Whatevers!

 Good evening blogland,

Again a very short post as I've just got back from seeing the 'Barbie' film (I loved it - TTT not so much), got a busy week ahead and need to get this posted before I run out of time.

'This' being my card for the current challenge over at All Dressed Up Stamps Facebook group - the theme this month is 'Anything You Want' - nice and easy, eh! Again the only rule is you have a to use an All Dressed Up digital image.  If Facebook isn't your thing, there's the blog challenge running as well.

So, with no more waffling, this is my card:

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

All Dressed Up - Looking Good

coloured with my Copics

Dies used:

Sunny Studios - Stitched circles small

Whimsy Stamps Dies - OMG Word Die Set

un-branded stitched rectangle

Papers:

DCWV - The Glitter Stack

striped card

And that's about it really - this card wasn't my finest moment, it was supposed to be a shaker but I got it all wrong from the start (a shakers no good without acetate, is it!).  So I went with the flow and ended up with something, I think, that's not too shabby.

See you soon,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

A Beach Day

Good afternoon blogland,

I just realised a very short time ago that I haven't done my July New Release post for All Dressed Up Stamps - oh dear, really, as my mum used to say, would forget my head if it wasn't screwed on! Or more likely, as TBDH, says I need a list!

So I'm not going to waffle on, just get straight to the point and share the card!

Don't forget, though, if you want to see more of the other releases for July, or join in the current challenge (for which I will be sharing my card soon) head on over to the ADU Facebook Group or, if you don't Facebook, over to the Blog.

Here's my card:

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

All Dressed Up - Pineapple Floatie

coloured with Copics

Rubber sentiment stamp:

taylored expressions - Small Strips: Friendship

Dies:

Creative Expressions - Noble Collection: Double Stitched Squares

taylored expressions - Small Strips: Asymmetrical

When TTT saw this she asked if I was trying to make it look like the girl was in the middle of a storm - good guess, but no! To explain - I'd just watched Celebrity Portrait Artist of the Year, where for some reason all the artists took pictures of the sitter on their phones or iPads, even though they were going to be infront of them all the time, and were painting from those.  The celebrity whose portrait won had painted the sitter in colour in the image on his phone (and included his thumb holding the phone!) in the forefront then painted the sitter in black and white in the background.  Not sure if I've explained that well, but I really like the effect he created and the portrait itself.

Now this is no celebrity portrait but I liked the idea of some of the card in black and white with the rest in full colour. I might well do something similar again - use either the spotlight technique or some monochrome and the rest colour, I really do like the effect.

See you soon,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

As You Like it Challenge: Favourite thing to do on a holiday (beach or not) and why?  Well, to be honest, beach holidays don't do it for me - we live 5 mins away from a beach and what's that saying? Familiarity breads contempt? I'd much rather do a City break - we don't have any big shops here - the closest is 45mins away, and I do like to shop! However, if I had to go on a beach holiday - ever seen the ads for straw huts over clear blue water? That'd be me!!

Dream Valley Challenges: Challenge #297 - Dies and/or punches

Inspiration Station: July 2023 - #51 Well it may not be a ball - but a floatie I think is fairly close and there's the water water = sea, sea = beach! Following my train of thought, yet?! I hope so!!

Polkadoodles Cardmaking & Craft Challenge: Wk 27 - Anything Goes

Just hanging

Hello blogland,

Well, didn't that week whoosh by! I think it might have something to do with feeling like this year is just disappearing quicker than I can blink, a side effect of aging I wonder? Anyways, I couldn't really tell you what we've done in the last week - it's just gone. I did however carve out some 'me' time yesterday to do some colouring and this is the result. 

I've had the image printed off for ages (sitting with others in my 'waiting to be coloured draw') but hadn't got round to colouring in.  It took my fancy yesterday, so a very pleasant couple of hours were had with my Copics!  

I wasn't in the mood for making cards as such, just colouring, so it's another one of my 'paired back' style cards.  I often wonder these days when I'm going to get round to using up all the 'card-making' supplies I've got hoarded away. You know what I mean - the paper pads, flowers, gems, embellishments, twine, ribbon and so on! When all I really seem to want to do is colour and cut out the finished panel. Oh well, I've had 'phases' before, no doubt this one shall pass too!

