Welcome back to my journey!

If you read my blog regularly, you will know I am on a quest to use colors that I have never used before in the SU range.

Well, I have never used Garden Green, I always choose Old Olive or Certainly Celery, they are my favorite greens. So here is my card for today. I'm sorta happy with it, but I still think it would have looked better with Old Olive :)

But it is good for me to get out of my rut and try new things. This card is semi-based on a card by Yvette, you can see her blog on the right, but here is her gallery on SCS if you have a few hours spare, lol. I like some of her cards with this dress, so that inspired me to use the dress today.

Card details

sets - Blooming with Happiness, Houndstooth, Fine Lace

Cardstock - white watercolor, More Mustard, Ruby Red, Garden Green

Inks - black versafine,More Mustard, More Mustard and Ruby Red refills

Accessories - brads, aquapainter, mustard spotted ribbon, dimensionals, sponge

Not my usual style

This card is not my usual style, but I have to make some cards for a class I am teaching on Wednesday for distressing. I find distressing very distressing, bwahahahahahahaha! Sorry terrible joke! So this card is very distressed, hee hee.

I stamped on the piece of cardstock with the main image, then I crumpled it up and then swiped my ink pad all over it. I tore the edge and swiped the inkpad over the torn edge too.

I used weathered and linen on the main card to give it an old look.

I have had such a busy weekend, I taught 2 classes in my home on exploding boxes and I had so much fun with the 11 ladies who did the class with Fi and I.

I'm tired today though.

Details of card -

stamps - Woodware main image, unknown compass, Papertrey faux ribbon, SU linen and weathered

inks - Night of Navy, Bordering Blue, white craft

Card - pale blue, navy

My quest

If you read my blog regularly, you will know I am on a quest to use colors that I haven't used before. Guess what? The Ways to Use It challenge for this week is to use Orchid Opulence, I have never used it I always go for Lovely Lilac or Almost Amethyst.

Well, this is the card I came up with. The color combination is a bit out there, I'll admit, but I got it from this site. It is an invaluable tool for making cards, so I picked the weirdest combination that I just couldn't imagine on a card, lol, I am a live-on-the-edge-cardmaker you know, bwahahahahaha!

I may have over-cuttlebugged too, I know hard to believe! hee hee!

Details of card

sets - Bodacious Bouquet, Papertrey Ink's Papertray

Cardstock - Sage Shadow, Blush Blossom, Orchid Opulence, Pale Plum, black

Ink - the same

accessories - cuttlebug, buttons, hemp, dimensionals

Caribbean Garden

This is the card that I made for today's sketch challenge on Splitcoast. Part of the sketch was to have your ribbon/embellishment too the forefront of the card. If this were not the case, I would have put the faux ribbon piece behind the floral piece. Then I think it would look more balanced, but generally I am quite happy with the card.

I love my new Papertrey Ink faux ribbon set. This is my first try with it and it is so easy to get the stamps straight.

My DH has been working from home today, so he has been driving me completely insane. He is always in the way, wherever he sits, wherever he goes, it's in my way, lol.

Details of card

sets - Papertrey Ink's Green Thumb, Papertray and Faux Ribbon sets

cardstock - Cool Caribbean, Lovely Lilac, Chocolate Chip, Black, white, Green Galore

inks - Cool Caribbean, Lovely Lilac, Chocolate Chip, white craft

accessories - tab punch, dimensionals

I've been tagged

I've been tagged three times today, thanks Diane, check out her website here and Rose Ann, her website is here and Jen, she is my funny friend, her blog is in my list on the right. Now to find 7 things about me

