With Love...

...on Valentine's Day.

On this day 11 years ago we were having the practise ceremony and going through the vows for our wedding. We didnt plan it for Valentine's, it just happened that way. We married a few days later. And, bonus, we are still married :0)

For my second week as guest over at Happy Daze, here is a simple Valentine's card.

A simple and clean design using Songbird by Prima and Bow Heart, one of my stamp designs over at Stampotique..

Sometimes it's the clean and simple designs that are the most difficult to make. The tiniest dot or smudge waves back at you like a beacon, as you can maybe see here on the close up...

There are a couple of tiny black dots where they shouldn't be and the bird could have stamped more solidly...but this is what happens and makes for all cards being individual. No hand stamped cards are absolutely perfect. 

Wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day. xxx

Guest Artist

Hello...

remember me?

:0)

Happy New Year!! Better late than never I guess.

Just thought I'd stop by and let you know that this month I have the honour of being February's Guest Artist over at Happy Daze. I haven't created in a while due to real life commitments but have managed to put together a few pieces for the Happy Daze challenge.

For a full image of the above close up item and details of the stamps I used, please check out the Happy Daze Design Team Blog.

Didn't quite get it right...

The latest theme over on the Stampotique Designer's Challenge is a Christmassy one, only non-traditional.

Now, I seemed to have got the wrong end of the stick with this challenge at first and read our DT info as being 'non traditional Christmas colours', where in fact it appears its a non traditional Christmas card but no red and green.

Soooooooo...lol..discovering this, the card I'd originally made had to be ditched and a last minute one pulled together.

This was my original...pink orange and green (scrapped because green isnt allowed) using a combination of Mwah!, Mistletoe and Merry Kissmas from my range at Stampotique along with this super cute Whisker Monster with a sign character from the latest releases by Kira Nichols also available at Stampotique..







and this is the last minute substitute, again stamps all by Stampotique ( this time both by Amy Wilson Wellenstein)...All Bundled Up and Christmas Mosaic





Hope you get an opportunity to take part and be in with a chance to win $30 of Stampoitique rubber by being drawn out at random.

For all the details for this challenge and what stamps can be used this week please check it out here.

If you are wanting to purchase stamps here in the UK as opposed to the USA for that rush on Christmas bits and bobs, a large selection of Stampotique images can be found at Happy Daze.

Craft Stamper December Issue 2011

How time flies!

It's time for the December issue of Craft Stamper already.



I am very pleased to say I have a super-cheap-make article in this issue using newsprint and the most recent additions to my range of stamps over at Stampotique. Of course, you could use any stamps at all that you own, but I thought it would be perfect to use the new ones as the gentle nature of them appealed to me with the colours I chose at the time (along with one or two old faves such as Bee that you've no doubt spotted).

I'm not allowed to reveal full images of the cards I made to place inside the wrap, but can show the whole item as its on the top left hand side of the cover!! :0))))



For the stamps and the magazine please pop over to Merly Impressions or Happy Daze.

I hope you enjoy the magazine if you manage to grab a copy. Lots of great ideas in there. To mention a few of my favourites from the quick glance I have managed to have so far...
Joanne Wardles Crafty Individuals houses (the kite card is inspirational!!)
Trish's snowflakes...very atmospheric. As always, Helen's stunning use of colour. Jeans vintage image pendants (looking even more fab with the soft pink rose setting) There are also some amazing reader's contributions this month...I spotted Sam Read's Moon Girl piece (awwwwwwww...and more so when I read the words alongside it), Jannet Blays cake (how long did that take??!!) and Anne Mullan's stunning Dream piece.

And thats just skimming the surface!! Best you order a copy, eh?

Paperbag Studios, Tim, a sandwich bag and a bit of tissue paper

An unusual combination, but all of the above is what you will need if you fancy making something along the lines of what appears on the cover of the November issue of Craft Stamper.

To say I was really pleased was an understatement!! I was so suprised to see my card on the front of the mag, plus it means I can use the 'loop hole rule' of actually getting to show a published piece on my blog by showing the magazine cover!!




To see all four cards please grab an issue from Craft Stamper, Happy Daze, The Craft Barn or Crafty Individuals. For a copy in The Netherlands, Art Journey stocks the magazine.

Stamps used for the article are available from Paperbag Studios, Craft Barn and Happy Daze.

I hope you liked it if you have already got your copy.

Just Dreaming and Hanging About

Crafty Individuals have their new challenge theme for September up and running!

This is what it says...

'...the theme for the month has been chosen by Lucy Edmondson, and is 'Hanging About'. To give you some idea of how to tackle this I will put the idea in Lucy's own words - ‘this would give people scope to do a wall hanging, canvas, frame, lantern, bird cage, bird house, jewellery, dangly things on cards, pennants – all sorts. Or they could interpret it as friends hanging about together.’

