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Monday 30 September 2013

Bats about you at halloween!

Good gracious - it's October tomorrow and not long until halloween! Now, I don't normally 'do' halloween but I was so bowled over by the halloween stamps in the seasonal catalogue that I just had to have a little play... and now I think we might have to have a halloween party this year! Come and see what I've made:


I used the Halloween Hello stamp set which has all sorts of fabulous images in it including this brilliant sentiment, but my favourite is this gorgeous bat:


Oh stop it now! He's absolutely gorgeous! And there's no shortage of lovely old bats in my household so this card would be perfect for any of them!


The bat is flying scarily (well okay, perhaps not that scarily!) out of an oval aperture cut into some designer paper from the Witches Brew range. I added some of my beloved candy dots and eagle eyes might spot the Lucky Limeade organza ribbon that was a freebie earlier in the year... Stampin' Up are very good at coming up with special offers - check out the Special Offer tab at the top of my blog to see current offers.


I'm so excited about the coordinating pumpkin treat - made to my very own design! If you're interested in how it was made, hang on to your seats as I'm hoping to produce a video tutorial later in the week.

Here's what you'll need to make the card
Stamps: Halloween Hello
Ink: Early Espresso
Card stock: Very Vanilla
Other: Witches Brew designer paper, Extra Large Oval punch, Candy Dots, paper snips, Summer Starfruit marker, ribbon (retired), stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes, Stampin Up clearance rack


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


There's a Bat Society where we live and my husband sometimes takes our youngest son out bat spotting. One evening before they went out, we got chatting about bats which led us onto a discussion about Batman, the cartoon strip figure. Who decided that the hunky hero of Gotham City should wear a hat with ears and pants over his trousers - and why is it supposed to be impressive?!

See you tomorrow,

Saturday 28 September 2013

A warm penguin?

It was touch and go whether I'd get a card made for the Less is More challenge today but then hubby announced he was making dinner! So, after collecting a variety of boys from a party I snuck a quick one in... There's a fab sketch at LiM today which I've combined with the Emboss-Resist challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown. Come and see:


Both the penguin and the polar bear from Zoo Review are fabulous for Christmas cards and they lend themselves well to emboss-resist scenes. I used two stamps from Gorgeous Grunge for the background, stamping with versamark and heat-embossing with clear embossing powder. The penguin was stamped and I masked off the ground and inked around it with Pool Party ink. Once the excess ink was wiped off, it gave a very snowy effect.


The penguin was coloured with markers and I used my new chalk marker to add subtle detail to his front and to the ground. The scene was cut out using my 2 1/2" circle punch and I pierced a border round it for added detail. I wanted the penguin to be looking at the sentiment so I flipped the sketch, adding a banner with one of the fabulous candy dots.

Here's Jen's sketch from LiM that I used today - you can see that I turned it upside down.



Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Zoo Review, Gorgeous Grunge, Remember Christmas (sentiment)
Ink: Pool Party, Sahara Sand, Pumpkin Pie
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Markers, candy dots, versamark, clear embossing powder, heat tool, Essentials piercing kit Chalk marker, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes, Stampin Up clearance rack


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.

While other couples enjoyed their Friday evening eating out perhaps or enjoying drinks and nibbles with friends, my hubby and I went to Ikea! As we entered the shop via the escalator, we saw an artistic display of children's toy cookers which had been attached one above another up a wall. "Bit dangerous for the kiddies," remarked my husband.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll be back on Monday.

Friday 27 September 2013

A Happy Day in autumn

I've been having a leafy old time of it with the fabulous Wonderfall and Gently Falling sets this week and using them in a variety of ways - even as a Christmas tree! Sometimes though, it's a good plan to play a straight wicket (well that's what my sons tell me anyway... I wouldn't know a straight wicket if it whacked me over the head!) and playing it straight is what I did with today's card - come and see:


Oh I do love an autumnal palette! This card uses some beautiful greens and rusts for the simple stamped border using the leaves and acorn from the Wonderfall set. Stampin' Up's new-style ink pads work so well with these solid-style stamps - you get a really clean impression.


