created by hand: bubbles

The themes at Created by Hand this week are "out with the old" and "bubbles" I went with the "bubbles" for my image, but I also "got out my old" ( geddit?) making memories hole punches and hammer to allow me to make holes exactly where I wanted on my card. I rarely use these anymore since getting my cropadile, but I have a feeling now it's out, I'll be using it more.

The image is a stamp (bubbles post 7703-H ) by the frantic stamper


I gave the main image a bit of a "lift" by masking round it and spraying with iridescent spray and sparkle, but I don't think it shows that well on the photos.

a little play with some christmas goodies

I got a few crafting goodies for Christmas, including some stamps from Jo Capper-Sandon's range of stamps from Stampotique (available from Happy Daze), and some spellbinders dies.

I used the largest of a set of rectangle nestabilities to make this card, folding the resultant die cut in half. Then I used two of the stamps from Jo's heart cube, plus "mwah" and the kiss stamp that comes with it. I attached the ribbon using the immovable knot technique. perfect for this card as I can make sure it stays in place at the top of the hanging heart.

I have taken some extra pictures of this technique so you can really see how it works.

I am entering this for the stampotique die cuts challenge, which I am hoping is still open. (the challenge is actually a diecut and a punch - I used a die cut for the card, and a hole punch to make the hole for the immovable knot)

forever friends: matchbox

This week at the forever friends challenge we challenge you to use a matchbox in your forever friends creation. This challenge is being sponsored by I am Roses with a fabulous prize up for grabs for one random winner.


I used an extra large matchbox to make my gift box, which I will use to give money as a gift for my niece's birthday.

Watch out for our extra monthly challenge coming soon on forever friends, on the first Thursday of every month we will issue a monthly challenge. This means you have a whole month to take part, and there's still prizes up for grabs. This will run alongside the fortnightly challenges. So hopefully there's something for everyone!

Winter Wonderland Designer in the spotlight

I'm really excited to have been asked to be this week's designer in the spotlight on the Winter Wonderland challenge, where the theme this week is "thanks"

I decided to go with what I do, and made this really simple one-layer card. The lights are stamped with grey ink and then the words overstamped in black, the lights are coloured with red coloursoft pencil and blended with a blender pencil and then finished with glossy accents. The stamps are from Scrolls Work stamps

tag competition

For the remainder of the month the Frantic Stamper Design Team will be doing something a little different. We have all been busy making a wide variety of tags to share with you; sometimes we'll share two tags in one day. Though we are including the materials we used to make them, we won't necessarily be giving you step-by-step instructions. This gave us a chance for us to be creative during the holidays when things are a lot busier, while still, hopefully, providing you with some inspiration.

And Inspiration is what this is all about! We really hope you will be inspired to create some tags of your own.

We want to see YOUR tags. The design team will be collecting photos of your best tags for a special contest. On January 1, 2011, the team will chose and publish the photos the finalists' tags for you all to see, and to vote on. The winner will get to be a "Guest Designer" for a day on the blog, and will win a wonderful prize of merchandise from Frantic Stamper (www.franticstamper.com).

To participate, send a quality photo of your tag in jpeg format (please set the resolution low enough to keep the file size under 1MB), along with your name and email address to franticStamperContest@gmail.com before midnight PST, December 29, 2010. Please send only photos that you own the rights to, and be aware of copyrights of any images you use. In event of a tie in the voting, the Design team will make the final decision on the winner.

This tag is an idea for adding place names to a party table, by adding a tag to a peg (clothespin) to attach to a wine glass.

a little tag for rogue redheads

Here's just a little tag I made using stamps from the relish reading plate from Rogue Redhead Designs which is featured on the blog today.
These reading themed stamps work beautifully with old book pages.

I will also make this another entry for Theme Thursday.

More Christmas Wrapping

Not many presents left to wrap now. Last night I just did the ones to go on the Christmas table. We are having a traditional red and gold theme this year, with an additional bauble theme. I've used them for everything, including filling a vase for a centrepiece and as present decorations. I couldn't resist a little stamping though and used the same PaperArtsy plate as the last post, to make the tags by stamping onto gold mirror card.
As this week's Winter Wonderland Challenge is "wrap it up" I have decided to enter this present.

another post, so soon!

