Happy Potter!

Hello! Happy Day-After-Humpday!

Do you have a Harry Potter fan living with you?! I do! Today's card is a DT card made using Lawn Fawn Critters in the Arctic and Gnome Sweet Gnome for my post over at Make the Day Special

The lightning bolts are from Lil' Inkers Cut it Out Cloud dies and the castle is a CC Design die
and the sentiment is made using good 'ol Lawn Fawn Milo's ABC's

I had to reverse stamp 'Hedwig' onto 'Dumbledore',or he would have had an owl butt in his face ;-),coloured them both with Copics and fussy cut them out. I think the little gnome works pretty well as a wizard,no? I flecked the card with Frantage and highlighted the sides of the castle.

 I know Boo will love it-she adores anything Harry Potter related!

Im entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Anything Goes 

Hope it inspires you in some way,

Lou x

Happy little birdie

Hi hi :-)

Happy nearly weekend :-D Today is my DT day over at Make the Day Special Stamp Store-Throwback Thursday.

I know some of my posts can dubiously be called 'Throwback',but todays post is TRULY a throwback. I used  the gloriously vintage Paper Smooches Chubby Chum Pals and the not so quite as vintage Think Fast to create a card one of my favourite quotes

I know,I know-its a chicken,but it could be a seagull. If you half squint. And look from a distance ;-)

He and the fries are water coloured and the packet is paper pieced and the sentiment typed with my trusty vintage typewriter. Then a little stitching around the edge in 'fry' colour to finish it off.

I am poping this into the Paper Smooches Anything Goes Challenge

Right,thats all from me-Im off to fulfill this cards demand ;-)

Lou x

Papel Picado

Hello!

This is another catch up post from a DT post over on Make The Day Special Stamp Store (really must learn to sync these posts :-/ )

So this is from the gorgeous Avery Elle called Papel Picado. I was so so excited about this one when I saw its release <3
I wanted to get the whole fluttering through the street thing down,so background stamped a few flags in a neutral tone,then made the foreground ones bright bright bright!

Yeah,I stitched them.
I love stitching on card (now my machine has started behaving ;-))

I cant WAIT to use this set again (and again and again)

Hope you like it!
Lou x

Late Spring!

Hello!

Playing catch up from my tardy blogging and found this card I made unsurprisingly waaaaay back in Spring ;-)

I used the then new release from Clearly Besotted Pretty Petals Plus and 'Love' die. I wanted to get a ton of texture in the flowers and decided the best way to do that would be to pop some of them out on pop dots (where would we be without pop dots?!)

And a closer peep at those layered flowers...

Very fresh card! Hope you like it :-)

Lou x

In the stars

Hello!

Its nearly the weekend! Wahoo!

August is a veeeery busy Birthday month for me,so todays card is inevitably a Birthday one ;-)

Today is my DT day at Make the Day Special

I used all Mama Elephant products- Cosmic Stars and Starry Nights,(which is currently out of stock) and the scrummy not so throwback Starburst Cover Plate to create this,plus a smattering of Frantage for some extra stars

How cute is that lion?!

The Starburst plate is mounted over some glitter cardstock and raised on pop dots to create a mini shadowbox .

I hope you like it! And Mum,I hope you arent looking at this just yet! :-)

Lou x

Ariel Tilda

Hi hi!

Ok,so remember a while ago I said I had been working on some Magnolia Tilda cards? Well this is the one I made for Boo's fourth birthday. This post is pic heavy! You have been warned ;-)

As a huge,and I mean HUGE Little Mermaid fan,there really was only one choice of card to make her hehehe,and I had just the right stamp...

Shimmer shimmer! This card is so blinged up the camera had trouble papping it!

The taggy :-)

So,there it is. Her face when she saw it was perfect <3

The thing I love most about this card is it was all just plain white. Every. Single. Piece. Just white. Add a little Distress Inks here and there,a little Perfect Pearls,a little Crackle Glaze and Frantage and voila! 

I love what I do :-)

Entering this into Tilda's Town challenge #115 By The Sea (Water)

Lou x

Autumn thoughts already

Hello!

