Well, it's Tuesday and we woke to a light dusting of snow outside this morning. Not enough for a 'snow day', much to the children's disappointment and mercifully, unlike last week's flurry, the roads are all gritted so once we were clear of our side street the traffic was flowing freely. It might be winter outside, but today's card is reminiscent of warmer times as I have my card for this week's challenge over at Create With Connie and Mary. This week there is an interesting colour palette to work with, which in itself has a distinct wintery feel:

Before I get on to my card today, I would just like to give a little shout out to both Connie and Mary and the rest of the CCMC design team; they really are a super bunch of ladies and hugely inspiring. I love their weekly challenges and play along whenever I can. I have been lucky enough to be chosen as one of their Top 3 Picks from time to time, which is always nice, however I love the colour combos and sketches these ladies come up with and it's great to play along for fun. I didn't manage last week - I had my card all designed, just didn't get enough time at my stamp desk to put it together! - but yesterday I managed to get a few cards made, including my card for this week's challenge so I'm back 'with the program'! I'm also using the sketch from Lesley Croghan's new challenge over at Always Playing With Paper - another great challenge to play along with! Without further ado, here is this week's card:

I 'stretched' the sketch as I wanted a landscape orientation for my card, as I decided to feature those little waders from the 'Wetlands' stamp set - definitely my favourite in this set, although they are all lovely to be fair. To 'colour' my image, I used a technique I've seen lots on Pinterest and took the large swoosh from the 'Work of Art' stamp set and stamped it once in Sahara Sand, having stamped off once first, and once in Lost Lagoon, having stamped off twice first, to add just a subtle colouring behind the birds. I switched my sentiment for one from the 'Teeny Tiny Sentiments' stamp set as this card is destined for the Head Groundsman at my children's school, who is retiring at the end of next week, following many years of loyal service. I mounted my image on a piece of Basic Grey and kept my Lost Lagoon flag and Sahara Sand base plain, adding a piece of patterned Basic Grey DSP from the 'Moonlight' DSP stack for background interest. I finished with a little grey metal button, double tied with linen thread, and my card was finished.

I hope you like today's card - I'm off to tackle a mountainous pile of ironing and get a few other chores completed before rewarding myself with a catch up over a cup of tea with a friend I haven't seen in a while this afternoon. Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Wetlands	Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack	Sahara Sand Classic Stampin' Pad	Sahara Sand A4 Card Stock	Basic Gray Classic Stampin' Pad
Basic Gray A4 Card Stock	Lost Lagoon Classic Stampin' Pad	Lost Lagoon A4 Cardstock	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Linen Thread
Basic Metal Buttons

I have another card to share with you today - a double-post day, woohoo! You can see my earlier card here. This one is quite different!

It started out as my card for this week's challenge over at Less is More, where the challenge this week is 'friends'; I started out thinking of something cutesy or animal-themed, then remembered a stamp set I have that I've used only one stamp from (the #Ijustloveyou stamp I used a couple of times last week) and thought it was about time to ink up a couple more stamps in this set. This also resulted in a complete change in design direction! Since this definitely counts as 'NBUS' (never before used schtuff!), I'm also going to link up with CASology and the lovely Darnell with her third NBUS challenge (go Darnell! Thanks for encouraging us to actually use ALL of the stamps we buy!!). I also used this week's sketch over at The Paper Craft Crew as my inspiration (check out Justin's awesome card this week - you are definitely going to want to CASE it!!). Edited to add: At Sarah's suggestion over at LIM, I am also linking up with Uniko Studio's current challenge where the theme is 'love and friendship'. So five challenge links in total, which is something of a record and entirely unplanned, given that I already made today's card and this one was supposed to be for Thursday! So here are all the badges:

After all that - if you're still with me! - I'm guessing you might like to see my card!! Well, here it is:

A very clean and simple card, with a slightly masculine feel to it I think due to the colour scheme, which I took from the Moonlight DSP which is peeking through under the Chevron border punched piece. I popped the ampersand up on dimensionals and layered with the hashtag sentiment and arrow to finish. Super simple - easy enough to recreate for a friend, male or female, just to let them know you care. Better still, both the chevron border punch and What's Up arrow punch are on this week's Wednesday Weekly Deals, so you can pick them up even more cheaply than usual!

That really is all from me today; back tomorrow with another project. until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

(Hashtag) Hello Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Chevron Border Punch	What's Up Punch	2" Circle Punch	Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack
Hello Honey Classic Stampin' Pad	Lost Lagoon Classic Stampin' Pad	Lost Lagoon A4 Cardstock	Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate	Basic Gray A4 Card Stock
Whisper White A4 Card Stock

It's Sunday and time for this week's challenge over at The Paper Players, where today Anne has a great colour challenge for us:

I also used the current sketch over at The Deconstructed Sketch as the basis for the layout of my card. So for my card today I've had the first opportunity to play with one of my most favourite products from the new Spring-Summer catalogue: the new 'Hello You' thinlits. I loved the Expressions thinlits we had previously and I still use mine and would never part with them, so I was delighted to see a whole new set of word thinlits in the new catalogue, and the fabulous 'Crazy About You' stamp set that co-ordinates with them. The number of sentiment possibilities are endless! Anyway, using Anne's colour choice today, this is what I came up with:

I went with a square card and lots of layers. The layers are Sahara Sand and Lost Lagoon, with the Sahara Sand DSP from the 'Moonlight' DSP paper stack. I die cut the word 'hello' from my central Sahara Sand square, then inlaid this with another 'Hello' diecut in Crisp Cantaloupe, allowing the Lost Lagoon from the layer below to show through into the negative space. I finished my sentiment with a 'you' stamped in Lost Lagoon on a banner of Whisper White, that I tucked under my Crisp Cantaloupe stamped flower. I diecut some leaves and a centre for my flower from Lost Lagoon cardstock using my Flower Frenzy Bigz Die, then finished it with a white button threaded with Crisp Cantaloupe thick baker's twine. I love how the 'Hello You' thinlit dies can be used in so many ways. Just look at the detail on this close-up:

I hope you like this card and are as crazy about the new thinlits dies as I am. Watch this space for lots more ideas from me!

