Simple Stamping onto gold foil-edged cards

I don't know about you but when Christmas gets closer and that dreaded final posting date looms, I no longer have time for fancy craft projects? I know that's a way off yet but I like to inspire my customers to make #simplestamping projects such as this one, which I made with my Cuppa & Card ladies this month. The foil-edged cards do a lot of the work for you!

Yes, I confess I used dies to make my sample but you could easily cut them out with scissors - and, in fact, that’s just what we did at the Cuppa & Card sessions.

 Because the border is a shiny foil surface, you're probably safe to stamp onto it and it should wipe off but, to be on the safe side, we masked the border with a sticky note before stamping the bough. 
 

Perfectly Plaid in Pretty Peacock

Perfectly Plaid in Pretty Peacock? Try saying that without spitting on your computer screen!

I’ve been getting myself in the mood for Christmas in readiness for my All-Day Craft Event tomorrow, where we will be using the Perfectly Plaid stamp set all day long.

While playing around with some ideas, I came up with this colour combo – what do you think? Could this be the hot Christmas combo for 2019? It’s Pretty Peacock, Pool Party and Cherry Cobbler.

To get the Pool Party behind the punched tree, I simply sponged in a circular motion until I was happy with the results. No fancy technique – and if you get any blobs you're not happy with, just stick your tree on top!

Nature's Beauty deer in the silver birches

Third Monday of the month is Make-It Monday with the local WI ladies. They have very particular requirements and are not afraid to tell me about them! I know they enjoy masculine cards so this is one of today's projects. I hope they like it!

For this sample, I stamped the deer onto Crumb Cake cardstock before colouring with watercolour pencils and Blender Pens. It gives the image much more depth and allows it to stand out from the background.

CAS card with Bird Banter

Oh how I do love this stamp set... even more so because I WON it at OnStage in Solihull. It’s always exciting to win a Prize Patrol and even more so when it’s a set you really love.

The birds are such fun to colour with our new Stampin’ Blends, so I kept the card really simple, with just a doodled line around the image to frame it on the Whisper White cardstock.

Sneak peek: Pieces & Patterns

I LOVE this new stamp set. It has a dinosaur! Not that I’m particularly enamoured with dinosaurs, but this one is just SO cute! There are other cute images within the set, too, but I didn’t want to over-excite you so today, you just get the dinosaur, stamped in Tranquil Tide which, apparently, I’m “obsessed with”, according to my friend Kelly.

We were having a relaxing stamping afternoon while on a fantastic crafty weekend away. We spent four days in the stunning Peak District making fabulous projects, some Stampin’ Up!®, some not. This, and some other cards using the fabulous new Pieces & Patterns stamp set, were the result of a Monday afternoon chill-out session. Everyone was a little tired by then (to say the least), so we spread out and did our own thing for a while.

The view from our upstairs window. So lucky to have views like this within an hour of home.

A walk along the riverside

Since I got home, I have learned that these caves were formed naturally, during the Ice Age and were used by hunters as shelter in 13,000BC, which is simply mind-blowing. 

The lady next door's adorable puppy

May Masculine Workshop - registration open now

Below you should see the registration form for my upcoming Masculine Workshop, to be held in May. Please complete the form if you’d like to attend; it’s in the DE5 area of Derbyshire and directions will be sent on request.


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Caturday: little kitten Spud

There’s another new litter of kittens at the cat shelter and this is the most confident of the three. They arrived with their mother after a dog apparently killed their other two siblings. Cat shelter life isn’t all fluffy and nice; there are some horrendous stories behind many of the kitties. The new cat and kittens don’t have names yet but when I mooted “Spud” as a name for this little fellow I learned that there’s a  competition on Facebook to provide names. Shame, as I really think he/she looks like a little Spud.

Caturday: Pinkerton (Warning - cuteness overload)

Seriously, how cut is that? Answer: very cute indeed. Pinkerton (Pink for short) is from a litter of five gorgeous little kittens who were rescued from a farm, where they were going to be drowned. I know. And this is the 21st century.

Thankfully Pinkerton and his litter-mates Lena, Lily, Leonard and Luca are now safe and well at Woodland Nook and looking for homes where they will be cherished and, dare I say, worshipped as cats expect to be.

And, just in case that wasn’t cute enough for you... here’s another picture of little Pinkerton... (I do like a picture of a kitten with its tongue out)

Caturday: Popeye

Meet Popeye. He belongs (as much as any cat ever “belongs” to Jane, who owns the cat shelter. He’s a big softie with people but very much the boss of of Jane’s other cats. Well, some of them... she does have 15!

You're So Vintage distressed baby wipe technique

I may have invented a technique. Or at least developed it. 

Or it may be that everybody is doing this already but just forgot to tell me. 

What is it? Well, obviously, I don’t know its name as I invented it (probably) but it’s a variation on the baby wipe technique and was born out of a lack of baby wipes. 

I wanted to create a multi-coloured effect using this oh-so-groovy “You’re so vintage” stamp. The obvious choice would be the baby wipe technique; where you create a makeshift ink pad using ink refills and a pad of baby wipes. But, as I just mentioned, I had no baby wipes in the house.

However, I’m a crafter and we will always find a way, so I took some sheets of kitchen roll, folded them into a pad and dampened it by spritzing with water, to create a simulacrum (great word, eh?) of a pad of baby wipes. Then I dripped ink onto it and allowed the colours to bleed together. My multi-coloured ink pad created, I began to stamp. 

And here’s where the fun happened. I realised that, due to the textured nature of the kitchen roll, I was getting a textured effect in my stamped image. This pleased me greatly as I was going for a vintage look, and the image looked beautifully shabby and distressed. So that’s my new technique.

I expanded on the theme with the rest of the card, choosing DSP which reminded me of a vintage fabric print, and sponging pretty much everything to give it a worn look. I added age spots with Gorgeous Grunge and even some vague white stripes to look like it had been sanded. 

Now I want to make another one!

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Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com

Caturday: Ruby

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby still needs a home. She’s very shy but is becoming more confident by the way. She has a short-haired brother, Azazel, who needs a home with her. Could that home be with you?

Awesomely Artistic with cotton paper flower

Here’s another project made with Awesomely Artistic and this one is (very) loosely based on the catalogue sample, shown below. That’s what happens when you CASE something without the picture in front of you!

Image © Stampin’ Up!®

This cotton paper will prove a fun addition to your craft stash. It’s soooooo lightweight, it almost floats away, but it holds its shape nicely, so I’m confident this flower will stay put.

I like the Watermelon Wonder (there, I said it!) with the starkness of the black and brightness of Bermuda Bay, and the Candy Dots finish it off nicely. 

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Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com