ribbit, ribbit!

We're having the most beautiful weather this week, a real Indian Summer!  Typical ... every child in the country is back to school and every adult is back to work (well judging by the rush hour traffic anyway!)

This wee card uses some bright happy Echo Park DP and my wee High Hopes froggy.  Coloured with a green promarker and Smooch Illuminate added to his 'spots'.

• Sketch from Sketch Saturday #174
• Lexi's Creations #49 - card for a child
• Critter challenge #84 - anything goes
• Wee Memories WMC69 - use patterned DP

An orange flowery whale

An orange flowery whale, well why not!  It's blogland and I'll have my whale whatever colour I like!

Ingredients:  Whale from High Hopes; Echo Park DP; sentiment from Elzybells; Taylored Expressions wave die; yellow bling; orange ribbon; clear gloss and glitter; chalked sky; corner rounder punch

• Creatalicious challenge #26- anything goes
• Colour combo from The Play Date Cafe PDCC100
• Wee Memories #69 - use patterned DP
• Simon Says Stamp - use dies and/or punches

Xmas card #11

Ohhh I'm way behind in my Christmas cards this year, I had more than twice as many made this time last year!  I love this little High Hopes Ski Bum Monkey from last year ... have you seen this year's new releases yet?, they're soooo cute! 

Coloured with copics and clear gloss added to his eyes and skis, stickles for a bit of sparkle and some Arlene's True Snow.  Also dotted some white enamel accents round the edge of my DP.  Sentiment from Paper Smooches.

• High Hopes #118 - Home for the Holidays
• The Corrosive Challenge #133 - punches and / or dies - I used a Marianne Designe snowflake die
• Critter challenge #83 - 1 image, 2 DPs, 3 embellies (I used a snowflake, twine and gem), 1 sentiment
• Sketch from ICS #132
• Craft Your Days Away #29 - pink, brown and blue

Frogtastic!

We've had a beautiful sunny day today, got all my paving power hosed today, so cutting out these little froggies wasn't easy with wee tired hands!  But it was good to get it done, hoping tomorrow for another sunny day and get my borders all sorted out. We've a corner filled with marigolds that are threatening to drop all their seeds and take over the entire garden!

• Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge is to use the picture of the onsie as the inspiration...  I took the pink as my main colour and the green as a highlight, and then added some texture and scallops to reflect the ruffle.
• Allsorts #122 - Keep it simple
• Sketch from Card Patterns #134
• Simon Says Stamp .. use dies and/or punches - I used a Taylored Expressions scalloped edge die and a small circular nestabilities die
• House of Gilli #16 - embossing

 

Very Busy Birthday card

Whoo Hoo its Friday!  We usually have a few wee drinkies with a couple of friends tonight and I can't wait ... its been 'one of those' weeks, so it will be nice just to chill out!

By the way, I hate to say it but winter is definately on the way booo hooo! ... all the Canadian geese have been arriving all week for their winter holidays!  There was a big 'M' flew across the sky above our house the other night and I counted 54 geese before they disappeared from view!
 
My birthday card stash is very low, so I had a root through my stamps and came across this wee Henry Mouse that I haven't used in a while.  The card ended up VERY busy, but I think I like it!

Coloured with promarkers; paper pieced cupcake wrapper and added clear gloss and glitter to the icing; Martha Stewart butterflies; Marianne Design swirl dies; sentiment from Paper Smooches.

• Crafty Catz #101 - Autumn (I used the darker colours of Autumn)
• By the Cute and Girly September challenge 'All things bright and beautiful' ... so I went for all creatures great and small
• Simon Says Stamp ... Dies to Die for

• Sketch inspired by #6 from Sketch'n Stash (their challenge #70 this week is to use an old sketch, though I ended up tilting the scalloped panel) - my old unloved stash on this card is my flowers and swirls

Hops....

Sorry, no cards to show you, but thought I'd let you know that my two favourite stamp makers - High Hopes AND Paper Smooches - both have separate blog hops on with their new releases and you can hop and win new stamps!  Too good to resist in my book, I'm off to so some hopping and fingers crossed to win some new goodies ... see you there!

Crafty Cardmakers DT call...

Crafty Cardmakers is now under new management, by none other than the lovely Lin (my team mate on Dream Valley Challenges DT)   She's looking for a diverse range of skills and talents, so go on give it a go, you might surprise yourself!  Click HERE for more details on how to apply (the DT call ends on 2nd October, so you still have a bit of time to get your sample card made!)

I love Roo!

I do love little Roo from Winnie the Pooh, but if I'm honest Tigger is my favourite!
I thought I'd give my High Hopes stamps a break and out came my Paper Smooches ones instead ... you'd think I haven't got any other stamps than these but for some reason these two brands just really speak to me.

• I took my colour combo from the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge which was to use this pic as the inspiration:

• Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday challenge #68- no patterned DP
• Sketch from Sweet Sunday #135
• Creatalicious challenge #26 - anything goes

Dream Valley Challenge #16

Time for a new challenge over at Dream Valley and this week it's ....

