Thank you

Good morning blogland,

So here I am with my first Sweet Stampin' Challenge of 2025 and the theme this time is 'Thank you cards' - hence the title of the blog post! As always with Sweet Stampin' this is a 'for fun' challenge so no prizes on offer but do please use a stamp (digital or rubber) somewhere on your project and follow the theme.

I figured for Thank You cards you either go into a total one-off unique really heavy on the personalisation side or you go mass-production.  So, as I don't have any particular person to thank, I went mass-production.  I'm not saying these were really quick cards to make, but they were pretty easy. 

I used the stencil with Distress Inks to create a background, which I then stamped the sentiment directly onto, die-cut it and mounted onto black card and then onto the card blank.  Stamped (from the same set) a sentiment, die-cut that, foam pads on the back to 3d mount it, add some gems and viola! Straight forward and easily repeatable in as many different colours as you have Distress Inks (other background creating inks may be used :-)!)

Here's the card:

Supplies used:

Rubber stamps:

Altenew - Mega Greetings : Thanks for everything

Dies:

My Favorite Things - Fishtail Foundations

un-branded stitched rectangles

Stencil:

Honey Doo Crafts

Anything else:

Distress Inks

blending brushes

self-adhesive gems

You may also note that although I used my favourite 5x7 top-fold card blank, I turned it on it's side.  Added a bit more interest and worked better with the absolutely huge sentiment stamp!

Why not pop on over to the blog - my Teamies have made some wonderful cards which I'm sure will inspire you!

Aaaand that's it from me, folks - see's ya soon!

Sarah

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)

What a view

 Good morning blogworld

I think I would rather have the view on my card than the one we have outside of our side windows right now.

We live in old house (built in 1904) and, as we also live in the middle of nowhere, are on a septic tank which is the same age as the house. New guidelines came in a little while ago that make our tank  illegal and hubby has spent the better part of a year waiting for a company to come and put us in a modern tank - this finally happened last week. Obviously they had to dig a very big hole in the garden, put in this big green tank, partially pipe it up and then bury it.  

Result is that part of the garden looks like it's been trampled by giants! Hubby also says no point trying to fix it now, as it's wrong time of year so we will have to live with it until spring.  I'm taking the route of - if I don't look at it, it isn't there!

I will look at the card view and - in real life - the other side of the house!

So nice view on card:

Supplies used:

Rubber stamps:

Image:

Crafty Individuals - Summer Poppy Meadow CI-276

Sentiment:

Altenew - Inked Lotus

Dies:

Poppystamps - Small Madison Arched Window

Creative Expressions - Noble Collection: Double Stitched Rectangles

Anything else:

Copic friendly paper

Copics

Red card

What I did:

Stamped the image onto Copic friendly paper through the discard from the window die and then partially coloured it in.

Di-cut it with the rectangle.

Die-cut out the window frame three times, stacked them and glued on top of the image.

Stamped the sentiment.

Mounted it onto a piece of red card.

Mounted the whole lot onto my card blank.

et, voila, job done!

My main beef with this card is that the image panel is not the same shape as the card blank - it looks off to me.  My problem is that I don't use American sized cards and I just cannot seem to find the right sized stitched rectangle and square dies to give both a base that fits the card blank (whether my 5x5 or DL or top folded blanks) well and leaves a very small border with the next size up die.  I get the feeling I'm never going to find the right die to give the look I'm after. Any suggestions, blogworld?

Anyway, that's it for today folks, be back soon,

Signing off,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

CASology - Week 396: View

Retro Rubber Challenge: Challenge #169 - Anything Goes - the stamp used for the view has got to be over 10 years old but I don't know the exact date as it doesn't say.  I can remember buying it at a Stamping Exhibition and I haven't been to one of those in at least seven years!

3rd attempt lucky!

I know, I know, it should be third time lucky - but this works better with the story!

Hello blogland,

So a near total lack of posting again this week, mostly due to trying to get this blooming card right! Flexing my Clean and Simple muscles again, but my goodness this one did not want to come together.  I even dreamt about it and it distracted me while I was doing my exercises - neither of which normally happens.

Anyway we got there eventually and, although still not 100% happy with it, it's something like the idea in my head.

Supplies used:

Rubber stamps:

Image:

Altenew - Peony Bouquet

Sentiment:

Taylored Expressions - Simple Strips: Birthday

Die:

Taylored Expressions - Simple Strips: Well Rounded

What I did:

Stamped the leaves and berries from Peony Bouquet in an arrangement that I liked in the corner - as shown onto a card mount.  You can't see from the picture but the mount is linen card.

Then stamped and die-cut sentiment and added it to the card with 3d foam squares for dimension.

Glued the  panel onto a square of coloured card and then glued that onto the card blank.

et voila, job done!

I'm back to stamping, colouring and not dreaming about cards now! 

Hope everyone in blogland are doing well and happy.

Signing off now,

Sarah

Challenge / s:

Addicted to CAS: Challenge #206 Leaf

AAA Cards: CAS Game#198 Up to one third and optional twist - leaves

Double D Challenges: Leaves

In other news...

 Hello blogworld,

Wow two posts in one week - a sure sign the school holidays are nearly over!  TTT goes back to school a week today and then I get my routines and calm back.  Is always nice to have her at home, but it's even nicer to get some routine back into our lives.

Do I hear you asking what have you been up to whilst not keeping old bloggy blog up to date?  Or  maybe not, maybe you are all about the cards - which is fine.  So if it's just cards, that's next, if it's cards and a little of life chez Sarah keeping going to the end.

So cards first.  Here's one I made as a thank you for the cat sitters, not my usual style but not only did I fancy trying something new - I was also pretty sure they'd like a flower themed card.

Card:

What I used and how I used it:

Altenew - Peony Bouquet stamp and Floral Ink Set

Memory Box die - thank you script

Square card mount.

I stamped one Peony in various inks, to build the flower, onto my card mount then masked the image off while I repeated the same steps twice - one flower either side of the original.  Then picked two of the leaf stamps and randomly stamped them around the flowers - mostly to try and hide any gaps.

Die-cut out the 'thank you' three times - x2 in white and x1 in black.  Stacked them with the black on top then stuck them to the card mount.

et voila

Now I need to talk to my Copics and tell them that, even though I enjoyed stamping this way and will do it again, I still love them and I will be back!

Meanwhile, outside of crafting.  You recall the never to be mentioned birthday - well it had to be mentioned one last time as we had a very belated midweek London shopping / theatre trip to celebrate.  Oh, and also because TTT is into Manga and Anime and wanted to go to London - to 'proper' shops! So we hit Camden Lock, via the Emirates Cable Car over the Thames, and central London for a couple of Anime / Manga / Comic book shops. We also took in my old stomping ground of Lakeside and Ikea in Thurrock and Beckton on the way home.  Fairly well shopped out!!

We did this:

And this (inside):

(outside)

My little family:

Oh, and finally, the cute little car is my 'new' car. Not part of the birthday bash, just because I cannot park the beast next to it and I've complained about it for a good year!

There you go, hope you liked that little look into life outside of blogging.

Signing off now,

Sarah

Challenge / s:

Allsorts Challenge Blog: Week 639 - CAS (Clean and Simple)

The Paper Players: PP556 - Tic-tac-Toe (square card, die-cut / punch, florals)

Addicted to CAS: Challenge #205 - Nature (Now I'm not sure my card is strictly CAS, I feel the flowers might be too much, but leave it up to you to make a final decision