I'm Glad We're Friends

Hello!

I'm still working my way through the cards in my draft folder that I built up a couple of months ago when I had some time on my hands.....whatever happened to that?!

This is a very simple card made with the ultra cute Snuggle Bunnies set from My Favorite Things, it's just so fun making cards with these.

I stamped the images with some Versafine Onyx Black and coloured them with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and cut them out with the matching Die-namics. I love these pens, but it can be quite tricky matching them to the papers and I broke my own rule here of choosing the paper first and then colouring lol. This was the closest match I could get from my stash.
I stamped the sentiment on some smooth white cardstock and I bridged the gap between the white and coloured papers with a strip of silver miri card. I popped the whole thing up a little on my cardbase using some craft foam. I decided where I wanted my pair to be and coloured the area that would be beneath them with a grey marker. Then I popped up the bunny and teddy with some foam tape and finished with a few grey and white enamel dots.

Items Used

MFT Snuggle Bunnies Stamp Set

MFT Snuggle Bunnies Dies

Smooth White Cardstock

Versamark Ink

Watercolour Cardstock

Zig Real Clean Color Pens

Silver Miri Card

Maja Desgn Enjoying Outdoors

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Sending Congratulations

Hello!
Oh my goodness, I have been so busy crafting recently that I really haven't had a ton of time to blog stuff or share it on Facebook/Instagram etc. You know when you just get a big run on your mojo and are full of creativity? Well this has been me for the last couple of weeks, which is weird because I haven't had a whole lot of time on my hands, but somehow it worked. Well truth to tell I've been kind of scared to stop to do a lot of blogging or Facebooking, because of course the minute I start doing that my mojo normally takes a dive. However since I now have 25 items......yes you heard it right...25! in my draft folder, I thought I'd be safe to start sharing some lol.
I actually made this card quite a while back now, remember when I posted the Diamond Wedding anniversary card last year I mentioned that I'd made another card with the same papers? Well this is it.
I made it non specific but rather romantic and it could be used for a wedding or anniversary card or an engagement or special birthday card, but in fact I used it recently for a work colleague's wedding.

I distressed my edges but didn't ink them as I wanted to keep the look very light and clean. I stitched the top layer and added some cheesecloth between my layers to add to the softness.
The card base is made with pearlised card as are the die cut leaves and frame from Memory Box and the stamens which are from an older monthly kit  by La-La Land.

I used some modelling paste through a heart stencil. I don't know why but every time I use a stencil I always seem to use it in the corners where I end up putting my flowers, so I really do need to get better with that.

I used a little heart trellis chipboard behind my frame and dotted that with some very small pearls.

A few ivory flowers, some satin ribbon and a few more pearl embellishments finish the card ready for the sentiment, which is stamped and embossed on vellum with gold embossing powder.

The cheesecloth, ribbon, and self adhesive pearls are all from The Ribbon Girl, just click to follow the links to the store.

I rather like how this one turned out, what do you think?

Pisces Tilda

My goodness it seems ages since I coloured up a Tilda. On top of that this Tilda has been in my stash for around 2 years now...eeek!

So she really does deserve an outing doesn't she?  I coloured her up with my Distress Ink Markers and matched her to these pretty papers from Maja Design.

I'm not 100% sure I like the way this came out if I'm honest, it's one of those things where I liked the finished card but then after seeing the photographs I'm a bit underwhelmed.

I do like the diamante swirls though, as I think they kind of look like splashes of water.

I can't remember all the colours I'm afraid as I didn't write them down, but I think I used Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Seedless Preserves, a mix of Blueprint Sketch and Wilted Violet (I think) and possibly Shabby Shutter for the lily pad?

The Ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl and the flowers are a mix of The Ribbon Girl and Wild Orchid Crafts.

That's all from me for today, but I'll see you soon! 

Tiddly Inks - Molly Celebrates.

Morning!
Well I didn't make the Tiddly Inks DT this time around, but there were lots of fabulous entries that also didn't make the grade so I'm in good company lol, and I did make the top 10 which was nice to know. I'll apply next time providing commitments allow.
You can check out the final picks here.

Anyway, I'm still happy I rediscovered my love of these stamps and I'm sharing another Molly today. This is Molly Celebrates and I decided to go for a softer look with this since I've been using a lot of brighter colours recently. Oh and lilac hair because....well why not?!

