OLW: Cats and Dogs

This week's challenge at One Layer Wednesday is Cats and Dogs, which gave me the perfect opportunity to use one of these DoCrafts Pampered Pets Clear stamps that I picked up recently as I thought that they would make good "for normal people" cards. I also thought they'd work with the pencil on kraft card technique that I love so much.

I couldn't decide whether to add a sentiment to this card, but decided to leave it, as I can easily add one later.

The "wet nose" and jewels are enhanced with Sepia Accents. The brown hint works well on the kraft card.

thank you Chris for pointing out that this also fits with the Kraft Journal Challenge of Clean and simple

Crazy Amigos- insects and my first ever art jounalling

I have been thoroughly inspired by the very talented Kate Crane to try my hand at art journalling. This is something that so "isn't me" but I wondered if I could make it so.

So I've journalled within a card that is very much me. I'm so into using the torn sticky edge of post-it notes at the moment, to create a random edge frame on a one-layer card.

I stamped medium bee from Jo's range at Stampotique, then masked the bee and the background.
I then inked with the Jenny Bowlin Malted milk ink (it's on special offer at the moment) which I was ispired to use after seeing Jo use it at The Happy Stampers Show. What a lovely colour, like a light honey. I applied this with blending foam and also stamped Hexagons (although these don't really show)
I then left the masks in place and drew random lines. I'm not yet ready to jounal my own thoughts so I used those of another

When the first summer bee
Thomas Moore

When the first summer bee
O'er the young rose shall hover,
Then, like that gay rover,
I'll come to thee.
He to flowers, I to lips, full of sweets to the brim--
What a meeting, what a meeting for me and for him!

Then, to every bright tree
In the garden he'll wander;
While I, oh, much fonder,
Will stay with thee.
In search of new sweetness thro' thousands he'll run,
While I find the sweetness of thousands in one.

I wrote the words in my normal handwriting, allowing them to go over the edge, so you only get a snippet.

Finally I removed the masks, stamped Daisy Daisy, coloured the flowers and bee body with markers and added stickles to the wings. as a bee is an insect I am entering this for Crazy amigos' insect theme.



Stamps are available from Stampotique and all products are available from Happy Daze,

it's just about the words.

This is the simplest card made for a neighbour that just had a baby boy. I was going for simple, cute and commercial. The words from the bits and pieces set from Rogue redhead designs were the perfect finishing touch. It's so useful to have such a complete set of coordinating greetings to hand. The font and size of the baby word are perfect for nestling up against the handcut paper heart. And then the Congratulations word inside ties in the front with the inside.


don't forget to visit the rogue redhead blog for lots more inspiration on how to use these stamps

LIM - butterfly

oooo one of my favorite themes at Less is More this week....Butterflies
butterflies are so easy to use, but I have tried to do something a little bit different. I wanted my butterfly's wings to extend beyond the edge of the card, but I didn't want to just stick it on (first of all have you ever tried cutting out antennae?

so, I started with a square card, stamped the butterfly and then drew a line down each side of the card 1 inch from the edge, up to the the wings, I then cut along the line and around the wings.

to do the embossed dots, I stamped another butterfly and cut it out and then drew around it on the reverse side of the front. so I knew where the edges were, and then used a fiskars embossing board to emboss the dots by hand.

I coloured the butterfly with pencil and blended. I did a grey shadow with pencil and blender to lift the butterfly from the card. I also added a light glittering to the wings with stickles.

up to this point the card is still one layer, but then I felt the need to add some words, so it's not one layer anymore!

Both of the stamps are by Stampotique.

recycling challenge at Stampotique

Welcome back to the Stampotique Designer's Challenge!

This week, Valerie is excited to challenge us to make use of items that might otherwise be destined for the landfill by re-using them or re-purposing them into a unique piece of art. The design team has pulled out all of the stops to provide the most wonderful inspiration for this challenge!!

Join our fabulous design team and create a project using stamps from any company for your chance to win a $30 Stampotique Originals gift certificate. We will randomly pick a winner with the announcement of the next challenge.

I recycled a chocolate pudding pot, to make a little gift bucket, using stampotique stamps.

