The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #113 - A Friend is for Life and not just Christmas

 

Over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge this month I'm joined by Lauren and Stephanie AKA The Jingle Belles! 

With two 'Craft Besties' as our elves for August there was only ONE possible theme for us to play:

Our Theme this month is FRIENDSHIP!

We'd love to see your cards for a friend or celebrating friendship, please.

My first card for our challenge together is this one:

I was feeling in the mood for some solid colour and tone-on-tone stamping. I always enjoy working with this MFT stamp set. I do miss MFT, don't you? 

My second card is this one. Another 'oldie' of a stamp, this time from Stampin' Up! Again, good fun to work with. 

Rudolph has chosen a sweet penguin set for his August Random Raffle Draw... Nice choice, Mr R. 

Stephanie, Lauren and I hope you'll head on over and join the fun!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #112 - Grace Us with Your Presents

 

It's time for a new challenge and a brand new guest over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge. Our July calendar girl is Lynn AKA Linby from Crafty Linby. I've been following Lynn's creative journey for quite a while (huge understatement) and I know you'll enjoy her cardmaking style as much as I do...

Lynn has picked such a fun theme for our challenge together...

Challenge #112 - Grace Us with Your Presents!

We'd like to see gifts and presents galore this month on your cards and I know you will love the card Lynn's made to kickstart our creative month together.

Here's what I made:

I had so much fun stamping and colouring North Pole Mischief from Stampin' Up! I was planning to emboss the red card, but had assembled everything before I remembered. 😐

Rudolph has chosen a gorgeous prize for his Randon Raffle.

Just look at that wreath - so pretty. Please head on over and take a look at our guidelines before signing-up to play so you can be included in his Random Raffle Draw. 

Lynn and I are both so excited to see what you create for this challenge and hope that you'll come and join the fun!

Jingle Belles: Cookie Inspired Christmas

Jingle Belles Lauren and Stef, have another fun theme on offer! They'd like us to take our inspiration from this gorgeous picture by Kristens.cookies. 

Seriously, those cookies are just too pretty to eat! 

I was inspired by the idea of festive edibles, and made sure I chose a design paper that picked-up the gorgeous colours of the picture. 

I'm so enjoying working with this Penny Black Noel die at the moment. 

I was browsing eBay recently and spotted Cookie Cutter Christmas by Stampin' Up! on offer for a good price. Click, click, click and it was mine. Isn't this little guy fun!

I'm sharing this card over at ABC Christmas Challenge, where I'm playing G is for Gingerbread and I'm squeeeeezing it at Penny Black Saturday Challenge, where it would appear I'm completely ignoring the Easter option, and playing Anything Goes. 

Thanks for dropping by! 

I Saw a Mouse...

 Hey, just look at me posting for the second day in a row! I'm really enjoying my crafting at the moment and seem to be unusually productive. Long may it continue!

A while back I bagged this little Stampin' Up! mouse, and his equally cute buddies, from a Facebook sale site. Isn't he adorable? 

He was great fun to colour, although I didn't mean to stamp him in brown ink. I decided to stick with the brown and I have to say that I think it works with the kraft background. 

I stenciled with white Distress Ink through a TH/Stampers Anonymous Merry Christmas Layering Stencil and then added a sentiment from another bargain buy, which I think is from Hero Arts. 

I'm delighted to linking-up at a few challenges, having created my card using inspiration from:

Steph and Lauren are Getting TEXT-y With It for their current challenge.

The lovely crew at Christmas Craft Creations are looking for Stencils and Embossing Folders.

Edited to Add:

Thanks so much!

It's all about Christmas at Addicted to Stamps and More.

Just Us Girls are having an Anything Goes Stencil Week.

And finally, I'm tickled pink to see that the lovely Helen from Made by Helen has reopened The Rudolph Days Challenge! Congratulations, Helen, I hope this goes well for you. It's great to have a later in the month challenge with which to play along.

Time for a cuppa now. I hope you're all having a happy day and possibly even managing to squeeeeeeze in some crafty fun!

Card Chain Challenge Reveal - May 2023

 

 

All the cards exchanged this month used at least one of the following options:

Colour Palette Option

 (Exact matching is not required.)

Sketch Option

(Orient as desired.)

 

Theme Options: Hats / Flowers / Friendship

Product / Technique Options: Embossing Powder / Ripped Edges

Here's what I made, and sent to Carol in the UK. 

I used an oldie called Sit, Stay, Relax from Stampin' Up! and Relax die from Cutlorations/Stamplorations. 

My sender this month is Gail in Canada and just look what she made... It's adorable, isn't it!