I thought I would like to give her dress a pattern too, so I paper pieced it, I think the floral dress looks cute.

I used a Martha Stewart punch to cut my lady edges on the layers, and an MFT Stitched Rectangle die to cut out Molly. Papers are Maja, this collection is now unavailable and it's pretty much the last of my stash *sob*. The sentiment is one from a set I bought ages ago from Lili of the Valley.
Cheesecloth, ribbon, FB pearls, and the pearl & diamante embellishment on the bow are all from
The Ribbon Girl and the flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The stitching on the card is done by hand with some top stitch thread.

Right that's all from me, have to dash I have visitors coming, but I should have something to share with you tomorrow.

Have fun and I'll see you soon!

Tiddly Inks - Wryn - My Happy Thought

Sooooooo ....... Tiddly Inks are having a design team call right now.......

...do you know they are one of the first digis I ever coloured when I first started making cards? 

If you want to amuse yourself, here's a link to the very first Tiddly Inks image I coloured up when my blog was only a few weeks old, it's fun to look back and see how our styles have changed and evolved right? 

I've coloured up more Tiddly Inks images over the last 3 years, (if you want to see the rest of them, click here) but in the last year or so...not so much huh? Not because I don't love them, but because I had commitments to other images, and a girl can only fit so much colouring into her spare time. 

Which is why, even though I adore Tiddly Inks and have really wanted to enter their DT calls before, the time has never been right. The very first time I had only just started out and I considered myself too inexperienced and not good enough, since then I've always had enough other DT commitments that have meant that I wasn't sure I could give the images the time they deserved.

But now they are having another call, and this time I'm not over committed (some people say I should be committed...you know straight jacket and padded cell, but let's gloss over that lol), and have space for one last DT spot and am actively looking, so when the newsletter popped up in my email mentioning the DT call, the timing,  for once, could not have been more perfect.

So here's my entry, which called for your favourite Tiddly Inks image, of course I had to colour up a Wryn. Although there are many other Tiddly Inks images I adore, (I'm particularly partial to the gothic ones,  and the recent sea themed ones which are so fun), Wryn just is the perfect Tiddly Inks poster girl isn't she? Since I couldn't pick a favourite, I had to buy a new one to colour up right? It would have seemed rude not to, and a few more may have just ...ahem...fallen into my basket lol and OH MY.....I'd forgotten how much FUN these were to colour up! I'll be posting a couple of other ones soon, I made one of the sea themed ones into a shaker card.

It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or have more experience, they are easy to colour and look fab when you're done.

So this is 

Wryn - My Happy Thought

 and I think she's totally delightful.

I coloured her up with my Distress Ink markers to match these pretty Maja Design papers and I was very happy with the way she turned out.

I used Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Walmut Stain, Worn Lipstick, Tumbled Glass, Fade Jeans and Hickory Smoke.
The papers are Maja Design - Summer Crush and I went for my usual softly shabby chic style, inling the edges with distress ink and adding a light brushing of gesso. I don't always add sentiments to my cards, and this one is fairly large too, but I thought it went really well  with the image.

I used the following embellishments from The Ribbon Girl

Cheesecloth
45 mm Eleanor White Lace
20 mm Dusky Blue Open Roses
Baby Pink Cherry Blossom
10 mm Pale Pink Open Roses
White Sweetheart Blossom
White Beaded Stamen
12 mm Blue Faux Silk Ribbon

The pink rose organza trim was a present from my lovely blogging friend Maya Go and the rest is from my stash.

Whether I get into the DT or not I'm so glad I rediscovered these stamps, I really enjoyed colouring and making with them this weekend, and have some more ready to share soon.

There are several DT places up for grabs,so if you'd like to try your hand too, just click on the button below, share the love :)

That's all from me today, (I say 'all' I do seem to have waffled on don't I?), but look out for more Tiddly Inks goodness from me in the future, DT or no. But just in case.....wish me luck!!

Lacy Bird

Hi everyone! I'm just back from my holidays, but whizzing in with a card to share with you.

It's time for a new challenge over at Deep Ocean and it's

Our Furry/Feathered Friends

I made a vintage/shabby style card with a chipboard bird. I had a play around with some mixed media for this, and I'm loving how it turned out, hope you do too.

