Project: A lovely little bee fairy for Sketch Saturday

When I saw our sponsor at Sketch Saturday this week I absolutely fell in love with this Bitsy Bug Jane image. Oh how cute is she?!

The sketch is fun too, really easy to put together. I die cut the image into a tag and then used ProMarkers for the colouring. The sentiment is stamped using a magazine freebie die cut into a circle, layered over a stitched circle die. I used the scrap of a sheet that I've always loved and this is my last little piece. It was an American Crafts pad that was all my favourite colours and it came in handy with just the right amount of detail and texture. It looked a bit simple so I added white as a border and like it so much more. I added two little enamel dots and oh. I'm just so happy with it! 

Hope you have fun playing along. 

Project: Raincoat dolly and ducky for Sketch Saturday

Another happy Saturday to join in the fun at Sketch Saturday! The sketch this is week is SUPER flexible:

I love this image from our sponsor The Paper Nest Dolls and I decided to color it to look like one of my friends. I used ProMarkers to color the image and then die cut it into a circle. I embossed a turquoise sheet with dots to tie into the raincoat.

I then added enamel accents to the raincoat and dots to the sentiment, which was from a magazine freebie. I kind of wish I had added them to the boots and not the raincoat. That was a mistake. Oh well. I added glitter to the duck bill and the barrette in the girl's hair and I like that as a feature.

It's a simple little one and I hope you are able to follow along!

Project: Masculine sketch birthday card

I saw the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and loved it. I had a lot of ideas to use stamps and punches and stencils but I decided to keep it really simple.

I masked off two stripes and used Distress Ink to blend in the stripes. I used Peacock Feathers and Blueprint Sketch to make it really vivid.

The sentiment and texture stamps are from Studio Calico. I added Enamel Accents in white to the Y on both lines to add extra texture.

It's masculine and fresh and I'm giving it to my boss for his birthday on Monday. Maybe it'll be good enough for a bonus. Ha!

Project: Fantasy at MAWTT

This week at MAWTT we have a fantasy challenge - a really fun way of getting to use some of my lovely dragon stamps from Bugaboo!

This guy is an old favourite. I colored him with ProMarkers and then die cut it in a circle, layered over a scalloped circle. I added touches of enamel accents and glitter glue. The sentiment tag is ancient, I've had it for years. I thought it worked though I wish my little enamel dots were straighter! Oh well, not always perfect when you do things by hand.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else does this week.

Project 441: A mini-masked and heat embossed Christmas card

I saw the layout at Freshly Made Sketches and thought it would work perfectly with a wreath to make a Christmas card. Please forgive the bad lighting of the shot!

The stamp is a freebie from Creative Stamping magazine set I got earlier this year (Feb? March? I used it for Mother's Day cards so must have been before that!) and I heat embossed it with Platinum Ranger embossing powder. I used Peeled Paint Distress Ink to blend a little stripe that I masked off behind the wreath. I added a sentiment with a lot of flourish as I thought it suited the wreath. I've had that set for years, Claire gave it to me as one of my first Christmas sets. I added little touches of enamel accents to make the berries pop and some white as accents.

I kept it really CAS as I like a minimalist Christmas card - I just wish I had taken a better photo!

Project: Congrats sketch challenge

This is a very fun and silly response to our challenge for you at Sketch Saturday this week.

My friend for life Claire has just celebrated 2 years with us at our company - we've worked together before at a previous company and I couldn't resist the temptation when we were looking to expand our office in New York to see if she was up for the challenge. 2 years later, here we all are! Today marks the start of a girls weekend for us so it's a perfect entry for today.

I thought I'd do something a bit silly and light and instead of a serious congrats card I decided to go a bit whimsical. I used Harriet from our great sponsor this week, Crafty Sentiments Designs and colored it as if Claire was the little girl. I decided to stick with blues and greys and chose a backing paper Claire has admired (re: stolen) in the past. I added a vertical congrats sentiment from Stampin' Up and some string and enamel accents to complete the sketch. I think it will crack her up.

We have a prize of 3 digis this week so make sure you enter by Friday the 25th of August!

Project 430: A piñata sketch and color challenge

Claire recently bought me this fantastic little piñata set from Lawn Fawn and I was saving it for a birthday card for a colleague who I knew would appreciate it. 

