and just as you think you've reached your destination......whooosh, over the other way you go.

My month is a bit like that. After returning from the Whimsy Craft retreat on a high, and recovering from the jet lag, my Dad was once again taken into hospital. Monday night I got a call that he wasn't going to get any better and they were withdrawing treatment, just keeping him as comfortable as possible. I'm readying myself for the call to go down there. Then yesterday he seemed to rally a bit (apparently this is quite common), so I feel like I'm being put through an emotional wringer currently, and on top of everything I seem to have pulled something  or trapped a nerve in my lower back and I'm in agony. 

So I'm at home today rather than in work, trying to pull myself together a bit. Luckily for me I'd already made my stuff for the new release, so that was one less thing to think about. Soooooooo......

Whimsy Stamps October Release

You are going to want need some of these...maybe all....they are so many mouthwatering goodies on offer.

I almost couldn't decide what to colour up first, but as you know I am a huge fan of Sylvia Zet's work and this new stamp from her for Whimsy's Wee Stamps Collection was just so adorable and perfect for Christmas. I don't know about you but I still have a heap of Christmas cards to make. Am I in any way ready for Christmas? I am not.

This is called Winter Wonder.

I've gone for my usual slightly vintage and shabby chic style here, but I've kept things reasonably pared down as I want the focus to be on the sweet image.

I've stamped onto Langton HP water colour paper with Versafine ink in Onyx Black and then coloured with my Distress Ink markers.

Colours Used:

Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Brushed Corduroy, Frayed Burlap, Walnut Stain, Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass, Worn Lipstick, Scattered Straw, Hickory Smoke, Pine Needles Festive Berries.

I ummed and ahhed about colouring in a night sky, but in the end I decided I wanted to keep the image a little lighter, so I didn't.

I added some Glamour Dust to the fur trim for some sparkle and cut out the image with a postage stamp frame die from MFT.

I used some Kasiercraft Paper, Silver Bells, from my stash and edged all my papers with Walnut Stain DI. I finished with some well placed embellishments and a couple of peal swirls from my stash to look a bit like swirls of snow.

If you're in the UK or Europe, the flowers, cheesecloth, ribbon and lace are all from The Ribbon Girl and the stamp and postage stamp die can be purchased from Tracy at Dies to Die for.

That's all from me today, but I'll be back tomorrow with more lushness from the new release, in the meantime you can catch up with all the gorgeous makes from my fabulous team mates in the
Whimsy Stamps and Inspiration Group
on Facebook and you can see all the goodies on our blog

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Negative Snowflake Card

Hello! My goodness it does seem like a long time since I did a normal post doesn't it?

I've been so busy with work, getting ready for the Whimsy Stamps Craft Retreat in Orlando, my Dad being in hospital and then spending the last week over in the States teaching at the retreat, my poor blog has been a bit neglected. I did have a wonderful time at the craft retreat and I will be making a proper post about it later, but for now I thought I would share one of the extra projects I did for the retreat.

This wasn't part of the class I actually taught, but I wanted to give the girls plenty of stuff to make both at the retreat and at home, so as well as the 2 stamped and coloured cards I did kits and lessons for, I put together an extra kit of 3 different snowflake cards using just card, paper, snowflake dies, a sentiment stamp, ink and some enamel dots. These were VERY clean and simple indeed and mostly white on white with a little pop of colour.

The one I'm sharing with you today is a negative snowflake card using the latest Snowflake Dies from the September release along with the Winter Wishes papers and enamel dots. These beautiful and delicate snowflakes look lovely on a card, but after cutting 30 or so (I cut 176 snowflakes for the retreat!), they were not the easiest thing to release from the die. Well you know what they say about adversity, I really had to think hard about how to solve my problem as the air was turning fairly blue by this point. I'd tried the dryer sheet method previously and had next to no success with that one and I didn't have any wax paper, (plus I'd heard mixed reviews of that method too), so what could I do?

