Tied Up With A Bow

Hello.
I'm excited to be joining the Allsorts Challenge  today
as a Guest Designer.

This is such a fun and friendly challenge, and I hope you'll find time to play along. 
 Sarah has chosen the theme...

Add a Ribbon or Bow

Ooh, this one had me scratching my head for a while.
I haven't used ribbon on a card for AGES! But when I went digging through my stash I found it all beautifully packed and organised. Go me ! (I've added a pic below to show how tidy and organised I used to be)  :o)

Back to the card.
And I couldn't resist a little box of sweet doughnuts all wrapped with ribbon and a bow.

The doughnuts are stamped and die cut. The sprinkles were added with Copic markers and some glossy accents. Then I added a layer of acetate to my scalloped edge die, and taped ribbon and a bow onto the corners.

Allsorts Challenge

Add Ribbon or a Bow

• the greetery - sweet tooth
• distress ink - salvaged patina
• altenew ink - maple yellow / fuchsia
• pinkfresh studio ink - warm buff / doe / gathered twigs
• copic markers, glossy accents
• sentiment - sugar pea designs - summer scoops

All You Need Is Love... And Doughnuts

 Hello.

Today I'm playing along at AAA Colourful, and using their pink, colour palette.
Perfect for a Valentine's card.

What's also perfect for Valentine's day?
That's right - doughnuts.  :o)

I used strips of pink card on my base and layered it with a 'peek-a-boo striped heart'.
Then, I fussy cut those cute animals, coloured them with Copics and popped them up with foam tape.

Challenge

AAA Colourful

• clearly besotted - donut worry
• my favorite things - peek a boo striped heart die
• the greetery - valentine wishes sentiment from sweet tooth
• copics / white gel pen

Driving By With Birthday Wishes

Hands up who else doesn't want to put their Christmas stash away yet?
You can't make me  :o)

Today, I've used a couple of Christmas sets to make this cool, birthday card.

The background is a snowy hills stencil.
Yep - you can see I STILL haven't got the hang of lining those trees up.
I'm gonna call that snow  - on the edges :o)

Then my van and presents were stamped, die cut and added with foam tape.

Challenge 

I've gone for the optional theme this week, because I really need to up my game for
masculine cards this year.

Allsorts

For Boys or Men

(or Anything Goes)

• the greetery - christmas care-a-van
• waffle flower crafts - snowy hills stencil
• colorado craft co - citrus berry cupcake ( sentiment)
• ranger distress inks - tumbled glass, cracked pistachio, carved pumpkin, mowed lawn
• memento ink - grey flannel
• versa color ink - vanilla, lagoon blue

Miss You, Mum

Hello.
My mum passed away in 2021, but I still make her a birthday card.
Is that weird?
I like to think she's up there, having a party with my dad and my brother.

If you visit at all, you'll know that I don't play well with flowers :o) 
But even I can make this bouquet look presentable.

I added the hand/arm from a Christmas Concord & 9th set and love how it turned out.

Challenge

Little Red Wagon

Flowers Challenge #808

• the greetery - flower market bouquet
• versacolor ink - camelia, magenta
• altenew ink - fresh leaf, fresh lemon, maple yellow, sea breeze, dark chocolate
• concord & 9th- arm/hand  handmade holidays
• pinkfresh studio - perfect sentiments, diagonal stitched rectangle

All Aboard The Christmas Care-a-van

Hello.
I missed the Freshly Made Sketches deadline last week, duh! -
so here I am, getting my entry in with plenty of time left on the clock.  :o)

I wanted to play with this cute 'care-a-van' set, but wasn't sure how it would work. So I cut the white card base pieces, and then just played around with the die-cuts until it started to come together.

This has always been a tricky stamp for me to line up, but I'm starting to be ok with the fact that it's not spot on. It's handmade, right? It doesn't have to be perfect.