Because the image and sentiment are relatively small I wanted to look at some sketches where things would be concentrated in one area so it wouldn't look too distant. I found a great one in CAS(E) This Sketch and then by magic the colors at Color Throwdown this week were a perfect complement to what I wanted to do:

I started with a stamp of the image and then colored it with ProMarkers and die cut it with the matching dies. I used foam tape to pop it out and then die cut stitched squares in white and turquoise to get the central panel. I used Enamel Accents to add confetti around the 'Smash!' part of the sentiment and large enamel dots to frame the central panel. The background paper is American Crafts and I have been saving it for a special occasion - I've loved the pattern and color and decided it was finally time to use it. That's what it's therefore after all! 

Really happy with how it came out, may have used slightly brighter ProMarkers if I were to do it again but all things considered I think it was a good inaugural card for the new set.

Project 423: A hen-do collage

I got asked to print photos to contribute to a friend's bachelorette party/hen do book and it occurred to me that I have so few printed photos this was going to be really hard! I scanned all of my social media accounts and decided there was only one good recent photo of us but, as a friend of 12 years, I couldn't go with just one little image so I decided to supplement the only way I know how: with crafting!

I made my dies do most of the heavy lifting, and added detailing in enamel accents to the dart board and the college crest (that's our Oxford college where we met). She lives in Hong Kong (thus the dragon) and lived in Italy (thus the flag) and loves to travel. The bottle is more symbolic of how we pass our time - lots of casual drinking!

And this is the one image I did decide to print, which I jazzed up with some stickers from Tim Holtz's Ranger range. I was pretty happy with the result, it definitely stands out amid all the other photos!

Project 421: A dino color sketch challenge

It's my FIL's birthday soon and as he is like a big kid I always like to make him fun cards. I saw the colors and sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and The Paper Players and thought they would go together perfectly for the card I wanted to create:

The stamp set is from Stampin' Up and I've had it for 2 years, so I thought I would link up with Retro Rubber's Anything Goes challenge this week as well.

I flipped the sketch on the side and stamped two panels with the triceratops stamp in lime green and light orange. The dots are enamel accents. The sentiment is a die cut square with white ink - I was going embossed, then didn't, and now kind of wish I had. Oh well! It's playful and fun and that's what I was going for so I'm pretty satisfied with it :) 

Project: Embossing challenge at Moving Along with the Times

This week's challenge at Moving Along with the Times is an embossing challenge and it's so versatile it was hard to decide what to do. I decided to go silly - sometimes that's the best and only option!

For the headline card I started by heat embossing the white heart in the latte and then stamped over it with the circle for coffee and the mug. The mug is an outline so I colored that in using ProMarkers. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up and is part of two stamps (the 'let's sit together and drink' is one and then there are four varieties for tea, coffee, hot cocoa and champagne). I die cut the square boarders and, to give it a bit more fun, I added a stencilled background of big overlapping circles using Distress Ink.

This second card features a sentiment is heat embossed using a rich black powder. I created a frame from a white card with a window cut out and I blended it using Picked Raspberry Distress Ink to blend around. I stamped donuts and then layered it using icing and sprinkle stamps in different colors so they peep through the window. I added pink enamel accent dots to make it a more springy. Looks fairly straight forward but with all of the stamping layers took a while to put together. I like the final effect and can't wait to see what embossing projects everyone else does!

Project 413: Making tricky papers work

I have loads of paper in my stash. Way too much for one person. Maybe even way too much for like 10 people. Anyway, there are always packs that have a few sheets stuck at the end that I can't use because they are tricky, complicated or just too busy for me to work with other stamps and sentiments.

I decided to challenge myself to give them a go and make a few cards I needed on the list to get through them. The first is so simple. The paper makes me smile but I just couldn't make it work! I have two friends who are changing jobs and moving to Brighton, and while it makes me sad that they are leaving London I'm thrilled for the good things it will mean for their family. I decided just to get the paper down to the height of the paper and then add loads of enamel dots like confetti. That's it. No complicated process or technique, I cut a piece of paper and added dots. And I love it.

This one has great colors but the paper is so muted I have found it hard to use. I decided to add contrast by using a navy bar with a die cut sentiment (both scraps) and there we have a new home card for a friend who recently bought a house. Why go through the effort of something more complicated when this is all we need sometimes?!

And then finally this pretty yellow and pink paper I've had for ages and I love the texture is has but haven't found the right project for it in all the years I've had it. I decided it would work well as a kid card because it's cheerful and pretty. I heat embossed an owl stamp in pink powder and then fussy cut it out. The sentiment is from a Creative Stamping magazine freebie and then I decided to spell out the little girl's name in glitter letters because kids love big glitter letters. Fact. A little yellow button and I think we're done here!

Three tricky papers that I have had for a while and three cards that I wish I had thought to make ages ago!

