The Other Side Of Me

Hello everyone, I hope you're not too cold, whatever you're doing.  I am in the middle of a blissful week off work.  I had, of course, thought I'd be riding, but the snow has put paid to that, hasn't it?  What is a girl to do, but put the kettle on and get the inks out?! I recently bought a new set of Sizzix stamps and dies and couldn't wait to get home and open them.  BUT also, I am in love with the colour combination on the new More Amore dsp, which contains Pool Party, Primrose Petals and Real Red.  In previous years I've made and sold loads of Valentine's cards, as I sold them in two local shops, but this year there will only be one card for the hubster.  So instead  I decided to play around with the colour combo as I've decided it's not just for Valentine's day.  Here's what I made: I made this as a result of just playing with the colours and not really minding if I didn't have a card at the end of it.  The base is Pool Part...

Obviously it's dawned on me over a period of time that when you see a group of SU! colours on a set of dsp, it's their way of saying, "Hello!  These colours work together well, guys!" (for people who are a bit thick, like me!) So I keep noticing cards using the new dsp Sycamore Street (part of sale-a-bration, by the sound of it) and am fascinated by the colour scheme of Island Indigo, Pool Party, Rich Razzleberry, Sahara Sand, Summer Starfruit and Tangerine Tango.  These are colours it would just never occur to me to put together, but I find them so striking, I just had to have a play.  This is what I made: So you can see, the base of this 4"x4" card is Island Indigo, with a slightly smaller square of Rich Razzleberry (a colour I've hardly touched) that has been run through the square lattice embossing folder, followed by a stamp from Four Frames in Tangerine Tango.  I have never used this colour before, even though I've had it a year.  I cut...

The girl on our yard finally gave birth to a 9lb baby girl (good grief!) so I was poised to make a card.  Then it actually took two days to make.  When you see it, you'll wonder why, so I'd better explain...  I decided to use lots of pink, put it all in place, with the baby image on top and didn't like it at all.  It was just too, well, pink!  I'd decided to base it on the ribbon I was going to use, and this beautiful ribbon kept falling out of my box (shouting, "Pick me!  Pick me!") and suddenly everything came together: It turns out the colour is Elegant Eggplant and I've hardly ever used it, but it's perfect for this card.  I know you think you're seeing spots before your eyes, but I felt I had a theme going there for a minute!  The cute image is from LOTV but everything else is SU.  I'm thrilled with the dotty bottom part as I used my Dot Dot Dot stamp with my SAMJ and it lined up perfectly.  I suddenly remembered the Four Frames ...

Oh boy, have I been having fun.  This is the card I made last week for my youngest daughter.  I got a bit carried away... All I knew was that I wanted to make an easel card where the centre piece was this fancy square shape.  The card I'd seen that inspired me looked nothing like this! I started with the Spellbinder die (if you have the Top Note die it will be perfect) and cut some of this beautiful Everyday Enchantment dsp.  It contains Poppy Parade and Soft Suede, so I combined them on the butterfly at the top and stamped one of the sentiments from the butterfly set.  Then I went to town a bit on the inside, look: I've used the Fresh Vintage stamp set (retired) and stamped all around the edge.  But of course my favourite bit is the Four Frames stamp at the bottom, with the little birds from the Clearly For You stamp set, how sweet is that?  But I wasn't finished there.  I recently looked on You Tube for a video on how to make a post-it n...

Hello all, what a hectic week I'm having.  I'm just getting used to my new job and trying to see how much time that leaves me for crafting, by the time I've done the housework as well - phew! So I'm very pleased to have got a card ready for this week's Dynamic Duos. Here are the colours for this week: Yes it's Pool Party again, but let's face it, we can't get enough of this gorgeous colour, can we?  And of course it's partnered with So Saffron, which I love. My dear friend Priscilla came to lunch on Saturday and asked me for a special card for her sister, who's baby is due in June.  They already know it's a girl and have decided to call her Eva, so when someone asks you for a special card and can supply you with all that information, you have to use it, don't you?  Oh, one more thing:  Although the card is for a baby girl, her mum doesn't like pink.  Great.  Cue Dynamic Duos!  Anyway, here's my card: Sorry the phot...

