Thinking of you

Unfortunately I didn't have any sympathy/thinking of you cards left in my basket at home and even worse is that I think I'm going to need one soon :( So I set out to make a suitable card and turned to the fabulous inspiration of Teneale. I am always amazed at Teneale's creations - the depth and layering of stamping is beyond words. Not only that but she finishes the inside of her cards as beautifully as the front. For my card I was actually inspired by the inside of this card. I kept the colours muted and not too dark. That may seem odd, but sometimes I think dark sympathy cards can be depressing in themselves.

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI life, through the trees, text style
Inks - PTI chai, chamomile
Paper - SU
Twine

hello, friend

Hello, friend. Isn't that just the sweetest sentiment! This card seems particularly appropriate as we have been trying to plant lots of pots up this year to add colour to our garden. I used the colours from this weeks Play Date Cafe Challenge. No surprise that I love lime, so it was pretty much a given that I would make a card for these colours:

I inked up the flower pot in smokey shadow and then kissed a polka dot stamp to the body of the pot. I think it gives the pot a weather look - just like my pots!

I also kept in mind the CAS116 challenge on Splitcoast to use the "artists rule of 3". Now when you first look at my card you will be thinking there isn't 3 of anything there - just one flower! However, I used 3 colours (red, lime and grey) and used 3 elements of the strongest colour (red) in the scalloped border, flower and button.

So did you watch the Royal Wedding - don't they make a cute couple!

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI green thumb (flower pot), flower fusion 1 (leaves), beautiful blooms (flower), polka dot basic II, tiny tags (sentiment)
Inks - PTI smokey shadow, American Crafts rouge, cricket
SU old olive striped grosgrain ribbon
SU designer button
SU tag punch
Twine

The Union Jack

Today I'd like to share a card with you I saw the other day that stopped me in my tracks. This one here by the amazing Aimes (perhaps a nickname in the making!), who isn't just a fabulous blogger but a really lovely person to boot. I love the depth of the colours in her card, the offset flag and the wonderful CAS style. Here it is in all it's bright, graphic loveliness:

The Union Jack is everywhere in the UK at the moment. We already had the build up to the 2012 Olympics in London (my application for tickets is in) and then there's a certain wedding going on today too! The flag isn't being used just on some slightly twee royal wedding souvenirs and such but also in more cutting edge designs, for example, I saw it used as the lining to a trendy hoody the other day. Which is another reason why I loved Aimes card so much - right on trend. It is also why I thought my son would love a version of this card (minus the love birds!).  Here's a snippet of the card I made if only so you can understand the slight terror that is building up inside me - soon I will have a teenager in the house!!

If you haven't already - pop on over to Aimes blog. It's well worth a visit. And if you want to see more red, white and blue here's a couple of images from Pinterest

Source: delysiastyle.com via Molly on Pinterest

Source: weheartit.com via Jasilyn on Pinterest

Debby

Hippo Birthday!

The inspiration for this weeks Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab certainly screamed boy card to me! I loved the way the circles were staggered down the pattern. So with circle die and a bunch of card in hand I set about recreating a little piece of cute spots. Add in an even cuter felt hippo and this is what you get!

So, are you going to watch the Royal Wedding tomorrow? We get an extra day off here in the UK. I'm sure we will turn the TV on at some point, but equally the weather just recently has been absolutely fabulous and I might take the opportunity to take the kiddos out for some fresh air.

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI tiny treats birthday
Inks - Versafine onyx black
Card - SU real red, bashful blue, more mustard, basic gray
Dies - Spellbinders circles
Felt hippo - Sassafras fuzzy friends

Casing Keva

Keva is a fabulous blogger who has been in my Google Reader for some time. For her recent blogaversary she set a challenge to case one of her cards and is very generously giving away a $25 gift certificate. I chose this lovely:

I liked the scallops set on to the kraft, with the floral element to the right and the sentiment taking centre stage. So this is what I came up with!

Set on to rustic white cardstock, the colours are more muted than I've been using recently. The bramble replaces Keva's flower and the strip of green and leaf at the bottom represent the ribbon. I went for a small square card simply because the image I was using was on the petite side!

Hop on over to Keva's blog and join in the fun!

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - SU clearly for you, elegant thank you
Inks - SU old olive and ruby red markers
Card - PTI kraft, rustic white, SU real red, old olive
Dies - PTI scallop, spellbinders

Love you

I hope you had a lovely Easter weekend. We had a lovely time catching up with friends and family and managed a day on the beach and a day by a mountain lake too. Beautiful!

Well for today's card I turned to some fab inspiration. I used the colours from CR84FN25, the sketch from Sweet Sunday # 114 (I turned the sketch 90 degrees) and some design elements from Erin's card here! You know sometimes when you feel like you need a little help to get started!