Project 412: New baby sketch card

I wanted to make a few little cards to send to my parents and my sister's in-laws to celebrate the arrival of my niece. I decided to do something simple and cheerful and when I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I thought it would work well:

And the color challenge at CAS-ual Fridays was perfect for my modern baby card:

The pink paper is punched with an American Crafts punch that I haven't used in ages but always really like using, it's so sharp it works great for adding detail. I embossed the central blue panel in a houndstooth folder to give it some texture. The central greeting is a washi tape punch from Claire and I used a sentiment that is one of the oldest in my collection. It didn't quite stand out as I wanted it to so I added the darker pink background to give it more prominence. The bows are punched using a Tim Holtz punch and to make them a bit cuter I added white enamel accents to the bows, mimicking the pink enamel accents I added to the background paper.

Really enjoyed this as it features a lot of fun little tools but has a simple look overall.

Project 400: A rainbow layout challenge

There is little I love more than a rainbow. Fact. When I was in high school I drew them everywhere and was attracted to anything from stationery to bags and clothes that featured them. I recently got a second hand rainbow stamp set and thought it would be fun to play with Freshly Made Sketches' challenge this week:

I decided to keep it really simple and enter CAS-ual Fridays One Layer Wonder challenge as well.

I masked off the borders of the card and blended the central panel using Distress Inks in Peacock Feather, Cracked Pistachio and Blueprint Sketch. I heat embossed the sentiment and then used Enamel Accents to create the rainbow. I made a pretty big smudge and decided to cover that with some die-cut clouds that I edged in Cool Grey 1 ProMarker. I hope that still counts as 1 layer!

I am super pleased with the result, it really speaks to my teenage-self (many years ago) and I think I will have to hold on to it for a while before I send it to someone.

Project 397: A card for a guy at MAWTT

This week at Moving Along with the Times we have a masculine theme: a card for a guy please!

For my card, I decided to use my DieVersions robot die that I love so much and layer him up over two stitched rectangle dies. In stead of punching out all of the internal little holes on the robot I tried something different and added enamel accents to make him bit more toy-like. I think the effect is really fun and plastic-y, I'm pretty happy with the result. Finally the sentiment was stamped using a  little set that Claire got me this past spring.

Hope you're having a fun craft week, looking forward to seeing your entries!

Project 389: Playing with new dies

Claire and I had a great playdate over the break and I had held back playing with some of my new dies from Black Friday until she had them as we like to try new stuff together. So weird, so sad, I know.

The headline card is a little one that we made featuring these great little Monsters from Claire's BF haul and the new dies I got in the Simon Says Stamp sale. I blended the background of the circle in a few different Distress Inks and then colored the monster in ProMarkers and die cut him out. I didn't love my coloring but oh well, I can try to fix that later I guess if it really bothers me! The stars are stencilled on using an Avery Elle stencil and the sentiment came with the monster set. Love him, he makes me laugh.

This next one features a chevron die that I got from my BF haul and man is it a beast to work with. This guy went through the Big Shot about 10 times and I still couldn't get all of the little lines to pop out. Sighs. We decided it was good enough to use anyway! I added a few paper and fabric flowers from my stash and I added enamel dots in matching colors to make it a bit more colourful and cheerful. The sentiment is from Claire, last summer I think, and I like these ones with the brackets, they are nice and modern. 

Such a fun date, I think I have one more post up my sleeves featuring our output. 

Project 383: First of several card gift sets

I am making a whole bunch of card sets as gifts for people. I should have started this process MUCH sooner but here we all are, crafting late into the evening to get things done before I see the recipients! I'm using it as an opportunity to go through my stash and use things I haven't played with in a while.

This is the first of a few card set posts. The set featured here was such fun. I stamped and die cut the fruit Sizzix set Claire gave me last year and used mini 4x4 cards as my base. The colored papers are from a Recollections square pack (no die cutting or trimming involved!) and I embossed them in different folders: the triangle is from Stampin' Up, the houndstooth is Sizzix, the swiss dots are Cuttlebug and the basketweave I can't remember. I added different sized enamel dots from Recollections to match each card. They took a bit longer than you'd think from looking at them but I really love them!

This next set was a bit simpler. I die cut some intricate butterflies and then layered them over punched hearts. I die cut big chevron patterned circles and added a few touches of bling and enamel dots. They would have been really quick if it weren't for the 8 die cuts required. Still, a very clean card and it makes a nice set for the person who is receiving it....thought I must say I prefer the fruit!

Project 382: Brazillian football baby card and 'Future Grandma'

A colleague is from Brazil and her brother just announced him and his wife are having a baby. She wanted to make him a card that showed his football team Flamengo as he has found out he's having a boy. She also wanted a card for her mom that congratulated her as - apparently - she has been bugging my colleague for a grandchild for some years now and she can now give her some peace!

