Winter Fairy Halla

I nearly forgot to take my a photo of my Mo Manning card so I caught the last of sun rays last night. I made a couple of cards using the Winter Fairies this one is called Winter Fairy Halla.

The papers are some old Echo Park and I used this weeks Sketch Saturday I have some silver glitter card which I used a grass die upside down to make my icicles and the snowflakes are Simon says Stamp Maryann and the tiny glitter ones are Lawn Fawn Mini Snowflakes.

The frame is MFT and the sentiment is from Simon says Stamp which as now been retired. I also used a Wink of Stella for the swirls on Halla's breath not that the camera picks it up.

The wings are made with Glossy Accents and some Glamour dust and the socks and bobbles are made with flower soft and fun flock mixture not sure if these are still available.

Anything Goes

Hi all and welcome to another week on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
Thank you for joining us for the Food and/or Challenge and we hope you will all join us again this week too.
This week the challenge is

Anything Goes

We are showcasing some fabulous Stampendous Products this week. You don't have to use them to join in but if you have some we would love to see them used!

The lovely folks over at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a FABULOUS $50 voucher to shop at the  Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take out your crafty supplies, make something following this week’s prompt, and add a link in the Inlinkz at the bottom of this post! You can join 5 times so you could have 5 chances to win! How AWESOME is that!! All winners are chosen randomly, so everyone has an equal chance to win! Woo Hoo!! Good Luck to everyone! The Design Team is looking forward to seeing your school related makes and will pop around to visit you ASAP!

Sometimes its really hard to choose a product from Simon says Stamp simply because everyone tends to buy my favourites but when I saw how solid the snowflakes are, I knew I would be able to cut them out so by the time it arrived an idea had already been formed.

So I stamped the Stampendous Winter Blizzard with Versamark and embossed with WOW Opaque White embossing powder. I then stamped it again this time with a pigment inkpad and used the Hero Arts Gold Embossing Powder, once set I cut them leaving a bit of border. It was a lot tricky to cut out them I first thought even that or I need to sharpen my cutting scissors.

I needed a sentiment again I stamped and embossed with the same inkpad and powder this time using the Simon says Stamp Believe stamp set and cut out using the matching die set.  Finally the fishtail banner was handmade I think it time I invest in a set of these banners instead of rely of my shaking hands and a pair of scissors.

Can't believe it's the 1st of September on Saturday, I was very lucky to received a Stamptember stamp set and spent all day last Saturday making cards with it.

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there too.

Beautiful

I made three wedding layouts at the Scrap Cafe recent crop doesn't seem much but there was a lot of chatting and moving random paper around. This is my favourite, the beautiful title is a very old rub on which I brought in 2010 while on a visit to the US. I was well impressed that it worked most of the ones I have had for long time ended in the bin.

The papers are Kaisercrafts Fleur that I had saved especially for the these wedding photo of my nephew.

The border is a die from Hero Arts Decorative Edge die which I'm quite pleased with since you can't see the join. The hearts are Simon says Stamp Clipping Heart which when you cut out you get and frame of hearts and the waste is all different size hearts. In this card I used all the waste hearts randomly. I did layer the hearts twice so they would stand out.

The little chipboard embellishments are from a Project life pack that I brought from Hobbycraft.

Under the Sea

This is the card I first made for Simon says Stamp Food and Drink Challenge, now I know we eat fish and some people eat turtle not sure if they do eat starfish but I really couldn't so when I realised I had to make another for the challenge.

I used the Neat and Tangled Patchwork Field stencil and Trisha's grid like blending and embossed it in a Big Shot. The Simon says Stamp Look for Miracles dies arrived in my craft room so I had to use them for my seaweed and the dotty stamp is from that set too.

The under the sea Picture Book dies also arrived at the same time, well they had to be use and I absolutely love them. I did my best to match the colours and I played with using the Uni-ball white pen not sure if I've overdone them. Here's the links to the Turtle, Fish and Starfish dies.

To finish I used the Simon says Stamp Stitched Rectangles and I used their Stitched banners for the sentiment which I used Simon says Stamp Message for Everyday.

The day's are creeping nearer to Stamptember and I've been sent a fabulous stamp set to play with, I've earmarked tomorrow to play with them all day.

Baby Steps

My son asked for a 1st Birthday card that's why I put the name on. Since babies round this age have started walking I thought Mo's Baby Steps would be ideal for the card.

The papers are Echo Park Sweet Baby Girl and I failed miserably with matching the flowers but its not too obvious. Flowers are MFT Stitched Blooms but I can't see stitched marks in the leaves so I'm not sure what I used!

The name and sentiment was made with Memory Box dies, the number is a retired number set from Simon says Stamp and the today is a die I picked up from a craft show.

