Birthday Pizza anyone???

Hello.... Jenny here :0)

We've had a little swap round with our blog post days here at MtDS HQ so I can share my Paper Smooches Sparks DT cards on a Monday. If you're a fan of Paper Smoches stamps and haven't checked out this fun challenge just hop over using the link above and join in the fun, this week is an 'Anything Goes' challenge so what better time to start playing along!! :0)

For my card I used the Think Fast stamp set, the pizza slice was asking to be made into a meal for two or three....... or even one, depending on your appetite!!

That wandering slice had to go somewhere and taking the position of an 'A' seemed the perfect solution, this would be a great card for a teenager... in fact the whole stamp set would see you through many a teen birthday card :0)

I hope I've inspired you to ink up those Paper Smooches stamps and come and join us in the gallery :0)
Thanks for stopping by
Jenny x

Party Animals

Hey folks it's Tara checking in again - sorry I'm a little late today but we were out being party animals ourselves last night....

For my card this week I thought I'd take the opportunity to squeeze in a very last minute entry into the current Avery Elle challenge which is to be inspired by this photo.

I thought it would be fun to play with the little party animal set - I LOVE this set - it really appeals to my sense of humour, and I thought I could interpret the cable cars into a row of balloons hanging ready for a party.

I cut 6 balloons in the colours of the cables cars and fussy cut them out with a little white border.  I used peacock distress ink and pearl spritz to create a background and then used some black twine for my "cables" to hang the balloons from.  Each balloon was then mounted with pinflair gel for a little dimension before I stamped the fabby sentiment in the corner to finish.

There are currently just a couple of these sets left in stock so be quick if you want to get yours ;-)

L8R Gator!

Hey!  It's Saturday!  A wee change of days for me! I hope the start to the weekend has been good for everyone so far.  It's a lovely sunny day here in central Scotland - I love this time of the year!

I've been inspired (as always) by Paper Smooches and this cute smiley gator! He's from the Zoo Crew set. I've gone for simple colouring with promarkers and some accent papers from Lawn Fawn.

 

 

Hope you have a fabby weekend!

 

Tracyx

 

Ahoy !!

Hi there.. again. If you are a follower of the Make The Day Special blog you may have seen that I kinda mis-scheduled my post for today..dur. So instead of not giving you anything new to look at this morning I have another card to share with you today.. greedy I know- two posts in two days ;) hehe.

I have used one of the fabulous new in-stock items from Avery Elle... Knotty.

I love all the cute little sentiments that come with this set ... they are all really punny and are great for the guys in our lives.


Have a super great (really) Friday!!!

Hugs Lydia xxx

A bit of Paper Smooches

Happy Friday everyone.. well this week has gone sooo fast - how is it that same days seem to drag but the week goes by in a blink of an eye.

Today is my day to post over at the fabulous Make The Day Special blog- you number one place to get those hard to get stamps from the US over here in the UK. This week I desided to use some of my recently neglected Paper Smooches stamps and the inspiration they have over at the Paper smooches Sparks blog.....

As you can see as reference to my last post I'm a little addicted to gold right now- I have used both gold paint and gold gilding flakes on todays card. I have used two Paper Smooches sets- Flap Happy and Salutations.

I love how the Salutations set has every sentiment you will ever need all in one set and the fonts are fab!! And Flap Happy...... who doesn't love butterflies?!?!?

Have a great stampy day! 

Hugs Lydia xxx

Rounded diamonds or leaves?

Hello.

After a bit of a crafty break some new stamps were needed to kick start the mojo.

I went with some Avery Elle.

I love these rounded diamonds.

But i wanted to use them as leaves...with it being autumn an all. 

I used the matching dies to cut out three shapes on the front panel and used that as a guide top stamp the solid shapes inside.

I finished of with some twine to make a stem and stamped the sentiment from Oh yeah.

Thanks for looking.

I think you're cool!

Hello there! It's a slightly twisted Tuesday. Do you wear flip flops or crack out your winter boots?

I've opted for boots and feeling pretty toasty which is possibly why my thoughts went to creating a wintry scene with this set.

It's called Bitty Buddy Valentines- but there's no sign of smoochiness on this card. I did try to get Pete the penguin to go sliding down the ice but it just looked my glue had failed, so instead he's holding onto a pearl (aka a snowball). Love creating little scenes- and that frame could be used for such a lot of cards.

It's a larger set this one- not the usual size so brilliant value.

Better go,

I'll see you next Tuesday

Keren xx

Welcome Autumn

Hello! 

Are you an Autumn lover? I am :-) It has to be my absolute favorite season of them all...those crisp mornings,low sun,the colours-oh the colours! So beautiful. It is a time to cosy down,snuggle up,pull out the sweaters and boots and bake yummy things. It is also my most active time on Pinterest...I have SO many pumpkin recipes pinned,I really don't think I will get through them all before the pumpkins go out of season!

One of the recipes I pinned this week was the scrumptious sounding Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup-yummo! I haven't had the chance to make it...yet,but it got me thinking it would be nice to decorate all my Autumn recipe cards with some of the gorgeous stamps that are in the shop. Then I thought how nice and different it would be to send a few of these cards out to friends to welcome the coming coolness. Then I thought of my very neglected Paper Smooches Clipboard die set....then this happened....

The buttons are cut from foam using the Cat's Pajamas Buttons die,and threaded with Lawn Fawn Autumny Retro Triple Twine, the stamps are all Paper Smooches Autumn Grooves, (I am going to get a LOT of mileage out of this set!) and the dies are the insanely cute Paper Smooches Clipboard Dies. 

Not sure who is going to get this yet,but I hope I get invited to try the soup ;-)

Happy,happy Autumn people :-)

Lou

Autumn Leaves

Good Morning all - Tara here with my Sunday slot and this week I've gone all autumnal just in time for this last flash of summer we're all getting.  Hope the sun is shining on you today as it's glorious here in Sunny Sheffield!

I was inspired by the current challenge at CASual Friday's to feature shades of autumn and at least one leaf on your project - and as I have my new Avery Elle stash winking at me, it would frankly be rude not to play with the Modern Leaves set now wouldn't it.........

I wanted to make the big scribbled leaf the main feature on my card so I took a piece of white card smaller than my base and a selection of autumnal shades of ink and just went to town with random stamping.  If like me you find "random" a bit hard to do - follow the rule of 3 and stamp your leaf 3 times in each colour in 3 places and before you know you'll have covered your card ;-)

For my sentiment - also from the same set - I embossed it onto my base card with mustard EP from American Crafts and then added a shadow effect - this is super easy when you've embossed as you simply stamp again in a darker shade over the top but just to the left with a dye ink and then wipe it off the embossing.  Here's a close up.

My focal element is a flower die cut from brown felt (HA framelet) and 2 sets of leaves die cut from mustard felt with my Wplus9 Folk Art Florals dies again.   I hand stitched some tiny seed beads to the centre of the flower and added some streaks of orange stickles to stop the focal element being "flat" and finished with a few blobs of stickles around it to draw the eye in.

That's all from me today - off to the dreaded Ikea again - wish me luck!

Saying Thanks

Hello there.... you probably guessed I'll be using new Avery Elle goodies today on my card!!.... and you'd be right :0)

It's been a hectic week here helping our daughter get organised and pack ready to return to Uni this weekend so this card was a last minute make ....

I've used the large speech bubble die from Oh Yeah to cut an aperture and then stamped the flowers from Oh Happy Day.... I love the irregular shape of them :0) A few have been cut out and raised for some extra dimension overlapping the speech bubble. Love love love the font on the sentiment from Modern leaves too, just like it's been written with a marker!!

Thanks for stopping by today :0)

Jenny x

A Little Avery Elle

Happy Friday everyone- do we all have that Friday feeling yet? 

It's Lydia here with you today at Make The Day Special and I have been playing with some of the new gorgeous Avery Elle that she has in the store.

I have used three of the new-in Avery Elle sets Knotty, Oh Happy Day and Petals and Stems. I am sooooo loving all of these sets and the stripe border on Kotty is so darn usable! I think I have used it on every project since Saturday (when Mr Postie dropped these beauties off!).

Hope you likey and sooo glad you popped in!

Hugs, Lydia xxx 

A Little Love!

Toot toot! It's Tuesday!

As so many of us are doing unseasonal Christmas crafting at the moment- I'd thought I'd get in early with Valentines Day! (joking!)

I decided to use this lovely set- which is perfect for anyone needing a little love

It also has these matching dies

Now the set is ridiculously cheap at £9-& at £4.50 for the dies, Lou is practically giving them away. I'm not normally one for matching dies, as I love fussy cutting, but I couldn't have achieved the background cut away part behind the cupid without it. It gives depth to the design & is worth the extra few pennies.

Well, time marches on, at this rate we'll be doing Easter next.

See you next week!

Keren xx

Looking up!

Hey! It's Monday again! and things are looking up!   I was inspired by the lovely Paper Smooches for my card this week!   Zoo Crew and My Peeps combined.. coloured with promarkers and flexmarkers.. with some support from WPlus9 Heartfelt Mix and Love Birds.

Pop on over to Make the Day Special and check out these gorgeous stamp sets!

It's all about geometry...

Tara here again - I've got a couple of cards to share today and although very different in style they are linked by geometry through the use of a rounded diamond.

For my first card, I decided to highlight the simply gorgeous Folk Art Florals from WPlus9 so those of you who are disappointed that Fresh Cut Florals is out of stock could see the potential of this slightly older set.

I took a 9cm square panel of thick white card stock and selected a range of bright inks and stamped each of the large flowers from the set in a different shade randomly all over the card.  I masked the larger two flowers with sticky note tape and then stamped the leaves coming out from them to fill up the spaces in between.  You then get your own custom stamped floral background paper.  To take it one step further, I cut it into 4 equal squares and rounded two corners on each panel to give the geometric shape I wanted to play with and arranged them on my base card with a little gap in between.  I decided to add a silhouette focal point design using the companion dies (currently out of stock - sorry) using the bird house, birds and branches and finished with one of the lovely sentiments from the same set.

So that was going to my only card for this week, but then the postman arrived with my new Avery Elle goodies which are in store now so naturally I had to get them inked up immediately and I was drawn to the Rounded Diamonds set with the same shapes I'd been playing with.

I wanted to play with the geometry to create some strong clean and graphical shapes as I thought this would give me a useful masculine card so I opted for blue, green and purple this time and again stamped each shape in one colour but this time directly onto my base card in a diagonal.  I added a sentiment from the sublime new Handwritten Notes set - I just love the little "extras" you can add to your messages.  To add a finishing touch I went with 3 little clusters of sequins in the same colours as the stamping.

I think the weather for most of the country is definitely the kind to keep us indoors and crafting today so have a fun day everyone and I'll see you next weekend ;-)

Three for Onesie!!!

Hello :0)
I'm popping in with some new baby cuteness at the start of this wet and wild weekend!!!

One of the Paper Smooches dies I just had to have was the Onesie because not only is it cute but it offers double value to us crafters by cutting a solid shape and an outline too...come and see :0)

By cutting a couple of onesie's from pink, blue and cream I could swap the positive and negative portions around to make three different cards...... the cute fish and star icons are from the Paper Smooches Sailboat die set. The card above has the designs inlaid into the cream panel...... it's quite easy and fun to do, just like a kiddies jigsaw puzzle :0)

I've stitched a curved washing line and made a couple of tiny pegs for added cuteness on the boy version :0)

The size of the die makes a perfect embellishment on it's own for a 4" square note card and of course you can add any type of embellishment to the Onesie..... if you have alphabet dies/stamps why noy add a monogram !!!

The sentiments I've used come from the sets Salutations and Sentiment Sampler (currently out of stock).

Thanks for stopping by :0)
Jenny x

Just Because

Hello and a happy Friday to you ink lovers out there! so happy the weekend is here as I get my little boy all day for two whole days as this has been his first week of school I have been missing my little dude like crazy and need more snuggle time :) God help me next week when he goes onto full days :/ 

So onto my card today... and guess what ?!?! I made good my promise from last week and no Wplus9 (but if you want a Wplus9 Friday fix head over to my blog later ;) ) . Here's my creation using the fab stamp set 'Loving Thoughts' from Cas-ual Fridays stamps.

The sentiments are just great! They are all so different and cover pretty much everything- so a great go to set to have in your stash and the images could be used on both male and female cards.

Hugs Lydia xx

PS Did you see that new Avery Elle has arrived in the store ?!?!?! Guess what everyone will be using next week..hehhe xx

5 minute Tag!

Hey! Hope you're all ok.

Today I'm speeding in and out. 

We're all a bit time-poor often & this morning is no exception!

My daughter phoned to ask for her locker key which she'd left at home- before I could run back to school, I needed to attach the key to something so it didn't get lost.

I couldn't pass up the chance to stamp and so this whole tag was completed in just over 3mins from start to finish.

Sometimes super speedy is ok.