The inspiration for this card was one of those walks on a bright autumn day where the leaves are piled up by the sides of a tree-lined lane, ready to shuffle through. What better sentiment to use than this one from Happy Day, highlighted with one of the really large, glittery rhinestones?! Can you resist scampering through those leaves?!


I designed this card for one of my Stampers 6 groups, tucking it into their parcels along with a special handmade gift which I'll look forward to showing you next week. (By the way, if you're interested in joining my club, you can find out all about it by clicking here.)

I see that the cue word at CASology this week is Autumn so I shall link my happy autumn day card up with the lovely ladies over there - now that will be a gallery and a half!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Happy Day
Ink: Summer Starfruit, Garden Green, Raspberry Ripple, Pumpkin Pie
Card stock: Very Vanilla
Other: Large Rhinestone basic jewels, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes, Stampin Up clearance rack


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


I went into town with my youngest son yesterday evening to get him kitted out with some colder weather clothes. We had to wait to cross the road into the shopping centre while an ancient Citroen 2CV creaked past. "I thought we were going to be there all evening!" I remarked as we crossed. "It wasn't exactly Formula One," agreed my son. "But we can't all be Usain Bolt!" And in case you're wondering, my youngest is exactly like his older brother - complaining bitterly about having to go and buy clothes but ending up really enjoying choosing garments, putting different colours and styles together, trying things on and preening like a peacock!

Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you very soon,

Thursday 26 September 2013

A Wonderfall three minutes of crafting!

Sometimes you can only squeeze in three minutes of crafting but if you're anything like me three minutes is better than nothing! Three minutes is definitely enough to make a card though... come and see my offering for Three Minute Thursday today:


I must say I dithered over the Wonderfall stamp set for ages but, oh my goodness, have I fallen for it now! Here I've used the large leaf as a background for the sentiment, added a couple of candy dots and curved the bottom edges of the card.


Here's a close up of that gorgeous leaf - all the leaves and the acorn in this set have fabulous stylised patterns on them. The sentiment is from Four You.

The colour inspiration today came from Dynamic Duos where the challenge is to use Crumb Cake and Black.

There's an optional extra to use heat embossing and actually it would have been nice to emboss the sentiment on my card. Too late though - although this card literally took one minute to make, I'd already used up my spare two minutes stroking that lovely Wonderfall set and whispering blandishments in its ear!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Four You
Ink: Crumb Cake classic ink, black stazon
Card stock: Crumb Cake
Other: Candy dots, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes, Stampin Up clearance rack


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


It looks as if our cat Tuppence is on the mend! She's such an old lady that I always fear the worst when she's not well (although I suspect the brave meows and tremulous purring are all part of an act designed to get me to part with titbits of steak for her dinner!)


Of course a cat needs her sleep after reading such educational books - history, languages, Shakespeare er... the Ikea catalogue! And I see she's fallen asleep while reading the property section! Surely she's not thinking of leaving home? She must have heard about the salmon fillets that Princess next door gets!

See you tomorrow,

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Remembering Christmas with a leaf

I normally have a fair few Christmas cards made by this time of year but this year... well, suffice to say I'm beginning to feel that it's time to roll my sleeves up and get on with some! Luckily there are the 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown and Rudolph Day challenges to help me get my act together! Come and see what I've made:


 'Christmas Tree' is the theme from 52CCT and having had great fun turning the leaf from Wonderfall into a tree yesterday, I thought I'd try one of the leaves from Gently Falling into a Christmas tree! I stamped the background trees into a masked-off area and then fussy cut a separate one for the foreground. I think it works! What do you think?


I absolutely love this decorative scroll from the Merry Little Christmas set for a bit of subtle decoration. Here I stamped a bit of it on the oval mat and used my stamp-a-majig to line up the rest of the image on the card base itself. You can see the fussy cut leaf as a tree in this photo (although you might have to put your right ear on your shoulder to do so - free stretching exercises and everything on my blog today!) all dressed up with rhinestones and a bakers twine bow.