I've been colouring up some of my favourite Mo's Christmas images, I really need to make a serious start on my Christmas cards.

Food and Drink

Hi all and welcome to another week on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
Thank you for joining us for the Back To School Challenge and we hope you will all join us again this week too.

This week the challenge is

Food and/or Drink 

We are showcasing some fabulous Neat and Tangled Products this week. You don't have to use them to join in but if you have some we would love to see them used!

The lovely folks over at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a FABULOUS $50 voucher to shop at the  Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take out your crafty supplies, make something following this week’s prompt, and add a link in the Inlinkz at the bottom of this post! You can join 5 times so you could have 5 chances to win! How AWESOME is that!! All winners are chosen randomly, so everyone has an equal chance to win! Woo Hoo!! Good Luck to everyone! The Design Team is looking forward to seeing your school related makes and will pop around to visit you ASAP!

Not sure why I chose the Neat and Tangled Patchwork Stencil for this challenge,I always forget to use them. A couple of weeks ago when I was commenting on Simon says Stamp Wednesday  Distressing Challenge I saw this card by Trisha and she used her rectangle blending pad to make a grid.

With that it my mind I fixed the stencil on paper and made a rough grid like pattern with the Distress Oxides  but I did used the circular blending tool to give a more random look. Then I ran it through my Big Shot to emboss it. Next time I will stamp the sentiment before embossing, I was extremely lucky that the Simon says Stamp Time for Wine words stamped so beautifully.

Using the same Simon says Stamp stamp set I stamped the wine bottle and a couple of glasses, coloured with some copics and added a touch of white using a Uni-ball White Pen. Nearly forgot I used the matching die to cut out my wine bottle and glasses.

Time to be honest here this isn't my first card but I had totally forgotten the challenge was food and drink and I had used the Simon says Stamp Look for the Miracles mainly because the matching dies had arrived in my craftroom. And since they were on my desk I used the stamps for my hearts and flowers, added the dots with the white pen.

Finally I used the Simon says Stamp Stitched Rectangles to give my card mat a finished look. The only reason I stuck it at jaunty angle on the main card was I had a headache building up and I couldn't get it straight my sister would be so pleased with me since I'm a straight line girl.

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there too.

Bleaching

Remember the other week when Simon says Stamp had my favourite challenge Distressing, I'm being sarcastic here. Well this is the one I started to make but was disappointed how it bleached the Distress Inks.

Well I left it allow and when I went back apart from the bottle they worked, the bottle you can still see a bit of the oxides.

I used the same stamps Tim Holtz Mini Blueprints Beer stamps and the Simon says Stamps Stitched Squares and Rectangles.

Finally I used the Simon says Stamps Furry Cat and Box stamp, the sentiment is like handwriting.

Did I mentioned I heat embossed the stamped images this stops the bleach going where you don't want it.


I had a great time on Saturday, I didn't do that many layouts three in total but I did start a double layout but when I got glue on three of the photos it was time to call it a day. Luckily I print my photos.

I've been convinced by my fellow scrapbookers to pack my bags before I go on holiday so I could go to the charity one at the end of September not sure if I will be up for this but my crop fees are mostly going to charity so it would be in a good cause. If I only manage half a day it will still be good.

I was nominated and won the Woman of the Year award at my Slimming World Group, I can see how far I've come and I plan not to put it back on again.

Picture Book Dinos

As soon as I saw the new Simon says Stamp Friendly Frolic Picture Book Dinosaurs I knew they were coming home to me but there were so many more dies I wanted too. So I didn't buy the Pterodactyl. Opps there is another called Dino that I also didn't buy.

I made up the other three the Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus and the T-Rex, all the card is actually out of my scrap box.

The other die which was a must have was the Leafy Frame die which is out of stock at the mo but if you want to buy it too I would recommend to use the notify when back in stock button, so SSS can e-mail when back in stock. Does give the feeling of looking through the foliage.

The background of clouds is from Doodlebug Dragons Tail and the sentiment is Simon says Stamp Messages for Everyday.

Bags are packed I'm off to an All Day Crop in Bracknell, I scraping a 2015 Wedding by choosing a theme I shouldn't have to pack the kitchen sink but it still looks like I did anyway!!!!

Crochet Update

I've found myself doing several crochet projects something I don't like to do, I much rather do one thing at a time.

It started when I made a baby blanket for my Nephew and his wife, I realised another Nephew adopted two children and I hadn't made them anything. All boys love Spiderman well hope so but I can't give it to them yet till I made something for his sister.

This is a bit of an experiment and hope it works out. First off the camera as made it my blanket a weird colour but when I finally finish it I'll make sure the colours show up. I have to admit I'm now bored but I have only two rows to make.