Yup,Autumn thoughts already-My most favourite season <3 I usually start thinking Autumn thoughts after December,to be honest and filling my Pinterest boards with rich reds,golds and all things Fall.

So todays card is made using the ever fabulous Paper Smooches. Pretty much just all dies lol! I used Pocket,Thanks and Leaves 1 for this. 

I cut the leaves from vellum then stained them with alcohol inks. The swirls are stamped from the Flap Happy set and the stitching along the pocket is from Needle Little Love (LOVE that set) All are available from Make The Day Special Stamp Store. I got my inspiration for this card from the MtDS current challenge here 

with this lush colour palette

Yup,think I've managed to get every single one of those colours in there! 

LOVE those leaves! <3

I am entering this into the Paper Smooches Anything Goes challenge 

 

Lou x

A Good Apple

Woah,better dust off poor old blog's cobwebs! 

Where have I been? Well,things have been busy and emotional with Boo. She has been very ill and we have been trying to find a balance of chemo that works for her,so although I have been making minimal bits I just haven't had the energy to blog them all. So,lets play catch up!

Ok,today is my day over at Make The Day Special and as it is close to end of school,I am busy as a bee making teacher thank you cards :-/

Today's is made using Lawn Fawn's A Good Apple (such a cute set,and the first time it has ever seen ink!)

Here you go

And a sidey view...

Hope you like it!

Lou x

Fishy Friday!

Hello!
A while back I made a card for my DT post for Make The Day Special Stamp Store,I wanted to try and make a card version of Big Mouth Billy Bass,that singing wiggling fish on a plaque,remember him? Sure you do! So I reached for my WPlus9 Fish More set teamed with Lawn Fawn's Fanciful Frames to recreate a papery version of that iconic singing fish ;-) here he is

And a closer look

To get that cool fish colouring effect I stamped the fish first in an peachy yellow,then inked the fish up with a forest green,but wiped the bottom bit off with a cloth,then carefully stamped over the peachy fish to give that two-toned look. (Jennifer McGuire does a great video on how to do this technique) Then I brushed over a little gold perfect pearls to give him a fishy sheen (that sadly doesn't seem to pick up in photos) I LOVE that sentiment,so funny! 

Lou x

Iced (bitter)sweetness

Hola!

Its still cold and wet here in Cambridgeshire,but that will not stop me dreaming about Summer! No way ,so I dug out one of my first ever Lawn Fawn sets Here's The Scoop,MFT Peekaboo Trio and faced my nemesis,my sewing machine. (Brief back story: my sewing machine and I were besties once. We did everything together,cards,tags,bunting-there wasn't a job we couldn't do together. Until I gave it a card to sew that I had spent literally FOREVER on. Completely oblivious of its evil intentions,I fed my precious hard work under its foot and.... SQUARL-NASH!!! (That was the actual sound it made) it ate my card in one go :-O (That was my actual face I made) Since prying out my tattered card from under its destructive foot,we haven't spoken. I even put its dust cover on it (Kind of like a naughty chair for sewing machines) UNTIL TODAY!
 I had eyed up Virginia's View sewing challenge when it opened up.
 I looked at the naughty machine in its dust cover and wondered if it had learnt its lesson.... I got it set up,and put some nice sunny aqua thread on its spool...I cautiously made up my card and introduced it to the machine. The machine looked shifty. I gave the machine a warning in my best stern voice. I put my card along with its heap of glitter (in hindsight,maybe best to be a bit more sparing with the sparkles)under its nonchalant foot,shut my eyes and pushed the foot peddle...

 Not a whisper of malice,it just calmly went round the border,as asked...

As if nothing had ever happened...

Has it changed? Is it a reformed machine? Was it just having an off day? Who knows! But at least I can enter the challenge and think about forgiveness ;-)

Forgiven,machine. Forgiven....(but not forgotten!)

Lou x

Floral fancies

Hello!

I don't know about your neck of the woods,but we have officially LOST the sun! Ah well,makes for a perfect crafting day when the sun is not out to tempt me into some gardening ;-)

So today is my day over at Make The Day Special Stamp Store,and I used Wplus9 Coming up Roses in two different backgrounds on my cards.

