Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had enjoyable weekends; my Sunday saw the completion of Ben's history project with a very fetching Tudor-clothed peg doll, along with an Ann Boleyn and Ann of Cleeves for good measure, so I for one am happier although Ben seems rather relaxed about the whole thing - perhaps that's what happens when you're an 8 year old boy with a crafty Mummy!

Today I have a card for this week's sketch over at Pals Paper Arts:

This is a great sketch and as soon as I saw it I had a card in mind - I so love it when that happens! I need a few congratulations cards at the moment for different friends, colleagues and members of my team who have been achieving goals at the moment so that's what I decided to make using the vertical stamp in the 'Bravo' stamp set:

I took my colour combination from the 'It's My Party' Designer Series Paper - with 12 double-sided designs, this really is the stack that keeps on giving! I used the star-sprinkle pattern for my card today and I love the subtle layering of the diagonals where the patterned paper is cut away and the stripe of Mint Macaron runs across the top. My sentiment is stamped front and centre; I was originally intending to stamp this in Melon Mambo but switched to black to add more emphasis. I coloured in the stripes on some of the letters with my Stampin' Write markers and added a punched Crushed Curry star with a pink enamel dot to finish. This flat card was a relatively quick make for me so I made a few at the same time - bonus!

I have a morning of errands today and a few household chores in store, however I am hoping to get into my craft room this afternoon - wish me luck!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	It's My Party Designer Series Paper Stack	It's My Party Cardstock Pack	Whisper White A4 Cardstock	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad
2015-2017 In Color Stampin' Write Markers	Many Marvelous Markers	It's My Party Enamel Dots	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack

It's Thursday and time for a new challenge over at Create With Connie and Mary! This week we have a great sketch challenge for you:

This was one of those sketches that the minute I saw it, I knew exactly what I was going to do with those 'flowers' - to me, they looked just like the donuts with a bit taken out that feature on both one of the Cherry on Top DSP stack patterns and the Sprinkles on Top stamp set on page 7 of the annual catalogue. I don't have the latter but am definitely in love with the former, so that's where I was headed for my card this week:

I stayed with the square shape for my card and used a base of Pool Party with mats in Whisper White and Bermuda Bay. I then used another of the patterns from the Cherry on top DSP stack as my top layer and stamped my sentiment from the 'Bravo' stamp set in Watermelon Wonder directly onto the DSP. I then used a long, slim panel of Bermuda Bay, with one corner rounded t echo the shape of the base card, then adhered four little donuts, punched out of the DSP using my 3/4" circle punch, onto the panel using dimensionals. I finished with a double loop of Whisper White baker's twine to complete my card. 

So what do think - is this card sweet to you? Do check out how the other design team members have interpreted this week's sketch as we've all taken a different approach. As for me, I'll be back tomorrow with another project to share. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

It's Sunday, my favourite day of the week and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players. Thank you to everyone who played along with Sandy's colour challenge last week - so many fabulous cards in the gallery. This week it is the turn of my talented good friend Claire who has a great clean and simple challenge for us:

Summer treats - yum! When I started thinking about my card, I was all set to go down the ice-cream route, as in our lovely badge this week. Then two things happened: I saw this week's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and I received my SU! order containing some new DSP. Let me show you my card and I will explain what I mean:

I was swooning over my new DSP purchases, determined to open and use more of it than ever before (hoarding is no longer allowed!) when I came across the strawberry pattern  - hidden away in the 'Sweet L'il Things' DSP. I say hidden away, because when I saw this pack I thought the papers would be very baby-themed, yet this really isn't the case - there are some lovely patterns in there that can be used on all kinds of cards. For me, strawberries and cream are a quintessential part of the British summer and with the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament just around the corner we will all be eating them in vast quantities! The sketch layout was perfect for a CAS card to showcase this paper - a simple Very Vanilla mat and a banner stamped with my sentiment, from the 'Bravo' stamp set (I stamped it in Watermelon Wonder on Very Vanilla then stamped it again in Versamark over the top and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder for added shine).

