Mouse Carrying Cake

Hi peeps!

I took advantage of the Christmas sales and bought several stamps at a bargain price. Today I will be sharing a card using one of my newly bought stamps- Mouse Carrying Cake by Stampavie and designed by Tina Wenke.

I was born in the year of the mouse. So I guess there is something in me that really likes cute sweet mice. (But not the real ones though!! Sorry!) It was fun colouring this image, especially the cake. However, it's hard to choose what type of cake to go for though!! Hee hee! ^_^

I used the sketch from Sketch Saturday: Week #395 for my card layout. I followed the sketch closely.

I used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Journaling Card die to cut out the stamp image. Then, the image was propped up on a piece of fun foam. The happy birthday sentiment was stamped and heat embossed on vellum then attached on a dark pink paper.

I finally added Stickles glitter glue and Glossy Accents on the cake to make it shiny and yummy. Hope the picture below shows these details. 

I am also entering this card to this week's Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Create with Critters. Just hope this little mouse won't drop the cake. The cake just looks too big for him to carry it!! Ha ha!

It's nearly weekend. One day to go! Hope you all had a good week so far. Thank you for visiting! 

          

A Fun Interactive Card

Hello everyone!

First post of 2016 and we have the first snow of the year today too! It wasn't very deep but it sure looks pretty. The snow didn't last very long though but it feels cold!!

So let's get on with sharing today's card. It's always a struggle with cards for boys/ men. I don't own many "male type" stamps. (Maybe that is what I should be investing in this year!! ^_^) But hey, there's nothing to stop me from creating my own "male type" image. Since we crafters have so many snippets of papers and cards, why not try to use them?! I cut various shapes by hand and constructed this cute robot card.

It was fun making this card. It's kind of like a puzzle, trying to put different shapes together and seeing what kind of robot you can come up with. The cogs are easy to create too. Use a circle shape and simply cut off equal sections towards the centre. It's not precise. No measuring, just eye ball it. It doesn't matter if it gets messy in the middle. Just use another circle shape to cover it up. Ta-da! There you have your cogs! Cogs have to move to keep the robot going. So I can't resist making an interactive card! By using a split pin, the biggest cog can move away to reveal  the 'Happy Birthday' message underneath.     

Here is a close up photo. Love the gold corrugated card. It just adds texture! I also noticed that I didn't use any stamps on this card today. Ha! It's a stamp free card. That doesn't happen often. I hand drew the faux stitches, robot's mouth and fuel meter and used a few peel off stickers too. (Peel off stickers?? Ha! One of those crafty things that finally sees day light again!! Hee hee! ^_^)      

I hope you like this card. It's a bit different and unique! 

Challenges entered:

• Cute Card Thursday #408: A bit of fun! - Interactive cards are fun to play with! 
• Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 212 - Lots of snippets of papers and cards. 

See you all very soon!

          

Lawnscaping Blog Hop: Lawnscaping + Caffeine = Happiness

Hello crafty friends!

Welcome to the Lawnscaping June Blog Hop!!

You should have arrived here from Jennie M.'s blog. But if you are here first, not to worry! You will find the entire hop list towards the end of the post. Or, start from the beginning at Lawnscaping Challenges blog for more information.

Our blog hop theme this time is Coffee!! So here is my card. As I love interactive cards, I decided to create a shaker card!

I used the "watercolor smooshing" technique to create the pale blue background. This is a fun technique as you never know what it will turn out to look like. For the coffee rings, I literally used my daughter's plastic cup and dipped it in a watery brown ink puddle, then 'stamped' onto the water colour paper. They turned out better than I expected. ^_^

For this card, I used Summertime Charm stamp and die (for the jar), Love You A Latte stamp set (for cups, spoon, steam, coffee beans in jar and hearts next to the sentiment), Claire's ABCs (for the words "Brewin' Up") and Joy to the Woods stamp and die (for the hearts in jar). All stamps and dies are from Lawn Fawn. The "Birthday wishes" stamp is the only non Lawn Fawn stamp. It is from Holly Hobbie - Nature Walk stamp set. 