Challenge

Freshly Made Sketches

I just rotated the sketch 90 degrees

• the greetery - christmas care-a-van
• my favorite things - snowglobe sentiments
• pinkfresh studio ink - warm buff
• altenew ink - crimson / fresh leaf

P-P-P-P Pick Up A Penguin

Hello.
I've kind of neglected these little penguins, and they don't get out as much as they should. 
So this card was a challenge to keep CAS, and not add all the cute, little elements in the set.

I used some scraps of card stock to make the balloon - die cutting pieces with a stitched rectangle for a bit of extra interest. The penguin was stamped and die cut, and added with foam tape.
I couldn't resist putting few dew drops on there, but then I had to force myself to step away from the embellies!

Challenge

Inkspirational  #323

Optional Twist - Animal

• the greetery - big balloons die
• my favorite things - party penguins, fish tail flag die
• lawn fawn - stitched rectangle
• distress ink- carved pumpkin
• dew drops

Life Is Short... Eat The Treats.

Hello.
I'm all about the treats today - with this cute box of delicious goodies.

This is one of those stamp sets that I really love playing with. It has so many elements to put together. But, it's not an easy stamp - it tends to go a bit blotchy and is tricky to line up. I have to get over the fact that it's never going to be perfect.

Challenge

Freshly Made Sketches

I've just rotated the sketch, for a landscape card.

• the greetery - sweet tooth
• sentiment - hero arts - eat cake all day
• avery elle - postage stamp dies
• copics

Inks

• pinkfresh studio - warm buff, doe, gathered twigs
• altenew - blush, rouge, cotton candy

Peach Fuzz Pantone Colour of the Year 2024

Hello. How is everyone's weekend going?
We went out for breakfast this morning, so I'm posting this card before I slump into a full english coma :o)

Daring Cardmakers want to see Pantone's colour of the year -  Peach Fuzz. So, I rummaged through my inks and came up with only one peach colour. This made those 2 step blooms tricky. Usually I can get away with stamping the first layer lightly and then stamping the second layer a couple of times to get a deeper shade, but that wasn't happening with this ink, so I had to go over it with copic marker.
IRL it's a lovely, soft peachy colour, but the camera doesn't capture it well.

Daring Cardmakers

• the greetery - flower market bouquet
• pinkfresh studio - perfect sentiments
• altenew inks - peach sorbet, dark chocolate, sea breeze
• lawn fawn ink - sage leaf
• copics 
• clear bubbles

 

Driving Home For Christmas

Will you be driving home for Christmas?
We are lucky this year. With our house move in August, we are now only 5 or 10 minutes away from all the family and they will be coming to us for Christmas dinner. Perfect chaos :o)

I loved using that bright pop of red on this van.
It can be a bit tricky to line up this stamp, so once the red was done (and the brown lines) I coloured the top in with a copic marker. Then I added the tree, garland, and front and rear bumpers.

CAS on Friday Challenge

CHRISTMAS

• the greetery - christmas care-a-van
• sentiment from concord & 9th - tiny trees
• mft inks - poppy, sour apple
• copics / white gel pen

Wild and Free

Oh, to be on the open road.
That's where my SIL and BIL are right now. Travelling their way around France and having a wonderful adventure. It was a no brainer to ink up this camper van for my BIL's birthday.

This is one of those sets that I struggle to stamp. The ink just pools on the stamp. I've tried the eraser tip, and the versamark tip, but if you have any other ideas let me know. I won't even go into how tricky it is to line up. But I almost got it right :-)
The van is layered 3 times for some extra depth, the sentiment is white heat embossed and I added some little details with a white gel pen.

Challenge

Addicted to Stamps and More

the greetery - christmas care a van

sentiment from the stamp market - rainbows and greetings

inks - versacolor cyan, canary

pinkfresh studio - diagonal stitch rectangle

Happy Birthday To Moo

Hello.
I'm so glad to see the designers at the Less Is More Challenge, back from their winter break. It's lovely to see their inspiration each fortnight, and I'm determined to up my CAS game :-)

It's is my first time using this balloon die, from The Greetery and I think it's going to be a really useful, little element. Today I teamed it up with this cute cow - floating over to say Happy Birthday.

