Colour Q #301

Hello there!

Did you manage to have a play with the Colour Q palette last week? If not, then why not have a play with these ones instead:

It was a bit of a struggle to find the colours in my stash for this one - my Midnight Muse is almost dry and I only have a very old (and almost empty) Cameo Coral marker from SU. In the end I opted to sponge a masked background using More Mustard distress ink, together with the marker and an apricot-like ink from Versamark.  At least I managed to squeeze just enough ink out of the Midnight Muse to stamp the Penny Black blossoms!

There's some really gorgeous cards by the rest of the DT this week - why not pop along to these lovely ladies blogs for some more inspiration:

Lisa

Jen

Sylvia

Amy

Kim

Happy stamping!

Claire x

All Lined Up!

G'day!

Quick post today for Casology  - the cue word this week is 'line':

I white embossed a triple line stamp from Mama Elephants Basic Borders, then coloured them in with  a variety of markers. The 'hello' die cut is from MFT.  The hardest part was the colouring...so difficult to keep within the lines!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Claire x

Papertrey Ink - July Blog Hop

Hello!

The cards are getting few and far between at the moment - we have family arriving from the US next week so most of my time seems to be spent cleaning rather than inking. So not happy about that - but all worth it when I get to meet my youngest little nephew for the first time!

I did manage to squeeze a card in for Papertrey Ink's July blog hop, based on this pretty inspiration photo:

Apparently 'blue and green should never be seen' but I think they look quite pretty when combined together, don't you? I used Butterfly Kisses (the first PTI set I ever bought) together with some die cut Circle Scribbles, courtesy of the lovely Anita. I covered a couple of them with Versamark and embossed them in pewter embossing powder.  It doesn't show up too well in the photo but they almost look like spun metal in real life.

Hope you get time to get inky for PTI today - thanks for stopping,

Claire x

Colour Q #300!

G'day folks - hope you're having a great Tuesday!

Can you believe we're having our 300th Colour Q challenge? What better way to celebrate than with a fun, bright palette - great colours for celebrating that special day:

I thought W Plus 9's Fresh Cut Florals would fit perfectly with the colours and with their latest sketch challenge. Inking them up was the easy part but it seemed to take ages to work out how to place them along the diagonal cut.  Don't forget, you can use a small amount of neutral colour - in this case, I used a strip of black patterned paper so that the flowers would look a little more vibrant.

Over at Seize the Birthday there's an 'Anything Goes' challenge so I'm going to link up over there too.

You've got until 12 midnight CST on Monday 27th July to join in with the challenge - why not go and check out the rest of the DT for some more inky inspiration?

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Nature's Call - Again

Hello again,

Here's my second Time Out card for their latest challenge - this one features flowers rather than critters and is based on this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Now this was a difficult sketch! Circles always throw me and it was a struggle for me to find something that worked - in the end I opted to make a square card as it seemed to be a better balance. I used a combination of Camelias from WMS and the leaves are from a Penny Black set called Blooming Garden. I've used a combination of Copics and Spectrum Noir markers which I love , but I do find they don't blend particularly well together. The Spectrum Noir's always seem to look a little patchy- which is probably why they are about a third of the price.  Does anyone else find this?

That's all for tonight...time to put the big kidlet to bed!

Thanks for popping by,

Claire x

All Things Nature

Hello folks!

Hope you're enjoying what's left of the weekend.

I've got a couple of quick cards to show with a nature theme - both are for Time Out's latest challenge which is 'nature with the optional twist of animals:'

Super CAS this one - I die cut one of SU's butterflies from Papillon Potpourri and used some distress inks to mask a background. I then added some embossed vellum butterflies and a sentiment from PTI.

Since I'm entering a couple of cards in the same challenge, I've had to create a second post. Scroll down if you fancy taking a peek!

Claire x

Colour Q #299

Hello bloggers!

Did you manage to play along with Colour Q last week? A week just never seems to be enough time for all these challenges does it?

Not to worry if you didn't manage to use last weeks colours - the latest hues are a gorgeous combo of rich and vibrant with soft and pretty and are sure to whet your inky tastebuds:

I received a lovely piece of happy mail from France last week, sent by the super talented Anita from My Papercraft World. I've always loved the card stock she uses and I mentioned a long time ago that I liked a certain die she had used for one of her cards. So she very kindly sent me some blank cards using said card stock, together with some die cut panels using said die.

I  made a very simple card by colouring a couple of die cut feathers using a combination of distress inks, an SU marker and dye ink. The colours haven't blended brilliantly but it's kind of worked. (The feather was a surprisingly good freebie with one of the Aussie paper craft mags a couple of months ago.) I'm sure all those little die cut squares are meant to be popped out of the card stock but I quite like the look of them like this...it adds some detail without overpowering the card.

