Friday Sketchers & Our Creative Corner Challenges

Hi all. Hope you're enjoying the lovely weekend weather! I've been having a bit of a mental crafting block this week. I've really struggled to make anything. I have been hindered by a few things (yes, I know a workman always blames his tools!) I bought a new set of clear plastic Christmas Papermania stamps and proceeded to use a couple of them and they don't work properly!!! No, it's not my stamping technique! When I looked at the stamps themselves, they don't seem to have been manufactured properly. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm going to send them back to Papermania to show them as I'm sure there must be a production fault. Plus I've just started a new watercolour class so I have to do some painting between classes so that takes up some cardmaking time. And I've just not had much creativity flowing...

Anyway, I managed to make this Christmas card for Friday Sketchers and Our Creative Corner Challenges. The Friday Sketchers' sketch is below and Our Creative Corner's Challenge this week is Monochromatic Mania.

I used an Inkadinkadoo stamp from their Lantern set. I think this is so elegant and does lend itself quite well to a Christmas card because it reminds me of old Victorian Christmas cards. I added some Platinum Stickles where snow might fall to make it look a bit more Christmasy. The paper is from the new Papermania Christmas set. The sentiment is from See D's. The snowflake is recycled off an old Christmas card and I added Stickles to the flower to carry the theme through. Hope you like it!

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Inkadinkao & See D's); Paper (Papermania); Assorted cardstock; Flower (Poppicrafts); Snowflake and ribbon (Recycled); Platinum Stickles (Ranger)

Thanks for dropping by, I will try and get round to all your blogs today! x

PS Is anyone going to the Stamps and Memories Copics class on 3rd October? I've signed up for it and I wondered if any of you out there might be going?

Friday Sketchers Challenge

Hi everyone! Hope you're all well and had a great weekend. Here is my first card of the week- it's for Friday Sketchers Challenge. Pop over to the blog and you'll see some great designs this week.

So for mine (sorry the picture is so pale, don't know what happened there!)- I used this new cutie Whipper Snapper stamp and coloured it in with a mixture of copics and watercolour pencils. The card is for a friend's little girl who is 1 next month. I double stamped the balloons so that I could 3d them and I masked out some of the detail on the stamp so that I could add a "1" on both of them which I did with a mixture of transfers and doodling around the edge.

I then cut out using nesties and layered up with Making Memories paper and added some embellies.

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Whipper Snapper); Copics; Watercolour pencils; Paper (Making Memories); Nesties; Black fine liner, Transfers (?); Flower and button (Poppicrafts)

Here is the sketch (above) my card was based on by the Friday Sketchers team.

And finally I thought I'd show you this other card I made last month for my sis's birthday- I LOVE this paper, it's so pretty. My sis loves chickens so I knew this new stamp would be perfect for her. I coloured in with Lyra pencils and cut out with nesties. The paper is by My Mind's Eye and added pink hot fix crystals to finish.

Crafty stash: Stamp (Whipper Snapper); Lyra pencils; Nesties; Paper (My Mind's Eye); Hot fix crystals (Beadcraft)

I'm back!

Hi everyone! I'm back - hope you missed me!!

This is the first card I've made in about 2 months. I've SO missed my crafting but my mind literally felt so exhausted and overloaded with everything, it's like I couldn't fit in another thing- even something as simple as crafting. I feel a bit better now as we managed to get away on holiday for 3 weeks (where I bought a ridiculous amount of stamps!!) so I really want to get back into my crafting again as it helps take my mind off things otherwise I'd probably be in tears 24/7.

I can't wait to visit all your blogs this weekend and get back into blog-life and challenges etc. I hope you like my first attempt back! x

Anyway so here's my first card in yonks and it's for Sketch Saturday Challenge (sketch is below).

I used my new Inkadinkado stamps. The gorgeous butterfly is from a set called Mindscapes. I embossed it with glitter embossing powder (which you can see more on the close up below) and then went over some of the design using my new All Night Media Liquid Embossing paint which made it pop a bit. I cut around it and put a gentle fold down the middle and raised the wings up a bit when I glued it in place so that it was a bit 3D. The swirl is also new from an Inkadinkado set called Gemstone Flourishes. I added champagne hot fix crystals in places to add bling. All the paper is from the Old World Stack and the sentiment is by Clear Stamps which I stamped onto paper and then ripped to give a more vintage feel.

I hope you can see the glitter a bit. It's really pretty in real life!

And here is the Sketch Saturday sketch. I hope you can see what I've done with it. Instead of using individual elements, I used the flourish stamp as it seemed to follow the shape of the elements. I hope it's allowed!

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Inkadinkado, Clear Stamps); Paper (DCWV); Assorted cardstock; Hot fix crystals (London Bead Co.); Ribbon (recycled); Brad (Michael's)