Pumpkin Pixie

This week I've been creating with one of the new digi stamps from one of my favourite Sweet Pea Stamps artists - Ching Chou Kuik.

 

 

For this card I've used the Pumpkin Pixie digi stamp. I love the halloween theme to this image... and the cute little cats! :) I coloured the image with my Promarkers in warm shades of orange and green and added a little shading around the figure using Prismacolor pencils:

 

 

I also added a touch of Spiced Marmalade Distress Stickles to the accents in her hair:

 

 

I came across this fabulous bat frame in the Silhouette store recently and thought it was just perfect for this card. I cut it out from black cardstock and teamed it with some luscious autumn-coloured papers from the new Autumn Song collection from Bo Bunny.

 

 

To finish I added some layered flowers and dotted some flourishes using black Enamel Accents.

 

 

This stamp is available in red rubber or digi format from the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

 

 

Amazing Autumn

I do love this time of year. I don't know if it's because I was born in the autumn but there's something about the crisp blue autumn skies and the weather starting to turn, that is somehow invigorating. And the colours of autumn are just beautiful....

 

So I have thoroughly enjoyed making my project for this week's Autumn theme at One Stitch at a Time:

 

 

I was working with a beautiful set of Butterflies digi stamps by Sentimental Susan and I coloured them with my Promarkers in autumnal colours before carefully cutting them out:

 

 

I used a DL card and some absolutely gorgeous paper from Bo Bunny's new Autumn Song collection and added some autumn foliage cut with a Memory Box die that I bought recently. I printed a sentiment on my computer and cut it out using a decorative oval die, inking the edges before attaching.

 

 

To finish I added my coloured butterflies, attaching some with foam pads for a touch of dimension.

 

As ever, you don't need to use a Stitchy Bear product to enter the challenge (though obviously we'd love to see your Stitchy Bear creations :D) but if you do you'll be entered into the random draw to win our main prize this week. Non-Stitchy Bear entries will have a chance to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear store.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Allsorts - How Does Your Garden Grow
Colour Me Creative Challenge - Fall Colours
Drunken Stampers - Die Cuts
A Creative Romance - Fairytale or Winged Creations
Craftitude - Anything Goes/Harvest
Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge - Anything Goes
Creative Corner - The Great Outdoors
Digitally Sweet - Anything Goes
Graph'it Colour Challenge - Colours of Autumn
Jellypark Challenges - The Sentiment Is The Key
Simply Create Too - Fall/Autumn
Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

 

Sisters

This week at Sweet Pea Stamps we are focusing on the beautiful artwork of Joanne Schempp. I love her fabulous fantasy images and for my creation this week I chose to work with the Sisters digi stamp.

 

 

I just love this image of two mermaid sisters sitting together... it reminds me a little of my sister and I, one with curly hair and one with straight. :)

 

I colour the image using my Promarkers in pretty shades of pink and orange with some touches of blue for contrast. I cut it out using a decorative oval die before filling in the background with my Prismacolor pencils:

 

 

I also added some delicate "bubbles" to the background using a pearl-coloured Perlen Pen:

 

 

I layered the die-cut image over a die-cut scalloped oval with paper-pierced edging and teamed it with pretty blue paper which I had run through a cloud patterned embossing folder:

 

 

I layered pink dotty rubbon across the card before attaching the layered image using foam pads and finished things off with lots of pretty flowers and a few pearl gemstones:

 

 

 

You can find this and Joanne's other gorgeous stamps in both red rubber and digi format at the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

 

Home Is Where The Heart Is...

I was recently lucky enough to do a Guest Designer spot for Stampotique. I love their cute and quirky stamps and as they are now having a DT Call for folks to join their Design Team for 2104, I just had to jump at the chance to work with them again. :)

 

So here's a fun little creation I made as a DT Call entry.... *

I decided to make a little wall-hanging. :)

 

I used one of my favourite Stampotique stamps - Smile - and his cute little heart made me think of the saying, "Home is where the heart is" so I made a little house from thick board.

 

I covered the roof section with a piece of gelli plate print that had a nice texture and "roof-ish" red colour....

 

 

...and I covered the main part of the house with cardstock which I'd coloured using Dylusions sprays and a stencil. I inked all the edges of both parts of the house with black ink before attaching the roof section. I sprayed more card with Dylusions inks in shades of red and doodled a door and doodled windows onto old book pages that I spritzed with more Dylusions in blue shades. I cut these out and attached them to my house and added the sentiment which I hand-wrote onto old book paper and cut out. I cut the top of a gold brad and glued it in place as a doorknob.

