Happy birthday, Lynne!

Happy birthday to you. 

Happy birthday to you. 

Happy birthday dear, Lynne. 

Happy birthday to you!

Its good to know my card reached my sweet blogging buddy, Lynne, in time to celebrate her birthday today. I've been working on this, and other Stamping Bella images, as part of Kathy's Colouring Challenge as I'm so fond of these pretty stamps.

Mmmmm, Stamping Bella, a simple sentiment, a stencil and a dash of summer sunshine... What a lovely combination!

Colouring Challenge and House of Cards

Happy Saturday to you all!

So, hands-up everyonewho is playing along with Kathy R's second Colour Challenge? Thought so... Its great isn't it! Kathy is so talented and I've found myself positively drooling over her creations from the first few days. I'm also picking up useful tips: I've already started to give my Promarker coloured images a quick blast with my heat gun to avoid the colours spreading into each other as per Kathy's advice.

Over the last few days I've been colouring a different Up Town Girls image from this one but can't share it until I know its reached its destination. With that in mind, here's what I coloured today!

I really do love Opal the Optimist and that sweet sentiment! This wasn't my original layout plan but I had a small mis-hap with my die-cutting so went for off-centre layering for a change!

I've chosen my colours from the gorgeous inspiration picture over at House of Cards blog.

I never need much incentive to work with a pink and green palette as its one of my favourite colour combos.
The House of Cards girls have their end of term blog hop and a DT call-out on offer so I decided to join in the fun!

May Card Chain Challenge Reveal

I'm finding it hard to believe its June. The weather here in the UK is chilly, very windy and not even vaguely summery... if the trees weren't so green I'd be thinking it was October!

Ok, I'll quit the weather watch and share my latest Card Chain Challenge offering which I sent to Marga in Spain. The stamp, which is called 'Girlfriends' by Stamps Happen, was a lucky find over on the lovely Julia's sale page. I'd seen this gorgeous image used before but as its no longer available, had given up all hope of ever tracking it down. You can imagine the whooping and hollering when I spotted it for sale and at a bargain price!

I heat embossed in white and watercoloured with Distress Inks, then matted and layered on white card. Its not the easiest stamp to work with but I love the image and know I'll be using it again and again. I purposefully left the image without embellishment as I wanted the pretty illustration and limited colour palette to take centre stage.

If you'd like to see the card I received from Christi please go here as she's got great pictures and a step-by-step guide to how she made it on her blog. And if you'd like to sign up for Deborah's June Card Chain Challenge you can follow the links to join in all the fun.

Happy crafting everyone!

Sketch time!

It's sketch time over at Naughty Or Nice Challenges today!

Ok, it's time for a wee crafting confession from your's truly: I find sketch challenges very, very tricky.

However, my final effort (yes, this card has a predecessor) doesn't look too bad. As always I've gone very literal with my 'take' but with this sweet and simple sketch from Tobi I think this works just fine. This is because in my head the cat is lying on a little green rug! Are you with me?

   

I did a little happy dance as I once again inked-up this cute kitty from BB Knead You. I love this set and am seriously in awe of my talented teamie, Torico, who is the designer/illustrator of the Birdie Brown range. The pretty papers are from the Here and Now Collection by Echo Park.

The little 'dot' to the side of the kittens head is a speck of pollen which drifted on while I was photographing the card in the garden. I didn't notice it until I had come back into the house but thankfully it blew away quite easily... Phew!

Once again the Troublemakers have created some gorgeous cards to inspire you. Head Troublemaker, Tobi, has been crafting-up-a-storm using this sketch and if you love Snoopy you'll adore the cards she's made for her students!  So head on over to NON #16 and take a look.

I've got your back...

I'm sorry not to have posted for a little while. I've been crazy, mad busy with work. Add a seemingly never ending sinus infection into the mix and you'll understand why crafting has temporarily taken a bit of a back seat.
So today its been a real treat, and an absolute tonic, to sit at my desk colouring, cutting and sticking again. And what a treat to play with the adorable clear stamp set BB Knead You from MFT.

You'll doubtless have noticed that there are some very cute cat sets around at the moment. I think Knead You has to be my current favourite as the images and sentiments are such fun. I can see myself coming back to this set again and again.

My card was very quick and easy to make. I stamped the front kitten and masked her (she looks like a girl-cat to me) and then stamped her buddy. After colouring, I fussy cut the feline friends and pop-dotted them against the stenciled background. I'd already printed the sentiment on my PC so had to be very careful when I stenciled with Distress Ink as I didn't wanted to smudge it. Finally, I matted and layered and added a star that I had leftover from a previous card. All very simple and all very sweet!

While I haven't felt up to crafting I have been cruising blogland and noticing some super fun challenges on offer. I feel a little dizzy linking up with so many challenges but here goes:

LIM Lucky Dip - Recipe 2 legs or 4

(Or in this case 8 legs!)

Addicted to CAS

(Or animalS)

CAS(E) this Sketch

(I know, little old me playing along with a sketch challenge!!!)

Wednesday Challenge; Anything Goes

CASology: Story

"I've got your back because..."

Now, I better go clear-up as I've been a very untidy crafter today!

A quick Card Makeover!

Do you ever make a card and post it on your blog... receive some really positive comments and still think 'Naw, I just don't like it'?

Well, that's what happened with this little card made for a Less is More Challenge back in April. I decided to re-use the image and here's the result.

Better? I think so. I cut out the LOTV image with a circular die and then positioned it to the side on dimensional dots. A sentiment and a gem gave balance to a very quick and simple make.

I'm going to link-up with the lovely ladies at Seize the Birthday today. Their current challenge topping is to 'Use the Negative'. I know this isn't really what they meant but I do feel as if I've turned a negative into a positive by re-modelling my original card!

And BTW, last time I joined-in with a Seize the Birthday Challenge those sweet gals gave me this lovely shiny new badge. So kind of them!

Enjoy what is left of the weekend everyone.