cupcake

The challenge at Crazy Amigos this week is "cupcakes" very handily I recently made this very simple cupcake card for one of my son's friends, so now is the perfect time to blog it.


The cupcake is coloure d with pencils, I've added glossy accents to the cherry, and stickles to the frosting.

Gingersnap: The colour of money

The new theme at gingersnap is "the colour of money" where you are supposed to make your piece inspired by the colour of the money where you live or where you are from.

I took the challenge literally and decided to use actual money in my creation. I actually really like the colour of the twenty pound note so have used that as part of my creation as well as to inspire the box.

I often give cash as a gift, but it can look a bit dull and as though not much thought has gone into it, so I thought if you could make it into a gift it would be pretty cool.

First I made an origami butterfly. then I made a box with an acetate lid. Interestingly, I decided to only decorate the inside of the box (before folding) . I used all stampotique stamps to do this.

LIM sketch and wednesday stampers circles

Sometimes two challenges just fall together pefectly and that's what has happened withe the current Less is More Challenge and the wednesday stamper challenge.... and to top it off I had the perfect stamps!!

The circle stamp in the Rogue Redhead Designs bits and pieces plate were the perfect stamp for both of these challenge and all used the flower from the floriculture plate, and the word again from the bits and pieces.

The coloured inks are Jenny Bowlin inks (available from Happy Daze). I have gone over the flower with a white pen (it's like cheating masking!!)

washer bracelet- an experiment

*note this is the second post of the day.







I had an idea...
I'd been helping a friend make a necklace from buttons and I'd been looking at some necklaces in The White Stuff and I thought " I bet you could make jewelry out of washers" (like you do)

anyway. I got four sizes of stainless steel washers and some cotton cord and had a play.
I tried it with single washers and it was okay, but just okay and then I had the idea of piling them up. and this I like. I like the feel of it. The way the washers move on each other is very fluid.


It's not the most comfortable bracelet I've ever owned, if I was making it again, I'd probably, have the large washer upside down, so the smoother side was against my skin.

Still, it was a fun experiment.

getting edgy...

The challenge at CAS-ual fridays is "getting edgy" i.e add an interesting edge to you Clean and Simple projects.

I was making this tag for the rogue redhead blog for next week, and I was sat there thinking, hmmmm it needs something at the edge. I had just been contemplating adding some sepia accents to the flowers, so it was there to hand, and I wondered, "what would it look like as an edging" so I ran a thin line around the edge and then smudged it with my finger (on purpose, lol).

so that's my interesting edge. The stamps are Rogue Redhead floriculture plate, and I have used pencils and kraft card (as usual)

I guess this is another one for the kraft jounal's summer theme too.

paperartsy castle (mini)

I got a lovely comment out of the blue about this card today, and it reminded me that I haven't played with these stamps in ages. so I dug them out. I have both the full size stamp and the mini, so on this occasion I decided to use the mini.

I did my familiar trick of colouring with pencils on kraft card and finished it with some summer flowersoft.

I'm entering this for Crazy Amigo's minimalism theme (I hope it minimal enough!)

When I am an old woman....

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

I just finished knitting this hat, and it's my favourite ever (and I've knitted a lot of hats) I found the pattern in a magazine, and knew I had to make it.

I obviously spend too much time watching telly!

*note: this is the second post of the day. Scroll down for the stampotique blog hop"


I admit it I am hooked on watching create and craft channel. I watch it like other people watch daytime pulp telly. I've watched Stephanie Weightman do her one stroke painting so many times now, that I thought I must be able to do it, so I decided to give it a go.

no practice, no special tools, just my trustee poundland non-stick mat, normal acrylic paints and quite a nice flat paintbrush (from a childrens set, probably from a supermarket)
I am entering this for One Layer Wednesday's Inspiration Challenge.


I chose to use the Kraft card to represent the wood background, and obvioulsy the yellow and white flowers.

I am also entering this for the Kraft Journal's "welcome summer" challenge

Stampotique's Magical Mystery Tour

Join us for Stampotique's Magical Mystery Tour today. Why a Magical Mystery Tour? Comment on all the blogs and along the way we have 2 mystery prizes to give away.

If you have arrived here from Kate Crane then you are in the right place, if not, you may want to begin at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog and begin your tour from there.

A few weeks ago, Valerie had us recycling and this week she has us cleaning house again!!! She's challenging us to dig in our stash to see how many scraps we can use up in our projects. Just about anything qualifies as a scrap - as long as you're utilizing a piece or part of something that you generated before but never used up... it counts! So what will it be? Bits of an old master board or freaky background? Leftover pieces of your favorite designer paper? Part of an old piece of grunge board? Fragments of a previously inked image? Or the remnants of some odd embellishment? Let's see just how creative you can be!

As you make your way through the tour make sure you comment on each and every post. There will be 2 prize winners chosen randomly amongst the blogs. For some additional chances to win another prize join us with our "Scraps" Challenge using your Stampotique stamps for your chance at a $30 gift certificate for Stampotique stamps and at being our August Guest Designer, see our blog for additional information.

Our tour will end on June 28th and the winner or the 2 tour prizes will be announced on our blog on June 29th.

You will want to jump on over to lisa somerville to see what kind of scraps she has used on our Magical Mystery Tour.

My card was totally Inspired by Jo Capper-Sandon's article in the current issue of Craft Stamper, where she used the paper that she had been protecting her table with to make cards.

The background paper I used for this card is genuinely such a piece of paper. the only things I've added to it are the butterfly stamp, black dotted line stamp and the word stamp (all Stampotique of course) and a few white dots . The flower and torn strip are both also made from the same piece of scrap paper. I'm actually really pleased how this turned out, especially as if it wasn't for Jo's article, this paper would have ended up in the bin!

