A Penguin and a sketch

I can't believe that this weekend has finally arrived! Our little grandson Oscar will be baptised tomorrow. Bless his little cotton socks. It's been six months since he made his far too early appearance into the world and he's grown from the teeny, tiny 1lb 4oz he was then, to being over 9lbs now. What a little fighter this boy is! I promise to have pictures of him on here in the coming week.

Anyway, it is Saturday so that means it is time for the One Stop Craft Challenge. Our lovely Nikki has given us a sketch this week (seems so long since we had one of those!) and it was fantastic to work with. Here's my card: Isn't the penguin cute? He's one of the stamps I won from Kimmi for sending my card to Jaimie (the 'spread the love' button is still in my sidebar if you'd like to send a card to her too). He's such a lovely stamp to colour up!

We've been getting a fantastic response to the One Stop challenges recently (thank you!) and I am so sorry for having so much on that I've been a bad blogger recently. I will be doing my utmost to comment on all the entries this week. I do hope you'll find time to join us.

Thanks for looking,

Sharon xx

Mina's candy

Make sure you hot foot it over to Mina's blog. She has some fabulous candy on offer to celebrate her first blogoversary. Congratulations on one year of blogging Mina - you've really treated us all to loads of eye candy in that time! Here's to the next year of blogging.
Mina has some lovely Magnolia stamps, papers, flowers, buttons, ribbons....oh go on, go see all the gorgeousness for yourself!
Sharon xx

Dear Santa.......

........I have been very good this year. Isn't that what every little boy and girl are thinking and saying at this time of year? My DT item for Creative Card Crew this week helps them to get the message across to Santa. Paula has picked a lovely easy theme for you all to join in with this week:

My favourite things

....so there's no excuse not to join us! :o)

We're sponsored by digital delights this week and I've used one of their gorgeous images on my card called Ridley Stocking

So it starts off as a normal card inside and out........

But when you open up the inside there is a Christmas list for the kiddies to fill out and then send the card on to Santa at the North Pole. I should have made an envelope which was addressed to Santa - but I ran out of time.

Just a little bit different (that's my favourite thing - doing something different, but I rarely have the time to indulge this side at the moment)

The other little item I made just would not photograph at all. So I'm really sorry for the quality of this but it's the best picture of the Xmas bauble that I could get.

Do hop over to the challenge to see what the rest of the fab DTs favourite things are - there are some gorgeous creations on there today.

Thanks for looking,
Sharon xx

Holiday Card Contest

Whimsy Stamps have decided to hold a holiday card contest. All you need to do is use a Whimsy image to create a holiday themed card.

This contest begins today and will run until Saturday 12th December at 11:59pm ET. (For those in the UK, ET is 5 hours behind us)



The Whimsy design team members will select 3 finalists from the entries and then we will put the finalists to a reader/viewer/customer vote!


All the Whimsy readers/viewers/customers will have the opportunity to vote for the card they feel should win the contest and the voting will be open for one week.



Each of the 3 finalists will all win a prize, but the First Place winner will receive a $50 gift certificate to the Whimsy Stamps online shop along with having their Holiday Card published in the Holiday edition of the Whimsy newsletter and Whimsy will also post their card in the Inspirations Gallery.



What are you waiting for......hop over to Whimsy now and take a look at the rules.


Good Luck!

Sharon xx

A snowflake kiss

Good morning. Today my card is for a snowflake challenge and rather than using snowflake punches I've used a masterboard with snowflakes on it. I'll show you how it was created a little further down this post.

The lovely Paula set the theme of Snowflakes at the One Stop Craft Challenge this week but unfortunately she has been really poorly for over a week now and she's been unable to do a card for her own challenge. I hope you get better soon hunny.

Here is the card I made.

I think the expression on that Whimsy deer's face is priceless! I bet there are loads of you that remember trying to catch snowflakes on your tongue when you were little! Just like the deer. I just had to team the image up with the lovely sentiment (again, this was gifted to me by Paula).

Rightie-ho, I'd best try to explain how I made the masterboard. This is the equipment I used and a picture of it before it was put onto the card.I took a piece of plain white A4 card and randomly smudged ink on it using the 3 colours shown. Then I randomly stamped the two stamps all over the card using stayzon and finally spritz the card with some glimmer mist for a delicate sheen. Simples!

This is such an easy technique to do and you always end up with something unique to use as a backing on your projects. You should have a try at it.

I left the card really simple so that the backing wouldn't be too covered up. The only embellishment is s snowflake brad and some netting tied in a bow.