So that's my CAS take on a summer treat! Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I look forward to seeing your summer treats in the gallery this week. I have a reasonably relaxing day planned today, which will make a nice change. Although today is Father's Day of course, so there will be a fair amount of pampering of the Dad in our household. Happy Father's Day to all the other Dads out there!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Sweet Li'l Things Designer Series Paper	Watermelon Wonder Classic Stampin' Pad	Watermelon Wonder A4 Cardstock	Very Vanilla A4 Cardstock
Banner Triple Punch

Happy Monday everyone! It is a happy one here in the James Household as the oldest of my James Juniors is 10 years old today! I will share her birthday card tomorrow, but for today I have another rather patriotic-themed card for this week's challenge over at Colour Me where they have the following striking colour combination: 

This was definitely calling for an all-out stars and stripes combo - so I dug out my SAB Irresistibly Yours paper and got sponging! I am also linking up with SUO Challenges again today as this card fits their theme of stars and stripes perfectly. Here's my card:

I just love how this card turned out! Some simply sponged panels in the challenge colours and the paper really does all the work - I'm so glad we now have the Colour Me Irresistible paper in the annual catalogue too. The stripes in the pack are diagonal so I cut the paper at an angle to straighten them up, added a 'Bravo!' stamp from the set of the same name and some stars cut with my Big Shot and star framelits to finish. Simply but I hope you agree, rather effective! 

That's all from me today - lots to do! Back tomorrow with a rather special birthday card to share; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' up! Supplies Used:

Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Color Me Irresistible Specialty Designer Series Paper	Big Shot	Stars Framelits Dies	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper
Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad	Night Of Navy A4 Cardstock	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad	Real Red A4 Cardstock	Whisper White A4 Cardstock

It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at the Paper Players. Thank you to everyone who played along with my challenge last week - your entries were awesome! This week it is the turn of the super talented Sandy and she has a fun colour challenge for us:

With the 4th of July not far away, there are lots of patriotic themed cards floating about the internet. Thought of American independence and the stars on this week's badge inspired me to create my card this week:

I chose to use the Congrats! stamp from the 'Bravo!' stamp set as my focal sentiment, stamped in Island Indigo onto my Pool Party base, and die cut some stars around it using my Big shot and Stars framelits to decorate. I used a couple of snippets of retired DSP behind the negative space (the indigo stripes are from the 'All Abloom' pack and the red stripes from the 'Fresh Prints' DSP stack) and popped some stars up on dimensionals for a little extra lift. A red glimmer star punched with my Itty Bitty star punch and a single rhinestone finish my card. 

This card is ready for one of my lovely team who is close to promoting this month; I am willing her to get there so am thinking positively and I know I'll be sending this out real soon. I'm also linking up to SUO Challenges where the challenge is appropriately 'stars and stripes'. Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I look forward to seeing your colourful creations in the gallery this week. I'm off to begin a couple of days of birthday celebrations - we are starting early and making the most of it - after all, you're only 10 once!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Stars Framelits Dies	Magnetic Platform	Big Shot	Rhinestone Basic Jewels
Island Indigo Classic Stampin' Pad	Island Indigo A4 Cardstock	Real Red A4 Cardstock	Pool Party A4 Cardstock	Red Glimmer Paper

It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players. You totally rocked Anne-Marie's sketch last week; this week it's the turn of the lovely Laurie, who has a tic-tac-toe challenge to stretch our creative brains:

I normally struggle with these, yet I seem to be on a real creative roll this week as I had a ton of different ideas and combinations for today's grid. I settled on combining my card with this week's sketch over at Pals Paper Arts and challenging myself to use something that I have lots of but sometimes use for little more than decorating an envelope: washi tape. I decided the sketch was perfect for showcasing some of the new Bohemian washi tape that I received with my pre-order goodies - here's my card:

