Christmas at Stamping Sensations

 Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of November and so it is time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month we have the Theme of Christmas and we have the wonderful Little Claire sponsoring us. Here is my card featuring the Little Claire stamp 'Stocking owls'

I stamped it in Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with promarkers. I added some inkylicious 'fluffy Puffy stuff ' (Like liquid applique if you remember that!) and heated it to make it puff up. The retro DP is the last sheet of a very old dovecraft pack. The sentiment is also a Little Claire stamp from the set 'The magic of Christmas.'

Whilst I was here I thought I would show you another fabulous Little Clare stamp - Robin Redbreast. This one is very popular with all the bird watchers in my family!

Again it was coloured with promarkers and I added lots of diamond stickles for the snow. The DP is another very old one from Dovecraft. The border was cut using a tonic border punch.

 

Our prize this month from Little Claire is a £35 voucher to spend in their online shop. How cool is that? I could spend it very quickly, lol!
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the gorgeous projects from the DT. They really have excelled themselves this time! Thanks for looking!

Elephants, or the story of a lost card

Back in June I made this card for a colleague. I sent it off around school for everyone to sign, but it never made it's way back to me! With 2 days to go no one could find it, so I sent a blank card around so I could finish it that evening. I had forgotten that I had made the previous one landscape and everyone had signed this in portrait, so it had to be a bit different! All in all I was not a happy bunny, and a few naughty words did pass my lips!

Looking at them now I prefer my second version! For this one I used memento inks in grape Jelly, Paris Dusk Dandelion and Tangelo. Stamps are from Little Claire (Elephants), Woodware (leaves) and Waltzing Mouse (Zig Zag).
Thanks for looking!

Owl be thanking you!

Thanks for all the lovely messages wishing me Happy Birthday last week. I spent a bit of my birthday money on this gorgeous stamp by Little Claire. I made a quick one layer card with it to say thank you to my friend Sarah for the money, and for buying lots of my cards too. The sentiment is from Inkylicious and the background is dusted with memento grape jelly, lilac posies and dandelion yellow. The image is stamped with versafine black. I don't think it looks quite so grainy in real life!

On the subject of owls I got a lovely treat a couple of days before my birthday. We had organised for a company called Hawks of Steele to come in to school to bring owls to the year 2 class who are learning about nocturnal animals. Knowing how much I love owls I got invited through to have my photo taken.

Isn't he a beauty? He was so friendly too. Not sure if it was this one or one of the others that was in Harry Potter (as an extra!)  You can read more about the wonderful work Hawks of Steele do on their website.
I will leave you with  a photo of  belated birthday flowers given to me on Thursday. I have never thought of hyacinths as a cut flower before, but they look and smell amazing!

Thanks for looking!

Yet more Christmas cards!

I'm dashing into blogland with more Christmas cards. I have managed to make quite a few cards this weekend and a few even tie in to some challenges too!
First up I have snowflakes (and owls) for the challenge at Allsorts this week.

The stamp is from Little Claire's and it is coloured with promarkers and stickles. The snowflake paper was a freebie from 'Quick cards made easy', I think. I used a spellbinders die and a craftwork cards sentiment to finish it off.

My next is very similar, just a different colour way and papers were from a 12 x12 pack I bought (possibly dovecraft?) that I don't know if I will ever see the end of!!! Poinsettia die is from Marianne designs and the leaves are a Britannia Die from Pink Frog which I bought at Doncaster. These are both stamped last-minute Christmas cards that will be stuck in envelopes and posted as soon as the glue is dry! I am entering them into the challenge at Sweet Stampin'

Next I have another Nicecrane Robin from the Christmas birds sheet. I've added some glitter, some snippets of DP and some snippets of pearlescent card. Again the sentiment is from Craftwork Cards. I think the Holly DP is from an Artylicious cd from Chocolate baroque, but this is a bit left over from last year.
All three of my cards are using up snippets so I'm taking them to Miss Di's snippet playground, where someone got a bit excited with the chestnut roasting and set fire to the bike shed! Off to see if I can help sort it out. Thanks for looking!

A sketch at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the Month, so time for a new Challenge at Stamping Sensations. Our lovely Teamie Tracy has created a sketch for us to follow this month, and asked us to use Summer Colours. Here is my take on the Sketch:

I used the stamp set Cherish, Hugs and dream from Little Claire, who are our sponsors this month.The Papers were created with one of the lovely butterfly stamps from the set, Ink Dusters and soothing sunset big and juicy ink. I coloured the main image with promarkers and added some stickles too.
Do pop over to the challenge blog for a closer look at the sketch and some fabulous inspiration from the DT. Here is a picture of the wonderful prize on offer.

