Stuck on You

We are short staffed at work this week so I've been doing a few extra shifts.  Good for the pocketbook but not for the crafting!  Anyway I managed to squeeze in a last minute entry for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge to use stickers.  I found some cute Doodlebug Design stickers in my stash including this awesome car!  Paired it up with some Doodlebug paper and buttons and a sentiment from Papertrey and it's ready to roll!   




Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (Kraft) PTI
Patterned Paper:  Doodlebug 
Stamps: (Sentiment from Signature Greetings) PTI
Ink: (Royal Blue) ColorBox
Sticker:  Doodlebug
Buttons:  Doodlebug

I Believe In You

I love ColourQ's bold colour palette this week and decided it would be perfect to use with these stamps from Unity's August 2011 Kit of the Month - What I Know.  I think the flower/text stamp is going to get a lot of love - it's awesome!  Since I'm workin' the Unity stamps I'm also going to enter this in this week's All Things Unity challenge - Anything Goes.  

Thanks to those who have expressed concern about me getting battered by Hurricane Irene. However, Bermuda is in the Atlantic about 600 miles off Cape Hatteras so unless Irene does a major right turn we should be just fine.  Hope all of you on the East Coast are battened down and ready!  Be safe.


Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (White) Bazzill Basics, (Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Old Olive, Island Indigo)  Stampin' Up 
Stamps: (Image & sentiment from What I Know - Aug 2011 KOM) Unity Stamp Co
Ink: (VersaMark) Tsukineko, (Island Indigo) Stampin' Up
Gems:  Doodlebug

Birthday Fun

I found these cool little embellishments from Sassafras in my stash the other day and I realised  this number 4 card goes perfectly with this week's Just Us Girls colour challenge.  I paired it with some Stampin' Up paper, a Woodware punch and some Cosmo Cricket stickers.  I thought the pinwheel/flowers looked a little bland so I added patterns to them with Glossy Accents as well as highlighting the middles of them.  Now all I need is to find a kid having a 4th birthday...

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (Early Espresso, Crushed Curry, Riding Hood Red, Old Olive) Stampin' Up

Punches: (Pinwheel/Flower) Woodware Craft Collection, (5/16" hole punch (McGill)

Impression Plate: (Canvas) Papertrey Ink

Stickers: (Tiny Type) Cosmo Cricket

Embellishment: (Paper Whimsies Head Count) Sassafras

Other: (Glossy Accents) Ranger

Dare To Be Different

I haven't played along with a Lawnscaping challenge since back in May so I thought it was high time I jumped back in and played along.  This week's challenge is to create a one layer card.  Easy right?  Not so much...  I really had to focus on not cutting things out or matting anything! Luckily I recently got some Gina K Pure Luxury cardstock so I could colour with my Copics without it bleeding through to the inside of the card.  Sweet!  I also stumbled across the Young Crafters Unite blog and they're hosting their first challenge which is to colour a stamped image.  Ding ding ding!  Score 2 for Jen!

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (Pure Luxury White) Gina K.

Stamps: (Butterfly from Critters in the 'Burbs, Letters from Smitty's ABCs) Lawn Fawn

Ink: (Memento Tuxedo Black) Tsukineko

Gems:  Basic Grey

Copics: B00, Y00, E71, RV29, V17, Y38

What's Up, Chickadee?

My card for this week's CAS-ual Fridays embossing challenge is pretty simple in the embossing aspect as only the birdie is embossed.  I tried a few other cards with dry embossing and such and they all just got too busy so I came back to my original attempt. I love this Purple Onion bird and paper pieced it with some Cosmo Cricket paper.  PO designs really seem to lend themselves well to paper piecing.  My inspiration for this came from Courtney Kelley's blog which is full of fun and colourful paper pieced creations.  Check her out if you haven't yet.  I'm also going to enter this in this week's Less Is More challenge - Things That Move.