When it was really hot, certainly too hot to crochet a blanket. I made some butterflies and daisies which will be used on this experimental blanket.

Meanwhile my Thursday night blanket squares are waiting in the wings till the experimental blanket is finished.

And my Eastern Jewels is also waiting, all the octagons are done and even the ends stitched in.

Breezy

I hope my teamie as received this, Lou Daubney is an amazing woman who not onlyhad to deal with a nasty breast cancer but she also reached her target weight at Slimming World and looks amazing.

I had to make a card to congratulate her and I've used Mo's Breezy  and some lovely Kaiser papers.

The sentiment was computer generated and cut out using Simon says Stamp Stitched Banners and I used my favourite Spellbinders Floral Oval it's so worn out but haven't found anything else that can take its place.

The flowers are some Creative Expression Tropical Hibiscus which was on offer and a craft show agessss ago. I blended some colour before I took off the dies and the centres are some Doodblebug sprinkles, this helped when I popped it in the post.

Bookmark

Hi all and welcome to another week on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
Thank you for joining us for the Distress It Challenge and we hope you will all join us again this week too.
This week the challenge is

Back To School 

The stores are full of back to school stationary but a notebook, diary or even a bookmark is so much nicer when it is handmade with love! Why not make a little card to pop into a child's lunchbox too. So many things that we can make! We will be looking forward to seeing what you decide to create!
We are showcasing some fabulous Penny Black Products this week. You don't have to use them to join in but if you have some we would love to see them used!

The lovely folks over at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a FABULOUS $50 voucher to shop at the  Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take out your crafty supplies, make something following this week’s prompt, and add a link in the Inlinkz at the bottom of this post! You can join 5 times so you could have 5 chances to win! How AWESOME is that!! All winners are chosen randomly, so everyone has an equal chance to win! Woo Hoo!! Good Luck to everyone! The Design Team is looking forward to seeing your school related makes and will pop around to visit you ASAP!

I don't have a child going back to school or a family member starting school but I did make a bookmark that I could give away to a real book reader, I have a kindle because the tombs I read I'm unable to hold.

I had to make another Oxide background because all the ones I made were too short for the largest Simon says Stamp Stitched Banners. I also used the Poppystamps Stitched Cloudline to give a bit of interest and the fact they had just arrived in my craft room.

I used Penny Black Birthday Critters it's a pretty useful set because the mouse and balloon can be used for other reason and the parcel ones could easily be used for Christmas. I haven't played with PB images for ages so it was fun to do. I paper pieced the balloon with Doodlebug Hello pack.

There are lot of encouraging words on the Simon says Stamp Messages for Everyday and they were nice and small and I managed quite a few when I decided to stamp away.

My other hobby means there are lots of odd balls wool so I cut off some lengths joined it them to my tag and then separated the strands to give me a fun wrinkly wool to hang out of a book.

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there too.

American Football

My grown up Son loves American Football, he gets a season ticket for the matches that are played in the UK and I believe one of his friend and himself are planning to see a game in the USA . I needed to make him card obviously for his birthday and saw this chap Football Squigy from Stamping Bella well of course I needed to buy him.

Men cards always a bit of challenge but I decided to go for a CAS  using the Echo Park Happy Birthday paper I cut out a large Painted Happy Birthday sentiment from SSS.

I still have to add something so I went with stars from the Simon says Stamps Holiday Shapes and Large Holiday Shapes and to give a bit interest I used the Lawn Fawn Lacy Borders die. 

With a Little Help

My last layout in my drafts and its based on a Jane Eubank layout, I do follow her blog she loves the papers I do.

The papers are Hello Lovely from Simple Stories and the picture was at my sister's 70th Surprise Party and the young men are her two Grandsons, since then there is another Grandson. Shows you how behind I am in my Scrapbooking.

The flowers are the MFT flowers and I tried to use similar colours and the various letters and word strips are all found in my stash.

Looking forward to an All Day Crop at Bracknell Hilton on Saturday, we have a few cardmakers that come too after all its all about the love of pretty papers. I don't stay all day and I have already planned on doing Wedding Layouts that way I pack all my flower and heart dies hopefully instead of trying to bring all my dies.

Experimenting

Not sure you can see, I used photo card that I use to print my images, sometimes I have some off cuts and my friend Lorraine who loves all things Tim Holtz and Ranger showed me a technique she found using Oxides. She knows I lose interest in You Tube with seconds, so she showed me in real life.

Since I was playing with Oxides for Make your Own Background challenge couple of weeks ago, I thought I would give it a go. The whole card is made with photo card, I buy mine from Costco, I used the off cuts to practice with.

I used the Simon says Stamp Leafy Frame and their Big Happy die from the latest release. The flowers are SSS Forget me Knot Flower die and I added some of their Stitched Snowflake for the centres.