So I made this hanging using a selection of Crafty Individual stamps. The main image is one of the fabulous new designs, which, wait for it wait for it....currently, aswell as being able to buy it in the 'normal' way as usual from Crafty Individuals for £6.44, if you spend over £28(excluding postage) you get this new Crow collage stamp FREE!!!!

Yes!! FREE!!

And talking of bargains, the little skeleton hand charm dangling from the hanging is a snip at 20p from HAPPY DAZE




Hope you like this.... coloured with Distress and Jenni Bowlin ink pads...and pencil crayons. Splashes of water here and there. Black StazOn for the black stamping. Lots of matt and layering. I have run out of eyelets, so I would have liked those on here to finish the piece off nicely but nevermind ay.

A great challenge theme...I hope you can find a moment this month to join in. Worthwhile...theres a prize! Check out the Crafty Individuals blog challenge post for details.

No rest ...

Two posts in two days.... what is the world coming to :0)




Today sees the release of the latest Craft Stamper magazine (July issue) where I have an article on using up the scrap page that you work on top of whilst making a card. It's called Acidentally On Purpose and I hope you enjoy it. Here is a sneak image of it as Craft Stamper don't allow full images.

One of the cards is on the front cover though- left hand side second from the top. :0)



I used a selection of stamps from my range at Stampotique Originals (available, amongst others, in the UK from Merly Impressions) and Lost Coast ( available in the UK from Happy Daze who also stock Stampotiques). See the magazine for further details.

I have one or two things in the pipeline with Craft Stamper at the moment which I'm enjoying again. Having recently stepped down from the various stamping Design Teams I belonged to it has enabled me to concentrate on my own artwork and get to grips with that a little easier. There were times when I felt like I was swirling down a plug hole with the amount I thought I could manage. Well, I could have if the family hadn't required conversing with or requested to eat occassionally ;0)

There are also publishing opportunity details for everyone over on Craft Stamper's blog. Have you seen? Katy Fox, the editor, says...

Hello all,
Just putting out a call for our Sept themed gallery feature as I have two spots remaining!

If you'd like to see your work in Craft Stamper then here is your chance!

THEME: OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO (cityscapes - think Paris, London, NY, Venice etc).
COLOURS: Warm cream with black and white.

The call closes 13th June so get your skates on!

Please email submissions to cs@traplet.com (NB: actual artwork will be required if you are selected). You can send images of existing creations which have been blogged (we'll ask you to temporarily take them down for publication) but please not anything you have done for a DT position.

Look forward to seeing your creations!

Keep an eye open on the Craft Stamper blog for other themes in the future!

And finally, I have another workshop coming up soon too towards the end of the month. Really looking forward to that and meeting a few new faces aswell as my regular lay-deeeze :0) I need to post all about my last workshop too yet. That was great fun, I really enjoyed it.

In the words of Dory..."Just keep swimming, swimming , swimming"

The ferry, Port Sunlight, the stamps, the friends and a card!

Last Thursday we travelled up from the south coast to the Wirral, four and a half hours or so up north so I could demo Stampotique and Paperbag Studios stamps (links on the right)on the Happy Daze stand at the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight.



On the Friday morning (whilst all the merchandise was in transit from Yorkshire) my husband, little lad and I went on a FERRRRRRRR-RYYYYYYYY 'CROSS THE MERRRRR-SEEEEEEYYY.
Had to be done.
Can't travel for hours and not do the touristy stuff lol.



It was a tad nippy with a fair ol' fresh breeze (read "blinkin freezin" as I've become a softy southerner when it comes to weather having lived there for the last 25 years).

The afternoon was spent unpacking a huge amount of stock and then looking at the available space...and our stand looked like we'd been raided by the Tazmanian Devil at the end of the session and we left exhausted.

On the day of the show (the Saturday), Joanne Wardle, Karen Cass and Julie Dandy joined Moira, Claire and I for a 'frenzied finish presenting and reshuffling the stock' session at 8am and then we were ready!

Here's Joanne Wardle (standing) and lil ol' me before the mad rush began. Joanne and I have known each other online for about 8 years and this was the first time we had met in real life. This was a bit of a 'ohhhhhhhh nooooooooo' in a Zilly voice from Stop The Pigeon moment as it was taken minutes before the show started.



Here's Karen and Julie...



Joanne at the helm!



And off we go....










I managed to only take a few photos at the beginning as after then it was soooooooooooo busy!!!!!!! My husband took quite a few of these (thank yooou) when dropping in before the doors opened which was lucky. Wish I'd have managed to get photos of all the people that stopped by to say hello that I know online. Here I managed to capture Ann chatting to Happy Daze owner Moira(dressed in teal) in the distance, Claire at the till and that might be Mel on the left? Difficult to tell. Please let me know if you recognise yourself or anyone.
Hi to Chris, Sheila (She), Judith (PoppyCottage), Sid, Kath, Vix, Ann, Corina (travelled from The Netherlands!)Lorraine, and all those people I chatted with on the stands that I'd known for ages or just met and on my breaks. Thanks too for the wonderful artwork from Mary and Karen.

