Quick and easy makes

Good afternoon blogland.

It's been a while since I blogged, for various reasons, the main one being me not being away from home, or not in the country. Since I last posted in August I have been to Skiathos to help out with the Skiathos Cat Welfare Association twice, I have driven to the Netherlands to collect cats from the SCWA for other people who have adopted from there, I have been to a few crafting events away from home, and I have been to Portugal for my sisters wedding. 

So I have been very, very busy. And sadly I lost one of my fur babies, which led to me struggling with my mental health. I have loved little Filo since I first met him in Skiathos 2 years ago as a baby, but we couldn't afford to bring him home as well as Amelia Pond. Well until this year. We finally got to bring him home in May this year and our family was complete. Then on the 15th September he hadn't been home for a few days and he was being frantically looked for. It took us a few days to be able to speak to all our neighbours and we found out that he had been run over and killed. Thankfully our neighbour picked him up and saved him in case anyone came looking for him, she didn't know he was ours. It hit me really hard as it does whenever I lose one of my babies, but this was worse. I promised him a better life here in the UK than he had at the SCWA, and I feel I let him down. He was only with us 4 months, and I couldn't keep him safe, I didn't give him that better life I promised him. A month has passed by and I am still struggling with his loss, I'm crying whilst writing this, I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for not being with him when he passed, the thought of him dying alone on the road hurts my heart so much.

So I'm quite thankful that I have been really busy this past 4 weeks to help get me through it.

So today is the first day I have been in my craft room since mid August, and boy have I missed it.

I have made quite a few things today, and it's only 15:00. You will see them all over the coming weeks, but today I will share a few of my makes with you.

I have used the Flower Collage stamp set, the Queen of Hearts stamp set and the Wings and Things stamp set. I have stamped them all in black ink onto water colour card and I have used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints to colour them in. I had added some black lines around the edges and matted them all onto black card before mounting onto a white card blank. All very easy to make, but because they are Polkadoodles stamps, they are very striking.

I will be back soon with some tutorials for you using some more of my Polkadoodles products.

But until then, take care and kiss you fur babies for me.

Hello (again) Friend

Hello I'm back again with another make for Polkadoodles using the fabulous Hello Friend stamp set.

I adore this set and can see me using it a lot!

This is a really quick and simple card, but very effective because of the size of the sentiment.

To make this I stamped the larger butterfly randomly on a piece of water colour card. I did a loose watercolour of them using my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints. I then grabbed an off cut of watercolour card and did a wash with the paints in the same colours I used the paint the butterflies. I then stampes the bubbles to create a border around the edge, and that impressive sentiment in the middle. I used a stamping tool and stamped 3 times to make the word very dark. I then did some basic matting and layering and a card is made.

See you again soon.

#polkadoodles #cardmaking #stamping #kuretakegansaitambi #hellofriend

Hello Friend stamp set

Colour Crazy

Good morning everyone. I am here today with a new post for a new(ish) blog. At the end of last year a group of us that love colouring thought we should bring a few groups together so we were all in one place, which not only makes it easier for us, it makes it a lot easier for you too. Now we have quite a decent sized team we will take it in turns to post and we have split into 4 teams, so each of us will be sharing a make once every four weeks. And I am in the first team to share, woo hoo. So we are called the Colour Crazy Craft challenge and you can find our blog HERE. We will all be using different mediums so you can pick up lots of tips. And we will be sponsored by some amazing companies. So to kick us off we are being sponsored by the very talented Nikky Hall and Polkadoodles.

So here is my make.

For this I have used the Bella Fleur large stamp set. I have done lots and lots of masking to create this little scene. And I have to credit my lovely friend Claire Boelema for giving me the inspiration for this. I am always in awe of her work and would love just a smidging of her talent.

I have used my very much loved Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints to colour the scene in.

Ultimate Graphic 160gsm (NS)

Bella Fleur Large stamp set

Paper weaving

Good morning everyone, I'm here today with some mid challenge inspiration from the Polkadoodles blog. The challenge for you as always is Anything Goes but for the team this time we were challenged to use red and green and to make something for Christmas and incorporate some paper weaving. Well, I've never done paper weaving before so this was new to me. Of course I'm on with making my Christmas tags so thought I'd try it on one of those so I didn't get overwhelmed. And here it is.

This first photo shows the paper weaving I did.

I have used the Festive Christmas Stamp Soup collection for this, both the CD and the stamp set.

I weaved the paper and then used a white ink pad and some white embossing powder to add the snowflakes and snowballs. I then added some faux stitching around the edges with a white gel pen.

