Happy New Year!!!

Well here we are at the end of another year.

Thank you to everyone who has visited my wee bloglet during 2015. 

The craft industry is an amazing place for inspiration, friendship, sharing our passion and handmade kindness.

I hope all of your dreams, including the crafty ones, come true in 2016.

Happy New Year!!

Stamps

Distressed Patterns - MFT

Adorable Elephants - MFT

Thank You - Clearly Besotted

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Merry Christmas. Joyeux Noël. Fröhliche Weihnachten. Meli Keuliseumaseu.

Vrolijk kerstfeest. Mutlu Noeller. Feliz Navidad.

These are my final 4 festive cards for 2015.

Have a wonderful day tomorrow!!

Festive Cats n' Dawgs

This is a photo-heavy post of all the Christmas cards I've made this year featuring cats & dog stamps from Inkadinkado that I made for my animal loving pals.

Thanks for stopping by.

A Confession...

Howdy Doody folks!

I've 4 million(ish) Christmas cards still to squeeeeeeze in before the big day but first a confession.

Cough! 

I bought...yes you read that right! I bought a pack of Christmas cards.

Cough!

There! Said it! It's out in the open....no more secrets. 

I had wayyyyyy too many to make this year, I panicked and in a moment of weakness I succumbed to a pack of supermarket cards.

(Hangs head in shame & slinks back to the naughty step)

MFT 'Dashing By' stamp

Memory Box 'Merry Christmas' die

Distress Ink smooshing

Festive Bears

Hey everyone!

I hope all your plans for Christmas are going well and that you're almost ready to enjoy the big day.

Today I have 2 cards to share, both using one of the bear stamps from MFT's 'Cool Day' set.

MFT stamps are highly addictive, buy a set at your peril!!

For my first card, I cut out a circle from a Post-It note and, using a dauber, created a night sky using Salty Ocean & Chipped Sapphire distress inks. I then flicked water droplets on to the ink and blotted to creaty a snowy effect. I then removed the Post-It circle to reveal a birght moon.

The 2 bears were stamped on scrap card, coloured and fussy cut and placed behind stitched, hillside borders from Lawn Fawn. 

My second card was outta my comfort zone....a shaker card!

I really enjoyed making this one and plan to make more shakers next year.

Back tomorrow...see yer x

Merry Christmas from the Gardener

It's official...I've lost the plot.
The toll of making so many Christmas cards has hit.
This is the Christmas card that I made for my gardening clients this year. Each step photographed as I went along and what did I forget to do? Take a photo of the finished card....Grrrrr!!!
What a muppet (that's the polite version!!)

I used the 'Thankful Friend' stamp set from MFT, which spookily looks like me (except I look ridiculous in a hat)...lol...and the leaves stamp from the 'Harvest Mouse' set. The stamped images were masked off and the sky created with distress inks. I flicked water droplets and then quickly blotted to leave a snowy scene.

The masks were removed and the images coloured with Zig markers.

A few sequins, a splash of glitter, job done.

Merry Christmas Everyone x

Crazy Cat Lady

A break from the ol' Christmas cards today and something for a good pal of mine...Kay.

Kay volunteers for the Cats Protection League and fosters cats n' kitties until they find their 'forever homes', so I thought a selection of images from the 'I Knead You' stamp set from MFT would be just perfect.

Happy Birthday Kay (me ol' Fruit-Loop!)

Christmas Repeats

Yup!

Long-standing stalkers followers may recognise the design on these cards as I created a whole heap of similar versions a few years ago and I loved them so much I thought I'd make a couple more this year.

The foliage stamps & matching dies are from a set called 'Leafy Accents' from Clearly Besotted and I used Versacolor mini ink pads to colour them.

The sentiment is also from Clearly Besotted, 'Holiday Sentiments' and this time round I embellished with sequins & a Wink of Stella.

Let's hope these are the only repeats you will see this Christmas.

Ta-Da!

Ahoy Earthlings!
Allow me to introduce Miss Maddie (Moo)...

She's a 6 month old rescued French Bulldog X Jack Russell, so a couch-potato with a feisty side. She's dead cute, quite smart and snores like a trooper. She already sits when asked and we've taught her to lay down too. She needs some socialising skills but it already feels like she's made herself at home.

So my card today feature the uber cute, yet slightly sad looking little penguin from the 'Toasty Greetings' stamp set from MFT. I stamped him (or her) out 4 times on a scrap of card, coloured them in with my Zigs and fussy cut.

I then created a simple, circlular-shaped snowy background by applying Salty Ocean distress ink with a dauber (far easier control and less chance of blender lines) and flicked water droplets before blotting with a tissue.

I added a stitched border hill and then 3 of the little fellas with foam pads. 

The sentiment is from the same set.

Ta-da!
Right, can't stop, I've got a hound to tickle.

