It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

As I was setting the date for this post, it occurred to me that we're now less than 3 months away from Christmas 2013!!  85 days to be precise - eek!!  I have to confess that I have already made a start on present shopping. I don't usually bother until early December, but there have a been a few things that I've spotted that I just know won't be around in a few months time, so rather than be disappointed and rack my brain trying to find an alternative, I thought I'd be organised and start shopping early. Hopefully I won't forget I've bought them when it comes time for wrapping, lol!

I was going to post another steampunk card today, but all this talk of Christmas has put me in a Christmassy mood, so I thought why not post a Christmas card?  This is one I made for Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine issue 109 using some fab Penny Black stamps and the 'Just Believe' collection of papers from Authentique (sooooo gorgeous!):

Supplies
Penny Black ‘A Wish for Peace’ stamp set
Authentique ‘Just Believe’ Collection 12x12 papers
Black ink; Copic Marke  pens
Tim Holtz Distress ink pads: Vintage Photo and Antique Linen

Have you made a start on your Christmas cards yet?  I actually started back in May ... yes, you did read that correctly, lol!  To be fair, they were for a special Christmas magazine that is published each year by Immediate Media called "Make Christmas Cards" (in fact, it's out in the shop right now ... if you fancy a peek, click here or you can buy it here), so they weren't actually cards for my own personal stash!  That's the thing about designing for a print publication - you have to work months in advance of the date of publication, so Christmas in May, Valentines in October, Easter at Christmas ... you get the idea, lol!

Anyway, as a final nod to my favourite holiday season of the year, I will leave you with Mr Michael Buble's version of my blog post title ...


I'll be back tomorrow with another creation .. but don't worry, it won't be Christmas this time! ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hugs,

Lights, Camera ... Steampunk!

Hi everyone! I hope your weekend is off to a great start?

I have a Steampunk stylesque card to share today which is one of a set of 5 cards and a tag that I made for issue 108 of Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed making them, and so I hope you won't mind if I share them on my blog over the next week. :)

I was asked to use some Stampendous stamps for this commission which worked perfectly for the Steampunk theme (the one I've used on this card is called Poised Gent).  The gears were die-cut from chipboard using my Tim Holtz Gadget Gears die set, and then painted with metallic paint.  I then dabbed bronze, copper and gold VersaColor inks all over to add texture and detail to them. The gold in the corners is the fabulous Frantage aged gold embossing enamel - love this stuff!!

Supplies
Stampendous Poised Gent cling stamp (CRV264)
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads: Antique Linen, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain
My Favorite Things Die-namics: At The Movies Die & Stamp Set
Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante 12x12 papers: Victorian Transformers and Eclectic Emporium
Sizzix Bigz Die - Tim Holtz Gadget Gears
Bazzill cardstock: Kraft, Bitter Chocolate
White cardstock, Acetate, Chipboard
VersaColor inks: Bronze, Copper and Gold
Versamark ink
Stampendous Frantage Embossing Enamel - Aged Gold
Gold half pearls

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back on Monday with my next Steampunk installment, lol!

Hugs,

Graph'it Challenge #14: Colours of Autumn

Hi everyone!

It's time for a new challenge at the Graph'it Markers blog and it's the turn of Team B (that's me, Cara and Kevin) to provide you with some Graph'it inspiration this week! Our challenge this week is AUTUMN COLOURS, so we want to see your favourite fall/autumnal combinations.

You may remember that I did a red hair colouring tutorial for the GI blog a few weeks ago?  If you missed it, I'd love for you to check it out and tell me what you think, as it was my very first tutorial!!!!  Anyway, I finished colouring the image I used for the tutorial and used it for today's challenge card.  The stamp I used is a Saturated Canary digital stamp called "Fancy".  I was lucky enough to grab her when Krista was giving her away for free last summer, but you can buy her here from the Saturated Canary digi store.

When I think of autumnal colours, I think of browns, golds, oranges, reds and pinks, so that's what I've used today:

Graph'it Markers
Skin: 4180 4155 4115 4125 4120
Blush: 4135 4145
Red Hair: 3190 3180 3170 3130 4180 4155 4115
Gold: 2180 2130 1230 1210 4110
Flowers: 5280 5230 5140 5130 (petals) 9507 9505 8280 (leaves) 1210 (centre)

So now it's your turn to get creating! You have until Sunday 6th October 2013 at noon GMT to enter our Autumn Colours challenge As always, there is an awesome prize up for grabs and the lucky winner of this challenge will be announced on the blog on Friday 11th October.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Hugs,

Inspired by Banksy: Guerllia Check

Hi everyone!

