Christmas Kickstart Challenge #32 - Mid Month Reminder

It's reminder time at Christmas Kickstart!

We're all about tags this month and who better to have as elf then the lovely, and very talented, Tracey from In My Creative Opinion.

Tracey made this lovely card to launch the challenge...

and I couldn't resist making this little cutie as my 'Inspired by' creation.

The image and sentiment are from Mama Elephant set Cool Penguins. The pretty DP is some I found in my stash and must of cut for another project.

Rudolph is offering a very appropriate prize for his Random Raffle! 

All entrants will go into the hat for the chance to win these lovely dies.

Keep safe, and keep crafting!

Seize the Birthday - Watercolouring!

It's my final appearance as Surprise Party Guest at Seize the Birthday - boo hoo!

I want to thank Nancy and the guys for inviting me as I've had a blast and loved every minute.

The challenge for the next two weeks is 'Watercolouring'. To be honest, I haven't yet produced a water coloured card that I like. 😢 It's a technique I love but need to practise, so I decided to 'cheat' and go for a smoochy, watercolour background for my little Kraftin' Kimmie bookworm. After stamping the sentiment I ran the background through the Cuttlebug.

I very much hope you'll play along with this challenge and leave lot's of love for the DT crew when you visit.

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #162 - T is for Technique

Hi there, it's time for a brand new challenge over at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers. Our theme is 'T is for Technique' and we're sharing some of our favourite ways to create new or unusual looks on our cards.

My technique is a fun one which involves inking and stamping with the reverse of your cling stamps to create an outline. This is such a quick and easy way of adding colour.

I'm not sure where I first saw this method of stamping but it's one I use from time to time. The stamp that you pick has to be symmetrical and it works brilliantly with a Mysti as you can build up layers of colour before switching the stamp around and using the side with the impression. It feels counterintuitive to work like this, and you have to think about what you are doing to avoid mistakes, but other then that it's a doddle! 

In this picture you can see the stamp upside down waiting to have the raised side adhered to the Mysti. I made a few different cards in a batch using this technique as it's so easy.

My card is 'snark free' this week, but if you need a little injection of sarcasm and wit to get you through please head over to the blog and enjoy the fabulous creations of the sisterhood and Queen Jenny.

Take care and stay safe. 

Seize the Birthday - All About Summer!

I'm thrilled have reached my third outing as Surprise Party Guest at Seize the Birthday! We've had heavy rain here in the UK for the second day running, so a nice sunny, summery card is just what we need!

The idea for this popped into my head as I was falling asleep and thankfully I remembered it well enough to make it the next day. As you can see, I grabbed the toppings for this challenge with both hands!

The stamps are from Jane's Doodles and the 'smile' die is from Simon Says Stamp. This was very quick and easy card to make and I really enjoyed positioning the happy crab infront of the other items.

I hope you come along and play over at Seize the Birthday for some Summer fun!

Card Chain Challenge - May Reveal and a BLOG HOP!

We've hit something of a milestone over at The Card Chain Challenge!

3,000 cards exchanged  

How awesome is that?!!  3,000 times spreading love around the world one card at a time.  

We think this calls for a celebration and we want YOU to come and join the fun!!!!   

We'll be having a series of games on the blog during June and you'll need to follow us and keep checking back to make sure you don't miss anything.  Psssst, don't tell anyone but there will be prizes...   Oh, OK, tell everyone!!  Let's have fun and party like it's 2021...  

Anyhoo, onward to the May Reveal and we have decided to turn it into a blog hop!!  So enjoy the cards, hop over to the sender's post and please leave a little love. Gail and I will be randomly selecting 3 comments left between today and the 28th June to win some prizes.  

There were 24 participants who exchanged cards across the globe during May and I'm amazed that so many cards have made it through despite the current problems across the world. Let's hear it for the world postal service!

Our options were:

Colour Palette Option

or

Sketch Option

Orient as required

or 

Theme Options: Repeat (more than one of something)/Fruit/ friendship

or 

Product / Technique Options: Stickers/Brushos

Here's the card I sent to Karen in Virginia - she's the next link in our hop, so please drop by her blog and say 'Hi'!

I sort of followed the sketch and the colours however, I was bang on the money with the theme of repetition! I stamped some Clearly Besotted apple blossom images and the masked them so I could colour and stencil the background. 

At the time of writing this post my card from Lucille in Colorado is still in transit; I'm looking forward to seeing it and keeping my fingers crossed it arrives safely!

There are still a few days left to sign up for the June exchange and you can always play along in our blog hop (did I mention there are prizes???).

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #32 - Care to Tag Along?

Hello, I hope that you are all hanging in there during these weird times. Just to add a little extra touch of surreal to the proceedings let's make Christmas cards on the hottest days of the year so far!
I'm still enjoying escaping to my craft room, losing myself in 'cardland' and building my stash of Christmas cards.

There's a fab new challenge for you this month and an equally fab new elf! Our theme is all about tags, so who better to have on board then Tracey M from My Creative Opinion AKA the Queen of Tags!

This month we're playing...

Challenge #32 - Care to Tag Along?

And you are going to love Tracey's adorable tag card, so why not head on over and take a look!

Here's my card:

Oddly, this card is taller and slimmer than it appears in this picture. It features some lovely MFT die cut numerals and a beautiful die cut wreath from Simply Graphic. I decided that I wanted to use some of my Christmas DP and found the perfect pad: Keepin' Cozy from Echo Park. The silver twine is from packaging and in fact all the elements of this card (except for the base) came from my box of leftovers!

Rudolph had done us proud and found a pair of lovely tag dies for his Random Raffle Prize!

Please come and join the fun!