Make It Simple Monday #simplestamping - Christmas Friends

 Hello and thank you for stopping by today. This week I am going to play with the NEW set called Christmas Friends. These cute little set are just as I would imagine them if they were to celebrate the Christmas time. 2 cards for the price of 1 today though. I started with a gorgeous soft minty green of Coastal Cabana which I love. I stamped direct to the card base on the one side after protecting it with a piece of Sticky roll and then got stamping. I added a strip of the even softer minty green  Pool Party ribbon. Love it  as it even has tiny little white pom poms on!

I then wondered what it would look like in White, so I tried that too. Now, I couldn't decide which I preferred so I asked the family. Would you believe that out of 6 of them it was half and half!

 

This or That Thursday - Crafting With You

 Hello and here we are already set for the 2 cards at once day. Before I found paper crafting I used to sew as I have said already this week. It was my passion, my daily focus once the children were at school and as I said before I would often be up until the very early hours of the morning making a garment of one kind or another. I have made wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses, suits for a pop group, uniforms, going out and staying in clothes too. The list goes on but now my new love and passion is making cards especially with Stampin' Up! products. There is no searching around lots and lots of different shops trying tol find card, paper to match, ribbons, buttons, gems etc all again to match. It was an impossible nightmare...Until Cary met someone who introduced us to the Stampin' Up! way of buying craft products. We were hooked! We still are nearly 20 years later. We would have been before but it didn't come to the UK until I believe 2008 or 2009. We became demonstrators within a very short space of time and still feel the same about it to this day. So today's card using the Crafting With You stamp set and dies, I have encompassed both of my passions into 2 different but very similar cards. Using Sticky notes, or Post It notes, I made several masks of both sewing maching and Cut and Emboss machine. I hope that you can choose which you prefer. 

THIS and THAT

  THIS

 

THAT

  

Watercolour Wednesday - Decorative Borders

 Hello again, Today's card is another green one I'm afraid! Sorry if you don't like green but just imagine what it would look like in lots of other colours! I took a white mat and covered most of it with Low Tack tape except the 2 rectangles. I took Pool Party ink from the ink pad and stamped it onto the block. Adding a little water and mixed up all of the ink and washed it across the rectangle on the mat. I repeated the same process using Coastal Cabana ink and washed the ink over the top rectangle. It had to be left for quite a while to dry as it was very wet with all of the ink and water on. Once it was dry, using the Decorative Borders stamp set.

 I stamped 1 single flower on the left hand side only using the stronger green of Shaded Spruce. I decided that I would emboss the whole mat using the Twigs and Sprigs embossing folder before stamping a sentiment onto a punched piece. The mat was then mounted onto a piece of Shaded Spruce card stock and mounted onto the card base using Dimensionals. Another sentiment and one image which was stamped 3 times to use up all of the ink. 

Throwback Thursday - Heron Habitat

 Another fun card with the Heron Habitat stamps again today. I have found them so much fun and very easy to work with. They are great! This time, using the stitched circle dies from the Stylish Shapes dies, I die cut the circles out from a piece of Coastal Cabana card mat.  I used another of my retired DSP's for this card and they are called Waves of the Ocean. The link will take you to the stamps and dies in the catalogue. Stunning shades of blues, greens, yellows, pinks and oranges. So easy to match the papers with the card too. The stamps and Dies are still available but sadly the papers aren't. I added a piece of the DSP to the back of the die cut holes using Dimensionals then stamped the heron and the bull-rushes before die-cutting them out. A sentiment and die-cutting them out and this was completed. 

 

 Above are the beautiful Waves of the Ocean DSP. You can see all of the amazing colours used within them. 

 

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Whale Done

Hello on this cool watercolour Wednesday. Today's card is obviously a watercolour card which took a wee while as there was lots to colour in. I started by colouring the water. My preferred way is to pick up ink with a clear block and then adding a few drops of water to it. I started with Coastal Cabana ink and once I had washed the water into the ink, I used a large water brush and picked up some ink and brushed it several times across the lower half of the card. Once it was well covered and dry, I stamped the fish from Whale Done across the water and then inked the mountains stamp from Mountain Air in Smoky Slate (light gray) ink and stamped it above the water level but I left a small gap between the 2 levels for a grassy area. 

I continued to add ink in different colours across the sky, mountains, grass and beach. I stamped the reverse of the mountain stamp onto the water in a light Smoky Slate ink. Some birds, a small boat and a few shadows later with a few ripples on the water and the card is completed.