Anyway, this little card will be winging its way to France at some point in the near future. Thank you Anita for your lovely goodies and for enabling me further in my obsession - that card stock is currently on order in the UK!

Enjoy your week!

Claire x

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #141

Hello stampers!

Are you ready for a brand new CAS-ual Fridays Challenge? Are you ready for two new CAS-ual Fridays challenges?  Don't forget, there's a brand new challenge for those of you who like to use layers and you can find it here at the Utterly Adorable Layers Challenge. 

This month we're focusing on embossing - any kind of embossing...you might want to get those folders out for some dry embossing or reach for the heat gun and powders for some heat embossing:

I used Bold Wishes for my card, together with the matching Funky Square Tag Die.  I used a combination of pewter, navy and bright blue powders to heat emboss the sentiment on to the tag. Underneath I stamped a row of the funky diamonds, which I embossed in white, then added 3 single diamonds in the blue. I also die cut one of the funky shapes to add a little detail to the base of the tag.

So are you ready to get your heat gun, powders and embossing folders out? Link up your clean and simple creations here by noon, July 31 to be in the running for a great prize.  Prefer layers?  Then link up your layered creations here for another chance to win!

Happy stamping - thanks for popping by!

Claire x

Colour Q #298

Good morning!

Are you having a good week? We've been flat out with in-laws, a 40th birthday party and various friends over for dinner. Not much time to get inky!

We have a soft, pretty palette for you over at Colour Q this week:

I have to admit, my mojo took a bit of a beating with all that purple. It's never been my 'go to' colour and I always struggle with using it. I was lucky enough to win some happy mail from Waffle Flower Crafts though - and doesn't some new stuff always help? I used some distress inks to colour some card in various shades of purple and mustard, then stamped and fussy cut the flowers and added some Glossy Accents to the centres. The bouquet has been coloured in with Spectrum Noir markers.

Hope you are able to join us this week - entry deadline is Monday 13th July at midnight CST!

Thanks for calling by!

Claire x

Playing with (Patterned) Paper

Happy 4th July weekend to those of you in the USA! Hope you are enjoying yourselves with friends and family!

Another day, another card - this time for Freshly Made Sketches #193:

I thought this was the perfect sketch for using up all those little scraps of patterned paper I accumulate - I reckon I have an entire tree in my stash (much to the environment's dismay.) A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to some new Waltzingmouse Stamps and dies called Coffee Set...because, you know, I really did need some new stamps...Cute aren't they? There's even a little stamp which looks like steam coming off the hot drink - I stamped it in a very pale brown but it may not show up in the pic.

Well that's all for now - off to a 40th tonight so time to spruce myself up a bit! It seems to take longer the older I get...

Thanks for stopping!

Claire x

Some Exciting News....

Hello folks!

I've been holding on to a little secret over the last few weeks and I'm now able to spill the card making beans so to speak. I'm now officially a Girl Friday on the clean and simple CAS-ual Fridays Design Team!  I was so excited when I got the email from Michele...the happy dancing went on for the entire day...much to the big bloke's amusement.

Did you know that CAS-ual Fridays are beginning a brand new challenge and it's especially for those of you whose style may not fall into the clean and simple category: it's the 'Utterly Adorable Layers Challenge' and it can be found on the new CAS-ual Chic blog.  And, even better news,  to celebrate the brand new challenge Michele is having a giveaway. One random winner will receive a prize from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps just by spreading the news.  In your next post mention the brand new CAS-ual Chic challenge with a link to the blog. Include the first challenge date of July 10th and leave a comment on the CAS-ual Chic blog by July 9th (midnight Eastern.)

Make sure you check out both blogs to see the amazingly talented ladies I'm joining on the team. There's a whole heap of talent for me to live up to!

In the meantime, here's a previous card made using CAS-ual Fridays fun WTF stamp set.

Thanks for popping by!

Claire x

'Pop!'

Hello bloggers!

There's a new cue word over at Casology and it really can be interpreted in a heap of ways. My head was buzzing with ideas for this one (and believe me, that's very unusual):

Unless you're English I'm not sure if anyone will get where I'm coming from with this.  When I was growing up in the UK we called soft drink 'pop.' My Aussie husband said it certainly wasn't called that Down Under but I'm not sure about anywhere else in the world? Maybe it's an English thing...
Anyway,  I thought these little Whimsy Stamps lemons would be the perfect things to pop on my card. Excuse the pun.

I happened to have used the gorgeous colours over at the The Card Concept again so I'm entering it over there under 'clean and simple.'

Catch you later!

Claire x