This week the Pals Paper Arts Card Challenge is celebrating its 200th anniversary - a whole 200 challenges! To celebrate this milestone, they have a sketch along with a twist - to complete your card in a monochromatic colour scheme. Here is the sketch:

Both design teams have designed cards to inspire this week; initially I was really tempted to use the Starburst Sayings stamps and framelits which lend themselves totally to this sketch and worl with my favourite Brights colour palette, but as lots of the designers had the same idea and I couldn't see how I was going to create something suitably unique, I decided to go with something completely different - a baby card using the 'Baby We've Grown' stamp set in Blushing Bride pastel pink:

Using a pink base, I matted both of my cardstock layers on Whisper White and used a piece of Polka Dot DSP from the Subtles DSP stack for panel 2, whilst for panel 3 I stamped the 'sweet baby' stamp repeatedly in Whisper White onto Blushing Bride cardstock - a stamp-a-ma-jig is essential for this - and coloured the word 'baby' with my chalk marker to give it a powdery look. Lastly, my focal point panel 4 is a triumph of layers and fussy cutting: I stamped the shoe stamp 3 times, twice on Whisper White and once on Blushing Bride, then I fussy cut the shoes from the pink and glued them to the white base; with the other image stamped on white, I fussy cut the bows from the shoes and adhered them on top. I finished the shoes with two tiny seed pearls for fastenings, and layered this circle on a pink starburst mat and a further white circle. My card has 10 separate layers in total - this must be something of a record!

This card took a little while to create, but I love it - and only Blushing Bride and Whisper White used throughout. Do check out the other monochromatic cards at the Pals paper Arts this week - there is a mass of inspiration.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Baby, We've Grown	Card Stock A4 Blushing Bride	Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad	Subtles Designer Series Paper Stack	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Whisper White Craft Stampin' Pad	Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Starburst Framelits Dies	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
Magnetic Platform	1-3/4 Inch Circle Punch	Basic Pearls Jewel Accents

Today I'm sharing a card I made with Jen Brum's great sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches - I combined it with the colours over at The Colour Throwdown, where one of my favourite colour combinations - Basic Grey and Melon Mambo - is trio'd with Garden Green:

A great combination - here is my card:

I used Basic Grey for my base and matted this with a piece of Melon Mambo to create a narrow border between my base and my central panel of High Tide DSP. I decided to use a flower as my focal point, but instead of stamping I decided to die cut two flowers with my Blossoms Originals die and layer them together, finishing with a small grey circle and pink candy dot centre. I tucked a Gumball Green leaf behind (cut with the Secret Garden framelits) and stamped my sentiment in Versamark onto Basic Grey and heat embossed with Melon Mambo embossing powder. The green leaf provides a lovely 'pop' of colour behind the flower and lifts the whole card, I think. Gumball Green has to be my favourite of the soon-to-be retiring In-Colours - I will so miss it when it's gone!

As I stepped back to admire my card, I realised that I had adhered my mat panels upside down in relation to Jen's sketch - and by this point, my Tombo was well and truly stuck fast - oops! I am hoping the team at FMS will forgive me this oversight ;-)

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Basic Gray A4 Card Stock	Melon Mambo A4 Card Stock	Gumball Green A4 Card Stock	High Tide Designer Series Paper	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
Magnetic Platform	Blossom Party Stampin' Up! Originals Die	Secret Garden Framelits Dies	Brights Candy Dots	Express Yourself
Envelope Punch Board	Versamark Pad	Embossing Buddy	Melon Mambo Stampin' Emboss Powder	Heat Tool - Uk Plug

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you've all had a lovely day and that the Easter bunny left you lots of yummy chocolate eggs. We've had a lovely day, with our traditional Easter egg hunt around the garden and then a family roast for lunch. Not even the rain this afternoon could dampen our spirits.  I made this really quick card this morning as an absolute last-minute Easter card - I needed one more opportunity to use an Easter stamp! I wasn't intending to share it on my blog, then this afternoon I saw that the Paper Players challenge this week is to create a CAS card with washi tape, so thought I would link up;

