Colour Q #277

Hello!

Can you hear the sigh of relief from parents all over Australia? It's back to school day tomorrow for the kids and as much as I love them being at home, I'm quite happy to get my house back.  It may even look less like a no-go zone by tomorrow afternoon, unlike the last 6 weeks where it has alternated from bomb site to squatters delight.

Tuesday's rolled around again so time to get the new Colour Q palette out - are you ready to get pinky?

I do love a bit of pink in my male dominated household. The colours were the perfect excuse to ink up some new stamps from Spellbinders. Cute image isn't it? I thought that little elephant might double up for a new baby card too..minus the presents of course.

Hope you get a bit of crafty time to join in this week - can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Claire x

PTI January 2015 Blog Hop

G'day everyone!

For those of you in Australia, hope you are having a wonderful Australia Day - I had all these lovely plans for beaches, swimming and fishing with the kids but unfortunately the rain has put a stop to all that.

It has given me time to have a quick play with paper for this month's PTI Blog Hop though, where the theme is love and specifically hearts:

Mine is very CAS since the link closes in about an hour.  I have the perfect stamp set for this challenge - Heart Prints - but I only used one of the sentiments.  For the image, I partially stamped a pattern using Watercolour Wonder and die cut the heart.  I then used a touch of Wink of Stella to give the ink a bit of sparkle.

Off for a coffee now to have a nose at everyone's creations - thanks for popping by,

Claire x

Colour Q #276

Hello folks!

Can you believe that Tuesday's rolled around again? It doesn't seem two minutes since I posted for Colour Q last week - is it me, or does time go a lot quicker as we get older?

I love this week's colours but I have to admit my 'coastal cabana' looks a little more 'tempting turquoise' in the photo.  I can assure you, it looks a lot more 'coastal' in real life!

I'm entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge too - as you probably know, (unless you've been hibernating under a blogland rock) that's 'never before used schtuff'.  I bought these floral Penny Black stamps a few weeks ago so I could practise my Copic colouring...pretty aren't they? In fact, so pretty I stamped a few partial blooms and didn't even add a drop of colour.

Make sure you give some love to the rest of the DT won't you - there's some wonderful inspiration this week!

Thanks for popping by,

Claire x

Paper Smooches Sparks

Hello again.

Just a quick card for the latest Paper Smooches Sparks challenge:

I used one of their stand alone dies - Flowers - with a sentiment from Sentiment Sampler. It's one of those cards which hasn't quite turned out how I envisioned it...I seem to struggle with the rustic look. I used kraft card stock, together with cream, white and silver sparkle paper but I think I should have added some chocolate brown in there too.  Nothing like the benefit of crafty hindsight hey?

Thanks for stopping,

Claire x

Time for a Three-fer

Hello again,

It's been such a long time since I played along with the Muse challenge but I was determined to have a bash at it this week with this beautiful card by Michele for inspiration:

Pretty obvious where I've drawn the inspiration from isn't it? I love the way Michele has cut a little window for her image and kept the card so clean and simple. And since I've kept mine very CAS I'm going to enter it into this week's Casology challenge too.  They've joined together with Darnell for an NBUS challenge - that's 'never before used schtuff' - and we all have heaps of that don't we? I treated myself to a packet of Spectrum Noir markers last week so this is my first go at using them. They're the 'poor crafters' Copic' aren't they? I have to say, I really like them and if you're not ready to commit a zillion dollars to buy a heap of Copics I can thoroughly recommend them.

Well that's all from me folks. Trying to write a blog post whilst having a very serious game of Monopoly with the kids is not the easiest.  I'm really quite surprised what little capitalists they've turned into.....

Catch you later,

Claire x

Colour Q #275

Hello blogging friends!

It feels an age since I last posted - we've just spent a couple of days camping in an area called Myall Lakes, North of Sydney. We were surrounded by the biggest Goannas I've ever seen - it was a true Aussie experience in the bush. At least it was only Goannas this time...last year we were accompanied by a Red Belly Black snake in a tree about 5 metres away from our tent.  The children came back utterly filthy...they really do just seem to attract the dirt - can someone tell me if this is only a boy thing or do little girls get just as dirty?!

Moving on, it's time for this week's Colour Q challenge:

 It was one of those rare times when I had all the required colours so I stamped a background with WMS' Folk Art Medallion. That was the easy part - the hard part was creating a card with such a busy background so I looked to Retro Sketches for a bit of help and as usual it delivered! I die cut a panel out of vellum which softened the pattern a little, then added the sentiment to a second plain panel of card stock. The little blooms are Paper Smooches stand alone dies.

Hope you get the time to get crafty this week - thanks for stopping,

Claire x

'Winter' Inspiration

Evening folks!

It's official - the kids are driving me ever so slightly bonkers! We're half way through the Summer holidays here - Christmas is over, the presents have been played with, visitors have been and gone and we've now hit the boredom phase!

Thank goodness there are some new challenges for 2015 to keep me sane -I combined a couple of them to make this little card:

I love the Wintry graphic in the Curtain Call challenge, although I wish I'd used a little more white, rather than kraft.  Looking at it now, it kind of looks quite Summery!  I stamped the background with a WMS woodgrain stamp, added a felt flourish and a couple of SU blooms. The silver one has been embossed in pewter and I added some Liquid Pearls to the centre for a bit of texture.  No sentiment...for the simple reason I couldn't fit one on! I also used the latest sketch from Mojo Monday for a little sketchy guidance.

Thanks for coming over,

Claire

First Colour Q of 2015!

Happy New Year bloggers!

So how has 2015 been so far? Broken your New Years resolutions yet?  I've been way too busy to even make any resolutions but getting some more cards in would be nice. I seem to be making an average of one a week at the moment - Christmas, visitors, New Year and kid's holidays just keep getting in the way and I can't see it changing until the kidlets go back to school at the end of the month.

Good thing the first Colour Q challenge for the year is up and running then:

The kids and I had a few days in Canberra over New Year with Nanny and Poppy - it gave me a chance to catch up with my lovely friend Deanne. Now very few friends of mine Down Under make cards (make that 2) so when I see Deanne, I'm able to unleash my inner card nerd and have a nose at all her lovely new products. And of course borrow them. She lent me a heap of Mama Elephant stamps and dies but I have to say I don't really think I've done them justice.  When life's busy the mojo just doesn't flow does it? (It didn't help that I have none of the required colours in ink and had to resort to a combination of markers and distress inks!)  

I'm sure I'll be having another play with all the borrowed goods soon enough.   Hope the mojo has begun to flow for you with the start of 2015....and if not, go and check out the rest of the DT's gorgeous efforts!

Thanks for popping over,

Claire x