I got an old toothbrush (make sure you use an old one and not your other half's ....unless you're really mad at them lol), and a nightlight (you could use any kind of wax candle but make sure it's not coloured). Then I rubbed the bristles of the toothbrush vigorously over the candle and then all over the inside area of the die. Voila, once they were put through the die cutting machine as normal, the die cuts almost fell out of the die. I reapplied the wax after every 3 to 4 cuts. My goodness this worked like a charm and removed at least 90% of swearing. Try it yourself, I'd love to see how you get on.

So, back to the card, this was super easy to make.

 I cut a 12 by 4.25 inch piece of white cardstock and folded in half for my card base, then another piece of 5.75 x 4 inch white CS for my top layer. I cut out a medium sized snowflake from this in the lower right corner and saved the die cut for another card, then I stamped a Christmas sentiment in blue ink in the lower left corner, this one is from the Simple Holidays set. I attached a small square of blue design paper, on my base card, so that it would show through the snowflake shaped hole, without showing beneath the sides of the top layer, then I added the top layer to my card base with some foam tape. Finally I decorated with a few enamel dots.

That's all there is to it. I'll share the other cards with you later as well and I've listed everything I used on this one down below.

Medium to Heavy Weight White Card stock
Snowflake Die
Winter Wishes Design Paper
MISTI
Momento Paris Dusk Ink
Simple Holidays Sentiment
Winter Wishes Glitter Effect Enamel Dots

This weekend, once work is finished,  I'll be mostly tidying away my craft stuff from the trip and making cards for the October Whimsy Stamps release. If someone could point out to me exactly where September went I'd be very grateful!

Happy crafting! 

500 Follower Candy WINNER!

I'm so sorry I'm a bit late drawing my Candy. I only got back home from the Whimsy Craft Retreat in Orlando on Tuesday evening and I didn't factor in how tired I would feel from the journey and the change in time zone. Plus my Dad has gone back into hospital so I was a little distracted.

Anyway I have used my personal random generator (my partner picking a number out of the hat lol), and the number was 17 which is 

Valerija

You have one week to contact me via linda.levoir@gmail.com to claim your prize. I will need your postal address to send your goodies.

Thank you so much to everyone who has entered and sorry it's been a little quiet here recently, I have a lot of catching up to do here and on your blogs also.

See you soon

500 Follower Candy

*This is a pinned post until the draw on 4th October. Please scroll down for other posts*

So sorry I'm late with this, my daughter has been visiting and I haven't been on blog land at all while she's been here.

So now I'm playing catch up and as a thank you to all my lovely followers for putting up with my erratic ways this is my 500 Follower Candy.

The photo is not great as I dashed it off quick so I've included a list of what's in it below.

Rubber Stamp - LDRS CandiBean - Walkie Talkie
Rubber Stamp LDRS CandiBean - So Proud
Rubber Stamp LDRS CandiBean - Blossom Daisy
Rubber Stamp La-La Land - Paper Doll Marci - Winter
Rubber Stamp La-La Land Paper Doll Marci - Christmas Elf
Rubber Stamp La-La Land Christmas Angel Marci
Rubber Stamp Candi Bean -
Steel Die La-La Land Tools Border
Steel Die Memory Box Hot Air Balloon
Steel Die Memory Box Baby Stuff
Steel Die Joy Crafts Butterfly
Rubber Stamp LDRS Dollshouse Tabitha
Rubber Stamp LDRS Lisbeth Little Bear

Here's what you have to do to win.

1. Follow my blog via Google Friend Connect, the button is on the top of my blog.
2. Share this post or put a button on your side bar with a link back to the post to let other people know about it (I will be checking). If you want to add a button and don't know how I have a small tutorial here. This only works for Blogger though.
3. Leave me a message with a link to or the name of your blog so I can come visit you.

That's it! I'll draw a winner when I return from the Whimsy Craft retreat on October 4th.

Good luck everyone!