And this is the loveliest sentiment for all those folk you don't get to see very often. It's from Remember Christmas - a set I'll be show-casing a lot more of I can tell you!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Gently Falling, Merry Little Christmas, Remembering Christmas
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke, Garden Green classic inks, Whisper White craft ink
Card stock: Whisper White, Soft Sky
Other: Big Shot, Ovals framelits, Basic rhinestones, Cherry Cobbler bakers twine, Chalk marker, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes, Stampin Up clearance rack


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


I'm thinking of renting myself out as a weather guage for weddings and picnics because whenever I settle down to make a chilly-looking Christmas card we seem to get a heatwave! A cardigan came off with every layer I added to today's card until I was seriously thinking of getting the shorts out of storage!

See you tomorrow,

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Bargain Stampin' Up items now available!

So, how would you like some top quality, fabulous Stampin' Up products at up to 80% discount? It's true - I'm not joking! The new Clearance Rack has launched today on my online shop and there are loads of bargains to be had - but of course they'll only be available while stocks last.

I won't keep you chatting as I expect you'll want to go over and browse now... just click the link below and then click SHOP in the top right hand corner.

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes, Stampin Up clearance rack


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


Happy shopping!

By the way, if you're looking for my first post today, just scroll down.

See you tomorrow,

Is it a leaf? Or is it a tree?!

I had a lovely lady round to craft with me recently and while she was stamping with my Gently Falling stamp set, I was reminded that sometimes leaves make great trees! That's where the inspiration for today's little card came from - come and see:


This little dotty leaf comes from the Wonderfall set and makes sweet little trees in this naive-style landscape.


I stamped them in lovely autumn colours - Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry - on a roughly masked and sponged background.


The flowing sentiment is from the hostess set Express Yourself. I stamped it onto a scored strip of card stock trimmed into ribbon tails on one side using a square punch and into a curve on the other side using a 1/2" circle punch. A candy dot fits nicely in the curve - oh I do love a candy dot!


The layout I was working from today is from CAS(E) this Sketch, where the sketches are always so inspiring, and I'll also be linking up to Make My Monday where the theme this week is 'Flowers or Trees'.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Express Yourself
Ink: Pool Party, Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Early Espresso
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Whisper White
Other: Candy dots, corner rounder, 1" square and 1/2" circle punches, Simply Scored, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


My poor pusscat is not feeling so well at the moment and I am feeding her special titbits to try to build her up a bit. I got a small sardine for her the other day which seemed quite pongy when I took it out of its wrapper. "Let me have a look," said my husband who is my fish correspondent, having worked part-time at a fishmonger while he was at uni. "There's nothing wrong with that!" he declared, having investigated the sardine. "That's a perfectly healthy fish that is!" Which reminded me of a certain Monty Python sketch about a parrot...


Monty Python - Dead Parrot Sketch by beautifulcynic

See you tomorrow,

Monday 23 September 2013

A Wonderfall autumn thank you

It's not been easy joining in with my favourite challenges just lately due to life throwing a few surprises our way but when I saw Arielle's sketch over at Retro Sketches I had an idea that I had to try out. I had the CASual Fridays 'Fall colours with a leaf' challenge in my head too. Come and see:


I loved the split front of the sketch and decided to flip it and use it for this autumnal card using the wonderful Wonderfall set. (Sorry, but there's something about the name Wonderfall that makes it obligatory to put the adjective 'wonderful' with it!)


Just look at those fabulous stylised leaves and that cute acorn, all tied up with linen thread!


I used a combination of smooth and textured card stock for the split panel, piercing along the split edges for added detail. The sentiment is stamped on the card front itself using a stamp-a-majig to make sure it was exactly where I wanted it.

This is the fabulous sketch I was working from:


Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Express Yourself
Ink: Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie,Gumball Green, Early Espresso
Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Cajun Craze smooth and core'dinations
Other: Markers, Linen thread, Essentials piercing pack, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


I feel this is an appropriate ending for today's post:

Leaves.

