Waltzingmouse Blog Hop

Okay, so I know this was supposed to be yesterday, but I was composing the card in my head - I only have two of Claire's stamp sets (at the moment) so did not have a massive amount of choice - especially with the theme of Mother's Day. I decided on a simple sentiment 'with gratitude' and love the apples from the Peace and Plenty set. I had a great deal of trouble colouring the background, it should have been a lot smoother than this, but I don't think that chalk inks are the best ones for doing a soft blended background - will have to try chalks next time.

Anyway, hope you like, and I'm off to hop (boing! boing!)

Just Magnolia Challenge

Okay, so I'm cutting it fine getting this one entered for the challenge blog, but it's taken me a while to finish. I cannot take all of the credit for this card either, I got the idea for the lattice cut out from Jane's lovely cards, and thought that instead of the flowers and butterflies, it would work really well with snowflakes.

The icicles at the top are not really meant to be icicles, but is the Martha Stewart Drippy goo punch - think it works quite well as icicles!

Anyway, I really enjoyed making this - even if it did take forever to glue the snowflakes together & I hope Jane doesn't mind too much that I've used her idea (but it was such a fabulous one!). Thanks for looking!

Just for Fun

Well this card was just for fun, I picked out an old Sketch Saturday layout as it seemed to fit the image, and then just went to town.

The image was part of my FREE goodie bag from Just Tracy's opening day yesterday, and I was determined to make use of the wonderful set of stamps that I got. The backing paper was a Papermania double sided foam printed paper (I hate using double sided paper as it always seems such a waste that you can only see one side when its stuck down. The flowers were a new experiment from me, and a tutorial for them can be found on another Rachel's blog. The brown dots above the sentiment are made with Adirondack Acrylic in Expresso - I think they are too close together, but too late now.

I love how this card has turned out & if you like the stamps, just go to Just Tracy's website, and you can order them with FREE postage and packing!

Till later....

Just Tracy's

Well today was finally the day & Tracy has opened her bricks and mortar shop AND ITS FABULOUS!!!! A huge well done to Tracy, Karen and all of their very understanding and hard working families - all of the effort was well worth it and there is some lovely stock there (and plenty more to come).

I spent way more than the £30 I originally intended to, but I've got some lovely new papers, a couple of new stamps, a Martha Stewart punch (yes another one!), a beautiful dreamweaver stencil and some embossing paste.

Anyway, I found another challenge blog to have a go at (Crafty Catz), and wanted to make use of one of my new stamps, so here it is (apologies for the colouring - not my best, and neither is the photography).

Elzybells challenge 40 & Creative Inspirations 55

Well, decided to combine 2 challenges in 1 this time as they seemed to fit. The Elzybells challenge for the fortnight is to make a circular card & I wanted to use the lovely stamps from their clear stamp set Rubadubdub. The challenge with Creative inspirations was to use Brown, Blue and green on a card, seemed to my mind a match made in heaven!

The backing paper is from the Clare Curd signature range (came in a pack of 200 and I'm beginning to think I will still be using this paper when I'm 70 - there is so much of it!), and I used lots of dew drops as they have that lovely bubbly quality.

Before you say anything, yes the card is wonky, but I figured if I gave it to a girlfriend along with some wine and chocolate then all would be forgiven - it might even look straight after a glass or two! Anyway, hope you like

Creative Inspirations Challenge No. 54

Yay, back again - wasn't sure I was going to take part in this one, I've always been a stamper. But I thought 'no Rachel, you have to challenge yourself' (thats why they are called challenges - doh!).

Anyway, this one is well outside my comfort zone as I'm also very new to distressing (but love seeing it when other people do it), the challenge this week was to use a sentiment only and no stamping. The reason for taking part is that I've had two Hot off the Press Card Quote books for absolutely years sat on my shelves doing nothing that I really thought should get dusted off and used, also used a couple of Skeleton leaves that have been hiding away as well.

Well, hope you like & will try and return soon with some more cards.

Sketch Saturday No. 97

Well I'm back again with another challenge. It's one of my niece's birthday on Tuesday and I needed to get a card sorted, flicking through the challenge blogs, the one on Sketch Saturday just screamed at me.

Think I'm getting better at picking colour schemes and coordinating everything (opening myself up to be shot down in flames by those who don't like the bright colour scheme - but the niece in question is only going to be 8). I started with the sketch, picked an image and sentiment, then found a background paper that I liked and coordinating plain papers, and only then coloured my image so that it had some of the colours from the background paper. I don't know if that's how everyone else does it but it seems to be working for me at the moment.

I did play with the layout slightly on this as the image I picked was the other way round from the sketch, and I moved the sentiment from the left to the right of the image - don't know why but I just thought it looked better there.

Anyway, hope you all like - oh, by the way, if there is anyone who stops by and actually looks at my blog - you must go to just tracy's and support the grand opening of her bricks and mortar shop on Saturday 10th April - I soo cannot wait, not only will she have loads of wonderful cardmaking stuff, but loads of other crafts and knitting too!!!