My tidy craft room

After sharing the shame of the mid-tidying photos, I thought that maybe you'd like to share the finished room.
I know this still isn't tidy by neat freak standards, but to me it's nothing less than a miracle.

and the even bigger miracle, I still know where everything is!

The now tidy doorway, I have sewing stuff under the desk, and the soft pockets on the wall are for knitting.

A desk with space to work! and finally room to put a chair!

wood mounteds on the shelf, and stamps organised my manufacturer in boxes

essentials allowed on the desk
The shelves on the desk (finally found a proper home for my bigshot)

The messy, but organised, corner behind the door

That green cupboard used to live in my dining room and used to easily house ALL of my craft stuff!!!

scene stamping at gingersnaps

This week's new theme at Gingersnaps is scene stamping. I decided to make a miniature scene on my one layer card, by masking of a square with post it notes which I had torn along the sticky edge. I stamped the grass and sky with green and blues, and then I inked over all of the area using pumice stone distress ink (I used this colour and this technique a lot at port sunlight)
I then over stamped whte quote and swallows

All of the stamps are from Scrollswork. The closing down sale has now started to stocks of favourite stamps will drop quickly, so if there's something you have your eye on, don't leave it!!

I'm a Happy Stamper!

I had a fantastic time at Happy Stampers on Saturday. I didn't buy much (although there was plenty to tempt) but I did get some stamps from Stamp Camp and some metallic mesh ribbon from ribbon box.
The words on this card are from a brilliant Stamp Camp set, and the girl of course is from Lili of the Valley. I've made the detachable ribbon brooch from the metallic mesh.


The image is coloured with pencils, I have gone round the image with my lightest grey and blended with a blender pencil to give depth to this one layer card. I've also finished with a touch of glitter.

(as my little girl has a tiara, I'm entering her for Crazy Amigos' princesses and queens theme.)


Just wanted to say a big "Hi" to everyone that came to speak to me on Saturday when I was demoing for Happy Daze . It was just brilliant, and I just loved demoing. I'll let you in to a secret now, that's the first time I've ever crafted in front of anyone, except my kids!!
Just love this picture, that Chris took. it almost looks like I knew what I was doing!

LIM: One Layer Card -Embossing

Another fantastic theme at less is more: One layer card with embossing (any kind)

my piece is done with dry embossing.

This card, envelope and tag set was the original version of the "one layer Wonder" article I did for latest issue of Craft Stamper Magazine. I quite liked it but we decided that for an article it just needed more colour to grab the readers' attention. And that's how the very pink set came about that's in the article. I thought I'd post it just to show how an article comes about, and also I've used two lines of dry embossing (on this and the card in the article, which are not obvious from the photo (except the close up one), but are very obvious in real life.
All of the stamps on this set are PaperArtsy Hotpicks (HP1005, Xtra01 and Xtra 03)

OLW: home sweet home

The challenge at One Layer Wednesday this week is to make a new home card with two different coloured inks. straightforward enough......? no! I really struggled with this but thought I'd post what I came up with anyway..http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I used crushed olive and spun sugar through a clevercut mask for the background. I used a paperartsy Mini stamp and a bit of doodling with a handwritten sentiment

Happy Stampers Sneak Peeks

As I've mentioned (several times) I am going to be demonstrating at the Happy Stampers Show this weekend at port sunlight.
I plan to demo my floating front cards (as seen in craft stamper magazine), using scrolls work stamps, for Happy Daze (stand 32). I shall be demoing when Jo Capper-Sandon takes a break.
here's a few examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of doing.

OLW circles

tell me, is it really narcissistic to CASE your own cards?
In this month's Craft Stamper Magazine I have part 2 of a 6 part series of one layer cards. I decided to make something similar to the card in the magazine for this week's One Layer Wednesday Challenge.

The theme this week is Circles.

can you see the circles on my card?

well I think the splodges are circles. I hope I can get away with that.