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

Lee Holland Art - Cute Monkey

coloured with Copics

Rubber stamps:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Friendship

Dies:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Asymmetrical

un-branded stitched rectangle

So there we go folks, not so much to report at the moment, but hopefully it won't be a week before I'm back again!

See you all later,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 698 - Go Wild! Wild animal, rather than wild colours!

The Cutie Pie Challenge: #184 - Simply Cuties (CAS)

Worldwide Crafters and Colourists: Challenge #7 - Anything Goes

Round, like a circle

Good evening blogland,

An unusual time for me to be posting, but I'm here for two reasons, one, to join in with a challenge and, two, to show off my TTT in her prom dress.

So the card I made this weekend, I'm still in a bit of an experimental mood and I was trying splattering again.  I've still not got the hang of it, I ended up with more 'splodge' than 'splatter'. I was also trying to  use a square stencil on a round card and I couldn't quite work out how to get it right - things kept moving and the stencil wasn't centred on the card. Hmmm, frustrations ensued! 

I also took a close up of the background, to try and catch the sparkle - not sure it worked too well!

Supplies used:

Rubber stamp:

Image:

Stamping Bella - tiny townie: Brianna the Butterfly

coloured with my Copics

Sentiment:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Background

Dies:

Creative Craft Products - Nestables: circles die set

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Asymetrical

Anything else:

My Favorite Things: stencil - Sunrise Radiating Rays

Cosmic Shimmer - Pearlescent

Memento DewDrop Ink

On a personal note - I've been banging on about TTT (The Terrible Teen, otherwise known as my daughter) who took her GCSEs this year, turned 16 in June, finished her last year at Grammar School and had her Year 11 Prom this month.  These are a few pictures of her (and her friends) at the Year 11 Prom.  We are, probably, getting closer to sorting out 6th Form, but it all hinges on her exam results and the school's final decision on what courses they are going to offer. So still mildly stressed  but not totally stressed as we were in late June!

Pictures:

TTT (or Emily!) in her party dress - with her birthday balloons in the background

With her friends (some of them she went to Nursery with and has known since she was two!)

This is her before she went - fully equipped with gloves, bag and shawl

Outside the Hotel where they had their meal and party

I think that's probably enough of the pictures now, so I'll stop and leave you in peace!

Cheerio,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 697 - Shaped Cards

Happy Little Stampers: HLS Stencil Challenge July - Anything Goes

Gem of a Craft Challenge: Week 14 - Anything Goes

Crafty Catz; #645 Anything Goes (optional twist - more than one fold)

Krafty Chicks Challenge: #671 - Stamp Act

It's all gone a little flowery!

Hello blogland

So here we are again for another Saturday, I'm finding it hard to believe how quickly this year is passing.  Though to be fair it's been a fairly busy year for us, so maybe it's not so surprising life is spinning by!

Reason for this post is it's time for a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin' Challenge with the challenge this fortnight being 'Flowers / Blooming Beautiful' - so anything that includes flowers, whether that is a single bloom or a whole garden of the things! As always we are a 'for fun' challenge so no prizes, other than the kudos of being a Top Three, and no restrictions on what you can enter - other then there has to be stamping somewhere on your project.

Now, I'm not that big on flowers - can admire them on other peoples cards - but they're not really me. Notwithstanding that - here's my attempts, yes there are two! One is a card I made quite awhile ago (I used it as I thought I was going to run out of time to make a card) and the other I made late at night in a bit of a panic.

Card one:

alternate view:

Supplies used:

Rubber stamps:

Altenew - Inked Lotus

taylored expressions - Big Thanks

Anything else:

Cosmic Shimmer

indentez embossing folder

embossing powder

Card Two:

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

 Alex Syberia - Summer Bouquet

coloured with Distress Ink and Copics

Rubber stamp:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Background

Dies:

un-branded stitched rectangle

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Well Rounded

Anything else:

Distress Inks

Liquid Pearls

And that's me being all flowery, folks!

