Seize the Birthday - Guest Designer

Hello inkers!

I'm delighted to be gatecrashing Seize the Birthday's party again as guest designer - they have a great new challenge for the next couple of weeks, the theme being 'balloons:'

I've got quite a few balloon themed stamps and dies in my stash but I went with this older Mama Elephant set, Up and Away, as I haven't inked it up for a while. I set it against a stencilled, sunny background and added some white space with the stitched cloud die cut. Hope he's wearing factor 50+ being that close to the sun!

Join the party and head on over to the very talented design team to see how they've been inspired!

Happy stamping!

Claire

MFT Sketch Challenge #642

Hello folks,

Love the latest sweet sketch over at MFT - it's perfect for all the little animal stamps in my stash so I used some cute critters from three different MFT sets for this one:

 

I inked the circles using Basic Shapes - Circles stencil and coloured one of Birdie Brown's Adorable Elephants, a Happy Hippo (retired) and the cute little chick is from Rain or Shine with a sentiment from Essential Sentiments.

Not quite sure how long it will be until I can send a baby card - I miss holding babies. So looking forward to when the next generation of babies come into my orbit when I can give them a cuddle - and then hand them back!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Lawn Fawn Challenge #146

Hello, hope you are having a great weekend!

I haven't joined in with a Lawn Fawn challenge for such a long time and I have lots of older Lawn Fawn sets that I haven't inked up in a while:

 

I initially tried to create a watercolored background drawing inspiration from the pic and using all the colours but after a series of muddy disasters I decided less is more.  I used  Blissful Botanicals and Flutter By with a little sentiment that came all by itself and hasn't even got a name on the pack - but definitely Lawn Fawn!

I wanted the bright, Copic coloured butterfly to really pop against the blooms so I stamped that in black and used the brightest colours but white embossed everything else to create a soft background with some yellow blooms. Took a while but I'm happy with how it turned out!

Happy stamping!

Claire

  

Less is More Colour Challenge

Hello again,

Quick card for Less is More's black and aquamarine colour challenge:

I stamped Avery Elle's Rounded Diamonds in aqua and black and stamped the Clearly Besotted bloom over the top in white EB. I then cut the bloom into 4 smaller rounded diamonds and placed them over the same stamped image in black, being careful to line everything up.

I like the style but I'm not sure I like those colours with the delicate bloom - I think it would look a lot better in pastel colours so I may have a go using those instead! What do you think?

Happy stamping!

Claire

Playing with Pastels

 Hello folks!

The Paper Players introduced a colour challenge this week featuring pastels. Pastels are probably my least used colours so this was definitely a challenge for me but the colours over at MFT gave me a push in the right direction:

I've managed to combine three challenges for MFT - colour challenge #208, sketch #640 and their Ready Set Christmas challenge. I used Freezin's Greetings with a sentiment from Bitty Holiday Wishes and a stencilled background from Memory Box. 

Happy stamping!

Claire

CAS Altenew Inspiration Challenge - April

Hello inkers and happy Easter!

It's been a very quiet Easter for us this year although I still managed to get my two big, blokey teens to do an Easter egg hunt in the garden - they'll do anything for chocolate, no matter how uncool they think it is!

Speaking of gardens, Addicted to CAS have a brand new challenge with the code word 'garden.' This worked well with Altenew's April Inspiration challenge:

I used three different Altenew sets for this CAS card - the Copic coloured bloom is from  Lotus Stamp and is set against a  background stamped with Halftone Squares with a sentiment from Blissful Blossoms. 

Happy stamping!

Claire

Colour Throwdown Meets Time Out

Hello inkers,

Loving the pretty colours over at the Color Throwdown this week and since the latest Time Out Inspiration photo features yellow blooms I thought I'd combine the two:

 

I've obviously been inspired by the flowers and used Altenew's Nostalgic Florals. The capital font on the sign made me think of some Poppy Stamp sentiments in my stash which combine capitals with lower case sentiments. The white brick background encouraged my to keep it clean - I was originally going to put the blooms against a grey background but then found a pretty strip of old dp so thought it would look better peeping out behind the scallop cut panel with a few leaves tucked behind. It's a brownish grey dp rather than blue-grey but hey, still grey!

This one's also going into the Seize the Birthday challenge with a theme of 'things in your garden.'

Thanks for popping by,

Claire