This jar is full of 'goodies'. It's a jar full of coffee beans, hearts, stars and shamrocks! (Can you spot them all?!) It is ready to brew up birthday wishes full of love and luck!

I also added Glossy Accents on the coffee inside the cup/ mug, it just gives them that liquid look. Gosh! I can almost smell that coffee. Feel I could just drink a cup of coffee now. I don't drink a lot of coffee, but I sure do love the smell and everything that is coffee flavoured. Such as: coffee cake, coffee ice cream, coffee flavoured chocolate, coffee yoghurt etc. Well, I do hope you have your coffee or your favourite beverage in hand and are ready to continue with this brilliant blog hop.

Before I send you off to the next blog, I should tell you the details of the PRIZES!! Leave a unique comment on this blog post for a chance to win. (No copy and pasting!!) There are lots of sponsors and lots of prizes up for grabs. Sponsors include: Lawn Fawn, Ellen Hutson, The Ink Road, Crafters Companion, Spectrum Noir, The Alley Way Stamps, Newtons Nook, Faber Castell and Right at Home!

Winners will be picked randomly along the blog hop. So, ensure you leave comments along the way. Comments must be left by 11:59pm EST on June 28th 2015. Winners will be announced on the Lawnscaping blog next week. Good luck!

I hope you like my card!! Your next stop on the hop is the lovely Ellen. Happy Hopping!

Lawnscaping Challenges

Niki G. 

Gray Whiskers Crafts

Melissa

Kristina B.

Lysa

Dianchik

Yolanda G. 

Jennie M. 

Julie C. -- you are here!!

Ellen 

Nina-Marie

Michele S. 

Anni

Michelle L.

Lydia

Oreet

Tammy H.

Shannon M. 

Kim

Kelly S. 

Trish K. 

Tanja

Amy

Kim H. 

Monica M. 

Beau Monde Designs

Valerie W. 

Maria

Wiebke

Maia Ink

http://melissabowden.com/

Vicki

Chitra

Tracy

Curl E. Cue's

Coralynn

Carisa

Dawn E.

Kate

Kristina P.

Thank you for stopping by!

*If you encounter any errors along the hop, please email Laurel directly at laurelbeard at me dot com. Please do not leave them in the comments.

Let's Celebrate

Hello there!

Quick post today. I just want to share this card I made a couple of days ago.

Male cards are often difficult to make. I believe clean and simple is the trick! I used the Free Spirits stamp set from Paper Smooches for this card. No fuss, just simply stamp them directly on the card. This is probably one of the few fast cards I have made! ^_^

I don't know, maybe certain inks are just not made for solid stamps (I mainly use Memento dye inks and Brilliance pigment inks). Some are better than others. The champagne glass here turned out to be very blotchy. I also figured out that with some inks wiping across the solid stamp works better than tapping or dabbing on the stamp. The ink seems to go on much better. By wiping, it also gives you this nice fine line effect. This can be clearly seen on the far right hand side bottle. Anyone have this problem? Is it the ink or the stamp? Maybe I should invest in some better quality inks or should the solid stamps be treated in someway so that it takes the ink better?? Love to hear from all you crafty friends out there. 

 

I will be linking this card to the following challenges:

• CAS(E) this Sketch! #125   
  
• Paper Smooches SPARKs: May 31- June 6 Anything Goes (wk5) challenge  

• Craft Your Passion Challenges #264- Always Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes  

Thank you for stopping by. See you soon.

       

A New Technique- No Line Watercolouring

Hello Tuesday!

I'm playing along with the Lawnscaping Challenge No. 106 today. It is about trying a new technique.

I love the look of images with no line colouring. I've seen them often on various blogs these days and I just know that I would have to give it a go someday. So that someday is today! I am trying this new no line colouring technique by using watercolour. Here is the finished coloured image:

This image is created by using Lawn Fawn's Critters from the Past and Beep Boop Birthday stamp sets. This took me a while to colour. I guess it is because I am not used to it. I wasn't quite sure where or how to start. I think the dinosaur turned out not too bad but I am not sure about the palm tree. No line colouring.... so maybe I shouldn't have such a defined lines on the palm tree leaves? Mmm... need some advices and comments about this. Anyhow, I enjoyed water colouring this image. Colouring is very therapeutic!!

