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