I used a base of Delightful Dijon and a mat of Island Indigo, then cut a piece of Very Vanilla to the shape of the zig zag on the sketch. Starting at the zig zag end, I then covered my whole piece in strips of washi tape, creating an open herringbone effect and alternating between each of the three designs. Once I had covered the entire piece of cardstock, I adhered it to the card base using dimensionals. For my sentiment panel, I cut a rectangle of Very Vanilla and rounded the corners using my Project Life corner rounder and stamped it with the 'Hip Hip Hooray' greeting from the 'Bravo' stamp set in Island Indigo. I added a scattering of Bermuda Bay sequins to finish before popping this up on dimensionals too. I'm sure you've worked it out, but just in case I was following the top line of the tic tac toe board: washi tape, any shade of blue and sequins. I really quite like this card - it seemed almost a shame to cover my lovely pattern with the sentiment panel!

Before you reach for your inks and stamps, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I look forward to seeing how many different combinations of the grid we see in the gallery this week. I'm off to prepare lunch as we have some friends visiting today and then I have to get two of the other three members of the James household ready for trips away this week - a busy, yet fun day ahead!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

A4 Delightful Dijon -available 2nd June

Bohemian washi tape - available 2nd June

Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Island Indigo Classic Stampin' Pad	Island Indigo A4 Card Stock	Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Project Life Corner Punch
Bermuda Bay Sequin Trim

REMINDER: You have until 11am GMT this morning to take advantage of the £75 sign up offer to become a member of my Stampin' Up! team - click here if this is for you!

Today I'm sharing a card for this week's challenge over at Pals Paper Arts, where they have this fun sketch to work with:

I'm also linking my card up with the lovely ladies over at Less Is More, where they are celebrating their 200th blog post - woohoo! - and congratulations are most certainly the order of the day. Here is my card:

I used Calypso Coral for my card base and added a couple of mats of gold foil and Crisp Cantaloupe, beneath my main stamped panel. I then stamped various sized solid circles from the 'What's Your Type?' stamp set in Calypso Coral on a piece of Whisper White. I then used the striped stamp from the same set, and stamped it in Versamark over the solid circle, slightly offset (and in case, like my daughter, you are reading this thinking 'those circles don't line up', as I shared with her, this was intentional - they're not meant to!) and then heat embossed them in gold. To finish, I added a flagged sentiment banner in Calypso Coral to stand out from the background and heat embossed the 'Bravo!' sentiment in gold too. I love the swirly script of this stamp from the set of the same name and heat embossing adds a lovely luxurious feel I think.

That's all from me today: I have a rather musical day in store, with a class strings recital from the youngest James junior (he's been learning to play the violin for the last 10 weeks as part of an 'access to strings' project), piano lessons for everyone and a spot of Christmas shopping in between. Wish me luck!

Back tomorrow with a triple post; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

What's Your Type? Photopolymer Stamp Set	Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Embossing Buddy	Versamark Pad	Heat Tool - Uk Plug
Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Crisp Cantaloupe	Calypso Coral A4 Card Stock	Gold Foil Sheets

Finally it's Friday - although I'm not quite sure where this week went! Today I have a fun card that I made using the sketch and colour inspiration from a new-ish challenge appropriately called The Challenge that the talented Lesley Croghan is running on her blog Always Playing With Paper, which I'm entering for the first time:

I decided to use both the sketch and colour palette and since September is probably one of my biggest personal card-making months - many birthdays and anniversaries - took the opportunity to get cracking and add a birthday card to my pile. Here is my card:

I started out with the intention of making a female birthday card, but I quickly decided that the colour combination was better suited to a masculine card - and this fun stamp and sentiment from the 'Giggle Greetings' set would be perfect for a grumpy old man (I didn't have one in mind as I worked, but choosing a recipient won't be too difficult I'm sure!) I used my Coastal Cabana and Smoky Slate Stampin' Up! Blendabilities sets to colour my main image, and mounted this onto a layered mat of Night of Navy and Smoky Slate. I used Coastal Cabana for my card base and when I went to lay up my card, I felt it was a little bare, even for my 'clean and layered' style. So I decided to create my own tone-on-tone stamped background using the 'Congratulations' stamp from the 'Bravo' stamp set and some Coastal Cabana ink - I love how it turned out!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Giggle Greetings	Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Coastal Cabana Assortment
Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Smokey Slate Assortment	Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate	Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana	Coastal Cabana Classic Stampin' Pad

Apologies for my late post today lovely blog readers - I have had a very busy 'making' day trying desperately to get ahead of myself for once, but as a result I'm late posting; I guess I just cant do it all!! So I'll keep today's post short and sweet - literally! - and share today's card that I made for this week's challenge over at Less Is More where there is a song theme again, using this week's colour scheme over at Pal Paper Arts:

The song theme over at Less is More is 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside'. I almost didn't make a card this week (I wasn't sure you wanted to see another Sea Street crab or lobster card!) when I was musing about what the seaside means to me and I found myself thinking about ice cream; I mean, a cornet is an intrinsic part of any trip to the seaside, right? When I was at the seaside in Minehead a couple of weeks ago, I had the most delicious forest fruits ice cream in an Italian waffle cone, so with this in mind I thought I would use the above colours to create my ice cream. So, here is my card:

I had some Stampin' Up! notelets out on my desk for another project and decided to use one as the base for my card, as they are more sturdy than Whisper White so perfect for a CAS card like this. I simply added a strip of Hello honey striped DSP from the Moonlight DSP paper stack and made a punch art ice cream cone, first scoring a piece of Crumb Cake with my Simply Scored Scoring Tool and cutting out by hand. For the ice cream itself, I stamped the cream swirl from the Cupcake party stamp set in Versamark, once on Hello Honey and once on Blackberry Bliss, then heat embossed with white embossing powder and punched out with my Cupcake Builder Punch. I also punched out a little Blackberry Bliss cherry using the punch, and covered it in crystal effects to add shine and dimension - this looks so cool in real life! I finished my card with the 'Sweet!' sentiment from the 'Bravo' stamp set, which somehow seemed appropriate for something so delicious!

Hope you like today's card; back tomorrow with another project. until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Cupcake Party Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Cupcake Punch	Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack	Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Embossing Buddy
Versamark Pad	Heat Tool - Uk Plug	White Stampin' Emboss Powder	Blackberry Bliss A4 Cardstock	Hello Honey A4 Cardstock

It's Monday and today I have a special card for a special day - today my youngest James Junior turns 7! I can't quite believe it - some days I'm not sure where the last 7 years have gone. So today I'm sharing a birthday card I made for Ben to celebrate his special day. I used this week's sketch over at the Paper Craft Crew as my inspiration: 

My card is slightly larger than usual - A5, 21cm x 14.9cm - and features a fun shaker element along with my favourite Sea Street stamp set:

The shaker is made using the surround from the On Film framelit set and filled with fussy cut starfish, crabs, lobsters, gold sequins and some fish and anchors cut with my now retired Oh Whale! clearlit. I stamped the 'Hip Hip Hooray' onto the background before putting the shaker together and carried the sentiment on to the inside of the card:

We have a fun day planned today, including a visit to the cinema and maybe even a cycle ride on his new bicycle if the weather holds! Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Sea Street Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Bravo Photopolymer Stamp Set	Fabulous Four Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Starburst Sayings	On Film Framelits Dies
Starburst Framelits Dies	3/4 Inch Circle Punch	Small Oval Punch	Banner Punch	Medium Window Sheets
Gold Sequin Trim	Gold Baker's Twine	Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pad	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad
Tangerine Tango Classic Stampin' Pad	Tempting Turquoise Classic Stampin' Pad	Pacific Point A4 Card Stock	Pumpkin Pie A4 Card Stock	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Magnetic Platform