Here is my super-quick card:

I must confess that I am something of a hoarder of washi tape - I love to buy it, then struggle to use it! One thing it's great for though is adding detail to really quick cards, like this one: I simply took a plain piece of Melon mambo for my card base, added two strips of Gingham Garden washi tape and then stamped the 'Eggstra Spectacular' stamp in pink, coloured with marker pens then popped up on a couple of dimensionals. As easy as that! I cut my washi tape with scissors as I wanted a straight edge, but it tears really easily and looks great with a torn edge too. I don't know why, but having come to edit my photo the pink washi tape doesn't look straight, but I can assure you it is - next time I'll go with something more random!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Eggstra Spectacular	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad	Melon Mambo A4 Card Stock	Brights Stampin' Write Markers
Gingham Garden Designer Washi Tape	Stampin' Dimensionals

Yay, it's Friday - where did that week go?! Today I'm sharing my entry for this week's challenge over at The Paper Players, where Ann has laid down the following colour challenge: 

I really wanted to enter this week's challenge as I missed last week's, however this colour combination filled me with some dread: I use Coastal Cabana a lot, I use Calypso Coral less so; as for Always Artichoke - I've only used this colour ONCE before - EVER!! The design team provided such great and varied inspiration this week though that I thought I should endeavour to rise to the challenge and have a go. It took a long while, but eventually this is what I came up with - that I'm prepared to share with the world, anyway :-):

After much (unsuccessful) experimentation with a variety of designer series paper, I decided that simple was the way to go and I reached for my 'Oh, Hello' stamp set which I haven't used in a while. I stamped the oval chevron background in Coastal Cabana on the same colour base and paper pierced the outline for added interest. Then I split the sentiment, stamping part of it directly onto the card base and part of it onto a layered vellum banner that I popped up on some dimensionals. I then decorated this with a flower that I stamped twice, once on Calypso Coral Cardstock and once onto Always Artichoke, then carefully cut both out with my paper snips and paper-pieced them together.

Not an overly complicated card, but one of those that took way longer to execute than anticipated! Always nice to move outside of one's comfort zone though, and I like the result even though this is a colour combination I would never ordinarily choose.

Right - I'm off for some serious painting today - the preparation has been done, so today the nursery walls of Ben's bedroom will be officially transformed into a Lego-lovers paradise!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Oh, Hello Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Coastal Cabana Classic Stampin' Pad	Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana	Calypso Coral A4 Card Stock
Always Artichoke Classic Stampin' Pad	Always Artichoke A4 Card Stock	White Vellum A4 Card Stock	Occasions Paper-Piercing Pack	Paper-Piercing Tool
Stampin' Pierce Mat	Paper Snips

As promised, today I have the second of the cards I made for this week's sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch - I saw this layout and couldn't resist another interpretation. This time I also combined it with the colour challenge over at Dynamic Duos:

This card is altogether more fun than yesterday's - take a look and you'll see what I mean:

I had the idea that if the squares were circles, the little mouse from the 'Life in the Forest' stamp set could play 'peek a boo' as if he was in a block of Swiss cheese (something of a graphic interpretation, given that the circles are identically sized and placed, but hopefully you can see what I mean!) I stamped the mice onto Whisper White and simply punched out with my 1" circle punch so that only parts of them were showing, and I mounted these onto circles of Wisteria Wonder only slightly larger that I cut with my Circle Framelits. I coloured the mice with my Wisteria Wonder and So Saffron inks and a blender pen and finished the card with the sentiment 'smile' - well, I didn't have one that says 'chuckle', which is what I was doing as I coloured these little fellas so this was the next best thing :-)

I hope you like my fun take-two on the sketch; back tomorrow with my entry for this week's Paper Players challenge (and yes, it was a challenge indeed!) Until then, I'm off to the theatre with Ben this morning whilst Rebecca is on a swimming course and my dear husband is having to monitor the bathroom fitter who is replacing a floor tile that has been booked to do the job for some 14 months - hopefully today is (finally) the day!

Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Life In The Forest	Happy Day	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Blender Pens	So Saffron Classic Stampin' Pad
So Saffron A4 Card Stock	Wisteria Wonder Classic Stampin' Pad	Wisteria Wonder A4 Card Stock	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Magnetic Platform
Circles Collection Framelits Dies	1 Inch Circle Punch	3/16 Inch Corner Punch

Good evening blog readers! I hope you are enjoying weather as glorious as we have had here in the UK the last few days - it feels long overdue and long may it continue. We went out on another bike ride today, just for fun - our bike ride earlier in the week involved our first attempt at geocaching, but since we didn't manage to find a single box the novelty of this wore off rather quickly! It's just so nice to be outdoors. Today's card is one of two entries that I have for this week's CAS(E) This Sketch challenge - I love this week's layout, so many possibilities:

For my first card, I decided to stay with the layout of squares, and created a pattern with an ombre effect:

I used one of the square stamps from the 'You're Lovely' stamp set which is great for a repeat pattern, and stamped each row in a slightly darker shade of aqua blue-green, to give the graduated ombre effect. I used a piece of Core-d'inations card in Coastal Cabana for my base, as this card has a lovely textured finish when unsanded. Because of this texture, it is quite difficult to get an evenly inked stamp on it, so I stamped my sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed with white embossing powder to provide a more even and vibrant finish.

Come back tomorrow to see my alternative and altogether more humorous take on this sketch; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Hello Lovely	2013-2015 In Color Core'dinations	Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad	Coastal Cabana Classic Stampin' Pad	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad
Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	White Stampin' Emboss Powder	Versamark Pad	Embossing Buddy
Heat Tool - Uk Plug

Today I'm sharing a card I made using the poppy in the Happy Watercolour set. I used the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches for my simple layout and was inspired by the colours over at Create with Connie and Mary this week:

I decided to go with quite a simple design - here's my card:

I used a Daffodil Delight card base and stamped my poppy stem only in Versamark and stamped it onto my base card and heat embossed in gold, then did the same again with the flowerhead on a separate piece of cardstock, coloured it with Daffodil Delight and my aquapainter and cut it out, then popped it onto my card on a dimensional. I know poppies are traditionally red, but they come in all kinds of different colours, including yellow - which also give the card a bright feel.

Here's a close up of the flowerhead:

For my horizontal cross-section panel beneath the poppy, I used a piece of Watercolour Wonder DSP that features all of the challenge colours above. This is the only place where the green and orange features on my card, yet the colour works really well in breaking up what would otherwise be a rather monochromatic card. I added a few gold sequins to finish, and done.

If you'd like more ideas on how to use these colours, check out the design team inspiration - lots of great work on show, as always.

I'm off to take my juniors tenpin bowling with some friends today and then go and purchase some paint tester pots for Ben's bedroom redecoration - I love the Easter holidays!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Happy Watercolor	Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper	Gold Sequin Trim	Aqua Painter	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad	Daffodil Delight A4 Card Stock	Versamark Pad	Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder
Embossing Buddy	Heat Tool - Uk Plug

I've had a lovely day today with members of my team at our quarterly training day; it's always such fun to get together with some of the wider team and meet up with friends I don't see all that often. Today I'm sharing a birthday card that I made for one of my downline who celebrated her birthday this week. I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch and the colours and photo over at Colour Q for the inspiration for my design:

I love the bright and bold colours over at Colour Q this week and the pattern on the sundress had me reaching for my Simple Stems set again to try and capture those bright flowers. Here is my finished card:

I used a piece of spotty Coastal Cabana DSP from the Fresh Prints paper stack as my angled background, then layered three flowers as the anchor for my birthday flag. I stamped the largest flower twice in Tangerine Tango and once in Pumpkin Pie, and having cut one of the flowers using my Secret Garden framlits, fussy-cut the remaining two flowers into sections, then layered them with a Tangerine Tango base, Pumpkin Pie middle layer and Tangerine Tango flower centre. I then popped them up on dimensionals to give a real 3D effect to this flower. I stamped the remaining two flowers in Bermuda Bay, then overlapped all three flowers - this photo shows the layering really well:

I used a piece of retired Tangerine Tango ribbon for my bow - I was tempted to use white, but decided my card needed another pop of orange amongst the lovely turquoise blues, so there you have it.