 

 

To finish I stamped my image onto the house (to capture the external detail of the image) and stamped him again onto white card, colouring him with my Promarkers before cutting him out and attaching him over the image on the base, using clear sticky pads to give him a bit of dimension. I also gave him a little bit of grass under his feet (doodled and cut from old book pages spritzed with green Dylusions ink) to ground him.*

Finally I attaced a rusted-effect wire hanging to the back of my piece to allow it to be hung up. :)

 

I'm rather pleased with this cheerful, brightly-coloured piece and I hope the good folks at Stampotique like it as much as I do. I love the quirkiness and unusualness of Stampotique stamps. I think my own crafting style is quite changable, depending on the products/medium I am working with, but I do find that working with Stampotique stamps pushes me to be more creative, to play with lots of inking and stamping techniques and making my own backgrounds etc, and to really go to town with colour. :) I really enjoyed doing my GD spot for Stampotique and would love to join the team for a longer period and get the chance to work again with such a lovely, talented bunch of people.

Now I just have to decide where to hang my little work of art.... :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I must apologise both for the lesser than usual quality of my photos (my crappy slow netbook has now died meaning that I can't download photos from the data card from my camera so I have had to resort to using my phone to take these photos - thankfully my beloved laptop is being delivered tomorrow after having been repaired so once DH reinstalls the operating system, I'll be back in business!) and for the fact that Photobucket appears to be once again playing silly buggers and randomly rotating or squidging my photos for no reason!! :/ I'll replace these with some better (hopefully, right way up!) photos over the next day or so. :/

Get Your Rock On....

The new challenge at One Stitch at a Time this week is Anything Goes and this week I've been working with this funky "Rock On" image by Pookie Designs...

 

 

Isn't he fabulous? :D

 

I coloured him with my Promarkers and cut him out...

 

 

...and I had the idea of having him stand astride the sentiment for the card.... and what else could the sentiment be but "Rock On"?!! :D It's an awesome sentiment that sums up a whole lot in just two words. It's also fab for those notoriously difficult male/teenage cards. :)Divas by Design

 

So I had a search of the Silhouette online store and found this great layered Rock On word art and I cut it on with my Cameo using white card and silver mirri card.

 

 

Right from the start I knew I had *the* perfect paper to go with this image and I chose this sheet from the DCWV Rockstar stack. I attached the sentiment and the image using foam pads. layering them together so that my little rock star stood astride the sentiment, and I finished things off, appropriately, with a scattering of little wooden stars which I coloured silver using a metallic marker. :)

 

 

If you enter the OSAAT challenge using a Stitchy Bear image, you'll be in with a chance to win our main prize. You can still enter without a Stitchy Bear image and you'll be entered into a draw to win a $3 gift certificate for the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet. :)

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

A Creative Romance - Dies or Punches

Chocolate, Coffee and Cards - Anything Goes

Creative Fingers - Make It Shine

Digitally Sweet - Anything Goes

Jellypark Challenges - The Sentiment is the Key

Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

4 Krafty Girlz - Anything Goes

As You Like It Challenge - Favourite Sentiment

Divas by Design - Anything Goes

I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes

The Male Room - Sports and Hobbies

Sisterhood of Crafters - Use a Digi

Whimsy Inspirations - Masculine

 

Pretty In Pink

I love digi stamps... I love being able to buy them and use them straight away, I love being able to store loads of them on my computer, I love being able to print them in any size...

But.. I do still love rubber stamping too and I do sometimes feel that my rubber stamps get a bit neglected in favour of the quick and easy digi stamp option. However, I've been having a tidy up in my craft room recently and have dug out my box full of Sweet Pea Stamps... so for my card this week I decided to get back into rubber stamping and use one of my older Sweet Pea Stamp purchases...

I chose to work with Ching Chou Kuik's beautiful Blue Eyed Fairy:

I coloured her with my Promarkers in pretty pastel shades and gave her some lovely pink hair: :)

I used papers in coordinating colours and added lots of delicate die-cuts...

And pretty flowers...

This image is now available as both red rubber or digi stamp from the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

I'm going to enter this into a couple of challenges:
Flutterby Wednesdays - Anything Goes
Art Impressions Stamp Challenges - Anything Goes
Happy Campers - Show Us Your Flowers
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes
Penny's Paper Crafty - Two or More Patterned Papers

WOYWW 224

I've been a bit AWOL from the WOYWW party recently... sooo much going on! DD1 starting full-time school, DD2 going to nursery 2 days a week rather than 1, selling our old house, chasing the rotten useless bank for a mortgage redemption certificate so we could pay off the darn mortgage, getting A/C installed in our conservatory etc etc etc....

 

And on top of that I've been having major issues with my laptop, with the result that it has now been sent off to Samsung for repair and I'm reduced to using my painfully slow old netbook or my desktop to get online (and can only do blog posts on my desktop cos the netbook seems to have issues with both Blogger and Photobucket! Argh!)

 

But anyway, all that aside, I've managed to find time to snap a quick pic and upload it:

 

 

The workable space on the desk is on the endangered list... but that's partly because I have been working away. I didn't get any crafting done for a couple of weeks, due to all the above, and now I have a stack of deadlines looming! :lol: I made two cards today and have bits and pieces prepped for a couple more.

