joie de vivre

Tag Tuesday has a two week challenge running which pleased me as I was away last week and thought I would have missed it. The challenge is to use either the word postcard or postcards on your tag. This is a Lost Coast Design stamp I bought last year at Port Sunlight show and had not got round to using, love their smiling,happy faces ! Stamped them and masked them and then overstamped with old french writing stamp and various french word stamps from Artistic Stamper Paris set. Stamped the Paris postmark ( C.I stamp) in red to add a bit of contrast and just added a bit of red to their costumes and Voila !  I've also put this on Sunday Stampers challenge which is Parisienne Walkways ( well this is a kind of high stepping walk isn't it? ...lol )

Three squares

Less Is More challenge this week is to use three squares. Last night I spend a couple of hours messing about and then threw everything in the bin, nothing seemed to fit together at all. This afternoon I must have been in a better frame of mind and I made a couple of cards. The first one is three Inkadinkado inchie stamps and a Hero birthday stamp,. The second one I coloured an A4 sheet of card with various distress inks, cut out three different size squares and juggled them about until I was happy with them, then I stamped them all with Sepia versafine.It was a very quick card to make as there is no colouring to do. The bird stamps are Artistic Outpost and the background swirl is Viva. 

Notebook & Post-it note holder

Little notepad and post-it note holder made using the beautiful Mariposa papers. I am finally beginning to use them instead of stroking them !

High Class Millinery

This is the card I made for our Daughter's birthday today, she bought the stamp for me at Christmas and its the first time I've used it. It is , of course, a Crafty Individuals stamp and the flowers are made with the freebie Craft Stamper stamp from this months mag. Papers are Papermania Nostalgia which I've had for a long time.

Less is more again

I,m very disappointed at how this card worked out its so "wishy washy" but I just don't have time to do another so I,m posting it to the Less is more challenge which this week is Spring. We are going away on Monday for a few days so won't be around next week..  

Steampunk atcs

I,ve had all month to do atcs for the Stampman swap but left it until last minute as usual. The stamps are Paperbag studio.  the balloon with the man in the basket underneath is quite interesting although its hard to see on here. I was looking through some old books that belonged to my Father when he was a young boy, one was about air travel and I found quite a few very interesting "steampunk" type images,in it.

Loyal friend

Very late posting for this weeks Tag Tuesday. I had never used this stamp for some reason and now I have stamped it I love it ! think it will be appearing frequently from now on. Its from Stamp Camp I think. Background stamp is Viva, all stamped and coloured with distress inks.

bingo board shopping list holder

Don't know where this week had disappeared to ! I have done some crafting but nothing I can post on here as yet. I did do this bingo clipboard, I was going to do some for Christmas but never got round to doing them, this one is just for me, just gessoed round the edges and then covered with Graphic 45 papers. I made a detatchable cover for the shopping list itself so I can put it onto another one when this is used up (does that make sense ? )well I know what I mean anyway ! I should really have taken the clip off to do it but its some sort of rivets holding it on and it looked like too much effort to do it , if I was making it for someone I would maybe try as it would be easier to get a neat finish around it.  For Caz who asked where I got the Bingo Board , I got them at Yorkshire Trading Shop in Ripon but I have also seen them in various Pound shops.

Another birthday card

Birthday card for one of our Daughter-In-Law's birthday next week, they don't look at my blog so she won't see it. Love this hydrangea stamp but I always have to look and see how to spell its name, luckily it is on the side of the stamp.Off for a blog hop now to see what everyone has been up to.

Another simple card

Think I maybe should have scanned this on a piece of dark card as its hard to see on here. This takes me back to starting making cards nearly twenty years ago when all I ever did was stamp straight onto a piece of card and colour in the image and stamp happy birthday underneath it, I thought they were wonderful now I cringe at the thought that I actually sent them to people ! This is for Less Is More challenge which is for one layer using a flower or tree. Stamp is Penny Black and sentiment Hero Arts.

Whoooo's birthday ?

Well here I am blogging in the middle of the day instead on the middle of the night,reason being this card has to get in the post today along with another one I've yet to finish.  Used my fab little Stampin Up owl punch my sister sent me at Christmas,love how all the bits punch seperately so its easy to paper piece him. I put glossy accents on his eyes but I thought it was dry and put something on top of the card so one eye got a bit squashed ! Looking at the scan I think I must need a new blade in my cutter as the edges look a bit raggy and also I need to clean the scanner glass again.