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (Kraft) Papertrey Ink

Patterned Paper: (Get Happy collection) Cosmo Cricket

Stamps: (Bird & sentiment) Purple Onion Designs

Inks: (VersaMark & VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko

Embossing Powder: (Black) Ranger

Punch: (Threading Water) Fiskars

Old School Bikes

Just a little something for this week's Just Add Ink colour challenge and the Wee Memories Masculine Challenge.  I like the dusty, deserty colours although my card has nothing to do with dust and deserts!  Unless you count dust kicked up by these cool bikes of course.  :)  Off to work now.  Have a great day!

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (Cajun Craze, Peach Parfait, Bashful Blue) Stampin' Up, (Cream) Craft supply

Stamps: Hero Arts

Ink: (Cajun Craze) Stampin' Up

Dies:  MFT Die-namics Stacking Stars

Gems:  Basic Grey

You're Out of This World

I felt a little rusty in the old Craft Cave this morning and it took me a little while to get going but I finally dug out this cute Unity stamp and came up with this card for this week's Play Date Cafe challenge.  Simple and to the point!  It's a gorgeous day outside - although a bit hot - so I'm looking forward to a swim with the hounds later on.  Hope you're having a lovely one!  

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (White) Gina K, (Night of Navy) Stampin' Up, (Green) Craft Supply

Stamps: (Out of This World Itty Bitty) Unity Stamp Co.

Ink: (Memento Tuxedo Black) Tsukineko

Impression Plate: PTI

Gems:  Doodlebug

Copics: B39, RV04, G14

Always Fun

For today's card I played with stamps from Unity's June 2011 Kit of the Month - All Smiles - and partnered them with the Hero Arts Graph Background stamp.  I don't have any Kiwi Kiss or Barely Banana products and in this photo my Banana is looking decidedly anaemic!  Is there somewhere to find retired SU products?  I know I don't really need them but I just wondered...  :)  Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.  It's been gorgeous here and after a busy morning and chilled out afternoon Luis has volunteered to cook dinner!  Result!

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (Early Espresso, Rose Red, Lucky Limeade) Stampin' Up, (Cream) Craft Supply

Stamps: (Image & Sentiment from All Smiles - June 2011 KOM) Unity Stamp Co., (Graph Background) Hero Arts

Ink: (VersaMark) Tsukineko, (Early Espresso) Stampin Up

Twine: The Twinery

Surprise Package!

I got a phone call from my local shipping company this morning to say that a package had arrived for me.  A package?  Today?  I had no idea the place was even open on Saturdays!  Sweet!  So the puppies and I hopped into the car and tootled off to town to pick it up.  It was an order from Stampin' Up which included the new In Colour cardstock and ink pads -  just in time for this week's ColourQ challenge.  :)  Unfortunately I don't have any Bermuda Bay paper or ink (seems wrong doesn't it?) so I had to find a sub but I think it looks pretty close.  I decided to make a Back to School card using Papertrey Ink's School Time stamps.  I'm also going to enter this in A Passion for Papertrey's masculine challenge (because I think the colours would work for a little guy) and in the Create Back to School challenge. 

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (White) Gina K, (Soft Suede, Lucky Limeade, Ialand Indigo) Stampin' Up, (Turquoise) Paperbilities

Stamps: (School Time) Papertrey Ink

Ink: (VersaMark) Tsukineko, (Soft Suede, Lucky Limeade, Island Indigo) Stmapin' Up

Tools: (Corner Punch) Marvy Uchida (1/8" Hole Punch) McGill

Embellished Friends

Back in the beginning of July I was so proud of myself for finally jumping in and playing along with an Embellish challenge.  And then I haven't played again since!  Time to rectify that situation so I'm joining in with this week's Colouring challenge.  I thought this flowery Hero Arts stamp was perfect for the colours and (surprise surprise) it's the first time it's seen ink.  I decided to do something a little different with my sentiment instead of my usual (just mounting it on Pop Dots and calling it a day).  I took inspiration from all the canopies that are around in the summer.  I've also seen several houses where people have taken actual boat sails and strung them up to provide shade.  So I strung my sentiment on some green Twinery twine (a birthday gift from Emily) and anchored them around the corner flowers which I popped up.  I even went old school and busted out some eyelets for the corners.  And not just any eyelets - pink eyelets!  Yes, I own eyelets in every colour of the rainbow.  Don't judge me.  