Products from The Ribbon Girl

Maja Design Enjoying Outdoors Papers
(I actually used some scraps of 12 x 12 papers from my stash, but the colours etc are the same in the 6 x 6 pad)
Purple Grape Sheer Ribbon
Ivory White Magnolia Flower
20 mm Lilac Open Roses
5 mm Crystal Gems

All other items from my stash

This card is for sale in my Etsy shop, just click on the icon below to take you there



That's all from me today but once I have all my holiday washing sorted I'll have more inspiration to share with you.

Magnolia - Olive Tilda

Hi everyone! I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I've been having lots of fun crafting this weekend and have been playing with some mixed media and all sorts, which you will get to see later.

For now we have a new challenge at The Ribbon Girl and as usual for the 2nd challenge in the month the theme is

Use Any Image

So you can enter anything you like, cards, layouts, altered items etc...as long as it has an image on. This could be stamped, printed, photographic, the choice is yours.

For my card this time I thought I'd use one of my Tildas. These get less of an airing these days and I have to admit that this is the first time this little beauty has seen any ink...ooops!

I coloured her with my distress ink markers, and matched her to some older Maja Design papers from my stash.

The Ribbon Girl products used

Cheesecloth
Clementine Lace
Vintage Seam Binding Lady Lavender
9 mm Plum Velvet Ribbon
20 mm Cream Open Rose
10 mm Cream Open Rose
Hip Rose Bud 2 Tone Lilac
Beaded Berries Ivory/Cream
Beaded Berries Lilac/White
Beaded Stamen White
8 mm Ivory FB Pearls
6 mm Ivory FB Pearls

This card is for sale in my Etsy Shop, just click on the Icon below to be taken there



I do hope you can join in with us, you could win one of the following







and have your card shared on the Ribbon Girl blog.

That's all from me folks, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday, have fun!!

Wee Stamps - Iris

Hello! It's quite a mixed up sort of week for me this week, not helped by our beautiful British weather....yup...sunshine and hailstorms lol. There's a reason we Brits are eccentric, we like to match our surroundings lol.

Anyhooooooo........on with my share for today and like many of my other recent cards, you may have already seen this one in the Whimsy Stamps online magazine. If you haven't already done so, do check it out, it's chock full of inspiration and it's free!

This is a slightly older stamp from Whimsy's Wee Stamps collection, she's called Iris, isn't she lovely?
 I decided to colour her in shades of grey to complement these rather fabulous butterflies from Kay Fatula's shop. I also knew I wanted to give her a blush of colour just to add a little interest and I had these beautiful Maja papers in my stash that just went perfectly. 

The sentiment is from Whimsy Stamps too, it's from the Fairy Tale Dreams set, this set is retiring, so grab it while you can!

I finished off with some glamour dust, some Prima bling, and the following gorgeous flowers from The Ribbon Girl

32 mm Francesca Black Lace
Siam Pink Seam Binding
Cheesecloth
20 mm Pale Pink Open Rose
Chrysanth White Kurt and Gort
Pink Sweetheart Blossom
White Sweetheart Blossom
Starburst Stamen White
Oval Clear Diamante Embellishment

I hope you like it, TTFN! :) xx

Tilda in Evening Gown - Deep Ocean Challenge

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. I'm looking forward to Easter and a few days off work to recharge the batteries.

Today we have a new theme over at Deep Ocean Challenge and this time it's 

Favourite Colour Combos

Well, this was very hard for me, because although I do have a yen towards purple tones, I don't really have a favourite colour combo, and when it comes to crafting I really love to change it up as much as possible because it gets boring colouring with the same tones or to match the same papers all the time.

So in the end I thought hey...I'll stay neutral, and plumped for neutral grey/white/black shades.

So now I have a confession.....I bought this Tilda when she was first released.....over a year ago! and I have only just coloured her up. How shameful is that? Worse than that, she isn't the only un-inked stamp in my stash ....sigh...

Oh well at least she's seeing the light of day now lol

So this is Tilda in Evening Gown, and I've given her a bit of a glamorous treatment, I think she deserves it after that long wait don't you? 

I used some older Maja Papers, these are from the Crea Diem collection. I edged all my layers with Walnut Stain distress ink. The 'clock' is cut with the Dewdrop Circle die from LDRS Creative, and I used a stamp from Kaisercraft to stamp the clock with grey ink.I used the same stamp on the edges of my framed image.

She's coloured with distress ink markers. I added lashings of Wink of Stella to her dress and the surrounding sparkles and you can actually see it (kind of) for once in the pic above, though it still doesn't show how shimmery it looks. I thought this was the perfect sentiment for her.