Love, hearts, flowers ?

Well everywhere I look its hearts,flowers, valentines etc so for once I am doing a multiple challenge entry
Tag Tuesday - Tag on Tag
Try it on Tuesday - Hearts and Flowers
Lets ink it up -Valentine
Craftycard makers - Hearts
Mytimetocraft - Hearts and Flowers
Shabby Tearoom - Sweet-hearts-pink/green/brown and flowers,lace,ribbons etc !
Now I need to try and link all these .
Made the background with a Crafters workshop stencil and distress inks, hearts are die cuts ,ticket in envelope is from Bella Creations and rest is bits and bobs from stash.
I forgot to mention that the reason I am posting in the afternoon instead of at midnight is that after I made the tag last night I lost it !  I thought I would tidy all my stuff away before I did the post and then I could not find the tag anywhere, dragged out all the boxes and things I had used again, still no tag, after searching everywhere I gave up and decided to go to bed, went to log off computer and found tag sitting at the side of the keyboard,by this time it was so late I went to bed in a huff !

Inspirations

Yesterday a friend rang me to ask me for some help with remembering how to make a book we made a few years ago. Thought I could go straight to the magazine the original instructions were in but it seemed to be missing, however between us we sussed it out. While I had the box of mags out I started browsing through them and came across several articles using Stampington 's Christine Adolph stamps which I went mad about when they first came out. I spent a couple of messy happy hours with inks and stamps and made this which is more or less a direct copy of something in the magazine, the colours are different and its not quite as nice as the one in there but I'm happy with it. The magazine is Stampington Inspirations and its dated Summer 2004,had not realised it was so old , I'm wondering if they still do this magazine ?

Less is more ?

I thought I'd have a go at the new challenge Less Is More, the challenge is white/pink & black.  I'm not used to having so much white area on a card and have had a hard job not to do more to it ! I did glitter the flower petals and put micro beads in the flower centre. The card does not have a black edge but because it was all white the scanner would not pick it up so had to lay it on a piece of black card.  I need to get a new camera as I'm getting quite frustrated with the scanner changing colours and not scanning the whole card. I'm such a messy worker I have had to have three goes at doing this as I kept getting ink on the white card.

Just playing about

Well I finally got a little time to have a play with one of the stamps I got at the Stampman this week, the first one is just stamped on a piece of card coloured with distress inks, cut out and put on a Lacey square. The other two are on some fancy shape cards I bought at one of the shows, they have been languishing aound as I did not really know what to use them for, I had previously tried covering them with decorative papers but they never seemed to look right and it wasn't half a faff doing it ! finally dawned on dozy me that I could colour them with D inks so thats just what I did. Second one down I stamped and embossed the wreath in white before colouring the card with inks,added a cut out bird,leaves and flowers. The third one is just a one layer card which didn't work quite how it was meant to but I still quite like it. I love this stamp and mean to play some more with it as soon as I get time.The top card is not as crooked as it looks,had to scan and crop it and it didn't work too well, the other two are scanned and whatever I do the scanner chops bits off the edges!

Circles of my mind !

Oh dear I think this tag is as chaotic as my mind ! It hasn't helped that the scanner has changed the colour of the red sequins to purple, when I saw the challenge at KardKrazy I thought it was going to be an easy one but the mojo was absent once more, don't know when she is coming back, never been absent so long before! I still have not made the cards I need for next week including one for hubby for Sunday so I will have to get myself motivated somehow or other. I still have Christmas pressie stamps I have not used yet and I did get a couple of new Hero Arts stamps yesterday on a very fleeting visit to the Stampmans shop. The red gingham frill at the bottom of the tag is some I found in a local haberdashery shop in all kinds of colours,its elasticated at the top so already nicely gathered ready to use.

Feel The Love !

Oops ! forgot to post this last night. Its my card as guest designer on Try It On Tuesday.  Another card I really enjoyed making as its the vintage style I love so much . The post card stamp is a Stamps Happen I think, the lace stamp in the background is a very old Stampin up and the rest of the bits and bobs were from stash. I have a load of family birthdays coming up this month and next so need to concentrate on them, most of them are for men and of course they are the hardest ones. Someone once said to me that boys/men are not interested in cards, they just look to see if there is anything inside and then out them aside !  I hope they are all not like that but I do sometimes wonder why I worry so much about making them.