LIM: Monogram

For my submission for this week's Less is more challenge, I decided to make a monogram using my 3 size hole punches (from a making memories tool set). I originally saw something similar done on QVC using martha stewart tools, and have been meaning to try it ever since. Mine is a lot more random than the one that I saw, though.

If you want to try this, here's how I did it. I drew the shape of my letter onto a post-it note, and positioned this on the front of the card. I started with the largest hole punch and randomly punched holes within the letter. I then used the medium size in some of the gaps and finished by filling up the remaining gaps with the smallest size. really easy!

I added a sparkly paper insert to emphasise the punching.

I chose the letter A as I have made it for my son Alex's birthday.

In other news, today I ran my first ever 10km event, and I did it in 66minutes and 15 seconds (unofficial time- still waiting for the official time) and I'm chuffed to bits, it's about 10 minutes faster than I dreamed I could do it!

One post or three?????

I've been a little absent from my craft room over the last couple of days, but I ventured in there today and came up with a few simple cards.
First of all is this card for the one layer wednesday theme (orange, yellow and aqua) and the created by hand theme (circles and dots) made using stamps from Stampotique, (this would also fit the current stampotique challenge of Clean and simple, but obviously, I'm not eligible to enter that)

.............ooooooooooooo00000000000oooooooooo..................

This next one is also using Stampotique but is not coloured by me, this was actually coloured by my 8 year old son , using cheapo supermarket pencils (I'm way to protective of my coloursoft pencils)
I think he did a marvellous job for a fathers day card, and I'm entering it on his behalf for the Papertake weekly challenge (dads and lads)

.............ooooooooooooo00000000000oooooooooo..................

finally, my eldest son is way too lazy to make his own card, so he "commissions" me to make them for him. I made this really simple card using stamps from Rogue Redhead Designs (bits and pieces plate). which I'm hoping is suitable for the CAS-ual fridays Colour Blocking theme

happy daze postcard challenge

The new theme at the Happy Daze facebook Challenge is Postcards


I used the gorjuss girl flying above it all stamp on kraft card coloured with pencils

EDIT: in answer to question I stamp in versafine brown ink. but any brown ink would work.

LIM - in the frame

it's one layer week at Less is more, with the theme "in the frame"
One of the way to get around the flatness of one layer cards, is to think about instead of adding stuff think about taking it away.

This Stampotique stamp was perfect for the theme, and i decided to cut away the background to make the little guy really standout. To make him stand out further I added some colour to the inside of the card by sectioning of a piece, brayering on some colour, and then stamping a splatter stamp.

The image is coloured with pencils and I have added some grey shadow around the frame to try to lift it. The "whatever" word, just seemd so perfect to use for this little guy.

all the stamps are available from Stampotique

buttons, flowers and twine...

At CAS-ual fridays there is a game of tic-tac-toe to play.



I chose the bottom row: buttons, flowers and twine, as this fit nicely with this set which has just gone onto the frantic stamper blog.

All of the products used on this set are available from the frantic stamper. (if you want any help finding any of the products, just ask)

Clean and simple at Stampotique

Guess who got to choose the theme for this challenge....
MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

so of course it had to be clean and simple (CAS)
I don't think I was the most popular person amongst the stampotique design team, as most of them don't normally do the CAS style, but I've been blown away by the results. It shows just what a talented bunch they are when they step outside their comfort zone and still create amazing work.

So let's see your CAS, cards, and they don't even have to be with Stampotique stamps for this challenge, but if you do have stampotique stamps why don't you see if you can make something Clean and Simple with them.

There's a bit of a story behind this card. Jo Capper-Sandon was still on the DT when this card was actually made, and coincidentally we both made our cards at the same time, uploading our pictures within 20 minutes of each other (without seeing each other's, but technically Jo's was first). Bear in mind, that all we had to go on was to use Stampotique stamps and to keep it clean and simple. The results were strikingly similar.... just goes to show you that two artists can produce practically identical work, entirely by coincidence!

go see what Jo did here

The Kraft Journal- it's a guy thing

I'm sure if you've visited my blog before you know that I love pencil colouring on kraft card for quick and simple cards for the real people in my life. So I've really been taken with the challenges at the kraft journal where the theme this week is "it's a guy thing"

This card is made "for a guy". it may not be overly masculine, but I think guys appreciate "stylised cute"... I think I just made that term up!! lol. I also added the cute image to the envelope.

The stamp is by Inkadinkadoo and I got it from the Frantic Stamper (Humorous Birthday INK-CSL-97529 $9.99)

Happy Daze Dollies Challenge

I made this card both for the Dolly challenge at Happy Daze's Facebook Challenge, and it was also one of my samples for Happy Stampers.
I used a crafters workshop stencil, as well as stamps from Scrolls Work, tabitha and netting

Scrolls Work Stamps is now in it's 50% off part of the closing down sale, so there are some real bargains to be had

LIM Monochrome

I felt that the monochrome theme at Less is More, was the perfect opportunity to pull out lots of things of the same colour and throw them at a card, I've never felt that I've been much good at the layering of techniques pulled of so well by the likes of Jo Capper-Sandon, Paula Whittaker, Kate Crane, to name but a few of many......
but watching Jo at Happy Stampers made me realise I was making it much harder than need be. Jo taught me the key wasn't to think, just do, no plan, just see what happens.

so that's what I had a go at in this card, a swipe, a spray, a bit of (tiny) sequin waste sponging, then see what stamps are to hand. I'm actually more pleased with it than I thought I would be.

The Stamps are from Rogue Redheads new releases, floriculture and bits and pieces