I'll be back again soon - the Year 11 Prom happened so I have pictures to share of TTT, but until then Cheerio!

Sarah

Challenge/s:

For Card one:

Allsorts Challenge: Week 736 - Enbossing Folders

Simply Clean & Simple: Clean & Simple (first challenge) optional theme.  I hope the card fits the challenge interpretation of CaS - I thought my Card 2 might be too busy? 

The Flower Challenge: #82 CAS - Again I thought Card 2 too busy for the challenge.

For Card two:

Beautiful Blossoms Challenge: Anything Goes with Flowers (optional mood board) #6

Let's Craft and Create: Challenge #197 - Anything Goes + Flowers

Tic Tac Toe Challenge: TTTC216 - Middle Row (Layers / CAS / Stamping)

Wish you were here?

Good evening blogland

Another card made for no reason - just to have fun colouring! 

I'm not going to waffle on loads but I will say it's tense and tetchy here at the moment - so a bit of escape colouring is a welcome relief!

As with the last few months the stress is around TTT's exams/future/career path.  Not to go into it too much - summary is she gets her GCSE results end of August but has to think about 'A' Levels and 6th Form now.  Unfortunately her first choice of 'A' Levels at the 6th Form attached to her current school are no longer on the table (not her fault, not enough numbers to run some of the courses she wanted to do) - so we are unsure as to what comes next.  Change the 'A' Levels to stay at the school she's been at since she finished Primary School or move to a 6th Form in a different town with new people.  All rather stressful!

On a happier note - I picked up my colouring classes with My Creative Scoop again towards the end of the week.  Took some time out for relaxing colouring and finished off another image.  I didn't get it quite right, but I'm not going to tell you the mistakes I can see just that I know they are there!

This is the card I made:

Supplies used:

The digi was supplied as part of the course, so I can't link to it, and the colouring was done with Copics.

Rubber stamp:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Friendship

Dies used:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips: Well Rounded

un-branded stitched rectangle die set

That's it really.  Hopefully TTT problems will be a bit clearer after the 6th Form induction day next week, and things will get less tetchy at home!

Hope everyone else is doing well,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 696 - holidays.  I'd say she's on holiday somewhere - looks lovely too!

As You Like It Challenge: Favourite Plain or Patterned Papers.  Normally I go for either the no paper route or a plainer spotted / striped piece of card.  Ask me 10 years ago and it would have been patterned paper all the way! How times change, eh!

Paper Players: PP647 - At The Beach

Allsorts Challenge blog: Week 735 - Anything Goes - optional Summertime

New challenge

Morning blogland,

New challenge time! It's the first Saturday of the month so it's time for a new challenge at Crafty Calendar Challenge . This month we are sponsored by Polkadoodles, and the lucky winner of the challenge bags themselves 2 images from the shop.  It's a very simple theme this month - 'Anything Goes', time to get crafting methinks! Polkadoodles very kindly allowed the Design Team a couple of digi's, this is the one I used - a pre-coloured golfing gnome!

As the digi was pre-coloured, I decided to spend more time stencilling a background which meant it was a really simple, easy card to make but still quite effective.  Just as well really as I've had a busy week and almost missed the deadline for getting my card ready for the challenge! 

This is my make with the image I worked with:

Supplies Used:

Digital image:

Polkadoodles - Golf Gnome

a pre-coloured digi

Rubber stamp:

taylored expressions - Simple Strips : Man, Myth, Legend

Dies:

Creative Expressions - Noble Collection : Double Stitched Squares

taylored expressions - Simple Strips : asymetrical

Anything else:

My Favorite Thing: Sunrise Radiating Rays

Distress Inks

My Teamies cards are just fabulous - a trip to the blog is worth just to have a peek at those and while there why not pop in an entry yourself?

See you soon,

Sarah

Challenges:

Alphabet Challenge Blog: G is for Green

Krafty Chicks Challenge: #670 - Anything Goes

Digi Choosday Challenge: Wk 24 - Anything Goes

Polkadoodles Cardmaking and Craft Challenge: Wk 25 - Anything Goes