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (Green) Bazzill, (Cream) Craft supply

Stamps: (Flower background) Hero Arts, (Seniment) Lawn Fawn

Ink: (VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko

Embossing Powder: (Clear) Ranger

Die: (Nestabilities Labels Three) Spellbinders

Copics: Y08, G14, R85

Gems: (Dark pink) Doodlebug, (Light pink) Basic Grey

Twine: Twinery

Eyelets: Making Memories

Tools: (Die cutting machine) Cuttlebug, (Eyelet setter) Crop-a-Dile, (Heat gun) EK Success 

CAS-ually Distressed

I look at the sketches on the Clean and Simple site every Friday but I've only ever played along with them once.  So, I'm glad CAS-ual Fridays kicked my butt into making use of their great sketches by hosting a combined challenge!  Now sketch challenges are not generally my favourites but after last week's epic fail in my attempt at a CAS-uals Fridays entry I decided I had to suck it up and take on theis sketch.  I also decided to break out my newly acquired Distress inks and inking tools.  I wasn't convinced that the technique is as easy as some crafter's make it look but after playing around for a while I came up with a strip of cardstock that I was quite pleased with!  I matted it, stamped some Purple Onion stamps and added a few gems for a bit of texture.  Now I'm wondering why I waited so long to try these inks out?  Can't wait to use them again!  

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (White & black) Bazzill

Stamps:Flowers from Blossom Set, sentiment) Purple Onion Designs

Ink: (VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko

Gems: Doodlebug

My Couch Misses You

Tropical Storm Gert was supposed to pass over us today so I bundled myself into the Craft Cave ready for a lovely stormy day.  And did we get one?  No!  Good ol' Gert passed by to our east and we didn't even get a rain shower out of it - just grey skies and high humidity!  Ah well.  It ended up being a productive day for me.  I started by working on an entry for this week's Play Date Cafe challenge.  I used PTI's On My Couch for the first time.  I've been wanting to play with it for ages and especially love this couch with the fun pattern.  I'm also going to enter this in this week's Wee Memories challenge because even though it has some bling, I still think it has a pretty masculine feel to it.

***ETA:  Just discovered the A Passion for Papertrey challenge site and they are currently running a masculine challenge so I'm going to link this up and hope it's okay that I didn't do it when I posted yesterday.***

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (White, Yellow) Bazzill, (Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso) Stampin' Up

Stamps: (Couch & pillow from On My Couch, Rug from On My Couch Additions) PTI, (Sentiment from Funky Foliage) WPlus9

Ink: (Early Espresso) Stampin' Up

Gems: Doodlebug

Carbon Copied

I'm so excited today to be playing Carbon Copied with Karen Baker of The Bald Dragonfly!  It's a new feature that Karen has started where she and another Blogger use the same stamp set, the same challenge and post their results on the same day at the same time.  Karen was one of my earliest blog friends and has continued to be so generous and supportive with her comments and ideas.  And let's not forget that her cards are stunning! I found her thanks to Lynn Mangan of The Mango Boys and Me who just so happens to to have taken part in the inaugural Carbon Copied challenge with Karen last week.  Love all these bloggy connections!  

So Karen and I decided to take part in this week's colour challenge at Inkspirations and to use the Hello Noteblock stamp from Purple Onion Designs.  And here's my card.  Embossing, fussy cutting, pop dots and a few flowers.  Ahh!

Now hop over to Karen's blog and check out her creation!

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (Kraft) PTI, (Cajun Craze, Marina Mist, Very Vanilla) Stampin' Up

Stamps: (Hello Noteblock) Purple Onion Designs, (Large Canvas Stripes) Hero Arts

Ink: (VersaMark) Tsukineko

Dies: (Flowers) Cuttlebug

Fighting the Lack of Mojo

I had expected to be posting an entry for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge tonight. However, try as I might, I could not get the really cool idea in my head to translate on to paper.  It was SO frustrating!!  I've noticed a lot of people saying their mojo has gone AWOL lately and I think that mine has joined the deserters too.  Everything I tried felt like an epic fail.  I really hate those days...  However, I was determined to come out of the Craft Cave with something at least slightly respectable so I turned my energies to this week's Less Is More challenge to use the colours of your nation's flag.  Since Bermuda's flag is pretty colourful I decided to also enter my card in the latest Wee Memories challenge - to use no less than 4 colours on your card.