Saturday 21 September 2013

The Gently Falling Flower Shop

It's so good to have a weekend at home! We had chores to do but I did get to make a leisurely card for the Less is More challenge where I'm delighted to see the lovely Lizy guesting today! This week's challenge is to 'use  felt or fabric on a CAS card' and at first I thought I might have to sit this one out, but then I spotted the canvas I'd used on yesterday's card - that's fabric isn't it?!


The canvas was stamped with one of the flowers from the Flower Shop stamp set. This was cut out using the coordinating punch and decorated with one of the beautiful antique brads. (I thought afterwards that the punches are really only designed to cut out paper so perhaps I should have cut it out by hand; but it did cut beautifully and didn't seem to do any harm to the punch which is a tribute to its sharpness!)


I stamped some leaf outlines from Gently Falling onto a piece of Very Vanilla card stock and cut a panel out. I cut only partially on one side so that I could trim round the leaf. A border was pierced on both sides for a bit of detail and the canvas flower attached using glue dots. I used a piece of chevron designer paper for the side of the card but it looked a little stark so I inked over it using the same colours as for the flower and that tied everything together nicely.


This bold sentiment comes from the Oh Hello stamp set and I've stamped it twice, once on the card front and then again on the panel, masking the card front off and using a stamp-a-majig to position it.

I've just spotted that CASual Fridays has a lovely autumnal challenge too, 'Fall colours and a leaf', so I think I'll link up there too.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Flower Shop, Gently Falling, Oh Hello
Ink: Crushed Curry, Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Early Espresso
Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla
Other: Markers, canvas, Essentials paper piercing pack, Pansy punch, Patterns designer paper, antique brads, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.



It was such a relaxing start to the day that my daughter and I even managed a little rummage through Pinterest together this morning after breakfast! This is one of the images we saw:



Isn't it striking?! (Sadly we couldn't find a source for it.) My daughter, while appreciating the beauty of the image, is never one to pass up on a comedic opportunity. "You know that moment," she said dreamily. "When you kiss your boyfriend and he turns into birds!"

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll see you soon,

Friday 20 September 2013

Feel better with a vintage-style Best of Flowers

My final card for my Get Well week was made especially for a lovely friend of mine who is recovering from an operation. She is a very creative lady who, as well as making wonderful cards and gift packaging, sews beautifully too - which is why canvas seemed a good idea to me! Come and see:


After making this card recently, it's been in the back of my mind to try other stamps on canvas and I thought this one from Best Of Flowers might look almost as if it had been embroidered on. I inked it up using my beloved markers, huffed on the stamp and pressed it onto the canvas - easy peasy!


I snipped the top into a label shape. TIP: It's easy to keep the label symmetrical if you cut one side and use the off-cut as a template to cut the other side. I added some textured card stock cut with the Modern Label punch and layered a punched circle over it before punching a hole through all the layers and tying up with some linen thread.


The sentiment is from the beautiful Express Yourself hostess set. (These are exclusive sets available for those placing a group or single order of £150 or more, but members of my Stampers 6 club are also able to order them. Click here to find out more.)

My friend gives my youngest son piano lessons and he is very fond of her. I thought you might like to see the card he made for her too. He drew the piano but that's the cat from Storybook Friends on the stool and the speech bubble is from Timeless Talk!

Here's what you'll need to make my card
Stamps: Best of Flowers, Express Yourself
Ink: Early Espresso and markers
Card stock: Naturals Ivory, scraps of Raspberry Ripple and Early Espresso
Other: Canvas, paper snips, Modern Label and 1/2" circle punches, linen thread, stamp-a-majig

Crafting Clare online shop, shopping with Vicky Hayes


You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


Thank goodness (as they say) it's Friday! Last Thursday evening I mentioned to my husband that it would be Friday the 13th next day. "Is it?" he said and added in deceptively casual tones: "I've got my parachute jump tomorrow morning." Oh very funny! I mentioned it again the following day when my youngest son came home from school. "It's Friday 13th today!" I said. "How was your day?"My son threw his bags down in the doorway. "I know!" he said and added: "Something terrible happened!" I looked at him. "Oh no! What happened?" I asked. He frowned while he considered this for a few minutes. "I can't remember now," he said sunnily and sauntered off to raid the kitchen.

Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you very soon,