The headline card features the card I made for her mom. I heat embossed the congratulations greeting from a baby set in white and then blended over it in Salty Ocean distress ink really lightly for the sky. I die cut a stamped plane from the same baby set (why is there a plane in a baby set??) and then colored it with ProMarkers. I cut  a scrap of green paper to look like a hill and then dotted it with Enamel Accent flowers. I added white Enamel Accents to the sky to make it look like sky writing from the plane, and then added the Future Grandma in glittery letters. What a weird card but I love it.

The next one is the card for her brother. I cut a number of red stripes and layered them over a black card. I added big black foam letters to make it more masculine and smaller red ones to balance it out. I die cut a circle and drew on some football spots, and then cut out two jerseys, a big and a small, in red and added black stripes. Finally I added a little insignia in white gel pen to complete it.

I love my random colleague commissions, they are definitely the strangest briefs and so much fun to fulfill.

Project: Christmas Scenes for MAWTT

There are few things I love more than a good Christmas scene. I love this time of year and all of the festive things that go with it! So to celebrate, Jan is hosting a Christmas Scene challenge at Moving Along With the Times and we want to see you create a project that depicts a cozy/festive/wintery/Christmasy scene.

I loved this so much I made two. The headline card features a great little stamp that Claire got me as well as a new sentiment I picked up in the Michael's Black Friday sale this year. I heat embossed it in black on a stitched rectangle die that I stole from Claire's stash...she really shouldn't be so generous with her stuff...or maybe she doesn't know she's being generous? ;) I used Distress Inks to watercolor the background, going from grey to light green and then blue at the top. I kept the area around the house blank and then used Wink of Stella shimmer to give it a lovely snowy sheen. The ribbon was a scrap on my desk and happened to go perfectly so I added it to the bottom for a little contemporary touch.

This second card features a big stamp that is also from the Michael's Black Friday sale. I used Stampin' Up khaki dye ink on brown card to get a stain look and then added a die cut sentiment from Dies R Us. The background paper is at least one or two years old...can't quite remember the origins there! I added tiny white enamel accents to make it look like snow and make it pop a bit.

I hope you have fun creating some scenes, can't wait to see what you come up with!

Project 379: Little piggy birthday challenge

I saw the layout at Freshly Made Sketches and thought it would be great for a card I needed to make today.

I chose these three pigs from Bugaboo and colored them with Promarkers.  I used a stitched circle due and layered it over a scallop circle die. the sentiment is an old one that I heat embossed in white. not as neat as I wanted but never mind. I added the birthday boy'so name in enamel accents to personalized it. Not a child but a policeman in his 30s!

Simple make but with a few steps to keep it interesting. Hope he likes it!

Project 373: Custom baby cards

My colleagues have asked me for some interesting baby cards: two for a relative and a third for a colleague who's just about to go on maternity leave.

All of them were super fun to make, let me start with the headline. 

The brief was to make something light and fun for a baby card that wasn't too twee as we don't know her style. I stamped this adorable elephant rubber stamp from Michael's (bargain bucket I think?!) and colored it with ProMarkers, adding touches of Wink of Stella to add some shimmer. I used the stitched circle die as I think it's a bit cuter to have that as an edge. The paper is a scrap from the Neapolitan stack from Recollections and is just so nice, it's a bit precious to me! I added tiny little pink enamel dots just for added charm and I'm really pleased with the result.

Now for the really specialised ones...! This one is a request for my colleague's sister, and the brief was that it must have metallic elements, and she wanted a shaker. So I made a fairly simple layout but added loads of lovely touches, if I do say so myself! The spots are from the Endless Birthday Wishes Stampin' Up set and I heat embossed it using Ranger gold powder. The shaker is full of sequins and these diamond crystals Claire gave me. The sentiment is the same as the above, but I made it a little banner and wrapped it in purple twine. Really festive and fun, she loved it when I gave it to her the next day.

This is for the same family, for the new big sister of the baby above. I kept a similar color scheme as the one above so they'd be related. The brief for this one was 'no pink' so it felt right. She told me that the girl had an owl theme in her bedroom so I went to one of my favourite stamp sets from Get Stamping magazine, which features the same owl in three sizes. SO HANDY. I die cut the letters from a Tim Holtz Sizzix die set as my greeting. I added all the embellishments to make it more fun, with buttons and flowers and things that fit the color scheme and just added little enamel dots for extra texture.

Really happy with all of these and had a lot of fun making them. Just what I needed this week!