So here's the Bermuda flag.  We've got the old flag favourite colours of red, white and blue (we are a British territory after all!) and also some green, yellow, sky blue, beige and brown. Quite a selection!  The picture in the crest depicts the ship Sea Venture running aground on Bermuda's treacherous reefs.  The Sea Venture was on it's way to Jamestown, VA to provide relief to the struggling colony.  Instead, they got caught up in a hurricane and ended up in Bermuda.  Eventually they build 2 new ships and some people carried on to VA while others became the island's first settlers.  But enough of the history lesson - onto the card!

Supplies: CS: Bazzill & misc; Stamp: (image) Unity, (sentiment) Hero Arts; Inks: VersaMark,  Tea Dye Distress Ink; Gems: Doodlebug

With all those colours I wanted to keep things fairly simple so I found this harlequin stripe stamp in All You Need (Unity's August 2010 KOM).  I stamped it in VersaMark on each coloured paper and fussy cut it.  I used the Tea Dye ink on the sentiment and matted the banner on chocolate paper to bring in the beige and brown.  It's hard to go wrong on a card with a rainbow element and finishing this made me feel slightly less useless than I had earlier in the day!  Tomorrow is my long day at work so no carding.  Maybe the break will give my mojo time to find it's way home!

Fly Away With Me

I am always impressed by crafters who manage to find patterned paper that works perfectly for a challenge.  I decided to give it a whirl this week and went on a hunt for some paper for this week's Play Date Cafe challenge.  I thought I found a pretty good match with this paper from 7 Gypsies but looking at them together on the screen they're not quite right.  I usually print out the inspiration picture and take it to the Craft Cave with me. Clearly I've either got to get a laptop for the Craft Cave or a new printer as my printed colours are not matching what's on the screen.  Grrrr...          

Supplies:  CS: Gina K, SU; PP: 7 Gypsies; Stamp: PI; Ink: VersaFine; Punches: Lakeland, Martha Stewart; Gems: Doodlebug

Even if the colours aren't quite right I still like the card and I had fun going through all that patterned paper!  Besides sets of paper I also have a lot of miscellaneous paper from buying bulk discount packs of random papers.  It seemed like a good idea when I was buying it but I realise now it's difficult to find other paper to match it with.  I was pleased to finally use a sheet!  LOL!  Gives me hope that the rest may find it's way onto some cards eventually.  :)  

Crafty Chick Birthday

Some cute little birdies came along this week with a sweet colour combination at 4 Crafty Chicks!  I used some Hero Arts stamps and a PTI sentiment to make a birthday card which I'm also going to enter over at this week's Create challenge.  Lots of fussy cutting here and more background stamping.  I love the subtle effect of stamping with Versamark.  I'm also loving my Doodlebug gems lately.  Each colour comes in 4 different sizes which is so handy. Gonna have to place an order for some more soon.  *Sigh*  A crafter's shopping is never complete!  :)   

Supplies: CS: Bazzill, SU; Stamps: Hero Arts, PTI; Inks: VersaMark, VersaFine; Gems: Doodlebug

The cleaning frenzy is still ongoing.  We worked on the kitchen yesterday.  Pulled everything out of every cupboard - cleaned all the cupboards, weeded out stuff we don't need.  It's scary how fast things accumulate and how quickly you forget it's even there. We've got a ton of stuff put aside to take to The Barn (our local charity shop) and a few things for the dump and I'm feeling good about streamlining.  Luis keeps asking when I'm going to have a clear out in the Craft Cave!  Ha!  Silly boy...  