 

Doesn't it look fabulous?  Talking of things looking fabulous, I wanted to quickly share a photo of Meg as she had her Prom on Friday night. I am such a proud Mum!

Thanks for looking and I hope you will enter the challenge this month!

Stamping Sensations April Challenge

It is the first Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. We are sponsored this month by the wonderful PDA Cards and Crafts. I am lucky to live only a 20 minute drive away from their warehouse, and the vast majority of my card stock comes from them.They also sell a vast range of craft supplies, like Promarkers, Aquamarkers, stamps, punches and adhesives. The theme this month is 'Special occasions other than Birthdays'. As I had a couple of Wedding Anniversary cards to make I thought they would fit the theme perfectly.

 My first card uses card stock from PDA, stamps from Little Claire, and papers that were a freebie on the front of a magazine last summer. I coloured it with promarkers and added a ribbon from my stash.

My second card again uses card stock from PDA. The flourish stamp is from Inkylicious and the sentiment was from Waltzing Mouse. I ink dusted the background with squeezed lemonade, wild honey, tea dye and vintage photo distress inks, before stamping in citrus, Lettuce and Cranberry Adirondack Inks. I added dots of glitter glue to finish it off.

The Prize this month is a whopping £40 of goodies from PDA! I so wish I could enter myself!
Anyway, why don't you pop over to the challenge blog to take a look at some of the gorgeous creations from the DT, and them you can go and get making! Thanks for looking!

A couple of quick cards

I had been playing with a new stamp from Little Claire, and had coloured it with promarkers when I saw this week's challenge at Less is More was a colour theme that it fit pretty well! I made it into a card and here it is:

I hope it is CAS enough for you ladies! There is less white space than I would normally use. Looking at it now, it might need some glitter too!
I also needed another card last weekend - not the sort you ever want to make...

I used Spring Distress inks and stamps from Inkylicious and Personal Impressions.  I had intended posting this Monday evening, but then there was a phone call on Monday lunchtime, from Ofsted.They left the building at 4.15 today, so I will be relaxing this evening and recharging the batteries rather than being at school for 12 hours solid. Thanks for your lovely comments and I will do my best to pop and see you when I get the chance.

Merry Christmas!

Can you spare a minute or two? pull up a chair then, grab a plate and help yourself to a mince pie...

or a piece of ginger cake - it is still warm....

Incidentally, I haven't eaten all of that bit! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and I will see you again after all the festvities. I will leave you with the card I made for Steve.

 I used a set of stamps from Little Claire and coloured with promarkers. Steve loves ducks and geese, so I stamped the geese twice and added another row at the front. I am entering this into the Twelve Days of Christmas challenge at Heck of a Challenge, although it is probably more like six geese a playing in those scarves and wellies!
Thanks for looking and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A few Christmas Cards

Well, I've only been home for half an hour, as it is Panto Week at school (Oh yes it is!). We just have two matinees to go now, so the late nights are over. I made a few Christmas cards at the weekend, but just haven't got round to posting them until now. These are all using stamps from Little Claires, which I bought or had bought for me (Thank you, Lynne!) at Doncaster.

The first two feature the Christmas Owl tree (so cute!) and some rather old Dovecraft papers. I added a ribbon and a sentiment from Craftwork Cards. The image is coloured with promarkers, which I tried to match to the papers. The first one here is for Crafty Cardmaker's challenge where I used the photo inspiration (Tree and colours).

For the next two cards I used Robin Redbreast and more old papers! I coloured again with promarkers, and then went a bit mad with stickles!

The border on these two is a tonic punch.
Challenges:
Little Claire's Monthly challenge 27 - Christmas
Thanks for looking!
 I hope to catch up with you very soon x

Back to the Snippet Playground

 Well, I've made it back to the snippet playground again. I've suddenly realised that I have only this week left of my holidays and then I will be struggling to find the time to craft again, so I have made quite a few this weekend. Here are a couple of snippet makes.

Yes, the green snippets have been out! The top one is a digi from Digistamp Boutique, coloured in with promarkers. The second is a Little Clare stamp coloured in with Coloursoft crayons.
Finally I am sharing a card I made a few weeks ago...
'Can you make a card for Ray?' they said. 'What is he into?' I asked. 'Beer' they said. 'What else?' I asked. 'Just Beer' they replied. This was what I came up with.

Everything on it was from my pile of snippets. The only thing I did especially was to stamp the name and cut it out. The digi stamp was a freebie from Digistamp Boutique, many moons ago, and it was coloured in about 2 years ago.
So I'm entering these into Pixies Crafty Snippet Challenge, although the beer had better go into the safe hands of Miss Di, I think!
Thanks for looking!