Here's Joanne in full swing. The crowd was so big I had weave my way back through and hold my camera forward in the air to take a photo.



It was an exhausting day. I've certainly never made that many cards and tags in one day in my stamping career. They were quickmakes, very quickmakes, but lots of fun. Everyone was so friendly it was great!

Thanks goes most of all from me to my husband Dave for driving for 10 hours in total so I could do the show and coping with the nightmare of the rear tyre blowing out on us on the central reservation on the motorway on the way home. eeeek!, and to my boys.

*If anyone ever fancies a card swap I have lots of more detailed work that I've made in the past and I'm happy to exchange. I would love to hear from you if you the idea. My work just sits in a box going no where mostly, and I would be great to receive a card or whatever you may fancy swapping in exchange.

Whilst I was at the show I managed to grab a bit of spending time and headed off to the Stamp Camp to track down a stamp I used to own (can't find it anywhere, you know how it goes) and it never reappeared after we moved house. Stamp Camp had travelled all the way from the States and I was hoping THE stamp had travelled with them. YEP!!! THERE SHE WAS!! The little girl in the hat watching the sunset aka #SD103 Beach Girl. So pleased I have her again. She reminds me of my childhood. A real chillout stamp image. Very relaxing to stamp with at the moment.I paired it up with #SD117 'One must Live'.




As it happens the The Cheerful Stamp Pad challenge this week is COLOUR MY WORLD and so this I feel fits in rather well I think :0) . I used a combination of Jenni Bowlin ink pads (the ones I demoed with on the stand )and coloured pencils to colour this one layer card.

Finally, you may have noticed the righthand side of my blog is looking a little less crowded. I've decided that now is perhaps a good time to concentrate on artwork for myself and for publishing (magazine and my book which is almost done) so needed to step away from the regular commitment of the design teams I belonged to (will miss chatting with the girls on the teams!), but it's not to say I won't be still working with all those fabulous images of course!!

Watch this space!!!

RECYCLED Stampotique

The theme for the latest challenge at Stampotique is RECYCLED, brought to us by Valerie H Wilson. A good theme for me as I harbour so much 'junk' at home in the hope of transforming it all into something a bit different I was spoilt for choice over which bit of 'rubbish' to work with. I opted for this- a corned beef tin lid. One of those new pull ones.

I painted and heat embossed the majority of it, using a Prima mask and a bit of finger painting, then added my image and wording, attaching a bath plug chain to hang it up with.



This little guy from Stampotique, SMILE, was the perfect size.



...and with his MEDIUM BEE wings and the word angel from YOU ARE AN ANGEL , looks a real cutie. I drew his halo with white pen.

I hope you like it and are able to join in with ANY STAMPS (as its an any stamp week) but if you have Stampotiques in your collection it would be great to see those too obviously). Any entries to the challenge are in with a chance to be randomly drawn to win a $30 gift certificate. Only one entry per artist please as its such a large gift cert on offer.



Stampotique stamps are available from Stampotique directly (in the USA) or many outlets in the UK, one of which is HAPPY DAZE.

Talking of Happy Daze.....we are now on a different stand as previously mentioned at Port Sunlight and if you have a ticket to the show you will spot us immediately as you walk in to the large hall where I shall be demoing Stampotique Originals stamps. During my breaks, Joanne Wardle (another Stampotique DT member as it happens) will also be leaping into the demo seat.

Show Us Your Style...

The theme over on PaperPlay Challenges is SHOW US YOUR STYLE.

This is the 'look' that I do 'naturally ' I suppose. Give me ink pads and stamps and I lean towards this.... a bit messy (only because its incredibly tricky doing neat lol), inky layering, a main image, some form of background stamp, and a word or two.
I used Paperbag Studios stamps for all three of these tags.







These are also three more samples for my demo day at the Port Sunlight show on Saturday. OOOOOOOOOOOOOo not long now! Very excited!!

Hope you have a good week!

PORT SUNLIGHT DEMO SNEAK PEEKS 2011 (and some new artwork)

Well this time next week I would have just finished a day of stamping away like a woman possessed at the HAPPY STAMPERS stamp festival in Port Sunlight on the Wirral.

I shall be on STAND 32- HAPPY DAZE, demoing MY RANGE of stamps with STAMPOTIQUE along with other STAMPOTIQUE and PAPERBAG STUDIOS stamps.(All links are on the right of my blog)

When I take a break or two (and do a bit of shopping!), JOANNE WARDLE will be tag teaming me and demoing her gorgeous FLOATING CARDS as seen recently in CRAFT STAMPER.