And a closer look at each one...

These were so therapeutic to do! 

I hope you like them :-)

I am entering them into Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge 'Spring Flowers'

Lou x

Grow your Wings

Hello!

Very quick post today sharing a birthday card I made for my gorgeous little cousin. I used the butterfly from Unity's set called Life Becoming. 

How gorgeous is that butterfly stamp?! Think I might be marginally obsessed with it...

Ok,so I stamped the butterfly onto heavy watercolour card,spritzed with various Distress Inks and sprayed that with water and heat set. Then I stamped the image again onto vellum and fussy cut it out. I coloured the underside of the butterfly with alcohol inks and brushed gold dust over the wings. I put some Frantage on the outer part of the card,heat set and glued the body of the vellum butterfly to the body of the other butterfly. 

I am putting this into Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge "Winged Things" 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge "Animal Antics"

And Unity's Card Sketch Challenge

Lou x

A nearly naked Tilda!

Hellooo!

Ok,this is an unusual post for me,as I own many,many Magnolia Tilda stamps and dies,and I paint them a lot,but I have never assembled one into an actual card until a few weeks ago (yet to be blogged) But LOOK! I made a card! 

Its officially Spring. I know this because Tiger and Boo are out on their bikes,picking dandelions and just loving staying outside until well into the evenings. They inspired me to use one of my absolute fave Tilda stamps...

 I LOVE this stamp sooo much! We live in Cambridge,one of the two bike capitals of Britain,so maybe that's another reason I love this set ;-)

It is of course On The Road Tilda,and like I said,sums up my girls 100% when the days get longer :-)

I coloured her with Distress markers and Re-inkers and am linking this up to the #93 CAS challenge over at Totally Tilda

Thank you for looking!

Lou x

Mama

Hello!

Todays card is the Mothers Day card I made my wonderful elephant loving Mama. (I couldnt blog it BEFORE she got it now,could I? ;-) ) So here it is. Very CAS for me,( her previous ones have been pretty shabby chic and grungey) but it covers everything I wanted to say to her :-)

I used Lawn Fawn's Love you Tons for the elephant,coloured with Prismacolour pencils and Mama Elephant Sketchy Letters (LOVE this set!) for the 'Mama'

This is going into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge 'Anything Goes' and as part of the DT for Make The Day Special Stamp Store first blog challenge,also 'Anything Goes' (Gotta love those Anything Goes,right?) Make sure you hop on over to keep on top of those challenges ;-D

I hope your Mother Day was as awesome as mine :-D

Lou 

Hang in there

Hello!

Its my day over at Make The Day Special Stamp Store and the DT have a colour challenge this week

So here is my 'card'-a slightly different card this week,using some of my hoarded old packaging as its base and the gorgeous Paper Smooches Briny Blue and Surf and Turf and the sentiment  is from Hang Ups. I hoard packaging like,well,like a participant on Extreme Hoarding,but I do USE it,so I can justify the piles of chipboard and plastic dotted around the craft room...can't I? ;-)

Anyway,I have been holding onto this piece of floppy clear plastic forever,waiting for its true purpose to be realised ;-) Static does a lot of the work for you holding things in place,so there is no need for any adhesive in this type of card. All the sea folk are stamped and painted onto watercolour card,using the colour palette. I stamped,coloured and cut everything I thought I would use and arranged it. Then carefully sandwiched it together and machine sewed loose rings around the outside in a sand coloured thread. The jellyfish and seahorse needed a little extra anchoring,so I ran a few stitches through them,voila! Can be hung anywhere to catch the light :-)

Close up of the glittery Jellies in floaty action...

Yes they have a light coat of stickles-I think I am still coughing up glitter from Boo's birthday invite wands! I seem to have gotten a little addicted to glitter now...

This card will be winging its way all the way to Byron Bay Australia to reside on a sunny windowsill overlooking the ocean,where it properly belongs :-)

But before that,I'm putting it in the Paper Smooches Sparks 'Anything Goes' challenge over here

And in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Glitter it Challenge here

Hope you like it! 

Lou x

A little rainbow magic...