All of the stamps are from Jo Capper-Sandon's range at Stampotique and are available from Happy Daze in the UK.
medium bee with small bee mounted on the side #3000
splatter blob #3013
splatter long #3014
happy unbirthday #3036
abstract foliage #3031

talking of Happy Daze, I think I may have already mentioned that I am demoing this Saturday at the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight. I shall be on the Happy Daze (stand 32) demoing when Jo Capper-Sandon needs a break! please come and say hi, it will be brilliant to meet all my blogging friends in person.
Tomorrow I will be showing some sneak peaks of a couple of the cards that I plan to demo. I plan to give away what I make, so come back tomorrow to see what I'm doing!!

rogue redhead- new releases

Rogue Redhead had two new releases out this - a beautiful botanical plate called Floriculture and a sentiment plate called Bits & Pieces.

Seriously, could these stamps be any more my style?

I decided to get stamping as soon as they arrived and made a batch of quick notecards


They have some special pricing available. Here's the scoop:

We are offering these great half-size plates for the introductory price of $12.00 each, 20% off their regular retail price of $15.00 each, until June 10, 2011. Buy Floriculture and Bits and Pieces as a bundle and save even more! Get both these new releases together for the bundle price of $22.50 until June 10, 2011. That's 25% off their regular retail price!

We are also offering a Spring Sale Big Vintage Bundle - Relish Reading, Floriculture and Bits and Pieces - all for the low price of $42.00 plus shipping and handling. Get yours now! The sale only lasts until June 10, 2011.

less is more : white on white

I Love the look of white on white. So I couldn't wait to play along with this week's challenge at Less is more
First thing to notice about this card.... no stamping!!


I'd forgotten that it was possible to make a card with no stamping. This is all done with my big shot, using dies and embossing folders, to create the front piece, which I then mounted using my floating front technique, which I did in Craft stamper magazine a couple of months back.
I shall be demoing the floating front technique (but not this card, I will be stamping), next weekend at the Happy Stampers Show at Port sunlight. If you are coming please come and say Hi!!

cover girl...... well sort of..

Here's the front cover of the latest issue of craft stamper magazine.
The very talented Kate Crane made the book in the main picture, but if you look at the bottom where it says "inspirational one layer cards"...... That's mine!!!!!!!!!!!

The set is made using mainly PaperArtsy Stamps, but the quote is hero arts
doing a little happy dance

sugar and spice

Well I've managed to get back into my tidy craft room, well it was tidy until I started making something. The base of this card is made from a handmade card pack that has been in my drawer for ages, so it was USE IT OR THROW IT!!
This card is made using Scrolls Work Stamps.

Don't forget that Scrolls Work Stamps will soon be starting their closing down sale, so if there's a stamp you particularly want you shouldn't wait....

The girl stamp is also available from Happy Daze

The reason I haven't blogged much this week....

I am in the middle of a major tidy of my craft room, and I can't get any crafting done. The picture doesn't really show how bad it is: The rubbish spilling out of the door has actually spilled all the way into my bedroom and is covering my bed.
I'm just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it should all be ready for new goodies for next weekend when I'm off to the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight. I shall be doing my first ever demoing and am planning to make the floating front cards I did for Craft Stamper Magazine.... that's if I can ever get into my craft room again!! I'm demoing for Happy Daze when Jo Capper-Sandon Takes a break.
Hope to see you there.

little cowboy

This week's new theme at Gingersnap creations is cowboys. I used this cute stamp from Scrolls Work Stamps. A really simple card.

owl post

The theme at Stamp something is Something with wings
so I thought Jo Capper-Sandon's Owl from Stampotique would be perfect as it actually comes with a set of wings to do with as you please. I have put him in flight here, in honour of the Harry Potter books and movies (I can't wait until the final movie).

I have also used Jo's text star stamp. both stamps are available from stampotique.

*Sigh* Scrolls Work is Going out of Business

Scrolls Work Stamps

is going out of business

It is with a sad and heavy heart that Scrolls Work is announcing our going out of business sale.

We gave it a strong go with a lot of hard work, and our love of stamps. Unfortunately with the economy and the soon to be addition to the family we are having to close our doors.

The good new for you.... Our Going Out of Business Sale.

• Once the sale starts it is first come first serve. So once we are out of stock on a stamp it will no longer be available. Make sure you buy them ASAP!!

Sale Dates:

• It starts May 15th with a 40% discount.
• June 1st it will go to a 50% discount
• June 15th starts the 60% discount.
• July 1st ends with a 70% discount.
• July 15th we are closing the site.