Ready and Waiting

Hello!

Me again.

Well the house is now puppy-proof. It's been emptied and we've all moved into a hotel...lol.

Another card featuring stamps from MFT, this time the 'Cool Day' and 'Snowflake Flurry' set and 'Stitched Hillside Borders' dies from Lawn Fawn. The snowflakes were white heat embossed, the background distressed and flicked with water droplets to create the distant snowy effect. Mr Bear was coloured with Zig markers.

A sprinkle of sequins, a waft of Wink of Stella glitter and another Christmas card completed.
2 more sleeps til puppy dawg arrives....Yay!

Introducing....

 Cooooooooey!

I hope you're having a groovy week.

It's all go in our house at the moment as we prepare to welcome a new addition to our family... 

... meet Maddie, who's coming to live with us at the weekend....Squeeeeeeeeeal. 

So it's been pretty busy while we puppy-proof the house and get all the bits n' bobs that she will need. 

In between extensive reading and watching every puppy-training video ever made, I have managed to make some more Christmas cards.

For this one I used the tiny accessory images from the Santa's Elves stamp set from MFT.

I made a stencil circle (see details here) & simply stamped around with black Versafine ink and coloured with my Zig markers.

I then stamped out the tree from the same set onto a spare piece of card, cut it out and placed it in the centre with 3d foam. 

I added some white dotty highlights, glossy accents to the baubles and sequins to finish. 

Roll on the weekend!

Baked With Love

Morrrrrrrrning!

A quick break from making Christmas cards and a card for my mother-in-law who was 91yrs young this week!!!!

She's a legend in the kitchen, always baking the most delicious cakes, but alas none of her skills have ever rubbed off on me, I remain cateringly challenged.

Stamps - Paper Smooches 'Baked With Love

Festive Tweetings

A nice simple card today using Season's Tweetings from MFT, coloured with Zigs with dotty white highlights and white liquid pearl.

This is a another card I've made for my daughter Sophie's charity fundraising challenge. In all, I've managed to make about 30 cards over the past week or so and given her 107 in total to sell at her uni's Christmas Bazaar next week

Virgin Money Giving - Sophie Clempson

Good Elf To You All

An uber quickie from me as I'm posting in the advert breaks of The Walking Dead, I've got 90 secs to post before it's back on again.

This is another card I've made for my daughter's charity fund raising mission... here.

Quite simple, I've created a distressed inked background with a dauber. These little daubers are excellent for controlling the amount of ink applied and don't leave ink sponge shapes that you sometimes get with the Tim Holtz square & round applicators. I used MFT's 'Santa's Elves' stamp set, coloured with Zig markers, cut out and added to my card base with foam pads.

A few essential sequins,  a swoosh with a wink of Stella, white liquid pearl fur trimmings, a sentiment from Paper Smooches et voila!
Gotta dash....don't wanna miss a thing!

A Charitable Request

Please forgive the following request. It's not something I have ever done before and I hope you don't mind.

In July 2016 a team of Royal Holloway University students, which will include my daughter Sophie, will be travelling to Romania for 3 weeks with Challenges Abroad to take on a voluntary development project with orphaned and abandoned children. As well as teaching and providing activities for the children, they will also be helping to renovate the care home in rural Transylvania in which they live.

Sophie has already paid for the trip but she needs to raise £950 for the charity, so this is my request.

If you are able to make a donation to this worthy charity, even if it's just £1.00, Sophie would be incredibly grateful. 

For more information and to make a donation please click the link below....
Virgin Money Giving - Sophie Clempson

Thank you

Meanwhile, I am making lots of cards for Sophie to sell at her university's Christmas fair and all proceeds will go towards her charity fund raising. This is one of them using the uber cute Toasty Greetings stamp set from MFT.

Have  a great weekend xx

Dashing by...

With 37 days until Christmas, 3 cards made and another 90ish to go I am, confident I will be done by June 2016, so there's no panic.

I've managed 2 cards today. My first card above features stamps from MFT's 'Cool Day' and Paper Smooches 'Joyful Greetings'. 

I used a smooshing technique using Gansai Tambi watercolours. If you haven't tried this before, it's a really easy way to create random backgrounds. I watered down my paints just a bit, not too much as I wanted a bolder colour and splodged paint onto a small piece of acetate then smooshed it around my paper.

It looks messy but you get a really great effect when dry.

I stamped out my images & coloured with the ol' Zig-a-Zigs, added a slope & some liquid pearly, snowy highlights.

My 2nd card was made with the same technique and the images & sentiment were from MFT's 'Dashing By'.

See what I mean about these backgrounds, so much texture and colour.

Isn't she a cutie?

There you go, 2 more cards.

Think I've got time to run a hot bath, put my feet up and chillax....Not!!!