Now that I've finished the last minute knitting I can get back to the quick fix that is stamping. I just had a mail order present arrive that needed wrapping and decided to have a play. it's for a guy so I wanted something quite masculine. Both of the stamps are from the same paperartsy plate. possibly my favourite christmas plate from Paperartsy (and the beautiful flourishes can be used all year round).
The funny thing about this tag is of course it's a soft present and shaking it is perfectly fine. well I find that amusing anyway!!
I'm entering this for Wednesday stamper "snowflakes" and theme thursday "tags"

Skinny Infinity Scarf

(wrapped 4 times)

(wrapped 3 times)
)wrapped twice)


This is why I haven't been around for a couple of days. I decided on Monday to make a last minute present for my Mother-in-law's birthday, which is today. So I've spent every spare minute (and let's face it there aren't many at this time of year), working on this.
I've seen a lot of circular scarves out there at the moment, and I Love them. They are such an obvious, clever idea, and ridiculously easy to make, you just make a normal scarf and sew the ends together!
I decided to make mine a skinny scarf, for 3 reasons
1) it wouldn't take much yarn so wound be cheap
2) it would knit up quickly
3 I haven't seen one before.

The yarn I used is ridiculously cheap, from the original factory shop and was £2 for three 50g balls. It's lovely and soft, but not the easiest yarn to knit with, the fluffiness makes it easy to miss the main body of the stitch and if you drop a stitch you've no chance of picking it up, you just can't see it.

A couple of times I had to pull the scarf back to find a row with the right number of stitches after losing one. I used just under three balls and stopped when the scarf was about 100 inches long. I only had 17 stitches per row.

I'm really pleased with the finished result, but the photos are awful, sorry.

forever friends: a door hanger

The new challenge at Forever Friends challenge tomorrow is to make a door hanger.
I decided to make mine double up as a card. The ribbon can be used to hold the card closed when it is in use as a door hanger, or just as decoration when it is a card. it is attached under the decorative paper, and although the charm looks as though it is tied on with the ribbon, it is actually glued to the card and completely separate to the ribbon.


The image is coloured with pencils and paper pieced with papermania papers from the same pack as the background papers.

Sasha is my niece who has a birthday coming up soon.

rogue redhead now shipping to the UK and Canada... and a matchbook notebook

Rogue Redhead Designs is happy to announce that they are now shipping to Canada and the United Kingdom!

Visit the Etsy store to get your Relish Reading plate! The sale is still on and until December 15, 2010, you can still get this plate for 20% off the regular price of $22.00 U.S.





I decided that The book theme of the relish reading plate, was just perfect for a little handmade notebook.
I love making the matchbook notebooks, they are just so easy. There is a tutorial on my blog here for making them.

I have used five stamps from the plate, the image is coloured with pencils.

wine bottle scarf

yes it's exactly as the title suggests: a scarf for a wine bottle. This is a gift for my work secret santa. I wanted to get a bottle of wine, but I wanted to add that clue that it was from me..
and the best way I know to do that is to add a bit of knitting. And anyway, isn't it cute?

Gingersnap creations: white Glitter

This week's challenge at Gingersnap is to use white glitter on your creations. I always think that white glitter looks like sugar, so I used it on this cupcake stamp (serendipity) for a card for a friend's birthday. It's meant to be a Cath Kidston style, as the gift is also from Cath kidston.


The papers are Papermania and I've used the wonderful immovable knot technique again.

OLW: back to basics

This week at One Layer Wednesday the challenge is to show what originally hooked you into stamping. I took a while to really "get" stamping. I used it, but didn't see the big attraction. One of the things that really sucked me in was script stamps, once I tried these there was no turning back. And of course I didn't just stop at one. I have loads of script stamps now and I still think there's room for more in my collection.
The first one I had was on a non-sequiteur plate, in fact I'm sure I'll be able to find something on my blog using it.

hang on... I'll be right back....

ah yes here and here

The one I've used today is one of the most recent ones I acquired, and is from the Frantic Stamper's own range of french inspired stamps, as is the Christmas tree. These are another bulk make. As they are so quick (ink stamp ink stamp done) I've rustled up about 25 in no time at all.
I apologise for the picture, it's too dark to do photos so I've scanned it.

gingersnap creations: snow people

Well with 7 inches of snow in our back garden, the gingersnap challenge today couldn't be more appropriate!