To finish I added some lovely embellishments from the Ribbon Girl and a few from my stash.

From the Ribbon Girl

Charlotte Elizabeth Lace
Ivory White Magnolias
Ivory Wild Roses
Small White Lily
White Chrysanths
Round Medium Diamante Buckle

This card was sold to a colleague to give to her mother on mother's day recently in the UK.

That's all from me today but there's plenty of exciting stuff in the pipeline so stay tuned and don't forget to join in with our challenge for the chance to win a lovely prize :) xx

Flower Bouquet Bunny - Whimsy Stamps March Release Day 3

Hey everyone! have you been enjoying all the new March releases from Whimsy Stamps? We're on day 3 and there are just so many fabulous stamps this month, I love them.

Now, those of you who have followed me for a while may have noticed that I don't really colour up animals. That's because I'm not really confident about it, I know where I am when colouring skin and hair, but fur? Oh boy.....that scares me lol. But when I saw the incredibly cute little bunny stamps from Lee Holland....well I just knew I had to try.
So this is Flower Bouquet Bunny, coloured with distress ink markers.

Since I was trying something different, I thought I'd I'd colour him up in an unusual colour, and since to me lilac and yellow is a very spring like colour combo, I thought I'd go for a pretty lilac colour to match this lovely paper from Maja design.

Isn't he sweet? I just want to hug him!

Distress Ink colours:
Shaded Lilac, Spun Sugar, Fossilized Amber, Faded Jeans, Dusty Concord, Picked Raspberry, Crushed Olive, Wilted Violet, Bundled Sage.

I used lots of yummy goodies from The Ribbon Girl to embellish.

Cheesecloth

Apple Blossom Mixed Pastels

40 mm White Daisy

Hip Rose Bud White

White Chrysanthemum

Clementine Ivory Lace

Ivory Square Pearl Trim

I really love the way this came out and now I'm not so scared to colour animals! Which is a good thing because there is an even more adorable bunny from Lee Holland in the April release, so watch out for that one! :) xx

Art by MiRan - Celebrating Your Day

Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful start to your weekend.
I'm currently editing my next Distress Ink Tutorial, 'Adding Texture and Dimension to Hair' so I should have that ready for you this weekend, but in the meantime I have a new card to share with you today made with some lovely embellishments from The Ribbon Girl.

This cutie is called Celebrating Your Day. She's a digi from Art by MiRan and you can find her here.

I coloured her with my distress ink markers in bright and happy colours to match this lovely paper from Maja Design. Love her with pink hair!



Speaking of Maja Design, have you seen that The Ribbon Girl have started stocking their papers? Oh my goodness, now I can get my papers when I order my flower, ribbon, lace, charms, pearls etc. I just love being able to get all my pretties in one place!

This card actually uses 12 x 12 papers from the Coffee in the Arbour collection, because I still have these in my stash, but you can buy the 6 x 6 papers from the shop, and there's not much difference, except the patterns are a little smaller which actually suits cards a bit better, so I have linked the collection in the shop below for you.

I layered her with a few die cuts and used the left over squares from the view finder die cut to make these little scrabble tiles that read happy. I used some beautiful embellishments (listed below) from The Ribbon Girl to finish off my card.

Pink 20 mm Open Rose

Apple Blossom Mixed Pastels

Tulip Flowers Baby Pink

Rose Leaves

38 mm Charlotte Elizabeth Vintage Style Lace

Deep Pink 10 mm Velvet Ric Rac

23 mm Fuchsia Pink/White Spot Organza Ribbon 
Maja Design Coffee in the Arbour Paper Stack

That's all from me today but I'll be back with you soon.

Happy crafting! :) xx

Art by Mi Ran - Angel of Hearts

Hi everyone, this is a scheduled post as it's my birthday today, so obviously I'm not blogging lol.

We have new challenge over at Deep Ocean Challenge Blog and this time it's

'Hearts'

Just right for Valentine's week no?

I fell in love with this digi called Angel of Hearts from Art by Mi Ran a while ago and I was so pleased to have the opportunity to use it. It was an absolute joy to colour! I printed her out fairly large as I really wanted the focus of the card to be her, and coloured her with my Distress Ink markers.