Greetings from glitter fueled pre-4 year old Birthday party chaos!
Its my day over at Make The Day Special Stamp Store.

My littlest one is about to turn 4,and being the most girly girl ever,her invites (under strict instruction from her) have just been made. I was given my brief-glitter,a unicorn,glitter,something magicy,glitter,oooh a wand!,glitter,RAINBOWS! and er,....glitter. So,with this in mind I reached for my newest Paper Smooches set, Spectrum. Those of you with little princesses must have heard of the ultimate in My Little Pony colour-Rainbow Dash?  Well,Spectrum can offer a very close second...Ladies and gentlemen,I give to you (drum roll) Lovely Unicorn Rainbow Hair! (As named by its tiny 3 year old architect)

These are the party invites (I'm lucky she is only having four guests!) The time and date and other essentials are written on the back so that the recipient has a usable memento after all boring yet essential details are noted.  And yes,there is glitter EVERYWHERE! Neon glitter around the edge,no less than three different types of Stickles adorn the unicorn on hooves and horn and there is yet more glitter on the back,with a light dusting of,yup,glitter across the sky and finished with a gemstone bottom. The craft room looks like Smaugs lair,glittering and twinkling as it waits for the hoover. The stick part are straws wrapped with washi tape (quite a therapeutic activity) and the ribbons are cemented with hot glue between the stars,along with my most of my fingertips. All the stress was more than made up for when each little girl opened up the envelope and pulled out her wand-pure joy :-)  I will leave you with another picture,just for good measure...

I LOVE the Spectrum set-as with all Paper Smooches stamps,there is so much scope in one set,but I don't think I can look at the unicorn again without seeing it covered in glitter and a mane of multi colour ;-) Swinging these guys over to the Paper Smooches Sparks 'Anything Goes' Challenge (Lets hope they mean ANYTHING! Lol) 

Happy Thursday folks,

Lou x

A bag of thanks

Hello!

Just a quick share of a thank you card I made for my lovely Godparents. They are very chic and not at all shabby,so had to curb my natural style for this! 

 The stamps are Clearly Besotted and the little paper bag is the endlessly cute Memory Box die I used for the Halloween candy bags on the postcard swap a while back.
I putting this into the Cute Card Thursday Springtime Challenge  :-)
Lou x

Sunny flowers

Hello!

Well,the little sun we had today has well and truly G.O.N.E! Ah well,while it was around I made my stepfathers Birthday card using one of my favourite Flourishes sets,the gorgeous Sunflowers. Now,being a man of few words and very much un-frilly,this card had to be as clear and straight forward as he is. This is what I came up with

I stamped the image onto a piece of vintage linen and frayed the edges. Then I stacked that onto a piece of golden yellow cotton,which was then stacked onto a piece of florists voile (I had to stop myself after that-or I would just keep on stacking! ;-) ) I machine sewed around the boarder and mounted it all onto a piece of nice masculine bark print paper. I used colours to imply the hues of a sunflower whist keeping the image colour free. I think he will like it. He is an avid gardener and horticulturist,so I think this will score me some Brownie points ;-)

As this has no colour I'm entering it into the Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge Less = More! :-)

Lou x

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014 February Tag

Hello!

Swooping in for an insanely speedy post (we are currently having fun with chicken pox... :-/ ) so last minute posting of a tag I finished a while ago. Actually there are two tags. Yup. I loved doing this so much I did it twice ;-)

So without further ado,here are both of February 12 Tags of 2014

The first is a classic take on Tims tag (seen here),using the same colours etc. I wanted to have the chalkboard as tickets-I love how popped these turned out,with their crazy broken arrows-here have a closer look...

 The next tag I wanted to be sepia's and old romantic film style. I used one of my favourite Paper Artsy stamps and a My Favourite Things die to get the dreamy Hollywood look. I think the chalkboard effect makes them look slightly creepy-which I LOVE,so I went ahead and used the sander to scratch out some parts of the stamp

A bit of Tim's film ribbon,quote and heart and arrow complete the tag and draws it back to its muse

Well,thats all folks! Back to smothering itchy children with aloe vera,see you next time :-)

Lou x