Amazing Autumn

I do love this time of year. I don't know if it's because I was born in the autumn but there's something about the crisp blue autumn skies and the weather starting to turn, that is somehow invigorating. And the colours of autumn are just beautiful....

 

So I have thoroughly enjoyed making my project for this week's Autumn theme at One Stitch at a Time:

 

 

I was working with a beautiful set of Butterflies digi stamps by Sentimental Susan and I coloured them with my Promarkers in autumnal colours before carefully cutting them out:

 

 

I used a DL card and some absolutely gorgeous paper from Bo Bunny's new Autumn Song collection and added some autumn foliage cut with a Memory Box die that I bought recently. I printed a sentiment on my computer and cut it out using a decorative oval die, inking the edges before attaching.

 

 

To finish I added my coloured butterflies, attaching some with foam pads for a touch of dimension.

 

As ever, you don't need to use a Stitchy Bear product to enter the challenge (though obviously we'd love to see your Stitchy Bear creations :D) but if you do you'll be entered into the random draw to win our main prize this week. Non-Stitchy Bear entries will have a chance to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear store.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Allsorts - How Does Your Garden Grow
Colour Me Creative Challenge - Fall Colours
Drunken Stampers - Die Cuts
A Creative Romance - Fairytale or Winged Creations
Craftitude - Anything Goes/Harvest
Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge - Anything Goes
Creative Corner - The Great Outdoors
Digitally Sweet - Anything Goes
Graph'it Colour Challenge - Colours of Autumn
Jellypark Challenges - The Sentiment Is The Key
Simply Create Too - Fall/Autumn
Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

 

Pretty In Pink

I love digi stamps... I love being able to buy them and use them straight away, I love being able to store loads of them on my computer, I love being able to print them in any size...

But.. I do still love rubber stamping too and I do sometimes feel that my rubber stamps get a bit neglected in favour of the quick and easy digi stamp option. However, I've been having a tidy up in my craft room recently and have dug out my box full of Sweet Pea Stamps... so for my card this week I decided to get back into rubber stamping and use one of my older Sweet Pea Stamp purchases...

I chose to work with Ching Chou Kuik's beautiful Blue Eyed Fairy:

I coloured her with my Promarkers in pretty pastel shades and gave her some lovely pink hair: :)

I used papers in coordinating colours and added lots of delicate die-cuts...

And pretty flowers...

This image is now available as both red rubber or digi stamp from the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

I'm going to enter this into a couple of challenges:
Flutterby Wednesdays - Anything Goes
Art Impressions Stamp Challenges - Anything Goes
Happy Campers - Show Us Your Flowers
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes
Penny's Paper Crafty - Two or More Patterned Papers

Anything Goes

This week's challenge at One Stitch at a Time is Anything Goes and this week I was lucky enough to have one of Barbara Jensen's fabulous digi stamps to work with - I love her gorgeous, slightly saucy images. :)

 

This is the card I made using Leatherbound:

 

 

I coloured her with my Promarkers and decided to dress her in electric blue - it suits her, doesn't it? I cut the image out and matted onto blue card using Framelits dies from Stampin' Up!:

 

 

I kept the card pretty simple with some patterned paper (which has a lovely sheen to the it when the light hits it), an embossing folder and a Memory Box die-cut flourish, and stamped my sentiment with a Stampin' Up! stamp.

 

 

I rather like this card as a slightly alternative, teensy bit saucy, Valentine's card. If I'd thought on I should have coloured her hair red and I could have given it to my DH for Valentine's... not that I have a figure anywhere near as nice as this lucky lady! :lol:

 

The OSAAT challenge runs for a week and you don't need to use a Stitchy Bear product to enter, though doing so gives you a chance to win the main prize. Entries not using a Stitchy Bear product go into the draw to win a $3 gift voucher for the Stitchy Bear Stamps store.

 

Sweet Pea Super Sale!

Today is the last day of the awesome Black Friday sale at Sweet Pea Stamps - a whopping 45% off red rubber stamps and also a special offer on digi stamps (spend $30 and get a $9 gift voucher for your next purchase).

 

Sweet Pea make stunning stamps from the artwork of incredibly talented artists such as Renee Biertempfel, Anna Marine, Rebecca Sinz, Ching Chou Kuik etc. 

 

Here's a project I made recently using a beautiful image from Ching Chou Kuik:

 

 

This image is called Silent Woods and it's one of the new releases from Ching Chou Kuik. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and just had to have it! It's available to pre-order in red rubber format (excluded from the sale offer as it's a brand new image) but you can buy it in digi format right now, which is what I did! :)

 

I went with a shabby chic colour scheme for this card, combining white, pink and brown. I coloured the digi stamp with a combination of Promarkers and Inktense pencils and added a touch of shabby chic glamour by edged the image with Stampendous Fran-tage embossing powder in Shabby Pink.

 

 

I used papers from Paper Artsy and dies by Memory Box and Cheery Lynn and finished things off with a paper flower with a centre made from melting more Shabby Pink embossing powder with some Fran-tage mica flakes.

