Waltzingmouse #108

Hi fellow bloggers,

Hope you're all having a great week. I've just had my first weekend at home, all on my own, in almost 4 years. I had my first full nights sleep in months and felt like a new woman when I woke up on Saturday morning at 8.30am!  Saturday afternoon was spent at a friends 40th lunch, overlooking the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, on a beautiful, sunny Winter's day. What more can a girl ask for?

I came home and attempted to do Waltzingmouse sketch challenge #108, but since I spent half the night trying to tie a bow, the moral to this story is don't drink and craft. A few glasses of champers and wine, followed by a few more does nothing to get that mojo going! So, I've got a couple of cards to show you for this - the first doesn't exactly resemble the original sketch so I reckon I'd be pushing it to enter it into the challenge:

I've embossed the star from the Seasons of Love stamp set and put it over a stamped doile from the Dainty Dolies (small) set. I've edged the star and the cardstock in gold and added the bow. Amazing how much quicker it is to tie a bow when you're drinking coffee and not champagne eh?

Anyway, moving on, I had a another attempt at the sketch:

This time I used the Vintage Labels set on top of another stamped doile. The scroll behind the flower is also from the Seasons of Love set and the the sentiment from Asian Gardens. much more like the sketch I think!

That's all for this one folks!
Happy crafting and thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Another Saturday Sketch

Hi Scrappers,

I've been having a play with some Kaisercraft goodies again, this time for their July sketch #2:

Now I have to admit I found this a real challenge. There's so many different elements to it, as well as multiple photos, but it was great getting out of my comfort zone:

There's normally a lot more white space on my layouts but I like how it's turned out. I used a couple of different collections for this, Attitude and Technologic. I painted the back of the accetate with some orange/red paint which was actually mixed in with some crackle medium. (And yet again it's just not cracked. I don't think crackle medium and I have a very good relationship unfortunately!) I guess I could have made it a lot more grungier, but inking the edges in black is about as grungy as I get - looks great on other people's layouts, but I never like it on my own.

Hope you have a great, scrappy weekend and thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

CR84FN59

Hi again,

CR84FN have got another great colour challenge this week:

Now I don't have much in the way of coral so I've picked the nearest I've got. I used the Waltzing Mouse doile set of stamps for this one - the background was stamped in brown, on to brown Crate Paper and I've layered a couple of the stamps with a woven doile from Websters Pages. I didn't have any brown bling (can you get brown bling?!) so I used a copic marker to colour in some pearls. Nothing like making do with what you've got eh?

I feel a scrapbook page coming on next....thanks for visiting,

Claire x

Waltzing with New Stamps!

Morning all,

Well, the postie finally delivered my new Waltzingmouse stamps so I had a bit of a play last night using this week's sketch. Anyone reading this blog lately would probably think I've been sponsored by MME (now that would be nice) as I seem to keep using their papers on everything. So I was determined to steer clear of it this time and reached for some Japanese Yuzen papers instead - perfect for using with the Asian Gardens set:

I've adjusted the sketch a little bit, as the slanted strip of paper just wasn't working on my square card. I've embossed some gold metal shim and embossed the tree stamp using gold and black powders on some vellum. It worked surprisingly well, although I decided to cut it out and put it on a clean sheet of vellum - that pesky black emboss powder gets everywhere!

So there you have it - and not a bit of MME in sight!

Thanks for stopping by, have a fabulous day

Claire x

Little Sunshine Girl

Hi Scrappers,

Hope you're all having a lovely week and winding down with a glass (or two) for the weekend. I've been playing around with this months sketch challenge over at Scrapville:

How lovely to scrap a girl for a change - and not a bit of pink in sight.  I mainly used the MME Sunny Side pack for this one, with a few bits and pieces of chipboard. The background was a little too heavy for my liking, especially with all those other patterns, so I whitewashed it with gesso first.  I doodled the daisies on to some bazzil and added a Kaisercraft splodge for the centres to match the t-shirt in the photo. That's pretty much the extent of my drawing skills I'm afraid!

If you fancy having a go at the challenge, head over here to check out how to play and for a chance to win some goodies.

Have a fabulous weekend and thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Hopping Mad

Hi folks,

Well I'm not really hopping mad but Australian snail mail failed to deliver my new stamps from Waltzingmouse in time for this months blog hop, despite Claire posting them almost 2 weeks ago. If I didn't have a card to make I'd be crying into my (very large) glass of wine!

Because I was hoping they would arrive, I left the card to the last minute, so I had a little help and used a sketch for my inspiration, this time from Mojo Monday:

The theme for this month is the great outdoors so I immediately thought flowers. I used that gorgeous little Sizzix die cut again - I've been searching for something like this for months but just couldn't find what I was looking for. It's the perfect size for these Nestie labels and makes for a very quick card!