To finish I used some Doodlebug Glitter Sprinkles and Simon says Stamp Thoughtful Messages.

The end result is a very shiny card and maybe a bit OTT. I'm pretty sure I won't use this technique for card making but to make individual bits maybe, does mean now I have to keep all photo card offcuts.

Enjoy your Trip!

Another card made with Art Impression Pack your Bags this time I used two images from the clear stamp set. The luggage and the fun image, I didn't have to mask the luggage because I layered both images.

The papers are Doodlebug Sweet Summer and I used the bright orange dotty one with Simon says Stamp Stitched Rectangles to make a frame.

Last but not least I used the Simon says Stamp Stitched Banner for a sentiment from Simon says Stamp Messages for Everyday. To make the sentiment shorter I placed the cut banner down the centre of a larger die  to chop off the end.

Giggling Snowman

I've been seeing loads of Christmas card during July not as many as now that we are in August but it made me realise with a holiday in September I may need to get by Santa hat on.

I have few of Mo's Christmas Image already printed including this Giggling Snowman. I have plenty of  paper, I think these are Pink and Main Frosty. I decided to use the Splitcoast Stampers sketch SC708.

To start with I used Simon says Stamp Stitched Square to make a frame, I then made the scene inside the frame using SSS Slopes and Hills and Falling Stars dies. It was when I stuck the frame on that I could easily made a shaker card but the frame was well and truly stuck this is the second time I could have done this.

My snowflakes are made using glitter card and white card and layered together to help them stand out and the dies I used were SSS Sensational Snowflakes they are quite chunky snowflakes and this made it easier to layer.

Sentiment is LOTV and I used my nestabilities to make the matching layers, I need to use them more than punches my hands have taken a real dislike to using them.

Distressing!

Hi all and welcome to another week on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
Thank you for joining us for the Make Your Own Background Challenge and we hope you will all join us again this week too.
This week the challenge is

Distress It  

We are showcasing some fabulous Tim Holtz Products this week. You don't have to use them to join in but if you have some we would love to see them used!

The lovely folks over at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a FABULOUS $50 voucher to shop at the  Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take out your crafty supplies, make something following this week’s prompt, and add a link in the Inlinkz at the bottom of this post! You can join 5 times so you could have 5 chances to win! How AWESOME is that!! All winners are chosen randomly, so everyone has an equal chance to win! Woo Hoo!! Good Luck to everyone! The Design Team is looking forward to seeing your crafty makes and will pop around to visit you ASAP!

First of I made some fancy backgrounds with oxides and ended up not using any, I had an idea of what I wanted to do but it didn't quite work out.

So I stamped the Tim Holtz Mini Blueprints Beer strip in black and heat embossed black embossing powder. I them cut out using Simon says Stamp Stitched Squares and Rectangles. I then used a Blue dye Inkpad and blended all over and distressed round the edges with some scissors since I couldn't find my Tim Holt paper distresser.

I then found my bleach bottle and poured a little in a cap and using a paintbrush that had seen better days I brushed parts of my stamps. The R in my beer was been very troublesome and he got painted with the bleach a couple of times. I then left to dry. The thing to remember is it works with dye inkpads I used it on the oxides but it didn't seemed to work as well, yet I left it to dry and it improved as time went on, so much so I didn't bin them.

Now I had to make a card and this sketch from Splitcoast Stampers SC707 was in my mind when I cut out the shapes out. My base I cut out a circle using Simon says Stamp Stitched Circles out of Kraft card.

The sentiment was stamped on another piece of card from Simon says Stamp Birthday Messages and their Messages for Everyday,  I place my cut out circle card over the top using foam squares.  My stars are Simon says Stamp Holiday Shapes randomly placed trying desperately not to do too many.

I actually like my distressed card so much so I've put it in the post to my Brother for his Birthday rather than the bin!

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there too.

Bon Voyage

Not sure if you remember a few weeks ago I used the Art Impressions Pack your Bags for my Simon says Stamp Wednesday Challenge card, well one of the reasons I wanted the stamp set is that I plan to use the ship stamp.

With the help of MFT Ocean View Porthole it makes a perfect embellishment for my cruise scrapbooking although the only porthole I saw on the cruise was the one in the medical centre but we won't go there.

Since I won't be using it just yet, I made a card with it using a Freshly Made Sketch from a few weeks back. The cute background square was made using the Lawn Fawn Quilted Backdrop die and I used the Simon says Stamp Stitched Square to cut it down and give it a finished edge.

The sentiment is from the stamp set and I used Simon says Stamp Stitched Banners and used the largest one to cut it down.

One more day of the UK heatwave, its going down to normal August temperatures can't wait.