Tag, you're it!

Good morning blogland,

It's a lovely Saturday morning here in (for once) sunny Lincolnshire, the first day of the summer school holidays, and a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin' .  For the challenge this fortnight we'd like to see your stamping with a theme of 'Tags'.

Now, normally, I would have just added a tag to a card but, in the spirit of trying to stamp un-inked stamps and use smaller stamps, I went for a real, able to use, gift tag! It's ended up, with me doing that, that you've got two for the price of one! 

The logic I was using - if you're going to make a useable tag, then do something a bit more challenging than: stamp, colour, add to card.  So I decided to go with shaker tags and make my own background for the back panel of the shaker 'bit' and I was trying to mist a background over a stencil.  Four attempts later, I had two useable pieces of card. These are how they turned out:

Supplies used:

Stamps:

Time for Tea Designs: Let's Party

coloured with my Copics

Woodware: sentiments (I can't find anything on the packaging other than 'clear stamp set designed by

 Jane Gill')

Dies:

un-branded tag set

Impression Obsessions: Everyday Top Edgers

Stencil:

My Favorite Things: Sunrise Radiating Rays

Anything Else:

Cosmic Shimmer mister

sparkly stuff for the shaker

bit of twine for the tags

And that's it folks - I'm currently suffering with quite a bad head cold and am off to feel sorry for myself.

See you soon,

Sarah

What's your animal?

Hello blogland,

Looks like I'm having a better run of luck with scheduled posts at the minute - so let's hope this keeps that run of luck!

It's Saturday, and time for another challenge over at Sweet Stampin' and this fortnight the challenge theme is 'Animals' - so something stamped and animals in your project somewhere.

This is my card:

Supplies Used:

Stamps:

Time for Tea - Sundae Sweeties

coloured with my Copics

taylored expressions - simple strips: Background

Dies:

taylored expressions - simple strips: well rounded

Stencil:

Honey Doo Craft

Anything else:

Distress Ink

flat backed gems

Not the best picture ever - I really struggled to get the stencilled background to show in the photo.  The stencilling is quite soft and it did not want to show up in the pictures!

Anyways pop over to the challenge, my Teamies have made some wonderful cards!

Am off for a bit of retail therapy this weekend - it's a Craftarama at Lincoln Showground, so guess where I'll be on Sunday!

See you soon,

Sarah

A hearty card

 Good afternoon blogland,

So, after I said a few posts ago about my Clean and Simple cards being mostly colourless - I found myself trying to make something a bit more colourful.

Now, you're going to have to bear with me on this one, as I used a card blank size I'm not used to working with. I was going for CaS and so wasn't happy layering up the card base too much, which I felt this die would need if working with my normal top fold (17.5 x 12.5 cm). 

I then dug around and found some very old, very small C6 card blanks (5 3/4 x 4 inches or 14.75 x 10.5 cm). The die fits the blank perfectly but to me - used to bigger card blanks - this is a very small size to be working with.  I think I was using this size about 20 years ago when it was all 'let's use stickers' to make cards and I swiftly moved away once I discovered stamping and colouring.

Anyway, I persevered and it doesn't look too bad but, next time I use the die, it will not be such a CaS, it'll go on one of my usual card blanks and I'll layer it up a bit more.

Anyways, here's the card so y'all can decide:

Supplies used:

Rubber stamp:

Taylored Expressions: Simple Strips - Background

Dies:

Taylored Expressions: Simple Strips - Well Rounded

Time for Tea - Lots of Love Cover Plate (Vertical)

Anything else:

Piece of rainbow printed paper

small card base (!)

What I did:

Die-cut out the hearts cover plate and then cut a piece of rainbow paper to fit behind the die. Stuck the two together, added 3d foam and mounted it on the card blank.

Stamped and die-cut out the sentiment, added 3d foam to that and added it to die / paper.

et, voila, job done!

My apologies, folks, as well for the mixed measurements - I'm neither a metric nor imperial person (I was taught both at school and picked up neither) and measurements don't mean much to me!

So ends another long post from me - hope everyone is doing well and I'll be back soon with a distinctly bigger card! ;-)

Signing off,

Sarah

Challenge /s:

Addicted to CAS: Challenge #211 - Colourful

Just for fun

Hello Blogworld,

Everyone be ready for a shocker - I did some colouring but not with Copics! I dug out my Prismacolor pencils and had a play with those instead - what's that I hear? shock, horror, rounds of 'are you feeling well, Sarah?'!