1. I was born in London, but I grew up in Wales and consider myself Welsh. I grew up in Port Talbot, the town where Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton are from.
2. I got married on Halloween, lol
3. I couldn't have children, so I adopted my son a week before his first birthday. He is now 7. It was the best decision we ever made, I never believed I could love one little person as much as I love him and I never realised how much fun and joy he would bring to my life, he is the funniest, most loving little boy on the planet
4. I only drink Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke if they don't have Diet Pepsi, but I really dislike hot drinks, especially tea, which for a Brit is akin to a crime.
5. My favorite comfort food is spaghetti with butter and parmesan
6. My best holiday was in Disneyworld with my parents, husband and son three years ago. We were there for Hurricane Charlie. I also bought a Sizzix machine from Michaels and had terrible trouble getting it through security, they thought it was a bomb, until after 25 minutes a new security guy on duty said his wife had one!
7. My grandmother was American, she was born in New York. My great-grandmother should have travelled on the Titanic to meet her husband before my grandmother was born, but my great-grandmother had a bad feeling and decided to travel a month later on a different ship.

I forgot one, I love sport, I especially love watching sport on tv, my favorite football/soccer (we call it football, you call it soccer). I will watch any soccer, any time, I love it. My father used to bribe me to go to mass when I was little by taking me to soccer matches. I am a fanatical Chelsea supporter. :)

Ok, now I need to tag 7 people, I don't want to tag the same people as last time, or they are going to start ignoring my emails, lol, so Im going to tag these wonderful ladies.

Jen
Lisa
Jody
Linda
Marie
Paula
Lynn

Have a great day!

I Found It!

My mojo came home, well long emough to make this card, lol. I made it for yesterday's challenge on Splitcoast. It was the Technique Lover's challenge and it was to make a card using a Levi tab, you know the tab you see on the pocket of a pair of jeans.

I love doing tabs on cards, so this really inspired me, lol. I think my problem is I have too much stuff and I get overwhelmed, I then have no idea where to start.

I think it might be easier when I get to be a SU demo because I will mostly have to showcase new sets, so my choices will be restricted. :) I wish they would hurry up and get to the UK, the waiting is agony!

The weird thing for today, the back panel with the paisley on and the panel behind the flower and the tab are all apricot appeal, but it looks a completely different color when you stamp apricot appeal ink on it!

I got the color combination from this site, I added Sage Shadow because I needed leaves.

Details of card

Sets used - Bodacious Bouquet, Perfect Paisley, Houndstooth, On the Spot, Papertrey Ink's Papertray for the sentiment

Cardstock - Cameo Coral, Apricot Appeal, Almost Amethyst, Black, white

Ink - same colors as above

accessories - sponge, paper piercer, mat stack, dimensionals, brad

Blah, blah, blah!!!!

Oh boy, am I going through a sticky patch at the moment! I just don't seem to be able to create anything.

In one weekend of sitting in my craft room, this is the only thing that I have managed to come up with, I have thrown my little boy's body weight in cardstock away over the weekend. It's not false modesty, honest, I just seem to have forgotten all the rules of what I like.

The front panel of this card has been made three times. The first one as I colored with an aquapainter ran everywhere, the second, I did a shadow around the vase and it was horrific. Don't ask me why I used yo-yo yellow, but I did! :) Horrible, horrible, horrible.

I have made an exploding box, I'm teaching a class next week, but I haven't decorated it yet. I want to make a birthday card, rather than a scrapbook album and I'll show you what I come up with.

So if you see my mojo hanging around in all the wrong places, can you please send it on home!

Card details - stamp SU Sassy Stems

ink - Versafine black

cardstock - white watercolor, yoyo yellow, pink passion, green galore, cool caribbean

accessories - aquapainter, reinkers in pink passion, cool caribbean, tempting turquoise, pretty in pink, gable green, doodlebug paper, pink ric rack, SU punch, brad, Cuttlebug, bloom dots embossing folder

I forgot!

I have been sat in my craft room for 5 hours trying to create and blah! Nothing! So today you are getting a card I made a couple of weeks ago that I forgot to upload!

I have decided that my weekness is sentiments, I never know what to use, how to attach them, where to put them. I see everyone else adding ovals, tags, circles, etc and they always look so natural and part of the card, but me, I just can't think of what to do to finish the card off. I think I need to start making sketches of how everyone attaches their sentiment. I think Cindy Haffner on Splitcoast (sorry site was down at the time I wrote this post so I couldn't put a link) is a genius at attaching sentiments, they always look such a natural part of the card, mine always look plonked on! :)

So, that is going to be my quest from now on. Every time I see a card with an interesting sentiment, I am going to note it in a notebook and lets see if my cards improve!