Challenge

Less Is More

the greetery - balloon die

my favourite things - party animals

copics

Sweet Birthday Wishes

Happy New Year.

I finally managed to get into my craft room, and here is my first make of the year. It's for one of my favourite challenges - Color Hues - where they'd like to see light pink and gold.

I stamped my doughnuts with distress ink, kitsch flamingo, which turns out to be not as light pink as I thought. But, I've just gone with it, as lining up those stamps and dies is really tricky, and I didn't want to start over!

The sentiment has a die and shadow die  - so I cut it with vellum, and gold card and then popped it up with foam pads. I'll definitely be looking for more of these 'double' dies this year. I just love the look of them. If you're sneaky about where you add the foam pads, they hardly show through on the front.

Challenge

Color Hues

the greetery - sweet tooth / piped sentiments
distress ink - kitsch flamingo
altenew ink - warm buff

All You Need Is Love... And Donuts

Hello.

Some cards are just fun to make, aren't they? And this was one of those. A little box of donuts and sweet wishes for my dd's birthday.

I started by stamping and die-cutting my donuts in various 'flavours'   :o) Then they were popped up with foam tape onto a card panel. 

To create a 'lid' I stuck some clear acetate to my scalloped border and attached this to the donut layer with 2 layers of foam tape for extra height.

I die cut the sweet sentiment from gold metallic card and glued this to the acetate, along with the 'birthday wishes' To complete the box look, I added a little ribbon and bow in the top corner.
I admit, it's been so long since I used ribbon on a card, I had to watch a little video to remind me how to use the 'bow easy'.

Challenge
Addicted to Stamps & More

The donuts, scalloped border, and sweet sentiment were all die cuts.

the greetery - sweet tooth and piped sentiment
various altenew inks
mft - stitched rectangle scallop frame

Hand Over The Donuts And No One Gets Hurt!

Hello.
Today I have some calorie free cakes for you.
So, put the kettle on and grab a donut  :o)

I stamped and die-cut enough treats to fill a small cake shop, then picked my favourites and layered them up on my card panel. It's a birthday - you can never have too much cake :o)

Challenge

Addicted to Stamps and More

the greetery - sweet tooth and piped sentiment

various altenew inks

pinkfresh studio - diagonal stitch rectangle

Birthdays are Better with Sprinkles

Hello.
I'm playing with my new 'sweet tooth' stamps again today - with some simple donuts for the Less is More Challenge. Can you believe they are celebrating their 11th birthday! 

I stamped, die-cut and then popped up my donuts with foam tape, onto a simple panel. Then I held my breath whilst I stamped the sentiment. Usually I muck this up, smudge the ink, or drop the stamp, but it came out perfectly  :o)

Challenge

Less Is More

Congrats to everyone at LIM on your 11th birthday.

the greetery - sweet tooth
sugarpea designs - summer scoops
altenew inks - warm buff, cotton candy, peach sorbet, mango smoothhie
pinkfresh studio - diagonal stitch rectangle die

 

Macarons are the Answer

Hello.
Who doesn't love a pretty, little macaron? Today I stamped one for every day of the week - I just wish they were real. I now have a craving! :o)

I really couldn't stamp these sweet treats without a stamping platform - it helps me to line up the layers and when you don't have too many ink shades, it's great for stamping several times, to get a deeper colour for that shadow effect.

I'm still jealous of all those gold, hot foil cards that I see EVERYWHERE! But I'm learning to make do with some metallic, gold card and I think it looks really pretty here.

Challenge
Watercooler Wednesday

the greetery - sweet tooth and piped sentiment
pinkfresh studio - diagonal stitch rectangle
distress ink - salvaged patina     various altenew inks