Plus I got to use my favourite snowman stamp. This is Jo Capper-Sandon's "chilly" designed for stampotique and available at Happy Daze. I also used my favourite technque at the moment, coloursoft pencil colouring on Kraft card. The Kraft card is Papermania as is the lovely embossing folder I used for the background.

forever friends.....

A nice easy challenge for you this time at the forever friends challenge, a card in 45 mins. Now this means different things to some people. for some people, this is a quick card, for me this is ages. in fact I know this card took me far less than 45 minutes, but it's the Christmas card for my book group (hence the book page hats), and my challenge to myself is can I make all 9 that I need in 45 minutes??

I think I can.

the stamp came free with the docrafts magazine ages ago. The base card is Papermania Kraft card and I've coloured with coloursoft pencils.

time's running out, it's time to start the batch making

it doesn't matter how early I start my Christmas card making. I never really seriosuly start to make the quantity I need until the threat of December looms.
Panic started to set in and these cards were the result. I made 30 in about 45 minutes!!!! now that's batch making!
The stamps are by Crafty Individuals, and I lined the two stamps up on the same block to save even more time. I suppose if I include the time it took for the glitter glue to dry it took a bit longer.

I'm entering this for another challenge that I've just come across, fussy and fancy, where the challenge is christmas without red and green.

Craft Stamper January Sneak Peek

I received my subs copy of the January issue of Craft Stamper magazine today. (the cover mount stamp was missing but I rang Traplet and a very nice man said he would send me one).
January's issue is a special "budget" issue, with lots of ideas for money saving projects. My Article is a two page piece using ultra cheap colouring pencils. I got a pack of 50 from Asda for £1. I've made three simple cards for the article with lots of tips for getting the best out of colouring with cheap pencils.
The sneaky picture above shows just one of the cards. for this one I used Jasmin by Jo Capper-Sandon from Stampotique, available at Happy Daze.
I also used a forever friends image and a papermania image.

I hope that people enjoy it. Let me know what you thought (it's on page 46)

Cath Kidston inspired new home card

I made this card for my sister who is moving house. Having visited the Cath Kidston store this week I have been very inspired by their patterns (as you can also see on my nail art blog) This was a really easy card made with stamps from Crafty Individuals.

Christmas card with a non-Christmas stamp.

I wanted to make this card as I have just bought some Vintage Christmas flower soft. I thought it would make a perfect wreath, but then I spotted a card I have recently made with this heart stamp (a Paperartsy mini), so I wondered if it would work. I stamped the heart in forest moss distress ink and then just added the flower soft with little dots of good PVA glue, and finished with a ribbon.

So quick and easy!
I am entering this into Keep it Simple's Evergreen challenge.

birthday card and present for 13 year old boy!

Did I feel a shudder then at the thought of not only trying to come up with a present but also making a card for a 13 year old boy?
I thought so.


Well luckily I didn't have long to think about it so I just had to go with simple. I'm fairly pleased with the outcome, it's no masterpiece, but it passed the husband test. The card blank is from a pack of Papermania Kraft cards, I am so pleased I found these, they are just gorgeous. The knot is again the immovable knot from Simplicity. if you haven't tried this technique yet, then go do it now.


seriously what are you waiting for? It's amazing.

it's okay, I'll wait while you go...



dum de dum.



meanwhile, I also needed a present.

of course it has to be an Amazon Voucher. SO I made another of my scroll boxes. But this time I kept it really simple. The folded tag is made from some of the offcut from making the box and is perfect for holding the tie closure in place.

The immovable knot is one of my favourite techniques at the moment so I am entering this for the lots to do challenge