Today I have a quick card to share using a Bee Crafty 'Inspired by Banksy' stamp called Guerilla Check:

Supplies
Bee Crafty Polymer Stamp: Inspired by Banksy – Guerllia Check
Bee Crafty Wordage Polymer Stamp: Life & Rain (Lg)
Echo Park Dots & Stripes 'Soda Fountain' 6x6 paper pad
Echo Park Dots & Stripes 'Homefront' 6x6 paper pad
Echo Park Dots & Stripes Metropolitan 12x12 paper: Concrete Small Dots
Echo Park Dots & Stripes Candy Shoppe 12x12 paper: Watermelon Small Dots

The sentiment is the upper part of the Bee Crafty Wordage 'Life & Rain' stamp. I stamped it in black onto the bottom part of the image and trimmed it, so only the top part of the word "Life" was showing.  I then stamped and heat embossedthe same word with white embossing powder in the bottom left corner of the black card I was going to use for matting and layering.  I added the image plate on top and voila - a two-tone sentiment!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Have a lovely day! 

Hugs,

SCRS September Release - Laptop Lucy

Hi everyone and welcome to Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps SEPTEMBER RELEASE DAY!

All new stamps are now available to buy from the SCRS store! Click here or above on the Buy Stamps link to start shopping now. We are also previewing Laptop Lucy today who comes with 3 darling sentiments:

Sparkle is giving away a Laptop Lucy rubber stamp to one lucky hopper! We have hidden this stamp somewhere along the hop, so for a chance to WIN be sure to visit and comment on ALL of the designers' Laptop Lucy blog posts (listed below). You have until midnight EST tonight to comment.

Danielle Lounds
Debbie Pamment
Joni Wilson
Judith Gowdy - September Guest Designer
Kim Yu
Simonne Clay
Sparkle Smith
Suzanne Bier

Sadly, this is my very last release as a member of the SCRS design team.  I have made the very difficult decision to step down from the team.  I would like to say an enormous THANK YOU to Sparkle for having me on her DT for so very long.  It has been a privilege and an honour to work for and alongside you Sparkle!  I will miss you and the SCRS gals SO very much.  And although I won't be a DT member any longer, I'm sure this won't be the last SCRS creation from me as I adore these images!!

Thanks so much for popping by today!

Hugs,

Paperbabe Stamps Friday 13th SPOOKY Blog Hop!!

Welcome to the ...

Paperbabe Stamps Friday 13th Spooky Blog Hop

It's release time at Paperbabe Stamps! WOO-HOO!!!  I am SO excited to be back as a guest to help Kim Costello (aka Paperbabe) showcase her September release! Thank you so much Kim for inviting me to play with your fabulous stamps again.

This month Kim has designed some fantastic weather-inspired stamps.  The High in the Sky clear stamp set and the Cumulus clear background stamp (which is a continuous design - how fab is that?) are available to buy from the store TODAY!  But that's not all ... Kim has also released  3 fabulously spooky digi stamps: "MayLeeDee Witchy", "Dillon Batwings" and "Dillon Magic" are available now as digital download for INSTANT gratification! And there's SVG files to help cut some of those images out too!!

I couldn't decide which of these gorgeous stamps to choose for my release day project this month, so I made a card with both of the clear stamp/sets:

So if you've stumbled across my post and would like to hop with us, be sure to hop back to Kim's blog to start the hop.  Here's a full line-up:

Kim Costello
Chris Dark (DT)
Amy Wanford
Kim Dellow
Simonne Clay (that's me!)
Paperbabe Stamps

THANK you so much for joining us on this spooky Friday 13th, simply leave a comment to enter to win! We'll announce the winners on the Paperbabe Stamps Blog on the 20th!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Happy hopping!

Hugs,

SCRS September Previews Blog Hop - Texting Chloe

Hi everyone and welcome to the first day of the Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps September previews!

Today we are excited to show you Texting Chloe who comes with a set of fabulous sentiments. All new stamps will be available to buy tomorrow (Saturday 14th September 2013).

Sparkle is giving away a Texting Chloe rubber stamp to one lucky hopper! We have hidden this stamp somewhere along the hop, so for a chance to WIN, be sure to visit and comment on ALL of the designers' Texting Chloe blog posts (listed below). You have until midnight EST tonight to comment.

Danielle Lounds
Debbie Pamment
Joni Wilson
Judith Gowdy - September Guest Designer
Kim Yu
Simonne Clay
Sparkle Smith
Suzanne Bier

I hope you all have a great Friday! We'll be back tomorrow for release day!

Hugs,

Recycle with Lollipop Sticks!

Hi everyone!

As you may or may not know, I am extremely lucky to be a regular designer for the fabulous Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine. I've been designing for them for 2 years now (wow ... has it really been that long?), and so I have lots of cards and papercraft projects I have made for publication that I haven't got round to blogging!  I promise I won't bore you and show them all, lol, but I would like to share some of my faves over the next month or so, which will hopefully make my blog a little more active (I know I've been quite slack of late, sorry!).