That's all for today; back tomorrow with another card, until then happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Simple Stems	Magnetic Platform	Secret Garden Framelits Dies	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Fresh Prints Designer Series Paper Stack
Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad	Tangerine Tango Classic Stampin' Pad
Simply Sketched

I've had a lovely day today finishing off my swaps in readiness for our quarterly team training tomorrow. Our swaps always have a theme and this quarter it's 'technique'; I've based my swaps on a card I made for the challenge over at Seize The Sketch this week, which has this great layout:

Here is my card - can you tell what technique I'm showcasing?

I know Father's Day is still a few months away, but I love the sentiment on this stamp and have been keen to use it for the first time. I decided that I would showcase the 'acrylic block & markers' technique on my card: this is where you colour an acrylic block with markers (I used a variety of greens and browns) and then spritz with water (I add a few drops of alcohol to mine so that it dries quicker) then stamp the block onto the paper.

I thought this technique would make a lovely background to the tree stamp and would add a little more interest than just colouring the image with markers directly. Here's a close-up of the stamped background:

Whilst all of my swap cards look the same, each has a slightly different central panel as each time you stamp using a block it comes out differently, making them all unique.

Sticking with the wood theme, I added a panel of Chocolate Chip embossed with the Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder and stamped the layer of Crumb Cake beneath this with the Hardwood background stamp. To finish, I added a couple of chevrons as an accent - wooden of course, coloured with my Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write marker pen:

I also incorporated some Old Olive into the mat layers just to give the card a lift and so that it wouldn't appear too 'brown'.

I'm quite pleased with the overall end result - let's hope my team like their swaps tomorrow too!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Hardwood	Look Up To Father	Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Essentials Wooden Elements
Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Chocolate Chip A4 Card Stock	Old Olive A4 Card Stock	Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad	Neutrals Stampin' Write Markers
Old Olive Stampin' Write Marker	Pear Pizzazz Stampin' Write Marker	Clear Block D

Good evening everyone! If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will remember the flowerpot card I designed for the Pals Paper Arts Colour Challenge a few weeks ago (click here if you would like to see the card). I was thrilled that this card was chosen as a Pals Paper Arts Top Pick that week (check out my Pinterest Board here if you would like to see which of my other cards are challenge winners!). I made this card with Mother's Day in mind, but it would work equally well for a female birthday card for someone special.

Well, I got so many email requests for a tutorial on how I made this card, I made another card in an alternative colourway and recorded a video tutorial as I made it to show you exactly how it's done. It has taken me a little while to get it online, because although I recorded the video promptly the editing then took a back seat, along with a few other tutorials that are still waiting for the magic touch! Anyway, all done now and better still - the Secret Garden Framelits are available at the bargain discount price of £15.71 this week as part of the Stampin' Up! Wednesday Weekly Deals offers, so if you fancy having a go at making this card now is the time to snap them up! Here is a picture of my second version of my flowerpot card:

My original card was made in Crumb Cake, Rose Red, So Saffron and Wild Wasabi; this alternative version is made in Sahara Sand, Perfect Plum, Blushing Bride and Old Olive. The finished card measures 6" x 6" square and will fit a standard envelope (make sure you don't stick the central leaf shape too high!). The video also shows what the card looks like on the reverse (especially for you, Cindy B ;-) ) in case you're curious.

So without further ado, here is the video tutorial - enjoy!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Secret Garden Framelits Dies	Secret Garden Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Magnetic Platform	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Scallop Edge Border Punch	Delightful Dozen - Clear-Mount Stamp	Blender Pens	Perfect Plum A4 Card Stock	Perfect Plum Classic Stampin' Pad
Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad	Old Olive A4 Card Stock	Tombow Multi-Purpose Adhesive	Stampin' Dimensionals