I then stamped the small petal stamps onto watercolour paper 6 times. I then got out my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints and painted 6 petals red and 6 in green. I put them all together to make a Poinsettia flower. I added some yellow stamens in and then glued onto my take. I then stamped the sentiment and went over that with a red wash to continue with the theme.

 I think I may have trouble giving this one away on a gift! I may give it to hubby to use on my Christmas gift, that way I get to keep it lol

Here is a close up for you.

Now pop over to the blog to check out my teamies fab makes and get some more inspiration.

Ultimate Graphic 160gsm (NS)

Festive Christmas stamp soup kit - stamps and CD

Festive Christmas CD

Hooray

Hello again. I want to share more makes with you that I did for yesterday's Stamps By Me show on Create and Craft at 1pm.

On these cards I used the Hooray lamination stamp set. I stamped the flower onto watercolour card using clear ink and embossing powder twice, and used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints to colour them in. I then cut the flower heads off of the second one, shaped them and decoupaged them over the flower on the base.

The papers on this card are from Stampin Up. I put all the layers onto 3D foam to make them pop, and added a few gems.

 You can see the dimension on the layers on this photo.

Ultimate Graphic 160gsm (NS)

Stamps By Me Hooray Stamp set

Mixed Flowers

Good afternoon everyone. Our lovely Toni Darroch from Stamps By Me is on Create and Craft right now, 8th November 2016 1pm, with some fab new stamps for you. And here are a couple of card I made for the show. These are using the Mixed Flowers stamp, and the How Beautiful stamp. 

For this card I have stamped onto watercolur card and used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints to colour it in.

 On this card I have used the same flower stamp and the sentiment stamp is from the Hooray stamp set. I have stamped the flower stamp onto Kraft card using a clear embossing pad and clear embossing ink, and then coloured it in using my Prismacolour pencils. I finished this off by adding a faux stitching border around the edge.

Come back tomorrow and I'll show you some more of my samples for the show.

Ultimate Graphic 160gsm (NS)

Stamps By Me Hooray Stamp set

Stamps By Me Mixed Flowers stamp

Stamps By Me How Beautiful Stamp

Congratulations

Good morning again, as I said yesterday I'm here again to show you more makes using Stamps By Me products.

These card are made using the Congratulations stamps and scratch off stickers.

Once again the stamps stamped perfectly, leaving a crisp clear image behind. I stamped this ever so cute Elephant onto water colour card for these two makes and used water colour pencils to colour them in. I then stamped the messages into the balloons and put a gold scratch sticker over one and a silver one over the other. And once again they scratched off so easy leaving no residue behind whatsover.

 I also made another couple of cards using the Sending You stamp set.

This one I created an inked background and coloured the flower in using Gansai Tambi watercolour paints and added the scratch sticker over the message in the flower centre.

 I chose a silver for this one as it goes well with the blues.

I then made another one using Gansai Tambi watercolur paints. I made this background by just flicking and splashing some of the paints onto watercolur card. I didn't use a sticker on this card as I wanted to colour the centre of the flower. 

 Here's a close up of the background.

That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll be buying more of these stamps in the future so keep your eyes peeled for them.

Don't be square

Good morning everyone, I'm on the naughty step today as totally forgot to schedule my post. I really must learn to carry a cushion around with me! 

So this morning is the start of a new challenge at the Polkadoodles challenge blog. We have now changed all our challenges to anything goes to make it lots easier for you all to enter. And here is my make.

On this card I've used the Oceania Clear Stamp set. I used the Whale and Whale tail to stamp a background out. I then created some mats and layers and stamped onto watercolour card with a versamark ink pad and used a clear embossing powder. When I heat set the images I then whooshed over them with a blue paint from my Gansai Tambi Watercolours paints. I then raised those up with 3D foam and there you are, all done. A really quick and simple card to make.

Ultimate Graphic 160gsm (NS)

Oceania clear stamp set

Punch or Die!

Good morning and happy

The new challenge we have for you this week is to use punches or dies, or anything goes.

On this card I have used a flower from the Tropical Paradise Flamingo clear stamp set. I have stamped them out 3 times, coloured them with my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints. I cut some fancy edge circle mats and layers using an essential Tattered Lace die set. I then layered the flowers up using 3D foam pads to give them some dimension. I kept the background CAS again. I simply used a score board to score some lines to give it a bit of texture.

Now don't forget to go grab today's mahoosive discount code to use on digis in out store.
I'm entering this into the following challenges:
ODBD - Anything that grows
Retarte - Anything Goes (ATG)
TTCRD - ATG
Bunny Zoe Crafts - Summer florals

Ultimate Graphic 160gsm (NS)

Tropical Paradise Flamingo clear stamp set