I then made this card based on the sketch on Friday Sketch Challenge #95.

Here is the full picture of my card:

I am also taking this card to the Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 178 and 179. Small pieces of white cards, stripy pattern paper and yellow card are all from my box of scrap papers/ cards.

 

Trying out a new technique is fun. It is the only way to learn and a good way to know whether you like the new technique or not. I do like this no line colouring technique but I do believe certain images are more suitable than others. I will give this no line colouring another go when I spot a good image to colour in. ^_^

 

Enjoy the rest of your week and I will see you soon.

       

A Huge Birthday Wish

Happy Wednesday!

Nice to see you here again. Half way through the week!! Hooray! ^_^ Not long till the weekend!

I am here to share this "HUGE" birthday card with you. I think this is the biggest card I've ever made. The card measures 8" x 8". (I don't think I made any cards bigger than 6" x 6" before.)

I found this decoupage sheet from my local craft shop the other day. This beautiful image is illustrated by artist Leanne Ellis, from Swansea in South Wales. This one is called "If Only...". I love all artworks from Leanne Ellis. They are just so elegant and pretty and there is something about them. I think they give out feelings of calm, quietness and peace. Just love looking at them. All her illustrations have this vintage feel to them Therefore, I thought ribbons and laces would certainly go with it.  

All elements on the decoupage sheet are pre-cut. So it is ever so easy to build up the image. I didn't use the original background layer for this card (saved it for another project) but I found this pink background paper which I think goes well with the image. The strokes on the paper even made it look like that she has wings!! Hee hee! The heart shaped pattern paper also comes with this decoupage sheet. I wanted to show off this pattern paper, hence, my decision to create a large size card. I also used some of these pattern papers to decorate my envelope too!! 

 

The sketch from Friday Sketch Challenge #93 also provides the inspiration for making this birthday card. 

Love this big birthday card. Sometimes you might just need that extra space to show off all your beautiful images, embellishments and papers. Sometimes... size does matters!! LOL!   

      

Blue Birdie Birthday Card

Happy Weekend!

And if you are in the UK, like me, you are lucky to have a long Bank Holiday weekend! One extra day for crafting. Woo Hoo!! ^_^

I used the sketch at Just Add Ink #260 this week to create a birthday card for my Auntie.

She loves birds. She has a bird bath in her garden where we can see little birdies having a paddle and a wash. It is amazing to watch those little creatures and quite therapeutic too. So I decided to use this bird stamp from Spellbinders Garden Collection, which came as a free gift from the Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine, as my main image. Here is the card:

I followed the sketch closely. For the sentiment, I used The Big, the Bold and the Happy stamp set from Winnie & Walter. I also added some gem stones around the sentiment.

 

I am no bird expert. I can't tell you what bird this is and what colour it should be. As I already picked my background papers, I just went with the blue and pink colours for my stamped bird image. Here is a close up picture of the image:

To emphasise the image, I used the die from Nellie's Multi Frame's and die cut this scalloped circle shape from a blue holograph mirror card. The image was stuck flat on the mirror card circle and then I used a fun foam sheet to prop it up on the card to give dimension. No card is finished without adding some glitters!

 

That's it for now. Hope to see you soon.     

      

Smile! It's Your Birthday! ^_^

Hello there~

Happy Tuesday!

I am here to share a birthday card I made a few days ago for my lovely sister. I created this card by using my newest Lawn Fawn goodies and with the current Lawnscaping Challenge No. 104: Sketch in mind.

My sister loves coffee so this Lawn Fawn stamp set- Love You A Latte is just perfect!! Here is the card:

The tone on tone stamping look, I believe, is quite popular. But funnily enough I think this is actually the first time I used this technique. I created my own background paper by using VersaMark ink and randomly stamped on a piece of kraft card. I also embossed the images by using clear embossing powder. I am sure you can see the shine and raised images on the card. The camera picked it up quite well this time. I like the subtle look of the background and I am certain I will use this technique again!