This image took me around 2 hours to colour as I really took my time with her as I wanted her to be perfect and I'm really pleased with the result. I fussy cut her out and popped her up on some foam tape. I did have to lose one small heart that wasn't 'attached' to th eimage, I originally meant to cut that separately and add it back on the card, but it want missing somewhere, so I hope Mi Ran doesn't mind.

DI Colours used:

Vintage Photo, Antique Linen. Walnut Stain, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, Aged Mahogany, Fired Brick, 

I knew I wanted my card to echo the image, with lots of hearts, so I decided to use 2 sets of nesties dies that I've owned for a few years now, hearts and scalloped hearts. I cut the scalloped hearts from some plain coloured card stock in a few different shades to match my chosen design paper.

I used an old 6 x 6 Whimsy paper pack Romance from my drawer, it's been in there a long while, I'm a bit of a paper hoarder lol. I wanted to use as many of the designs as I could, so the different size hearts were great for that. 

To round off the design I used the Scripted Love Word Die from Whimsy Stamps. I cut this out 3 times in grey card stock, and glued them one on top of the other so that it resembled chipboard in thickness, covered it in glitter and placed it in the lower corner of my card.

I kept embellishment to a minimum as the card was already quite 'busy', so no lace, ribbon or flowers today, just a few enamel dots and some Tim Holtz Distress Glitter Dust in Vintage Platinum (love that colour!) on the wings and die cut word. As usual the sparkle doesn't show up well on camera, but I can tell you it looks delicious in the flesh.

I do hope you can join us, there is a lovely prize to be won from our sponsor, and don't forget to check out the stunning makes from the rest of the team.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Artistic Inspirations - Anything Goes/Twist of Valentine Design Team Favourite
Craft Your Passion - #298 Anything Goes
Crafty Cardmakers - Love, Love, Love Top 5
Dream Valley Challenges - Valentine's Day
Get Creative Challenges - Must Include Hearts
Where the Heart is - Love
Live & Love Crafts - Love is in the Air

I'll be back tomorrow with the first of my projects for Whimsy's February release, bye for now! :) xx

Wee Stamps - Jenny

Hi everyone! Are you feeling festive yet?!  I'm really starting to get in the Christmas spirit now as the days count down, and not so much to do to finish.

I have another Christmas/Winter card to share with you all today, but before I do I would just like to say a huge thank you to all of my followers for visiting my blog this year. I would especially like to thank those of you that leave me wonderful comments. I know I am not as good as I should be at commenting back (although I do always pop in on your lovely creations), time is not always my friend, and much as I would love to leave comments on everyone's blog all the time, my full time job means that it's hard to balance all the things I do with my limited spare time. Aside from the normal day to day necessities and chores, I try and divide my time between  friends and family, crafting, blogging and Facebook, and there just isn't enough time to go around! It's for that reason that I often offer candy on my blog (there's some still available till Christmas Eve if you haven't already entered), by way of a thank you.

Now onto my inspiration for today, I have made another Christmas/Winter themed card using one of the gorgeous new digis from Wee Stamps. I just love Sylvia Zet's sweet style.
You can find her and others here.

I coloured her with my distress ink markers to match these Maja Design papers.
Colours used:
Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Frayed Burlap, Hickory Smoke, Stormy Sky.
I kept the style of the card fairly simple (well for me!).
I cut her out with a Die-namics postage stamp die and added some snowflakes cut with La-La Land Crafts Small Snowflakes dies and La-La Land Heart Snowflake dies. The paper and dies are available from Dies to Die for

I added some Frantage in Aged Teal around the image to give it a snowy look that matched my colour scheme. I also added lashings of Glamour Dust to all the 'furry' parts of her outfit for some sparkle.

I added some embellishments from The Ribbon Girl (linked below) and my stash.

I decorated the inside fairly simply, with more Maja Design paper and a place to write a message.

Products from The Ribbon Girl

25 mm Sky Blue Satin Ribbon

32 mm Victoria Antique White Fine Cluny Lace

10 mm Mocha Open Rose

20 mm Dusky Blue Open Rose

Pastel Mixed Pretty Blooms

3 - 6 mm Ivory Pearl S/A Pearls

I'm entering this card into the following challenge:

The Shabby Tea Room - Winter Wonderland

* (Update from 5th Jan 2016)


That's all from me today, this is a scheduled post because I'm still at work today and tomorrow (boo!), but then I'm off for 4 days (yay!).

Have fun! :) xx