If you join in the snowflake challenge this week, you have the change of winning £10 worth of ink - that'd be great for you to try out your own masterboard. Do take a look at the beautiful items created by the rest of the DT.

Hope you find time to join us.

Thanks for looking.
Sharon xx

Candy Canes and Snowmen

Sugar Rush ALERT!!!!

Yes, it's Colour Create day and my word, that wonderful Mina has picked the sweetest (sorry about the pun) picture she could find as inspiration for this week's challenge. And boy, does it put me in the mood to start singing Christmas songs. Here's the fab picture she chose:

Mmmmmm! I could just eat one of those now.

Our colours this week are GREEN, RED and WHITE with the optional extra of CHRISTMAS.

Please take a look at the incredible variety of inspirational pieces that the talented DT have made this week. There is something for everyone over at the challenge blog.

I'm going to be naughty again (that's twice in one week!) and enter this card into a challenge.

Over at Saturday Spotlight they want to see projects that use the masterboard technique. (Did I mention I made the top three over there last week? Woo Hoo!!!!) This card has got a very simple masterboard as it's background. I have made another really pretty masterboard this week but I don't think I'll get time to turn it into a card for that challenge before Saturday. That's why I'm entering this one.

The background was made by stamping a Papermania poinsettia stamp in red ink and a Hobby Art Ltd Snowflake Cluster stamp in green ink. I've also used marshmallow glimmer mist on this for a delicate shimmer in electric light, but it doesn't show up too well in daylight. I didn't want something that was too overpowering because the snowman is covered in glamour dust.

The main image is from my new Whimsy Christmas set. Isn't the snowman cute!! I was tempted to make the little bird into a bluebird but thought a robin was more fitting for the Christmas theme. They are coloured using ProMarkers. The sentiment stamp is a woodware one.

The sentiment on the inside was stamped up and gifted to me by my friend Paula. Thanks Hunny. This picture also shows more of the masterboard.

We're sponsored by Heidi at Simon Says Stamp! this week and she's given us a $25 credit voucher for one lucky winner.

I hope you'll find time to join in with us.

Thanks for looking

Sharon xx

Christmas Kitten

Hi everyone. Here's a really, really short post tonight. This is a card I made with the wonderful sketch over at Friday Sketchers challenge this week.

I decided to crack into the old Christmas papers I bought last year that I hardly used at all, and team them up with my new Whimsy image. The box and bow on the image has been paper pieced and the little kitten has been coloured with promarkers. I love this image because it is so cute and versatile.

Hope everyone is having a good week.

Thanks for looking,

Sharon xx

Strings Attached!

Oh my goodness! Has a week really gone by since I last posted on this blog? Yes, it certainly has. Well, I have been incredibly busy since my last post, churning out loads of Christmas cards and that has made me a bad blogger! I will fix that this week - well, there are a few DT projects to post.

Here's my DT project for Creative Card Crew which has the theme of 'Strings Attached' chosen by the lovely Linda C. The challenge is to use some string. fibre, twine, embroidery floss etc on your projects.

Ooooh! I feel really naughty because I'm going to enter this card into a couple of challenges:

Basic Grey Challenge - Glitz and bling . I've used glamour dust, glitter card and disco black embossing powder for the glitz and black prima bling gems. The papers are Basic Grey Porcelain.

Cute Card Thursday - Glitter me silly - I've used glitter card snowflakes and stars, together with the glamour dust and disco black embossing powder (which really twinkles).

I used this black ribbon fibre 'stuff' (my crafty technical term for something I'm not sure the name of) that you can see in this close up. I send a thank you to my friend Janiel for gifting this image to me...isn't it a gorgeous image? I so want to get this one for myself now that I've coloured it up.
The sad news is that we lose the fab Donna from the CCC design team today. She wants to keep working as a Stampin' Up demonstrator so she is giving up all her DT places. We are heartbroken to see her go. She's such a wonderful lady, a great inspiration and a fantastic friend that will be sorely missed on the DT. Best of luck for the future Donna.

The challenge today is sponsored by Heidi from Simon Says Stamp! There is a fab $20 credit voucher to be won by one lucky person, so I hope you'll all enter. Don't forget to take a look at the other inspiration on the challenge blog from the other DT members.

Thanks for looking,
Sharon xx

On the Seventh Day of Christmas.......

On the seventh day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Well I guess you know that if you've arrived here from Debbie's blog that you are in the right place - the song kind of gives it away, doesn't it?