If you'd like to see the whole Reveal post in all it's glory, please head on over and take a look! 

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #66 - Home for the Holidays

Hi there, over at Christmas Kickstart Challenge today I'm delighted to be welcoming Tina from Treebug as our elf for this September! 

Tina has chosen a lovely theme for us to play with in September 

Challenge #66 - Home for the Holidays

We'd love to see cards with houses, homes, fireside scenes, cityscapes - whatever the phrase conjures up for you!

You can take a look at Tina's beautiful card by clicking here. This is a theme with plenty of scope for you to work with - just go your own way with it and have fun!

Here's what I made...

Looks okay in this colour combo too, but not as festive.

I combined a Stampin' Up! image from Sit, Stay, Relax with a sentiment from Corner Sentiments Holiday by Avery Elle.

I also made this little card - don't you just love kraft and white together? I know I do.

The lovely Rudolph has chosen a lovely prize for his Random Raffle. 

 

Nice one, Rudolph! I love that spaghetti beard, and who doesn't need a Santa Hat, cute glasses and some Ho, ho, ho! in their craft stash??!! All entrants who've followed the rules will go into Rudolph's Random Raffle with a chance to win this prize.

Tina and I hope you'll come and play along with our challenge and we hope you have as much fun interpreting the theme as we did.

Show Us Your Pussycats Challenge #76 - Furrything Goes!

 

I do like the kitty on this badge, don't you? That expression is priceless.

I've not played along at Show Us Your Pussycats for ages and am delighted to be putting this right with a little kitty card...

I think this cat from MFT is one of my all time favourite stamps. For this card my feline friend is teamed with a very old Stampin' Up! speech bubble and a gorgeous MFT background stamp. 

The sun is shining and there's barely a cloud in the sky, so I think I'll go and grab a little time in the garden. Spring is such a lovely, hopeful time.

Happy crafting!

Playing in Pixie's Snippets Playground again.

I'm back with a little card I created for Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge #399. This challenge is a special Ruby's Challenge, so it's a must-play for me.

My snippet this time is a small piece of striped card left over from creating little boxes for the reminder post over at Let's Squash It! 

Turned out the stripy card had a couple of score marks in it (which I didn't notice at first) and so to disguise them I ran it through my Cuttlebug in a Distressed Lines Embossing Folder by Creative Expressions. The background is a paisley design EF from Cuttlebug I've had since just before the dinosaurs went extinct. The little bunny stamp is from Stampin' Up and is dated 2006; I think this is the first time it's seen ink. I decided not to add a sentiment.

Di has a gorgeous prize donated by Lynne for Challenge #399. Lynne and I have very similar taste in stamps, (and have cost eachother a fortune over the years) so I'm waving at Di and saying 'yes, I'd love to be in the draw, please!'

If you'd like a peek at the boxes I made, here they are. 

They make a nice set with the matching card. 

The Let's Squash It! Challenge Boxing Clever with Floral Embossing lasts until March 31st. Our fabulous guest, Robyn, has crafted up a storm for this challenge, so why not drop by, get inspired and play along!

Seize the Birthday - Totally Tropical

I'm delighted to be the Surprise Party Guest again over at Seize the Birthday. The theme for this challenge is a fun one: Totally Tropical.

It took me a little while to come up with an idea that didn't involve cocktails, but eventually I decided to break out some Stampin' Up! goodies and the card progressed quite quickly after that.

I really enjoyed colouring this little Toucan from the Bird Banter set. The sentiment also comes from this set and the gorgeous Stampin' Up! paper makes the perfect tropical background.

You can join the challenge here.

Stay safe, everyone.

Card Chain Challenge - March 2020 Reveal

It's Card Chain Challenge Reveal time again and I have to say that, to me, our little chain of friendship and creativity feels extra special and precious during these difficult and challenging days. 

During March we had 23 participants who exchanged cards across the globe using at least one of the following options:

Colour Palette Option

or

Sketch Option

Theme Options: Things with Wings/ Flowers/ friendship

Product / Technique Options:  Embossing/ Design Paper

I sent this little piece of craziness to Marga in Spain:

I switched around the sketch a little and found the perfect winged creature from Stampin' Up to sit on a die cut branch. The colour combo was spot on for this card, and I did some cloud stenciling to create a little interest on this otherwise quite plain card.

My sender for this month was my dear friend in NZ, Dawn. 

Unsurprisingly, a few cards have been delayed this month, but there's still plenty of loveliness on show over at CCC HQ, so why not head on over and take a peek!

If you want to join in the fun, you can sign up for the April Card Chain Challenge until Monday 6th April. 

Take care!