Cactusness.

It's a bit of a cactus themed post today. I want to share with you a link to my friend Olga's new wordpress blog where she has very kindly uploaded a fab "Cacti and succulents" image that you can colour yourself! It's awesome! Please pop by and have a look at her new blog!

Prior to her posting that I had been on the hunt for some Cactus stamps! After a lot of looking at the huge choice of cactus/succulent stamps out there at the moment, I decided on the Hunkydory, For the Love of Stamps, Prickly Plants set! I love it :) Made this card for one of my besties. The "Luvyoo" is a long standing joke, I'm not sure any explanation will make sense!

One of the craft mags had a similar idea to this and I've had a look online but can't find who to credit the idea with but shall declare this as "inspired" by someone else's work.

I also got a chance to use some cute stickers and washi tape I have collected on the inside. The washi tape was from Hobbycraft and the stickers were cheapy ones from The Range.

I coloured the images with copics. I printed and stamped the greeting onto vellum.

After my own heart...

Commissioned Coffee Lover Birthday Card! Not hard to do for me, I understand the love of coffee, lol.

Combo'd a few ideas from Instagram to make this (From Xmyhartworkshop and Kim Becker)  and two new diesets -
Hunkydory Coffee Time FTLS140
And Lawn Fawn Love You A Latte.

The image is coloured using copics and the sentiment is printed onto yellow vellum.

A few more sympathy cards

Made a small batch of sympathy cards using a few of the stamps Helen has passed to me. These two were made using the Sheena Douglass, A little bit floral, Iris Set. ( SD-LBFL-IRIS ).

Both are heat embossed in white on white card stock. To make the one on the left I made a mask of the stamp so I could print them infront of each other.  I then used my new Gansai Tambi watercolour paints to colour the images in, very loosely.  The sentiment is printed directly onto vellum and is Maiandra GD Font. Added simple enamel bling to finish.

With Sympathy...

A rather sad end to the week as I spend time making sympathy cards for the death of a close family friend. She will be much missed.

I heat embossed in white one of the flowers from Sheena Douglass, A Little Bit Sketchy, Blooming Beautiful Set. (SD-LBS-BBEA) And then blended distress inks around the edge. I printed the message, in font - Maiandra GD onto vellum and wrapped it round the topper. Added some enamel bling to finish. I made a couple of versions of this in slightly different colour schemes. It was an easy  make.

Thinking of You Balloons!

Had a commission for a batch of "Thinking of You" cards so decided to go all balloony! I had some gorgeous free digis from Imagine That Digistamps that I wanted to use in a card for their January Link Up so I thought this was an ideal time to try them out.

I also had a set of balloons from Lawn Fawn that are less fancy, so I thought they might make a good male and female version of the card! I think the Imagine That balloons should have been printed out a bit bigger but they do seem to make a more cheery card!

Imagine That - Love Lifts You Set
Lawn Fawn - Blue Skies (LF511)
Cloud Stencil by me
Distress Ink : Stormy Sky
Coloured with Copics
Greeting from Hero Arts, Messages with Flourish with Staz On Ink.
Enamel style bling from stash.
Used Blue and Green Vellum, that I really need to restock but haven't seen any for ages!

Messing with CAS techniques - final part!

The fourth card I made the other day at my friend Helen's house! We did plenty of messing, based on some of the fun on-trend techniques people are using in CAS (Clean and Simple) cards. So another watercolour background and Zig pens to colour in this fab seahorse from Prettygrafikdesign.

Background: Gansai Tambi Watercolour Paints.
Seahorse coloured with: Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
Main image: Digistamp from Prettygrafikdesign
On Vellum: Greeting from Chocolate Baroque - Happy Words and Birds Sentiments.  Stamped using a Misti! (It rocks!)

Messing with CAS techniques Part 3

This is the third card I made at my friend Helen's house the other day, using some of the on-trend techniques used in CAS (Clean and Simple) cards. Also using some of her delicious new crafty purchases!

Watercolour background, matted and layered onto purple card stock (but it would be just as easy to do it one layer styley instead) and 3D foam mounted penguin on top. Added stamped greeting on vellum (Using a Misti - which is awesome!) and sequins from the stash!

Background: Gansai Tambi Watercolour Paints.
Penguin coloured with: Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
Main image: Digistamp from Prettygrafikdesign
On Vellum: Greeting from Chocolate Baroque - Happy Words and Birds Sentiments.
Added White posca pen snow spots after!

Close up detail.

Messing with CAS techniques Part 2

Next card using some of the techniques I am liking from the current CAS (Clean and Simple) trend. Also trip to my friend Helen's meant having some new crafting goodies to play with.

This is a watercolour background, matted and layered onto cardstock, with vellum greeting and 3d foam mounted lion.

Background: Gansai Tambi Watercolour Paints.
Lion coloured with: Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
Main image: Digistamp from Prettygrafikdesign
On Vellum: Stazon Black Ink and Greeting from Hero Arts - Messages with flourish CL738

Messing with things!

Been really inspired to have a go at some of the techniques used on the current trend of CAS (Clean and Simple) cards. Also went to my friend Helen's who has some of the latest crafty goodies to play with. Made four cards in our messing session and this is the first. (Will blog all of them eventually!)

So this is a watercolour background (Could be done one layer but I used watercolour paper and matted/layered it) with a cute animal digi, greeting stamped onto vellum and sequin embellis!

Background: Gansai Tambi Watercolour Paints.
Fox coloured with: Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
Main image: Digistamp from Prettygrafikdesign
On Vellum: Stazon Black Ink and Greeting from Hero Arts - Messages with flourish CL738

HA CG248

Funny post title, but I think this stamp should be the star of this blog post!  I'm loving the "large solid flower" from Hero Arts, CG248. I've used it for so many things already and I've still got lots more ideas to try too.

After using it with brushos I tried it with distress inks to form a patterned background. I used silver ink with blues and greens and then printed greetings on coloured vellum and mounted them on top. The font is "Blessed Day" which is my favourite font at the moment. Is is weird to have a favourite font?

As with all Hero Arts Cling stamps, it stamps brilliantly, even when I had to use some low quality ink to touch up the silver distress ink (which is a bit fickle).

Sophie's Christening Card.

Don't often get to make a christening card, so it was especially nice to make this one for little Sophie.

This is a bit of a homage to Hero Arts. I've used two of their stamps here, the "Large Solid Flower" (CG248) again, (it's proving very useful), and a stamp set called "Playful Animals" (CL155), just the elephant and giraffe.

I created a batik effect for the background, heat embossing the flower stamp in white and then spraying the card with water and dropping brusho powders onto it.

The sentiment is printed on vellum and wrapped around. The font is East Coast Stationery.

I used the same batik effect for the animals, and added a tiny bit of black fineliner to make them more defined. Purple enamel dots added to the corners after.

Elegant Sakura Maiden

New Blog Challenge today at The Crafty Addicts. I love this Moonflower image and have been itching to colour her in red and white.  She is called "Sakura Maiden". I'm very pleased Moonflower are sponsoring this challenge! As normal there is a theme of "Anything goes" but also "Elegance" if you fancy having a go and winning prizes.

It's lovely to make an oriental card, I have soooo much oriental themed craft stash but never a chance to use any of it! It's all lovely stuff but unfortunately in the heart of Shropshire, doesn't ever seem to sell. Never mind, chance to use it anyway! :D

Image coloured with copics and the backing papers all came from the oriental department of my craft item hoard! :D Added gem bling, stickles glitter and appliqué fan.