If you've landed on my blog from anywhere else and want to follow the Twelve Days Of Christmas

and all the scrummy new stamps from the fabulous new Whimsy Stamps designer

Chrissy Armstrong

then please start here at the lovely Bev Rochester's blog.

I was so pleased to be given this fantastic Santa stamp to show you. He's so jolly! I decided to make my card all white to really show him off. And I give a big thanks to Chris for inspiring the background to this card. Thank's hunny. She had done one of these on a card recently and I'd been dying to try it out. It's simply a piece of card that I embossed with a diamond pattern using my scoreboard and dotted with stickles where the lines crossed.

Aren't these new stamps just the cutest? Chrissy is a really talented artist and I'm positive we'll be seeing a lot more of her stamps in the future.

Now, for those following the song and leaving comments along the way there will be the chance of some lovely candy to be won at the end. This hop is open until Friday 13th November at 12 noon ET. Your next stop is Simmonne

Thanks for looking,
Sharon xx

Doodles

Good morning everyone. It's a busy day here on this blog. Here's the first post of the day with two cards.....but there will be another post and card coming along later in the day. I've just realised that I haven't told people about the fabulous new artist that has joined Whimsy - well, please pop back later to see one of the new images here.

Right, onto this post. Today at Creative Card Crew the theme has been chosen by our fabulously talented Donna. She picked Doodles.

My first card has some simple doodling around the edge of the image and the papers. The papers are from the bearly mine vol 3 CD and I added gold ribbon to make it look like a present. The image is Whiff of Joy and the big brad is a Dovecraft one.

The second card was inspired by the masterboard technique in this month's craft stamper. The coloured panel is a section of the masterboard I created (applying ink to white card and stamping randomly on top of it). I added a bit of stickles to parts of the masterboard piece, tied a ribbon round it and hung some baubles from the ribbon that I'd cut out from gold mirror card. I doodled on the baubles with diamond stickles.

The white snowflake trails and the dots across the bottom by the sentiment are doodled with an inkessentials pen.

Bunny Zoe is sponsoring the challenge today and she's given us this beautiful Wags 'n Whiskers image - Sweet Danni and Bella

Please take a look at the fantastic doodling projects from the rest of the talented DT over at the challenge blog.

Thanks for looking.

Sharon xx

Easel Card Instructions - updated

Sorry for the late posting. I did say I would post my easel card instructions with photo's today - but luckily one of my Whimsy DT colleagues found these links for a tutorial and template (Thanks Lisa!). That was really lucky for me because my photo's didn't come out too well.

Here are the links:
(Updated these links - they should work now)

Click here for the template

Click here for the tutorial

Saturday Spotlight

At last I've had time to make a challenge card. I chose the

Saturday Spotlight With Hidden Potential challenge for this one.

The theme this week is Repeatedly Useful, so that means using a stamp repeatedly on your card.

This one is a really quick but fairly elegant card - good for the bulk cards that we need to make each year. I've used the large Christmas tree from the Papermania Joyeux Noel stamp set, inked it up in silver ink and blobbed a few bits of stickles on the trees. I raised one of the trees on 3d foam pads.

Later today I'll try to take the photos for the easel card instructions I posted yesterday and I'll do another post with them in tomorrow.

Thanks for looking,

Sharon xx

Easel card instructions

Before I show my card today, I just have to tell you how impressed I was with the 'masterboard' technique in this month's Craft Stamper magazine. I tried it out last night and I love the results I got. Maybe I'll share the results with you on here soon.

Okay, on to today's One Stop Craft Challenge. The lovely Shelley picked the theme of
Cards for kids
and I decided to make a card for an older kid. Shelley is giving away a cute teddy wood mounted stamp as the prize. Okay, I think you can see that I'm really having fun with these easel cards. Someone asked me to point them to the instructions. Well, I thought I'd share how I make them instead (which may be totally wrong - but it works for me).

You need:
1. a square card blank and
2. a square piece of card the same size as the front of the card blank.

Instructions:
1. Score the front of the card blank in half and fold the 'open' end back towards the spine.
2. Add double sided tape to the part that you just folded back and stick the square piece of card onto it, lining it up so that it makes a new 'front' to the card.

Then just decorate however you want to. That's all there is to it!

If you need me to show photos of these instructions just leave me a comment.

Hope you'll join us this week - and thanks to everyone that tried the newspaper/text challenge we had last week. There is lots of inspiration for kids cards on the challenge blog.

Thanks for looking.
Sharon xx