Details - stamp Hero Arts

Cardstock - scraps

patterned paper - DCWV

I markered straight onto the stamp to get the coloring for this stamp, isn't it cute?

Trouble revisited!

I just wanted to show you my card that has given me endless hours of trouble. If you read my blog regularly, you will have seen this card and read the story before, here is the original card.

So I went back, restamped the main image, added a sentiment and some paper piercing, got rid of the ticket corner and added a spiral with turquoise ribbon.

Do you think it's an improvement? I certainly do, thanks for all the advice girls! :)

I'm so stunned

Oh my gosh! Look what I got in the mail! How beautiful is this, I am completely stunned, it is so beautiful. It is by Denise Bryant, Denise you are one awesomely talented lady, thank you so much for your kindness!

You can find her blog here please go and check it out.

Beate's Fault

Sorry for the quality of the photo guys, but it's starting to get dark.

This card is allllllllllllllll Beate's fault. I was telling her how I only liked the large flower from the Doodle This set and she told me to try using the other stamps in this set. So this is the card that I made for this week's color and sketch challenges on Splitcoast.

I'm still not sure about this flower, but I really like the corner flourish.

I so wish you could see the bling in real life, this card is so glittery, as you could tell if you saw me, because I am completely covered in fine glitter! :)

Details - Cardstock- Rose Red, So Saffron, Elegant Eggplant

Inks - the same color

Accessories - Cuttlebug, Word Window punch, glitter, dimensionals, brads.

I've been tagged!

Lexi, the sweetest, most talented crafter, tagged me yesterday. Her blog is in my list under Lexi go take a look. So now I have to choose 5 of my favorite blogs, so here goes.

Dawn - http://dawnsstampingthoughts.typepad.com/

Beate - http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/

Joan - http://www.paper-and-ink.blogspot.com/

Jen - http://www.iheart2stamp.com/

Yvette - http://yvettespapergarden.wordpress.com/

Check out their blogs, these ladies inspire me each and every day! :)

Now each of you ladies need to tag 5 bloggers on your blog! Hugs!

Something missing

This card has been a real struggle for me. It was inspired by some china that I saw in a sale advertisement.

The first time I tried it, it was in red, but the red didn't work, the white embossing powder looked dull and creamy rather than white.

So this time I did it in Cool Caribbean, my favorite color. But it is missing something, it needs a sentiment, but I can't find a place to attach it, or think what to use.

I also really wanted to do some doodling, but what are the only colors that don't come with markers, yep, that would be In Colors. There's too much space around the outside of the main panel.

So what I might do is go back and change the panel to Caribbean and mount it on a thin piece of white.

I embossed the Caribbean in clear, by stamping Versamark on the stamp, before the Cool Caribbean.

I love these stamps though, they are Botanicals by Rhonna Farrer, thanks for the enabling Joan! :)

Oh I've just had a thought, I could fit a Papertray sentiment in the top left corner, stay tuned for the adventures of this card, lol!

Strawberries Everywhere!

My 7 year old son loves fruit, espicially strawberries, so this card makes me think of him, lol.

Through the summer, I find the hulls everywhere, as typical boy, he never throws anything in the trash.

This is such a simple card. I used, wait for it, Papertrey's Green Thumb, lol. I stamped the strawberries and hulls, which come separately, in rows on white card as the background. I then punched a real red scalloped circle and as I don't have a mega circle punch, I used my cricut to make the white circle. I then used my slot punch to make the slots for the ribbon. I had to twist the ribbon underneath the circle as it is only spotty on one side.

I'm insane, seriously

I'm insane, seriously I am, guess who got up at 5.15am on a Sunday to buy Nichole's new set from Papertrey, that would be me!!!!!