Yes, yes, now we have that jesting done with, I used to colour probably 75% Copics and 25% Prismacolors in the old days, more using the pencils to add definition on top of Copics.  I haven't used only pencils for many years and so this was very much a fun experiment and a learning curve / memory test! 

I don't think the end result was too shabby, but my goodness I could not get a good picture of my pencil work.  The poor girl looks like she's got a bad case of sun-burn! One of those rare occasions when the original card looks way better than anything I can get in the picture.  No amount of photo editing or different light (and I did wait for later in the day and a different room to take more pictures) would fix it - so here you go I'm being brave here! :-)

and a close up of the image:

Supplies used:

Digital Stamp:

Image:

Time 4 Tea - Phoebe Hugs (another one I can't find in the shop so guessing she's retired)

coloured with Prismacolor Premier pencils

Rubber Stamp:

Sentiment:

Taylored Expressions - Sending Sunshine

Nothing else!

What I did:

Printed the image onto an A4 sheet of card, which I then turned into a DL (slimline) sized card blank.

Coloured in the image with my Prismacolors.

Stamped the sentiment near the image.

et, voila - job done!

I also doubt that the ordinary white card I use when making my own card blanks was the best medium to colour on.  However, I can't remember what I used to use and the card was made for a CAS One Layer challenge - so I worked with what I had. 

If, no when, I do this again, I will investigate properly the better card to use and make a better job of it!

Also, in other news, pleased to report TTT is happily back at school - only a bit of a lingering cough left from the cold - and the Hubby is also on the mend. It seems I was lucky and didn't catch their cold - fingers crossed anyways!!

Signing off now,

Sarah

Challenge / s:

AAA Cards: CAS Game #199 - No Layers + Optional Twist - Hugs

Crafty Sentiments Designs: Anything Goes

Digi Chooseday: Wk 39 - Anything Goes

All your wishes

Hello World

Still finding the renewed joy in colouring / cardmaking.  Also discovering that I have a lot of craft materials stashed away and by a lot I mean a lot.  

I started crafting probably 15 or 16 years ago with very simple cards - stickers, cut out pictures, pre-made embellishments - then I found embossing (the wet kind), patterned papers and stamping (dry to colour in) and I was away. I appear to have put stuff away from all these eras, and I now need to seriously de-clutter!  

So (I'm sure with the odd exception) nothing you see will be new for at least another 15 years.  Hubby would throw a hissy fit if I brought more 'stuff' (but don't mention how much he spends on model railways or you will get a very long justification as how that's 'an investment')!  I'm a very tolerant wife!

Anyway onto card:

The image and sentiment - Time for Tea Designs - Magical Wishes Bonnie collection. I looked at the website but can't find it in their shop.  As I'm working with very old images, I'm guessing it was withdrawn at some point.

Images coloured with Copics - I'll try to remember to note down the colours I'm using - not that my colouring is brilliant at the moment, really need to brush up!

Also a Spelldinders Edgeabilities edge die - Classic Petal. You'll have to ignore the dreadful cutting skills, they appear to have gone on the same holiday as my colouring skills.  Hopefully they will return soon feeling much refreshed!

So that's all from me for now, am still looking for challenges to enter and finding lots of Facebook groups to join instead.

Signing off,

Sarah

Beats Bella

 Hello blogland people

This is me starting down the road of being a regular blogger type person again.  It's taking me a long time to create / take a pic / blog (& now Instagram) a card - am sooo out of practice!  Let's hope it gets easier again as I get re-used to it, otherwise the air will be blue in our house for a very long time.

So this card was made for a friend of Triple T (The Troublesome Teenager) - who grew out of being SWMbO (She Who Must be Obeyed) - last year when she turned 13. In more common parlance - my daughter!

Said friend, I'm told, likes music and silver / purple colour combo - hence this card.  Which was a heavy collaboration with Triple T on paper, image and style - I just did the colouring and putting together.

If anyone ever reads this, they can tell me what information I'm forgetting to put on these posts but for now I'll just muddle along.

The image is from Time for Tea but I couldn't find the image on their website - so maybe it's gone? Anyways it was called Beats Bella, I coloured her in with my Copics and then cut round the image. Lots of dies used on the card and a paper pad from First Edition called 'Dreamcatcher'.

I'm still trying to find challenges to participate in, so maybe I'll be back to do link up if I do find anything.

In the meantime, signing off for now,

Sarah