A Smile is a Laugh That Bursts

Good morning, Crafters!  I have a card for two challenges today - Jay Gee's challenge and Picture Perfect Creations.  Lots of purple going on in both and for some reason purple makes me think of laughter so I though this little quote would go nicely with the colours.  I stamped the background with a few other stamps from the set and used embroidery floss to attach the tag.  I wanted to use a ribbon but it turns out I have no cream coloured ribbon.  Pretty scary considering how much ribbon I do have. Might need to rectify that situation...

Supplies:  CS: SU; Stamps: Fiskars; Inks: SU & VersaMark; Embossing Powder: Ranger; Gems: Doodlebug;  Dies: Nesties; Embroidery Floss: DMC

Got a bit of carding in yesterday afternoon during which time we had a fantastic thunderstorm and lots of wonderful rain!  After all those months of nothing we've had quite a bit of the watery stuff these last few weeks and our once charred lawn is now growing faster than Luis can mow it!  :)  It's a beautiful sight! 

Extreme CAS - Colour Throwdown Edition

I went super CAS for this week's Colour Throwdown challenge.  Both stamps used were uninked - one Unity and one PTI.  And that's all I have to say on the subject because I'm knackered! More tomorrow!  :)

Supplies:  CS: Bazzill, SU; Stamps: (image) Unity, (sentiment) PTI; Inks: Palette Reflection Blue, SU Crumb Cake

Flower Cubed

It felt good to finally get back in to the Craft Cave and get a few cards made.  I decided to start with one for this week's Colour Q challenge.  I still haven't got around to ordering Stampin' Up's new In Colour colours so I had to use a substitute for Lucky Limeade.  I used ColourBox Lime ink instead which I think works pretty well.  The card was actually inspired by a t-shirt I saw in a magazine and for once I actually remembered to cut out the image and put it aside.  Usually I see something, think "hey, that's cool" and then promptly forget about it!  Maybe there's hope for the old brain yet!  :)      

Supplies:  CS: SU; Stamps:  Unity (image from Sept 2010 KOM When I Am With You), PTI (sentiment from Asian Fusion); Inks: SU, ColourBox; Gems: Doodlebug; Copics: YG23, B93, BG05

Back on the Rock

Hello hello, Bloggie Friends!  I've been back on the rock for about a week now and am only just getting back into carding.  Work has been a little nuts this week as a new computer system was installed last weekend so we're all scrambling to get the hang of it and work out all the kinks.  On the home front, there's something about coming back from a trip that always sets me on a bit of a cleaning frenzy so the apartment has been getting a top to bottom scrub down and clear out.  Only the kitchen left to complete...


Our trip to Toronto went well and I had a better time than I expected given my dislike of dresses and weddings!  LOL!  The wedding and reception were events to behold. Portuguese bride + Italian groom = 1 huge party and enough food to put a Carnival cruise to shame!  :)  Luis got to catch up with family he hadn't seen in ages which he really enjoyed and I got to meet those I hadn't on met on the last trip.  


The best part of the trip was last Friday which was my birthday.  Luis and I went into Toronto and spent the morning puttering around and shopping.  Then later in the day we went to meet Emily Leiphart!  It was so cool to finally meet in person after becoming blog buddies.  Emily presented me with this gorgeous card using the Twinery's new colours.

She also gave me a sample pack of Twinery twine as I only have a few strands of it (that, ironically, I won on Emily's blog awhile back) so now I have some of each colour!  So sweet of her.  We hung out with Emily and her adorable son for a while.  Emily and I chattered away about cards and blogs and such while I poked around in her craft stash and we played trains with the little guy.  Once hubby came home we all headed out for a bite to eat and we got to watch Little Speedracer on his awesome bike.  Boy can he move!  He was all decked out in his helmet and fingerless gloves and looked too cool shooting off down the sidewalk.  Then at dinner he entertained up with a one man dance party!  It really was an awesome evening and hopefully the next time we're in Toronto we'll be able to spend a little longer together - not to mention we'll get to see the new house!  :)


Before I go I also wanted to also share this adorable card I got from Jenny.  We recently did a stamps for die trade when we realised we each had doubles of some items and tucked in with the Tim Holtz die I received was this adorable card:

 I love how the embroidery floss is threaded through the little needle!  Awesome!


Okay, off to produce some cards of my own.  See you again soon!  :)