I know the ribbon on this card looks a little weird, but it's to hide a big splodge of olive ink that transferred. This card is heavily coated and so the dye ink takes a while to dry and I keep forgetting, lol.

Why is it that the ribbon all lies in the same direction, I'm really happy with how they look and then you take the photo and they all mysteriously turn around? I swear, they are straight! :)

I like this card because even though I have used all Earth Element colors, I still think it looks really spring-like.

I don't know if any Americans know this, but British cardstock is a slightly different size to American cardstock. Our cardstock is longer and thinner, so it is just shy of 12" long and 8" wide or in cm like we work, 29.8cm long by 21cm wide, so my cards are always slightly longer than yours. It's a complete pain sometimes, especially when I use SU background stamps because they are not long enough, so I end up having to cut a big slice off it. Now don't you feel richer for that information! :)

Details of the card - Set - Green Thumb by Papertrey, inks - More Mustard, Really Rust, Old Olive and Ruby Red, ribbon.

ETA: Jenn asked a question about how I like acrylic stamps. Jenn, I have always gone for stamps I love rather than what they are made of. So mounted, unmounted, acrylic, whatever, I love and have always bought them all.

Acrylic does behave differently though. It does sometimes pool when using dye ink, but I just rough the stamps up slightly with my jeans and they work perfectly. You can't use inks like Stazon though, the Stazon sticks to the cardstock and the stamp comes off the block, ask me how I know, lol. I used classic ink on this card, on slightly textured cardstock and they still worked perfectly.

But the huge advantage of clear stamps is just that they are clear. I use mine with a clear block and so you can see exactly where you are stamping. You can avoid spaces on your design, you can stamp accurately, I must admit I love them.

What do you need? Just a couple of different size acrylic blocks. Unlike rubber, clear acrylic cling to the blocks by way of static, so they don't need to be glued or taped on.

I would say buy one set and a few blocks and see how you get on. I have nothing but praise for Papertrey's sets, there are just endless permutations of ways to use them. You never get bored with them, well I haven't anyway and this card seriously took me no more than 5 minutes to actually stamp. It took me about an hour to choose the colors and tye the ribbon, but that's another story, lol. Hope that helps Jenn. :)

Nichole Heady is a genius!

This card is made using Papertrey's Green Thumb set, Nichole really does know how to make stamps for stampers. Somehow, with the way that her stamp sets work, you know she has really thought about how to get the most out of one set, I have had so much fun playing with this set today, it's the first chance I have had to play with it.

This card really makes me laugh. I don't know why really, but I think it's really cute. The sentiment says "you can deal with anything if you have the right shoes", I was going to do a sentiment that says "I hope you are welly" but I didn't know if Americans would get it. We call this type of boots, wellies in the UK (wellington boots), I will definitely use the sentiment if I send this sort of card to a friend in the UK.

I stamped each boot in Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery and Cameo Coral. I then stamped them again on some scrap card, cut each one out and mounted each one on dimensionals. I stamped the sentiment onto scrap card, mounted it onto some dp from the SU winter mini. I then used the slot punch for the holes and threaded some American Crafts ribbon through the slots.

Sunny boots

This is a card that turned out complely different to how it looked in my head. It is for the card sketch for this week on Splitcoast.
I knew that I wanted the boots in Cool Caribbean, but I imagined the flowers being much taller with more of them, but it didn't fit on the sketch. I cut the piece of white card to size before I did anything else and so the size of the piece of card dictated the stamping.
I didn't intend to do any cuttlebugging either, but the paper looked so flat and uninteresting, lol.
So details, sets used Papertrey Green Thumb and Paper Tray. Cuttlebug embossing folder - bloom dots, Cuttlebug ribbon slider, turquoise spotty ribbon from Jody's share. Colors - Cool Caribbean, So Saffron, Regal Rose and Certainly Celery. Stampin Up designer paper.