Buttons

Now I know that sounds easy, but I think I'm 'button-challenged' and find it really hard to use them on my cards!  In the end after a LOT of faffing about, I just used one as a wee accent in the bottom corner!  Upload your card to Dream Valley and have a wee look at some of the fab cards from the DT (... this week's sponsor is Digis with Attitude)

The image in my card is an older High Hopes image ... 'Dad's Catch'.  I don't normally do anything on the inside of my card, but I'd coloured up Pelican's Post and had no room on the front for him!   And I've Jodie from Oz to thank for introducing me to raffia lace as she sent me the most beautiful card and it had some on it, so of course I couldn't resist getting some of my own! (You should pop over to Jodie's blog to see her gorgeous cards when you get the chance, they're absolute stunners)

Other challenges:

• Cute Card Thursday #182 - anything goes
• Simon Says Stamp ... inspired by a song - what about 'Gone Fishin' by Louis Armstrong for this one!
• Fab'n Funky #90 - Bingo - I chose the top line ... embellishment (bling), button and stamp
• Creative Inspirations #129 - anything goes
• The Crafty Pad #139 - diamonds

Ryan's Birthday card

It's my wee nephew's birthday next month, so thought I'd get a head start as I've a couple of cards to make for him.

This one uses a wee High Hopes robot ... and an as yet uninked stamp, Robot in Rocket.  Coloured both with promarkers and added some clear gloss and glitter to the little cupcake, and red stickles to his party hat.  I found this silver peel off corner embellie in my stash and then added some grey pearls.  Echo Park DP.

Oh by the way, there's a new Christmas release on the way from High Hopes ... pop over to their blog for some sneak peeks before the release and blog hop on Thursday.  Plus find out how you can win some of the new stamps on THIS post.

• Sketch ispired by Sunday Sketch and Stamp #72 - though I had to flip it as my rocket would only fit into the bottom corner
• Top Tip Tuesday #51 - Birthday Time
• Tuesday Throwdown #66 - pearls
• Use it Tuesday #15 - use an uninked stamp
• I love Promarkers #83 - travel / transport
• Simon Says Stamp .. inspired by a song or film, so this one could be "I Robot"

Jacqui's Birthday card

This wee card is for my 'old' boss in work.  Its another rubbish pic as its such a dark night, can't believe how quickly the nights are already drawing in!  And we did get some quite windy weather, but sometimes I think the weathermen get a tad bit over-excited as our weather is usually so boring!

My colour theme kinda chose itself as I wanted to play along in the icopic challenge which is to colour a full range from light to dark and my sadly depleted copics meant that I had no choice but to choose green!

• iCopic Lover #47 - high contrast
• Papertake Weekly- things with wings
• The Crafty Pad #138 - Goodbye summer (use autumal colours)
• Critter Challenge #82 - photo inspiration (I used the colours and have trees on my DP)
• Lexi's Creations #48 - Autumn
• Sketch n'stash #70 - free choice of sketch - I chose #32.  I haven't bought any new stash for a while, so my 'old' stash on this card are the big gems, just coloured them with my copics to match the colour theme.

Xmas Card #10

Couldn't get a decent pic of this card ... its been a dull windy day and we're supposed to be bracing ourselves tonight and tomorrow for some gale force winds when the tail end of Hurricane Katia skirts by! 

This card uses another High Hopes stamp from their release for last Christmas ... Beary Good Friends.  Coloured with promarkers and some sparkle added to their hats, scarves and gloves.  I found some Arlenes True Snow stuff at the back of my cupboard and sprinkled some glitter on that too.  Silver stars and pink pearls to finish.

• I love Promarkers #82 - metal embellishment
• Papertake Weekly - anything goes
• Sketch from Sketch Saturday #172
• Oldie but a Goodie - Christmas

I'm Back!

Well we had a lovely time in Donegal with every variation of weather there could be... sunshine, showers, blinding rain, gales, and then back to sunshine!  Do you want to see where we were?

Click on the pic for a larger view - We stayed in one of the wee white houses on the far penninsula.  And yes, we did walk the length of the beach and back, though the tide nearly caught us on the hop at one point and caused a bit of excitement!  Ruby had a blast and loved the beach, she's done nothing but sleep since she came home!

Usually the only other visitors on the beach were ....

And I found the perfect little house for WHEN I win the Lottery ...

You can keep your big fancy houses, all I want is a wee cosy one with whitewashed walls and a stable door!

It was a tad windy when this pic was taken, but I always have 'holiday' hair when I go away anywhere and it takes on a mind of its own (not in a good way LOL!)

I had a whole week with no crafting, so it was a bit hit and miss to get my mojo going again!  So I had a play with the Paper Smooches stamps I won recently and made this baby card ...

I paper pieced my little ellies and there's also a wee heart versamarked on the BG but doesn't really show up in the pic.

• Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge Week 72~~Use a Punch (I used a corner rounder punch)
• Stamp Something (their final challenge) - anything goes
• CAS-ual Fridays CFC19- paper piecing
• Sketch from i{heart}2stamp September

Dream Valley Challenge #15

I've pre-scheduled this post as I'm on my jollydays, so I'm hoping that when this posts I'll be dandering along a sunny beach in Donegal!  Though the 'sunny' bit is a tad unlikely ... apparently we've had the least sunny summer for over 20 years!  (ETA Oops ... wrote this post and forgot to set the date for posting doh!)

Our new challenge over at Dream Valley is to use this photo as your inspiration ...

We've 2 prizes up for grabs this fortnight from One Stop Card Crafts and Sassy Studio Designs, so play along and you never know your luck!

For my card I've used some old decoupage papers that I found in my stash and some silver peel off letters.  I thought the flowers were so pretty that it didn't really need any fancy DP and just kept it nice and simple.

(Oh, don't forget that you've a fortnight to play along in our challenge)