 

I have also been slowly tidying the craft room... I've started with the floor but the desk is next on the agenda... once I get these deadlines dealt with! :)

 

That's it from me... I've already stayed up too late... curse the morning school run! :lol:

 

Thanks for stopping by....

 

..p.s. d'you like my little tower of paint and embossing powder pots? Isn't it pretty... :lol:

 

Farewell to Summer

Well, we're midway through September now and I think it's fair to say that summer is officially over. I hope you had a good one. And I hope Autumn isn't going to be too wet, cold and windy for you.

Unlike the image I've used for my card for the new "Autumn/Fall" challenge at One Stitch at a Time:

I used this sweet "Stroll in the Rain" digi stamp by Reese's Scrap Pieces and coloured it with a mixture of Promarkers and Prismacolor pencils. And I had a go at creating a cloudy sky background using Distress Inks... I think the Weathered Wood Distress Ink was the perfect colour for a gloomy, rainy sky, eh? :)

I used kraft cardstock and patterned paper in rich, autumnal colours and added a piece of gorgeous brown lace and finished things off with some pearls in a bronzy brown colour.

To enter the challenge, just make a project that fits our theme and link it up at the OSAAT blog. If you use a Stitchy Bear product (and we'd love to see your Stitchy Bear creations! :D) you'll be in with a chance to win our main prize. Entries without a Stitchy Bear product will be entered into the draw to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes (Happy Fall Y'All)
Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes
Crafting When We Can - Seasons
Creative Inspirations Paint - Autumn Colours
Eclectic Ellapu - Inspired by a Song (Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head! :D)
Great Impressions - Fall Colors
Hobbycutz - Autumnal
Colour Me Creative Challenge - Anything Goes
Di's Digi Designs- Fabulous Fall Colours
My Time to Craft - Autumnal Colours

Time to Kraft

Today's new challenge at Sweet Pea Stampers is to use Kraft (card or paper) on your creation. I've gone for a rather steampunk-y feel for my creation, using Marlon Teunissen's Steampunk Angel digi stamp:

 

 

I coloured this gorgeous image in rich colours of red and gold and green, using my Promarkers:

 

 

I decided my Prima Chronology embossing folder and coordinating papers would be just perfect with this stamp so I used a kraft card blank and ran kraft card through the embossing folder. I used a touch of Inka Gold around the edges of the paper and to highlight the embossing on the kraft card.

 

 

I cut out my coloured image and attached it on foam pads over the embossed panel and finished things off with a row of gemstones and some layered flowers topped with a clock charm.

 

You don't need to use a Sweet Pea Stamps product to enter the challenge but of course we would *love* to see your Sweet Pea Stamps creations. Entries with a Sweet Pea Stamps image will be eligible for our Designer's Choice award, as voted for by the Design Team, and will have an extra chance to win in our randomly selected prize draw. :)

Use a Digi

The new challenge is up at One Stitch at a Time and all you need to do to enter is to Use a Digi product on your creation - it can be a digi stamp, digi papers, computer-printed sentiment, whatever you like.

 

For my card this week I used this beautiful Aubrietia stamp and paper pack by Coosty Creations:

 

 

I printed the digi stamp in two different sizes and coloured them in using a technique I've not tried before - combining Promarkers with Prismacolor pencils. I rather like the resulting effect. :)

 

 

I printed one of the pretty papers and trimmed it into a square panel and matted on onto purple cardstock before affixing to the centre of a white card blank.

 

 

I cut out and attached the coloured flowers in the corner, layering them using differing heights of foam pads. To finish I stamped a sentiment in black ink.

You don't need to use a Stitchy Bear product to enter but if you do you'll be in with a chance to win our main prize. Entries without a Stitchy Bear product will be entered into the draw to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
Catch the Bug - Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss - Anything Goes
Sketch Saturday - Sketch
Creative Fingers - Anything Goes
Left of Centre Creative Challenges - LoC or Girly
Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes
4 Krafty Girlz - Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments Challenge - Any Sentiment
Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes

 

Pretty Priscilla

It's Variations Week at Sweet Pea Stamps again, where the Design Team all create a project using the same stamp. This time week we are all playing with Connie Fong's adorable Priscilla stamp:

 

 

I coloured this cute little witch using my Promarkers in rich shades of purple and pink and fussy cut around her:

 

 

I teamed her with some fabulous fantasy/magic-themed paper. The paper has some great glittery areas and I added detail to the corners with some pretty corner dies.

 

 

I kept the card pretty simple, contrasting the paper against black cardstock and layering the image on foam pads over a die-cut frame and finishing off with a couple of flowers, to which I added a touch of glitter glue.

 

 

This great stamp is available in both red rubber and digi format from the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

I'm going to enter this into a couple of challenges:
Send a Smile for Kids - Cute Halloween for Kids
Time 4 Scrap - Bientot Halloween
Daring Cardmakers - Autmun Brights Colour Combo
Delightful Challenges - You're a Treat