We are back to hockey and rugby following the Christmas break today; no rest for the parents of sporty ones, it seems! At least dinner is prepared and will be in the slow cooker waiting for us on our return. Before you reach for your ink pads, do visit the other design team members to see what interesting ideas they've had this week:

I look forward to seeing your projects in the gallery this week. Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Crazy About You Photopolymer Bundle	Big Shot Magnetic Platform	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Flower Frenzy Bigz L Die	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack	Crisp Cantaloupe Classic Stampin' Pad	Card Stock A4 Crisp Cantaloupe	Crisp Cantaloupe Thick Baker's Twine	Lost Lagoon Classic Stampin' Pad
Lost Lagoon A4 Cardstock	Sahara Sand A4 Card Stock	Neutrals Designer Buttons	1-3/4 Inch Scallop Circle Punch

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

Yay it's Friday already! Today I'm sharing my card for this week's theme challenge over at Less is More where it's all about taking inspiration from the song 'Singing in the Rain'. Given the glorious weather we've been having in the UK of late, I'm just hoping today's card isn't tempting fate! Here it is:

I don't have many stamps that fit with the theme of rain, even less so singing in the rain, but I have been wanting to use this sheet of DSP from the Moonlight DSP stack on something to do with rain as the pattern says 'raindrops' to me, so this seemed like a good opportunity. I also found this cute little fox with an umbrella in one of the new hostess sets, Life's Adventure, so this gave me enough to get started.

I actually took much of my inspiration from Sarah's card this week, as she had a cute paper pieced duckling on her DT card and I decided to do a little paper piecing of my own. I stamped the fox onto the card layer, then again onto some spare white cardstock, onto a piece of Pumpkin Pie retired dotty paper and lastly the umbrella onto a piece of Rich Razzleberry. I then cut each out carefully with my paper snips and paper pieced them together - you can see the detail on the picture below, including the Crystal Effects that I added to the spots on the umbrella (I think they look more like raindrops!)

Cute, eh?! Whilst this card is all about the rain, I'm sure the bright colours would cheer someone up who was feeling a little down - I'll let you know when I eventually send it to someone, assuming I remember! Life's Adventure is an exclusive hostess stamp set, that you can only purchase if you either host a Stampin' Up! party or are a member of my Stampers 6 Club: for those of you that haven't heard of this before, this is where you commit to a minimum spend of £25 per month for 6 months and then in one month o the 6 you get to be the hostess, with a minimum of £25 of free hostess credits to spend. A virtual party, if you will, with none of the hassle of hosting or inviting your friends around if that's not your thing. I am starting a new Stampers 6 Club in August and currently have one space left - if you would like to participate, then get in touch. Once this last space has been filled, I will begin collating a waiting list for an additional Stampers 6 Club so either way you've nothing to lose.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Lost Lagoon A4 Cardstock	Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack	Life's Adventure Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad
Rich Razzleberry A4 Card Stock	Brights Designer Series Paper Stack	Crystal Effects	Stampin' Dimensionals

It's Sunday and today I'm sharing my weekly card designed for this week's challenge over at The Paper Players, where I'm a Guest Designer for the next few months. This week we LeAnne is hosting and she has a colour challenge for us using the following colour palette:

I also used the sketch over at The Paper Craft Crew this week for the layout of my card. I chose to make the new In-Colours of Blackberry Bliss and Lost Lagoon the focus of my card, but the other two colours also feature - take a look:

I used two pieces of DSP for the background of my card - the honeycomb from the Midnight DSP stack and the tiny blue flowers from the All Abloom DSP stack and I used a piece of the lovely Lost Lagoon satin ribbon to cover the join and create a statement bow. As these papers both have quite busy patterns, I decided to go with a fairly simple stamped focal point, with a sentiment from the 'Perfect Pennants' alongside a simple floral circle using Summer Silhouettes in Mossy Meadow, Blackberry Bliss and Wisteria Wonder. Lastly, I fussy cut one of the Wisteria Wonder flowers and mounted it onto a dimensional for extra interest.

I hope you like my card today and that it inspires you to hop on over to the Paper Players challenge blog to join in and upload your challenge creations. The Paper Player challenge takes place weekly, opening on a Sunday at 8am (PST) and closes at noon on Friday (PST). Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules: 

1.  Create a new paper project

2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the  post featuring your challenge submission.

3.  Please link your card to no more than three challenges, TOTAL.

4.  Have FUN!

We look forward to seeing your colourful creations! Right I'm off to a ballet exam today (chauffeur not dancer, of course!). Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Perfect Pennants	Summer Silhouettes Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack	All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack	Blackberry Bliss Classic Stampin' Pad
Blackberry Bliss A4 Cardstock	Lost Lagoon A4 Cardstock	Lost Lagoon 3/8" Satin Stitched Ribbon	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad
Wisteria Wonder Classic Stampin' Pad	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine