Author: Catherine

Our lovely friend had a special birthday so I made a special card for her! And I remembered to stick the camera on and video the process!

I decided on a purples colour scheme and that I wanted to use the Splendid Bouquet set from Altenew.

I loved putting this together and put lots of patterns together but think they worked well.

I also added in the foam numbers for the recognition of the special birthday!

Finished off with the little gems.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I did join in with this 1 sketch : 3 ways challenge a few times last year but haven’t had the chance to join in for a while. The challenge is to take the sketch and make it your own but Helen, Jackie and Sarah give you three interpretations as inspiration. Then we all share our versions on the Facebook group.

Well on Sunday I decided to join in and scrap the photo of me that is going to be my ID badge for my new role which I started this week and decided to make it a positive page to give me confidence ahead of my first day!

I used scraps from the yellow pouch for the papers and then lots of bits and bobs from the stash to add in words that helped me with the positivity and went with the colours of the yellow and turquoise.

The sketch itself has the big snowflake in the background but I went with the circle and the stencilling underneath as my background element.

I kept the circular element to the bottom left of the photo but reduced it down to one larger photo rather than the two photos.

I kept the border from the sketch and also the location of the journalling and the little top right cluster. It’s handy having the bright solid colours in that Kingston Crafts summer collection paper to create the colourful border!

Once I’d got the main elements sorted I then ignored the sketch and went with whatever I felt worked at the time.

I love the bright colour scheme – again radiating positivity and cheerfulness!

And the little pops of the turquoise I think work nicely. I would have preferred more teal coloured letters for the title but I didn’t have any so made the more green turquoise work by dotting those colours around in other places too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

When I saw this gorgeous paisley themed paper I knew I wanted to cut it apart! I just had a vision of the paisley elements raised …not sure why that was but sometimes it’s just how it goes!

I decided it would work well with black too – so I added some mats of the black but for the base under the cut apart piece I inked the solid colour paper from the pack and added lots of shimmer paint splatters.

When I was adhering it all together I decided to rotate the cut apart piece and pop the sentiment in a different place from the original idea but otherwise I pretty much kept to the plan.

I added that Altenew stamped and die cut sentiment to bridge the two cut apart pieces with the same foam adhesive under the middle part to keep it level.

I also added the black gems to tie in a bit more of the black and made the card base from the solid papers in the kit. I’ve said before it’s a thick paper but not quite cardstock but I think when you add the layers on the front and inside it can function as a card base too!

I took one more piece of the cut apart paisley and mounted it on black and cut around that too to add to the inside and a wide border of the smaller print side of the paper.

I love the paper as it came so can’t wait to use it again but for now this was my first thought when I saw it and it came out perfectly!

And it got to be seen on the tv on the show 5th January. So exciting!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

On Friday I did a little tidy up of the embellishment box and it reminded of all the lovely stash I have and that I need to pull that out and not just grab new stash. I also put away the concertina folder that has paper scraps in sorted by colour and decided to pull together some scraps to make a page!

As you can see from above I went for an orange and turquoise theme and I grabbed a picture that is a collage of pics of the charcuterie board my daughter made for us the weekend before Christmas.

I gave myself a vague layout to start with and then using gesso through a stencil I added some mixed media. The background was a piece of the 12×12 summer collection pad from Kingston Crafts but it is a solid colour and I loved the coral/orange colour.

I got this far on Friday morning and then left it as it was to dry whilst I popped over to Manchester to take M back to uni and have some lunch there before coming home!

Once home I finished off … I fussy cut those lovely leaves from the patterned paper and layered things up. I then spent a while going through the pouches of embellishments (most which are lollipop box club kits or bramble fox club kits) and adding in things I think worked.

I also grabbed some very old alpha stickers for the yum title!

I love all the textures and bits of interest on this page which is very much ‘thrown’ together.

I added my journalling towards the bottom and made sure I added the date into the page too.

Where I had added the tag at the top I added some twine and looped it to come down the right hand side with some carefully applied glue underneath elements to keep it in place.

Really enjoyed putting this non-person focused page together and using up old papers and bits of stash!

So this is an extra page done for my scrapbook and I’m sharing it on a Monday not a Saturday! This is in part because I already have a page done and ready to post for next Saturday and also because today I start my new job so I think it highly unlikely I will get any crafting done today so this is a much needed get ahead and ready on the blog kind of post!

Happy crafting!

I ended up grabbing those twinchies I made in error not realising there is a colour scheme and using them to make a fun card.

I really like how this looks – so fun!

I added the twinchies to a piece of the pink cardstock and then added the sentiment diecut on top.

I raised the panel up onto the foam so it has some dimension and adhered it to a square card blank.

Then I added some blue sequins to bring the blue colour out a little more and of course add some sparkle.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I went back to playing with the page kit I got from Sarah at Hey Little Magpie and used the leftovers to make an impromptu page! It was also inspired by the challenge for this month over at the Hey Little Magpie Facebook group to use thread!

I videoed the process so check out the YouTube video.

I added in some bits and pieces from 49th & Market and the bit of stencilling under the main panel too.

Love using up leftovers and this page was a great way of doing that! I hadn’t realised when I started that it was actually a spring photo not an autumnal one but the colours in the photo work well with the papers so it doesn’t matter!

Hope you like what I made!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Combined my DT stuff with my Festive Friday today – using supplies from the Everyday Stories kit from Kingston Crafts to make these two smaller cards using the fabulous Kate Crane stamps from Paperartsy.