The set is a beautiful Unity one called Harvest of Memories and as Autumn looks like its fully ensconced in the current seasons armchair, we may as well start to embrace it!

Here's the set.

Just beautiful isn't it!

Well, am speeding off,

enjoy your day!

Keren x

A Little Jar of Thanks

Hello!

Firstly,today is the last day of the Mama Elephant pre-orders. Stock will be in limited quantities when it arrives,so this is the perfect chance to make sure you get the sets you want. Pre-orders close tonight-hurry to the store!

Back to todays card :-)

I had one of those moments where you go to do something completely unrelated to crafting,spot a stamp set peeking out of the chaos in the craft room and you just HAVE to have a fiddle. This is the first time I have opened Briny Blue-I LOVE these little fishy guys! So many possibilities jumped into my head when I saw this set-I am smitten :-)

I teamed Briny Blue up with Crystal Clear 1 dies,and cut a piece of vellum with Crystal Clear 2 dies to make the 'water'. 

Hope you like it :-)

Lou

A Small Gang

Hi it's Tara here with my first post as the Sunday Girl for Make The Day Special.  I'm really thrilled to be joining the gang and have made a little gang related card to kick things off....

Today I'm giving you a little look at some of the great sets from Mama Elephant which are available to pre-order now.  Make the Day Special is the only UK stockist of Mama Elephant so if you want to get your hands on any of their fabulous sets without the customs costs then you know where to go!  You need to be quick though as pre-orders close tomorrow.

For this little cutie I used 3 sets - Cosmic Stars, the companion set Starry Nights and Good Times.

 

Now if you're not into Astrology, you might initially think that the Cosmic Stars set isn't for you, but the images are sooo cute and don't necessarily need to have an astrological bent.  By teaming it with the sentiment from Good Times as I have done here, the Gemini twins just become a pair of besties ;-)   I used the little banner from Starry Nights to create a subtle background behind the twins which I coloured with copics and mounted onto a circle of teal card to make it stand out.  Very quick and simple little card but perfect to give to a friend.

So pop on over to the store now and get your order in before its too late.......

Tweet Congrats!!

Hi there... Jenny back again at the start of the weekend 

and I have a sweet little card today using a Lawn Fawn set 

which had not been inked up.... oh the shame!! *wink*

Sorry!!... I've done it again... yep this set is not in stock at the moment :0(

its a set called Home Sweet Home and will hopefully be back in stock soon.

...this little card came together quickly by delving into my scraps box which 

contains surplus diecuts and card sized scraps of patterned papers and 

challenging myself to use only bits from there.... It's quite a good way to

prod the creative cells :0)

Thanks for stopping by today and dont forget to check back 

tomorrow and welcome our new DT girl Tara :0)

Jenny x

Milk and Cookies

So sorry I'm a bit late with my post today...I completely forgot it was Friday! Huge Gasp... now how on earth did I forget about that.

On to my card for today ..... and yes it is another Wplus9 but I promise to use another company next week... shake things up a little..lol.

The card I'm sharing is really super simple but work well for both a male or female.... which is great in my book....

I am so in love with this set. And the sentiment is awesome , you could even mix this up with different sets and substitute the cookies for bees and the milk for flowers- you could really have fun doing this !


Off for some cookies and milk now, have a sweet day !!

Hugs Lydia xxx

Bunch of Chocolate Lollipops!

Good afternoon. I'm a little tawdry today- please overlook it! I have, for your delectation the next best thing to flowers. I am a lover of flowers- but if I was going to give someone a thankyou gift, I'd like it to last a little longer than 3-4 days and being edible would be far better. But none of these plasticky or sticky efforts- a good plain chocolate lollipop if you please.

Anyhow, back to the stamp sets

and

 

and

the other set is OOS (out of stock). Still, it makes a cheerful card. Love how you can combine sets to make a card with a difference. This card took 15 minutes tops. A real speedy effort!

 

 

Well better go- school uniform won't iron itself!

See you next Tuesday

 

Keren x

 

 

 

 

Fintastic Monday

Hi everyone!  Monday's crept up on me again! Where does the time go!?
I've been playing with some new toys today - Briny Blue from Paper Smooches.
This is another gorgeous stamp set - they all are!  This one has lovely matching dies!  I've teamed it up on this card with Paper Smooches Clouds die cuts.

 

I used Promarkers and Flexmarkers to colour the fish!

 

 

 

Hope you like it!

Have a lovely week until it's my turn to see you all again!

 

Tracyx