No new card

Sorry, no new card today, but a funny story instead. You may know that I run a craft club once a month with my best friend Fi. It was last night. Well, Fiona, the dozy moo and yes that's what I called her sprained her ankle for the second time in 2 weeks the night before last and so is on crutches. She's fine, honest, in pain, but fine. And I was really sympathetic, really. I also got the chance to be bossy she's usually the bossy one, OK Fi, assertive one.
Anyway, because Fi is on crutches, I had to put everything out and put it away at the hall we hire, so by the time I got home last night I was really tired. I asked DH if he would unpack the car in the morning and he said he would. So he went to work this morning with all my craft stuff in the car, what a disaster!!!!!! I've got plenty of stamp sets and ink, but I can't make anything because he has my cutters, glue, tools, scissors, aquapainters etc. I was so sulky today, I was like a child, 8 hours with not craft stuff and you would swear someone had cut my arm off, so today I have been a Debbie Downer, not a Billy Bad Mood! :) Now it's 8pm and he's home and I can't be bothered to unpack the car, bwahahahahaha! I will make sure I just get it out, even if Idon't put it away!

Just call me ditzy!

This is the card I made for the color challenge on Splitcoast yesterday. I am so happy with it, apart from one thing, I forgot to color the leaves on the top panel! :) So, just call me ditzy.

I could have retaken the photo as I have colored the panel in now, but I thought it was more amusing this way, lol. I must have looked at that panel 30 or 40 times before I uploaded it to my gallery and I still didn't notice until I looked at it close up.

I think this card looks like an old-fashioned quilt like one that my grandmother had.

The set I used is In Full Bloom and the colors are Real Red, Sage Shadow and Black.

ETA: For Jenn in GA, this shape card was actually a sketch challenge on SCS a while ago, the hostess of the challenge left the dimensions on her original card here

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/410097?cat=500&ppuser=23790

The challenge was SC99 if you want to look it up on Splitcoaststampers. I hope that is helpful. :)

I'm a Billy Bad Mood-er!

I was a Billy Bad Mood yesterday, lol. I didn't like this card or the card I made yesterday (the one below).

I still don't think that they are the best work I have ever done, but today with a little perspective, they are not the worst either, I just think they are a little bland, not awful, but not amazing either.

I think this one will look better with a sentiment on it. I might also tweak it a little!

I love my polka dot ribbon from Jody (TexasJodyLynn) though! :)

Beloved Blossoms

Wow I have had a busy weekend. My parents came to visit so they could look after my son whilst we decorate his room. We can't have him in the house as he has ADHD and just jumps in the roller tray or tips paint over himself.

So we managed to decorate his room, but now boy do I ache. We ended up taking 8 rubbish sacks to the tip (sorry don't know what Americans call it).

My parents left this morning, it was lovely to see them, but now I have to deprogram Luke from all the bad behaviour my dad has taught him!

The biggest drawback was that we took everything out of Luke's room and put it in my craft room, so I haven't been able to get in there for four days! Major withdrawal!

I made this for today's technique challenge on Splitcoast. It is reverse masking and it is a sort of case of one of my own cards. I'm not that happy with how it turned out, it's a bit boring, so I'm going to have another go at the challenge I think!

But finally, happy belated Easter everyone, I'm feeling sick from eating too many chocolate Easter eggs, and for those of you reading this in the US our easter eggs are the size of a child's head not the little ones you get in an Easter basket. You can see an image of one here. No more chocolate for me for a while, lol.

And finally, finally, happy birthday Beate! :)

My Inkpads are Shouting

My inkpads are shouting again. Why is it only my Bold Brights that shout at me, lol. I think they are feeling unloved!

Anyway, this is my card for today's Limited Supply challenge on Splitcoast, you could only use 3 stamps, not stamp sets, just stamps, 2 colors plus neutrals and 1 embellishment. I cheated slightly, I only used one type of embellishment - brads.

I have been using my Doodle This flower again. I can't believe I paid for a set where I only like one of the images, but at least I got the set for half price, so I don't mind so much. :)

Funnily I used pink classic ink and orange craft ink. My orange classic ink was so washed out that I had to go over with craft ink to get a deep orange.