This card is for my fabulous and loving husband - tomorrow we have been married 15 years! My husband isn't overly concerned about card design (no surprise there for most men), however he does prefer things simple. So I kept everything minimal, as seems to be my thing at the moment too. I'm hoping he likes it!

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI love songs, flower fusion 1
Inks - Versafine onyx black
Card - PTI kraft, SU tempting turquoise, poppy parade
Dies - PTI love lives here
Twine

Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop Challenge

 Yes! it's PTI blog hop time! The brief this month:

"is dedicated to all the boys and men in our lives! Now's your chance to create Father's Day projects, boy birthday cards and more to build up your stash! Focus on masculine color schemes, fresh pattern combinations, understated embellishments and unique uses of images you may already have in your stash!"

Well in my household the boys like things simple and to a set colour scheme. Nothing that can remotely be deemed girly! For our littlest boy blue and orange fit the bill. So blue and orange it is! I used a star die to create a negative mask for some happy birthday sentiment stamps. I did a similar card here with flowers. A bit of twine and a button (hopefully that won't be ruled as girly) to finish it off.

I must dash as I'm writing this before heading out for the weekend and I really should be packing! I will schedule this post on Monday for the hop!

Hope your Easter weekend has been fabulous. Hop! Hop!

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI birthday basics, birthday bash sentiments
Ink - American Crafts wave
Twine
Button - The Ribbon Girl

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to those that celebrate! Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here - we dashed away on Friday to spend Easter with family. My husband's family live in the mountains of Wales but it is equally a short drive to the beach too. A perfect holiday location all in all. We have been enjoying seeing friends and family and eating far too much!

I don't have anything to share except my Easter wishes - have a lovely day!

Debby

Jot this down

I wanted to squeeze one more of the Moxie Fab challenges in before the deadline, so here's my project for The Little Gifts Challenge - a covered notebook.

I love this Stampin' Up paper - so clean, graphic and fun. These colours together just scream summer to me! They are from the latest Totally Hues challenge.

Here's the colour palette from Totally Hues:

I have a thing about notebooks. The paper has to be of a certain quality, lined as I can't write in a straight line to save my life and well the notebook just has to have that you know "something"! One of my favourite brands is Moleskine and for this project I used a small kraft notebook of theirs. They have cute details like a built in pocket on the inside of the back cover. It's the little things that count!

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI fillable frames 1, take note
Ink - American Crafts powder, SU early espresso
Card - PTI simply chartreuse, raspberry fizz
Paper - SU!
Dies - PTI fillable frame 1, beautiful blooms II
Button - the ribbon girl

Tuesday trigger textural tag!

Try saying that fast three times! Here's this week's Tuesday Trigger from Moxie Fab:

Isn't that inspiration gorgeous! I wanted to try and capture the colours and dimension of the bouquet. I reached for some dies and felt and created three flowers for a sweet tag. I cut a large beautiful blooms II # 2 die from a scrap of peach felt then cut a spiral into the die cut before winding it around itself to make a flower. I used another beautiful blooms die, this time # 3, to cut a piece of harvest gold felt before adding a prima flower to finish that bloom off. Finally I cut a small blossom die from vintage cream felt, folded it in half, then in half again, sewed up the side and added a tiny pink pearl. I grouped the flowers, as in the inspiration photo, on some green leaves. Phew - you still with me! Here's the finished tag:

I'm also adding this to the Royal wedding celebration challenge at A Passion for Papertey as I think it would make a cracking tag for a wedding present.

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI flower fusion #1
Ink - SU early espresso
Card - PTI simply chartreuse, rustic white
Dies - PTI mat stack 4, beautiful blooms II #2. beautiful blooms II #3, Spellbinders blossom, Sizzix leaves
Ribbon - PTI sweet blush
Prima flower
Hero arts pearl

Another for PDCC#77

Popping in to fit another card in for the latest Play Date Cafe Challenge.

Keeping it brief as I need to get tea on the table!

Debby

Fishy thank you

I've been wanting to play along with The Play Date Cafe's challenges recently, but sometimes things just get in the way! However, this week I was determined to make time. The children are back in school (if only briefly) so I decided to make a thank you card for a lovely gentleman who took my daughter for her first fishing lesson. We'd not met the teacher before, but he turned out to be a lovely gentleman with a passion for the sport. He taught her for a couple of hours and then at the end presented her with her own rod and an invitation to come back as his guest in a week or so time! What a star, she didn't stop smiling for the rest of the day. Added to which we had a lovely fish supper and stocked the freezer for another day too! Anyway, I guess you want to see some pictures!