To get yourself this stunning stamp, and others just as gorgeous, get yourself over to Sweet Pea Stamps today and take advantage of the sale before it ends! :)

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes
Corrosive Challenges - Anything Goes
Glitter and Sparkle - Ribbon and/or Lace
Joanna Sheen Challenge - Anything Goes (Excluding Christmas)
Pile It On - Anything But a Christmas Card
The Squirrel and the Fox - Anything Goes
Drunken Stampers - Not Too Shabby
Sweet Stampin - Flowers

Pretty in pink...

...and not a mermaid, for once! :lol:

This week's challenge at Dilly Bean's challenge blog is Worn, Torn and Distressed so I dug out the paper distresser and the Victorian Velvet Distress Ink for this card:

The yummy papers were freebies with a magazine and I coloured this lovely image with my Promarkers to match with the papers. I added some highlights with a white gel pen and some Stickles.

I inked and distressed the edges of my papers and also punched a large flower from patterned paper, wetted it, scrunched it up and dried it out again before inking the edges/creases. I used a Memory Box die, snipped in to, for the floral flourishes and added accents with Perlen Pens and more Stickles.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Dilly Beans Challenge - Worn, Torn and Distressed

Crafts and Me - Use a Digi

Avadares - Anything Goes

Christmas? Already?!

Nope... but a christmas card, nonetheless! :)

Today the new challenge goes live at One Stitch At A Time and it's my first as one of the design team. :)

The challenge is Anything Goes and I was given this adorable "Lucy Goes Skating" image from Reece's Scrap Pieces to work with:

Isn't she cute? But undeniably christmassy. I am not normally the kind of crafter who makes my christmas cards months in advance (please take note Create and Craft et al!!) but I just couldn't resist doing something christmassy with this little lady.

I used some pretty 6x6 papers that were freebies with a magazine and coloured Lucy in matching colours using my Promarkers. I also did a lot of fiddly measuring and cutting to make this a "pop up" card. An Indigo Blu sentiment stamp, a Memory Box die border and a snowflake punch added the finishing touches.

The sponsor for this week's challenge is Creative Craft World and you can win yourself 3 Promarkers of your choice (if you enter using a Stitchy Bear Stamps image) or you can enter with a non-Stitchy Bear image and be in with a chance of winning a $3 coupon to spend in the Stitchy Bear Stamps store. :)

There's also a new collab set available at the Stitchy Bear Stamps store... until 19 August if you spend at least $7, you will also get all these stamps for free:

Bargain! So why not head on over to the store, grab yourself some fab digi stamps (and freebies!), make a project and enter it into the OSAAT challenge!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Dream Valley Challenges - Die Cuts and Punches

Order of the Opus Gluei - Seasons

Daisy Doodles Creative Challenges - Outdoors

Divas By Design - For a Female

Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes

Simply Create Too - Anything Goes

Stamping With The Dragon - Christmas in August

Mermaids and sparkles...

It's been far too long since I've had a play with my scrummy collection of Sweet Pea stamps so when I saw that this week's challenge at Passion for Promarkers was "Underwater", I knew just which stamp I wanted to use:

She's called Oceania and she's by Renee Biertempfel. Isn't she just gorgeous? I've had this stamp for a while but hadn't gotten around to using it yet. I coloured her with Promarkers and added a bit of bling/undersea shimmer with some Stickles. The paper is from the Mariposa stack from DCWV and I used a Framelits and a Memory Box die to cut the fancy frame and the floral flourishes.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Underwater

Dream Valley Challenges - Die Cuts and Punches

Paper Play Challenges - Layer It Up

Totally Papercrafts - Monochrome

Catch The Bug - Anything Goes

Challenge Up Your Life - Everything Goes

Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes

Simply Create Too - Anything Goes

2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Divas by Design - Flowers

Happy Birthday Yasmin!

It was my cousin's birthday... erm... yesterday! Whoops! Am ashamed to say with everything that's been going on here I completely forgot to make and send a card, until today! So this will be a little late getting there, but it's the thought that counts, right? ;)

The image is a Stitchy Bear digi stamp and the papers and ribbon were recent freebies with a craft magazine. I also had a play with the second of the new Memory Box dies I recently picked up. :)

I'm entering this card for the Passion for Promarkers challenge (ice cream/cupcakes) and the One Stitch At A Time challenge (use a digi).

Happy Birthday, Yas! Sorry it's late....

Crafting again

Hurrah! The drought is over! I managed to get back in my craft room last night and make something, after nearly two weeks of no crafting (how did I survive?!)!

My friend Sally had a baby boy last Friday so I wanted to drop off a card for her (we'll go visit once she's gotten settled - I know how chaotic those first few days can be, especially when you've got a toddler as well as a newborn!):

The stamp is a Mo Manning design from Stampendous (doesn't she draw the most adorable babies? :)) and I've coloured it with my Promarkers and cut and embossed it with a Nesties die. The papers and buttons are all remnants from the June mini kit from Creative Craft World - I've already made a mini scrapbook page and two cards with this kit and still had enough left to make this card and can probably squeeze another one or two out of what remains! :D

I also used one of my new Memory Box dies and added some plain white baker's twine from Stampin' Up!. The scalloped border punch is also from Stampin' Up! :)

Am going to pop this through Sally's letter box on the way home from DD1's Rhythm Time class today. Hope she likes it.