I am trying to hold out until SU come to the UK to get BB large classic inks as it's the only color family where I only have the spots, I have the full size pads in the other families. So I only have to wait until the Autumn/Fall and then I will get BB as part of my demo kit hopefully. :)

I love this card

If you read my blog, or know me at all, you will know that I am always very critical of myself! I always find something to criticise, but allelujah, I absolutely love this card.

Sorry about the poor photo but Rob took the camera to work and it was getting dark as I took the photo.

I have some paper piecing templates that I use, so paper piecing is very easy.

The paisley petals are all embossed in clear powder so they are all nice and shiny. And I was a brave girl and cut up my Au Chocolat paper! :)

One of those days!

Do you ever have one of those days, lol. I couldn't have done any more wrong on this card if I tried, but I like it.

The cuttlebugging is upside down, I used an Always Artichoke marker instead of an Old Olive one and on the word "day" I stamped it on scrap paper first in black to make sure it was straight, as it is an A Muse alphabet and obviously I didn't get all the black off before I stamped the white stazon onto my shrink plastic, so the tag is multicolored black and white, bwahahahahaha!

Never mind, I still think it's cute and Beate's getting it, mistakes and all, so Beate cover your eyes if you're reading this.

Details of card - I used Hero Arts doodle leaf flower and colored it in using markers and doodled around the edge. I used Stampin Up designer paper for mounting. The "happy" is from SU and the "day" is A Muse polka dot alphabet, stamped in White Stazon and then shrunk! Pink ribbon, a little doodling and tah dah!!!!

ATCs

As some of you may or may not know, I run a craft club with my best friend Fi. We meet up once a month on a Wednesday evening. Well this month is the first anniversary of the club, so we had the brilliant idea of making every lady in the club a technique ATC and an individual ATC made by ourselves. Then every month as they learn a technique, we will give them an ATC with the instructions on the back of how to do the technique. They then keep all the ATCs on a D ring which we will give them, so they can build up a technique folder.

Well my technique ATC this month is faux stitching, so here are all my ATCs done for the ladies of the club. I have also done about 7 or 8 individual ATCs, all different, so I only have about 20 to go! :)

I am very much a Stampin Up ATC-er, so mine are like small cards, rather than these really artistic ATCs with children with wings, I just don't get that. Why would a Victorian child have wings? Why would a face have feathers? Why do these artistic ones always look so dark and dingy? Answers on a postcard, please :) (I don't really mean that, it's just a British saying, so please no postcards :).)

Scalloped scissors

Decorative scissors are making a comeback, so as per usual, I can't just use a touch of something, nooooooo, I have to go into scallop scissor overload! :)

So I have used my favorite Chatterbox papers and Sassy Silhouettes stamp for a really simple card!

More, more, more!

Do you have a set that you struggle with? Do you have a set that no matter how hard you try, your cards turn out to be really ugly.

Well this is the set that it happens to for me. This is Trees Three and I love the idea of building a tree with stamps but everything I make with this set is truly ugly. This is the only card that I have made that is halfway even passable, still don't really like it though.

It's hard to tell from the picture but the banana colored stripe is actually the same color green as the ribbon I used. I hate the way sometimes your camera doesn't capture the colors you used accurately.

Anyway, I am not going to give up, this stamp set is not going to defeat me! I am going to beat it! :) I am going to make a card that I like with it even if it takes me a month!

What else have I been making?

I have an ear infection at the moment, really hurts, but I can't watch television because it hurts and I can't hear it properly.

So on Friday I had a cardmaking blitz and this was one of the cards I made, along with the previous two that I posted.

The colors I chose to color my bella were decided by the paper. Sorry, I don't have a clue what the paper is, I have decided to be a good girl and use up all my scraps :)

This photo makes here hair look a bit weird, sorry, it doesn't look like that IRL, it's not that flat on top, honest, and if it is, I'll color it a little more to makes sure, hee hee.

If you have been living under a rock, you can find the bellas at www.stampingbella.com and the sentiment is from Papertrey at www.papertreyink.com.