I shall be making all sorts of things...

...various tags....(this one is using stamps by Stampotique)



lots of different cards (the stamps used here are by Paperbag Studios),



'simple makes' similar to the one I made the other week ...



wooden arches ...




perhaps some postcards...




infact whatever takes my fancy I think...I'll just go with the flow :0)

The show is totally sold out, but if you already have tickets, please make sure you stop by and introduce yourself as I'd love to meet you in real life! I shall be making and giving away samples all day and answering any questions anyone may have (stamping related questions are probably best lol).

Really looking forward to it!

Let me know if you are going!

Stampotique Sketch

The challenge this week at Stampotique Designer Challenge Blog is a sketch given to us by DT member Kim Howard. I think 'receipes', sketches and colour combinations are, for me, a tricky way of working as I have a real tendancy to drift way off course and add 'stuff' that isn't allowed as I rarely end up making what I set out to in the first instance lol

So here is my contribution...

For the main panel I freely painted and scratched the background, added stamps and glitter.

Stamps (Splatter Long, Smushasha and Quiet Place, are all by Stampotique Originals, available direct or here in the UK from Happy Daze.

Theres a $30 Gift Certificate to be won by a randomly drawn participant at the end of the challenge so its certainly worth taking part.

This week is STAMPOTIQUE STAMPS ONLY TO BE USED please.


oooopps...edit to say - Here's the sketch!

More Than Words

Over on Wednesday Stamper this week is a challenge entitled 'More Than Words' which says...

Art can say more than words, and so can a facial expression, a colour, a setting are all things that can make an impression and speak louder than words… You can still use words in your piece, and you’re welcome to interpret the theme however you want. Just remember to use at least one rubberstamp.

I used some of the gorgeous new stamps released recently by Art Journey and a couple of the die cut images by K&Co available from Happy Daze (which, unfortunately, have just gone out of stock, but are THE most beautiful selection I've seen for a long time and will be back in stock very soon I hope.).

It's my turn again...

Morning!

Today is my turn to come up with a theme for the new Stampotique challenge. Its an ANY STAMPS challenge (being the first challenge of the month) but if you have any Stampotiques it would be fab if you used those too. If you don't have any, why not?! lol....this is the perfect opportunity to win some as Carol and Jim at Stampotique are donating yet another $30 gift certificate for one lucky person drawn in a fortnights time.

Anyway....enough of the details...whats the theme? NEWSPRINT AND OLD BOOKS. I'd love to see what you can make using either. Whether its a page, an altered book, sentences cut out from the daily newspaper which have inspired you.

I made this as my contribution, but this has so much scope as a theme its endless. I used one of Stampotiques new mermaids, Smumanha (or 'the one with the pointy hair' as I like to call her), Swirl Stalks, Jo's Flower Cube and Splatter Long. I also used a punch to create little flower bursts of newspaper.

Another approach would of course to use stamps that have book/newspaper text on them such as French Text and Text Stars or any others you may have in your collection.

I hope you can find a bit of time to join in. I know you will wow me with your fab ideas!! The first 'batch' from the Stampotique Team are on the site now. Please check over there for the other contributions as the days go by.

All stamps available from Stampotique in the USA and Happy Daze in the UK, amongst others.

A Bee ON my Bonnet!

Moira at Happy Daze has some wonderful mini top hats in stock (available in cream, black and white).

Mine's decorated a bit on the tame side (doh! I just used stamping with images from the shop to decorate mine- didnt read the brief properly about what we could use and am mad with myself for not adding my own stuff), but you should see the other hats on display over on the Happy Daze blog...they are lots of fun and really wild. I'll try another one in the near future and create a wacky one.



I used Big Bee and Medium and Tiny bee...and the Leaf and Hexagon, all by Stampotique. The sparkly bling is from a set of Parisian Anthology flowers. The paint used to colour the hat is by Claudine Hellmuth. I used Modern Red and Dab of Yellow...softened with some white thrown in for good measure. All available at Happy Daze here in the UK.



For the sticky-up wings I used that packing material which is like soft poly foam sheeting.



Anyway...hats off to the rest of the team who provided us with some true British eccentricity. Wonderful stuff. Please check them out here.

Oooops...almost forgot, made a matching necklace to go with it. Simple stamping, using A World All Her Own and Medium Bee. Again, available from Happy Daze.
(
*EDIT TO SAY* necklace is shown in the top photograph)

Thanks for looking x Have a great weekend .

Less is More

Too simple to blog?

Less is More's latest theme is to have the text as the main focal point. Not sure I succeeded as I keep looking at the bee, but the text is the thing I read first, so the jury is out on that one.

Both stamps by Stampotique. (A World All Her Own and Medium Bee with a tiny bee on the side,...this is the tiny bee.

Also available from Happy Daze here in the UK.