So today's share is a trio of cards I was commissioned to make for issue 105 with the brief of "Recycle with Lollipop sticks".  For my first card, I created a fence with the lolly sticks:

Supplies
Echo Park Dots & Stripes 12x12 paper - Candy Shoppe & Metropolitan
MFT die-namics Flat bottom cloud
MFT By The Numbers stamp set
Martha Stewart grass border punch
Prima flowers, gems, brown ink, circle punch

For the second card I made an actual ice-lolly card!  I took a white card blank and drew the lolly shape onto it freehand so the fold would be on the left of the card at an angle.  I cut it out, covered it in patterned paper, adhered the lolly stick to the reverse and then used my scallop circle punch to take a "bite" out of the corner, lol!  A few embellies to finish it off:

Supplies
Echo Park Country Drive 12x12 collection kit
Scallop circle punch
Spellbinders circle and scallop circle nestabilities dies
Ribbon

For the final card, I covered the lolly sticks in patterned paper and then glued them together to make a photo frame (the photo is one of our daughter when she was younger!):

Supplies
Echo Park Life Is Good 12x12 collection kit
Brown card, pearls, flowers, button

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Hugs,

PAB Pop-up Trees

Hi everyone!

A quick post from me today to share another of the samples I did for the Graph'it Markers / Premium Art Brands Create & Craft TV show on 18th August. I decided to make a pop-up card using the tree and sentiment stamps from the PAB Winter Spruce clear stamp set and the smaller tree stamp from the PAB Snowy Cottage clear stamp set. The blue snowflake paper is from the Polkadoodles Angelberry Christmas CD and I added gems for the baubles:

Graph'it Markers used:
Greens: 8270 8260 8240 8110 9507
Brown: 3290 3255 3245
Snow: 9100
Turquoise: 7240

Quite difficult to photograph this one, lol!

Hope you have a fabulous Thursday!

Hugs,

PAB Poinsettia wreath

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Today is the very last day of the school summer holidays *sniff sniff*. Our daughter will be starting the new school year tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to it, lol! Being married to a secondary school teacher, our family is very lucky to spend most of the 5 week break together, so it's always very sad for me when they both go back to school. I'm already missing hubby as he went back on Monday (as of course he has to work on inset days), and tomorrow our dd will go back...

But enough doom and gloom, lol! I thought I'd pop by today to show you another of the samples I did for the Graph'it Markers / Premium Art Brands Create & Craft TV show on 18th August. Four fabulous new winter-themed clear stamp sets were launched during this show, and today's card uses the smaller poinsettia stamp from the PAB Poinsettia clear stamp set.  The sentiment is from another of the stamp sets from the show - PAB Angelberry Gift clear stamp set:

Graph'it Markers used:
Red petals: 3190 3180 5245 5220 5210
Gold centre: 2120

Soz for the dark photo!  I almost forgot to photograph my show samples before sending them off to Nikki for her to take them to Create & Craft, so this was literally a quick snap before sealing the parcel, lol!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Hugs,

PAB Snow Cottage

As you know, I am beyond lucky to be on the Graph'it Markers design team.  Premium Art Brands are the UK distributors for these markers, and they had a show on Create & Craft TV on 18th August.  In this show they launched 4 gorgeous new winter-themed clear stamp sets and Nikky demonstrated the markers along with these stamps in the show.  The GI DT were asked to make samples using the stamps and Graph'it Markers, so I thought I'd share some of my samples with you this week!

Today's card uses the cottage, lights and tree stamps from the awesome PAB Snow Cottage clear stamp set. I stamped the tree and cottage onto white card, then I stamped the lights separately onto the cottage so that they hung from the roof! I coloured both images with my GIs (what else? lol1) then cut them out.

I wanted to create a simple winter scene, so after layering a square of pale blue snowflake paper from the Polkadoodles Angelberry Christmas CD onto dark brown card, I added some randomly cut white, textured card to resemble snowdrifts.  I stuck the cottage directly onto the background, but popped up the tree using 3D foam pads to provide some dimension.  A bit of glitter and it was done!

Finally, here is a list of the Graph'it Markers that I used:

Tree
Foliage: 9507 8270 8260 8240
Trunk: 3290 3255 3245
Baubles: 5245 5220 5210 4145
Snow: 9100 9500 0000

Cottage
House: 3210 4110 (walls), 3290 3250 3245 (wood)
Hanging Lights: 5245 5220 5210 4145
Door: 7125 9105 9103 9101
Windows (glass): 9101 9100
Snow: 9100 9500 0000

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Hugs,