I stuck to the colours to the very last element of the card and then for the life of me I couldn't find any fish stamps or embellishments that fit the bill. Everything I had seemed too cutesy for a guy. Then I remember these little fun foamy fish which I felt were perfect. My apologies for the deviation from the colours though!

Debby

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI mat stack 4, SU clearly for you, Lavinia stamps reeds
Inks - PTI new leaf, Versafine vintage sepia, SU early espresso
Card - SU soft suede
Dies - PTI cloud die, Spellbinders squares
Fish - American Crafts

Just a note

When I saw the latest inspiration for the Embellish challenge I knew they were colours I had to play with! Including crochet trim for the challenge was a tricky one for me. I did have a scrap of trim left over from another project, but it's not something I ususally turn to so this challenge was, well, challenging!

I used a new Stampin' Up set that I've been desperate to use - Clearly For You. Aren't those three birds the cutest!

Debby
Supplies:

Stamps - SU clearly for you, PTI tiny tags
Inks - SU taken with teal, early espresso, PTI chamomile
Card - PTI rustic white
Paper - My Mind's Eye stella rose hattie
Dies - Spellbinders circles, PTI cloud
Ribbon - Angela Liguori
Crochet trim
Button - Ribbon Girl
Twine

Make it Monday - masking

Just popping in here briefly before heading out on children's taxi service duties! I wanted to share I card I made for this weeks PTI Make It Monday challenge. The challenge was to use dies as a masking tool. I cut a large and a medium flower from beautiful blooms dies and used the negative space as masks for stamped sentiments.

For the medium flower I stamped various "happy" sentiments from my collection and then for the large flower I did the same but with "birthday" sentiments. Before lifting the mask I used a paper piercer to highlight the edges of the mask. I love how bright and fresh this card feels. A bit of twine and a few fab buttons from The Ribbon Girl and I called it done. A totally one layer card!

I'm also going to post this over to A Passion For Papertrey's spring challenge.

Debby

Gift wrapping

I love to take extra time to wrap a gift so that it looks beautiful. All the little touches of paper, ribbon, tags - it's just what I do. Wrapping a gift for a friend who you know will appreciate the effort makes the process even more enjoyable! So I had a ball wrapping the gifts for my good and crafty friend Judy (our Irish treasure).

The idea for the wrapping started with a tiny die - one of the beautiful bloom dies from Papertrey Ink. You see my friend loves daisies and I so wanted to incorporate them in the wrapping. I die cute the flowers from harvest gold felt and then stamped the flower fusion #1 leaves on to a mat stack 4 die cut stamped in sweet blush. A bit of bakers twine finished it all off.

I used some Crate Paper from the Lillian Collection kit to wrap two smaller presents then added some ribbon and the tags.

For two larger presents, I wrapped them first in kraft paper before adding a few glitter borders and die cuts from the kit. A few cute buttons and all done!

Well except that presents wouldn't be complete without a matching card!

I'm going to pop this project in to Moxie Fab's gift wrap challenge and also A Passion For Papertrey's spring challenge.

Any guesses as to the contents of the parcels? Big hints - the two larger presents measure 12x12, one of the smaller presents is 6x6, oh and the final present is the size of a PTI stamp set!

Debby

Spring card and gift card holder

Well heeeellllooooo! Anyone still there? Sorry to not have called by here recently, but the post holiday to do list kept me away from my stamps for longer than I'd hoped.

There's an old UK TV advert which says something like "does what it says on the tin", well our holiday was just that! Sunshine, pool, beaches, books and a bit of exploring - just what we wanted, just what we needed, just what we hoped for and just what we got!! Anyway, I guess you are here to see some pictures. I needed a card and gift card holder for a friend's birthday. The gift card holder is in line with Moxie Fab's challenge. In addition, the weather here has been unusually warm and beautiful, so I went for a spring feel, which so happens to fit with A Passion for Papertrey's current challenge. Two challenges in one!

So here's the card which I based on this one.

Here's the gift card:

And here are the two together:

I'm keeping it brief today as I still have a mountain to achieve and 3 kiddos to keep me company. Not that I'd have it any other way, but a few more hours in the day would be nice!

Debby

Ready for the off

The bags are packed and we are off to bed for a few hours sleep. I'd like to say that I had some scheduled posts prepared, but I'm sorry I just haven't had time. See you in week or so!

Debby

On your 75th

Here's another card that needs to get to the post office before we head off on our holiday.

Pretty straight forward for a guy card I think. I added the leaf die cuts (again!) because, well I like them and also the recipient is a bit of a gardener!

I'm at the packing phase where I'm now actually putting piles into bags and starting to think about weight allowances! Not long to go now.

Debby