I covered the Nestie label with some Tim Holtz crackle glaze but I don't think it's worked properly. I seem to have terrible trouble with crackle glaze - maybe I'm just not spreading a thick enough layer on? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! The stamps used are from the Very Vintage labels set and Fancy Phrases. My Asian Gardens set would have been perfect for this hop...did I tell you the post hasn't arrived...?

Thanks for hopping by and for any comments - I always love reading them!

Happy Hopping!


Claire x

Time for a Scrapville Sketch...

...but it's a little too late for anyone to enter the sketch competition as we were a bit pushed for time this month! Not to worry, there's a new sketch on the Scrapville blog to play with - get your entries in by midnight on August 14th and be in the running to win some scrappy goodies.

In the meantime, here's the layout I did for the June/July sketch:

All I can say is thank goodness for digital cameras. In order to get two decent photos of me and the kids on Mothers Day, my hubbie had to take 82 photos! Can you imagine if we still had to use 35mm film and take them to the photo shop to get them developed - we'd all be bankrupt and we'd have rubbish pics!

Hope you can have a play with this months sketch and thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

CR84FN58 and Waltzingmouse

Hi Scrappers,

Another gorgeous set of colours at CR84FN this week - red, yellow and neutral. I've combined them with the Waltzingmouse sketch challenge:

 I'm still waiting for my new stamps to arrive from Waltzingmouse and I know they were posted at least 10 days ago but Australian snail mail still hasn't turned up with them! Anyway, here's what I did:

Fingers crossed the postie arrives with the goods tomorrow - it's blog hop time at WMS and I'd love to have a play with them.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Proud Scrappy Moment

Hi all,

Ok, so I realise now why there should be labels on my blog. It's something I've never used but wish I had as I've just spent the last 20 minutes scrolling down to see if I 'd put this layout on here:

Unbelievably it was on the front cover of Scrapbooking Memories in February - let's face it, it really is the simplest of layouts. When I showed it to my son in the supermarket he didn't blink an eye and thought it absolutely normal that he should be plastered on the front of a magazine. I'm sure when he reaches his teens he'll be hideously embarrassed, poor kid.

Anyway, I really was one very proud scrapper that day!

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Scrapville's New Pack

Hi Scrappers,

I've just returned from a few days in Canberra and I've only just started to defrost.  It was -5 most nights, the coldest it's been in 33 years and a real reminder of my pommy upbringing in freezing Old Blighty! I knew there was a reason I left....

I managed to do a bit of scrapping (despite the frozen fingers) with this months pack from Scrapville. This time it's full of papers by Authentique, from their 'Fresh' collection. It's really nautical so I went for a beach theme:

I used some texture paste on the layout and coloured it with Glimmer Mist to give a sandy effect. The red netting kind of reminds me of fishing nets so I used that behind part of the photos.

I'm pretty much over Winter now, especially looking at these photos...I sometimes wonder how on earth I coped when I had to put up with Winters that seemed to last about 6 months! Roll on Summer..

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

40 Year Old Me ((WMS # 104)

Hello Scrappers,

I had my 40th earlier this year so took the unusual step of actually scrapping myself. Horrendous photo but it's the best of a bad bunch taken with an i-phone. I would have loved to have taken my camera along but since I left my handbag hanging in a bar toilet it was probably a wise choice when I decided to leave it at home! Unbelievably the handbag, complete with purse, phone and house keys was still there when I remembered a short time later!

I wanted to do a scrapbook page for the Waltzingmouse sketch challenge this week. Here's the sketch:

And here's the page on yours truly:

I used heaps of different stamps from the Vintage labels and Fancy Phrases sets - all stuff I've done before on my cards but I was really keen to try them out on a scrapbook layout as well.

I've actually ordered some new stamps now - about time as I've been meaning to do it for ages, so hopefully there'll be a different take on the sketch challenge in the coming weeks!

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Spreading the Love

Hi Bloggers,

I'm all for spreading the word if it's about a great product (and the added bonus of potentially winning a prize!) Waltzingmouse Stamps has just released a whole load of new stamps, including some mini sets. My favourite is this one:

The sets are only 3 x 4 inches and are really good value - check out the blog here to see some more of these new sets, as well as some new standard size ones.

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Stamp It! Cards Hello Challenge

Hi bloggers,

Over at Moxie Fab World Stamp It Cards are having a 'hello' challenge - in other words you need to create a hello card, with the main focus being stamping. I combined this with the latest Play Date Cafe challenge:

PDC don't often have a four colour challenge - my 'dusk' is a little brighter than the chosen colours this week. It was the closest I could get! The cotton candy colour is actually Stampin' Up's Blushing Bride and I've stamped it on to the background with some citrus yellow using the Stampin' Up Reason to Smile set. The background has been done with Waltzingmouse stamps from the Fancy Phrases set. I love the hello sentiment - it's just the right size to squeeze it on to an image. I seem to use it all the time at the moment.

Hope you're all having a great weekend and thanks for stopping by,

Claire x