So first of all, the good news.  After a lot of discussions, we have decided to keep the horses!  I am so thrilled and relieved, I can't begin to tell you.  Once we'd made the decision, things came together very quickly, and we have found a yard for the horses and a sweet little house for us, where I will have my own dedicated craftroom.  This is such a luxury I can only imagine it at the moment! I've been to the doctor's for some stronger antibiotics, as I've been in agony with an ear infection that actually got worse.  I've only taken 2 of the new tablets and feel miles better already.  There's so much to do, I can't afford to be ill now. And I've had time to make another Christmas card for the facebook challenge, Sundays With Santa.  The challenge is to use non-traditional colours.  I feel I have to tell you that first or you'll wonder what on earth I've done: I knew I wanted to use Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder colours together, as...

It's been an interesting time of late.  It's one thing when your mojo gets up and goes but quite another when your mojo's alive and well but life's little hiccups get in the way of your crafting! And so, it was with great pleasure that I sat down last night and made a card for the Less Is More challenge this week.  It's a colour challenge, and the colours to be used are neutrals.  Now, I may still be fairly new to crafting, but I do have a history of dabbling in interior design, as I love fabric and paint, and neutrals are my favourite things. I've been wanting to make a topper like this for ages.  I cut a piece of textured card using my  Square Labels No1.die and scored it about a quarter of the way along and folded it over.  I cut some of the other 3/4 off so it goes to a point at the back, and cut a piece of the same card to stamp the image on.  The stamp is from the Stampin Up! Faith In Nature set.  I am so excited to own this becaus...

Hello all! Hope you're well and not too cold.  Thankfully we haven't had any snow yet.  I think because it was so bad last year all my horsey friends are dreading it, but so far, it's just really cold, which I can live with (indoors, hot choc, card making, you get the idea!) And so it's time for today's card. Do you remember a couple of week's ago I splashed out and bought my first Martha Stewart punch?  This was my first go with it, to make the heart shaped border along the bottom. I have a thing about apertures so thoroughly enjoyed making this.  The card base is Cherry Cobbler. I stamped my letter stamp on the top sheet, which is Very Vanilla, then cut the heart shape out.  I drew inside it onto the CC base, so I could see where I had to stamp.  The floral stamp is actually heart shaped anyway (from Penny Black) which I stamped in gold ink and heat embossed with gold ep.  I added CC polka dot ribbon around the top sheet, then stuc...

I've been asked to make a Valentine for a friend of mine. And this is what I made: Sadly I can't claim this was my idea, I've cased it from the awesome Darlene here .  She has even provided a video tutorial, so you can follow it step by step.  I started with a plain white 5x7 card which I distressed with Tim Holtz Old Paper distress ink, then stamped over it in Crumb Cake with my Letter stamp from Penny Black which is quite a big background stamp.  I also have a post mark stamp so I stamped that on a couple of times.  Then I made the envelope from a 4" square of paper, which I scored across each centre line and folded to make the envelope, which is slightly different to the way you'll see in the video. The hearts are cut out using various dies and punches in Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze and So Saffron, and placed around the envelope, as if you've just opened it and all these hearts have flown out.  I spent a long time playing with these until I was...

Hello all!  I hope you're having a good weekend.  We are just enjoying the calm after the storm.  We had 90mph winds here.  I've never known anything like it. Today I want to show you a card I made for a lovely lady called Carol who goes to our craft group.  Her birthday is on Christmas Day.  It took me ages to realise that that's probably why she's called Carol (I am clearly not the brains of the outfit!) Anyway, here's the card: This card uses all Marina Mist, which is one of my favourite SU colours.  I've used my new Marianne die, to make  the doily shape.  I've recently bought some sponge daubers, which are much cheaper than buying the inkssential sticks and used one of those to sponge around the edge of the doily.  I stamped one of my Four Frames stamps to put on top of it, stamped the image from my Clearly For You set and punched it out.  Lovely.  Now, I know if you've been using Stampin Up stuff for a...