I actually won the stamps on a competition with UK Stampers Forum so this was my first use of them but can only share them now due to the fact Kingston Crafts didn’t release the Everyday Stories collection until more recently and it was cards from that collection I used to make the card fronts.

I did two choosing different colour scheme for each and I added colour to the stamped images I had heat embossed to match.

I kept both cards quite simple – the stamped panel, a sentiment and a couple of layers of the card panels that were designed for the Everyday stories album but I knew I could also use as card toppers… and once again here I am using products not designed for Christmas for my Christmas card obsession!

Cute and quick and easy cards! And I got to see them on the tv back on the 5th Jan – sitting on either side of the Chester Zoo pages I made …

An early post for me today as no work today – instead I’m off to take M back to her uni flat and a lunch out in Manchester – so best stop lazing in bed and get myself showered and ready!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

For this card I really wanted to represent the PSL joy! Not sure what I mean – well Pumpkin Spice Latte is one of my go to treats as soon as the coffee shops start selling it. It’s a hideous amount of calories though so I’ve try to limit myself but do miss it when it’s not available anymore! Also I love it iced as well as hot so when I saw these shrink plastic images that was what came to mind!

So I started with the shrink images and cut them out and coloured them in with the pumpkin colours and shrank them!

Aren’t they just the cutest?

I remembered that in my digital stamp collection I had these cups so printed out a whole panel full of them onto the white and did ink blending in lovely autumnal colours.

I die cut a circle for the little shrink PSL’s to sit on.

Now at this point I paused crafting for a few days and when I came back I had a small disaster and I tipped some water onto my desk and it ruined one of the shrink plastic pieces by disturbing the colouring – so note to self water based inks don’t mix well with water on shrink plastic! Doh! But fortunately everything else was safe it just meant two drinks became one!

I grabbed a couple of scraps of everyday cardstock to make a panel across my card and stuck all of those pieces down but then I had an idea … firstly I wanted Pumpkin Spice Latte on the card so printed that off on some of the solid cardstock that is in the spring slimline kit and then from the same piece I die cut this wood slice die from Altenew. I then inked it up with some distress inks and used that as the base for the circle die cut.

I also decided it needed some actual pumpkins so out came the Scenic Pumpkin patch stamps and stamped and fussy cut the set of three and then cut one out of the same set to raise it up on the foam adhesive.

I decided that was then done – a perfect PSL card – perfect for sending a Gift card to a fellow PSL lover I thought!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I decided this year to try and join in with more swaps and mix up my making so it’s not too card focused. So today’s post is the inchies and twinches I made for the swaps.

I kept them similar as I made them at the same time using some scrap cardstock, distress oxides and some embossing.

Except once I made them I realised I had not read the instructions for the twinchies and instead of anything goes with stamping it was Green Blue and Yellow – so these twinchies won’t be being swapped this month but held onto until I can find a use for them!

Regardless I thought I would share them here!

So I started with the two pieces of white cardstock and added distress oxides to them for the background before adding some black text stamping and the number stencilling.

This gave me a fun background to work with and chopped it into the inchies and then four 1& 3/4 inch squares that I could mount onto twinchies.

I inked the edge of each of the squares and then using the scraps leftover I stamped and embossed hearts using an Alpaca Pals set. There was a larger heart and a smaller heart – perfect for the two sizes of the artwork. I fussy cut them out and stuck them down.

That was how I left the inchies – but the twinchies I added a stamped word to them which I heat embossed on black.

I then mounted them on scrap cardstock that is a dark purple colour.

The following day I decided to then make a blue, green and yellow version of these twinchies so I could at least join in with the swap!

This time I did some stamping with the alpaca pals stamps onto the background make with the distress oxides and then embossed the heart onto a panel I coloured with the ultramarine brushos and the oxides mixed up.

This time I used a different Alpaca pals sentiment and also positioned the heart and sentiment slightly different.

Love these fun little pieces of art. Nice to get creative on different sizes too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Addicted to stamps and more is back after a little festive break and we are continuing our challenges (& with a new colourful logo!). I love this challenge because it is a fairly open theme each time and lots of blogs to visit who take on the theme and make it their own.

We start for challenge #484 with Any Occasion.

And I decided it was time to start working through some of the half made pouches I have in a basket to the side of my desk. I sometimes do extra die cutting when I make one project and then just stick it all in a pouch ready to grab next time – well this was one of the spellbinders stitching die sets I’ve really not used much of and in fact I don’t think I’ve ever used it for sewing – this time included. It includes books, the cup and then lots of florals and I had lots cut out so I could stack the die cuts and put together this cluster for the card.

I concentrated on the glueing together the die cuts and making the cluster and then needed to decide how I wanted to use it.

I went with a cream tall card and created a background for the cluster using two embossing folders – the brocade and the wood! This created a table/ wallpaper look!

I inked in a pale pink behind the cluster and then light brown for the wood and the edge of the panel just to give it a slight difference to the card base itself.

Once I was happy with the background I adhered all the elements of the cluster together.

Then I splattered with some champagne shimmer ink to give it some shine.

Once that was dry it was time add a sentiment. I chose the Lawn Fawn hugs one and stamped the two parts of the sentiment in the dark purple and die cut and stacked the hugs sentiment a few times. I also added some extra strips under the left hand side of the sending to make it even with the dimension of the flower on the right hand side.

I really love all those flowers and leaves that make up the floral display and probably need to use this set more – maybe even do some actual sewing with it!

But for now this is my any occasion card for the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge. Why don’t you come and join us over there with a creation of your own?

Happy crafting!

Catherine