The dangling heart on my main image was inspired by one of the papers from Lawn Fawn's Sweater Weather paper pack. Here is an image of that paper:

I stamped the different hearts, that come in the stamp set, and drew black lines to make them look as if they were dangling from the bow on top. Lots of glitters been added around the circle frame, hearts, spoon and at the bottom of the coffee cup. I also added Glossy Accents on the coffee to make it look 'liquidy'! (Is that even a proper word? Hee hee!) The dangling heart look continues inside the card. The sentiment I used here is from Avery Elle's Cake & Candles stamp set.

I am also linking this card to the following challenges:

• Craft your passion challenge #259- Always Anything Goes
• Crafts 4 Eternity #223- Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you like this card.

    

      

Happy Mail For You

Hello peeps!

It's a long Wednesday for us today. My daughter had a minor operation on her teeth today. We arrived at the hospital around 7:15 this morning. All the check ups, waiting, talking to various people including: the housekeeper, play specialist, nurses, aenethtist and surgeon and of course the anxiety of the actual operation were just draining. We are glad the operation went well and she is feeling well and not too painful. We managed to leave the hospital around 5 this afternoon and I think that is long enough for all of us.

Anyway, I think I have just over an hour to enter this card at Make The Day Special Stamp Store: April Theme Challenge -  Tic Tac Toe.

I picked the very bottom row: Stripes, Die Cuts and Feminine for this simple and clean card. I made this for a very good friend of mine, a crafty friend too!! Here is the card:

I used these "invisible tapes", which I bought last Christmas from Paperchase, to create the stripes. They are plain coloured tapes and are thin and look almost see through. When you attach them to a white card stock they become very pale soft colours. I love them! I wanted to try this camouflaged die cut technique for a while. See here for a great You Tube tutorial from Papertrey. This is where I got the inspiration from too! I used the Happy Script Creative Cut from Mama Elephant for this technique and I think it turned out pretty good. Here is the close up photo of it:

As I am never good at sending cards on time, especially overseas mails, I created this message for the inside of the card. I used the same invisible tapes on white cards and used Cole's ABC's Dies from Lawn Fawn to cut out the word Sorry. The cute turtle image is from Party Posse stamp set by Paper Smooches and the envelope on its back is from Pandamonium stamp set by Mama Elephant.  

I hope that you like this card as much as I do. Well, my friend certainly love it!! ^_^

 

I am also entering this card to this week's Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Clean and Simple.

 

Hope you have a wonderful rest of the week. See you soon! 

    

      

WHAM! BAM! You got this!

Hello peeps!

Hope you had a good start to the week! I made this card over the weekend and I really love it!

I used my brand new Mama Elephant - Tiny Heroes stamp set for this card. I bought this set a little while ago and finally I got the chance to ink them up. I also used my brand new Paper Smooch - Super 2 die for those silhouette buildings. Some buildings were first stuck flat on the card base and then I layered a sheet of tracing paper on top to create dimension, as if these buildings were far in the distance. Then, more buildings were added on top of the tracing paper, with foam squares, which created the foreground look. Here is another photo with a slightly closer look:   

The sentiment is from the Tiny Hero stamp set. I stamped it with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it by using red coloured embossing powder. Then, I used pencil to draw some faint zig zag lines around the sentiment and use scissors to cut it out.    

I used the "die cut inlay" technique for those red arrows on both sides of the card. This arrow die was part of the Lawn Fawn - Stitched Journaling Card die set. There are so many fantastic cards that you can make by using this "die cut inlay" technique. I have linked one of the videos here but just google it, you will find lots of video tutorials. Honestly, you will love this technique. Of course, the card will not be finished without adding sequins, glitters and Glossy Accents! Hope you like this card too!

 

I am entering this card to the following challenges:

• NBUS Challenge #4 - Mama Elephant: Tiny Heroes stamp set and Paper Smooch: Super 2 die are my never-before-used-schtuff.

• Friday Sketch Challenge #91 -
  
• Pixie's Snippets Playground Week 170 - Lots of small snippets used!! ^_^
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything goes
• Papertake Weekly: A Cut Above - I used die cutting and fussy cutting

Thank you for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of your week.