My Sunshine on a Snowy Day!!

Hi there

If you're living in the UK you've either woken up to loads of snow this morning or anticipating it's arrival later and all the chaos it will bring!!

.....so in the midst of all this chilly talk I have a warming card to share for this weeks OLW which is being hosted by Heather here.
The challenge of a one layer card is quite useful for this new die from Memory box... which reminds me of the sun, so with some PP behind it thats what I've gone with alongside a sentiment from Papertrey Ink ...

oooo I can feel the heat already from blazing sun :0)

My own ray of sunshine is 17 today, yes it's James's birthday and he would have loved a day off school because of the weather.... his wish may still be granted!!
I always think birthdays on a school day are a raw deal but he happily went in with his box of sweets to share out with classmates :0) Here's the card I made him this year.....

Strange.... how many 17 year olds know what a washing machine is let alone have one feature on a birthday card but this is James's most favourite passtime and always has been since he could shuffle across the floor to peer inside the drum!!! The die is a larger Quickutz die that I found on ebay and had to buy it, just for him :0) I've made the door part into a shaker component with some left over circles from the die used in the sunshine card above. Love the bubble die from Memory box too...makes a perfect background.
On opening it he told me that it was a Hotpoint washing machine!! I haven't checked but there probably is a model that looks similar to this.... he takes that much notice :0)

Hannah has come home for his birthday and wisely changed her plans to travel yesterday instead of today because of the impending chaos with the snow so it was a total surprise for him when she walked through the door last night.... lets just say the hug lasted ages :0)

Take care if you're travelling in the snow and have fun in it if your not. *wink*
Thanks for looking and thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post, your support is truly appreciated :0)

Jenny x

Two Cards, One Stamp!!

Hello crafty friends

It just so happens that I have a couple of cards for this weeks One Layer Wednesday which is being hosted by Susan this week...... I haven't played along for ages and it's a complete fluke that my cards fit this weeks theme which is to use one stamp in two different ways.

I've used the leaves from Wplus9 'Fresh Picked' as they were meant to be on the first card but then couldn't help wonder if I could use them to make a Poinsettia on a CAS Christmas card...... They are such pretty flowers but I can never get them to flower again the following year!!!

I haven't got round to posting on my blog (apart from DT stuff) since our Nephews wedding a couple of weekends ago so I thought I'd share a photo of the kiddos on the day..... no snaps of us all together yet, that's why I have the camera round my neck on these occasions.... so I'm always behind it *wink*

This is about as smart as James gets and it's always a challenge to keep him looking that way! Hannah was complaining how short she felt!!! well at 6'4" I suppose he does tower over a lot of people :0)

Thanks for looking :0)

Jenny x

OLW - Colour in Winter

Hi everyone,
Well it's great to have a break from the recent dull weather we've had because it's been a lovely sunny winters day here and the mutt and I got out for an earlier walk to make the most of it,  when I got back home I decided to make a card for this weeks One Layer Wednesday at Susan's blog Simplicity.  I used to play along regularly so I need to get back to that routine, it's always good to stretch the creative braincells with a OLC !!!

Inspired by the early signs of spring, Susan wants us to use a pop of colour with white and grey on our OLC and only use black for the sentiment if we have to .
Perhaps it was my sunny walk that inspired me to tackle this weeks challenge today, although our walk did involve a fair bit of squelchy mud too!,  but I used this Penny Black border stamp and embossed it in white, then coloured the leaves and flowers with coloursoft pencils and used enamel accents for the flower centres.

It was at this point I realised I had not thought about the sentiment.... not black! (which would have looked too harsh anyway), so I stamped and embossed again... whilst holding my breath! Oh it could have gone so wrong at this point but I think I got away with it :0)

I had been trying a technique from card class which is to colour the white embossed lines but Jennifer McGuire used Prismacolour pencils and my coloursoft guys just weren't going to play nicely and do the same thing so I settled for colouring in between the lines and I have to say I'm impressed with the pop of pink on the grey!

I'm linking this up to Simon Says Stamp this week as they have an 'Anything Goes' challenge to win a $50 store voucher :0)

This weekend in the UK it's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch 2012, I hope you can join in and record the feathered visitors to your garden for an hour either Saturday or Sunday, details can be found on the RSPB website here on how to take part. We usually make it a family occasion because you need that many eyes to count them!!

Thanks for your visit today :0)
Jenny x

Red And White Christmas

Hello again,

***This is my second post of the day, please click here to see my card for 

 the November Challenge at St Luke's CCC.***

First of all I'm hijacking this drafted post to say how thrilled I am that my Star congrats card is sharing the Colour Queen spot this week alongside Jen's fantastic card, such fabulous news to wake up to :o)

Now back to this card ......as I said in my previous post, I carried on using my Waltzing Mouse Nordic Winter stamps to make a card for One Layer Weds which is being hosted by Susan Raihala this week and the requirements are a Red & White or Red & Cream card.... but not necessarily for Christmas unless your in full gear now on the run up to that crazy time of the year!!

This is the style of card that Susan herself, so readily creates and has me sighing with content but I had to literally put my hands in my pockets and walk away so as not to add anything else to it!!!

I'm so happy how this turned out :)

Oh, I discovered this set has a correct way up to stamp it because the patterns are knitted motifs and the little stitches have a correct orientation so they look like stocking stitch!! Lucky I planned my design on scrap paper first, I'm probably the last to notice this detail!!

I'm just going to pop this in at Simon Says Stamp 'Anything Goes Challenge' because they are trying for 10000 entries again and who am I  to disappoint them :)

Then I'm off because that's enough chat from me today, back Friday on the blog hop at Young Crafters Unite :)

Thanks for looking X

Just want to add how thrilled I am that my Star congrats card is sharing the Colour Queen spot this week alongside Jen's fantastic card :o)

One Layer and CAS!

Evening all,

I've been trying in vain to combine the new OLW challenge with the One Layer week at Less is More, I've had to admit defeat before I went stir crazy and make separate cards as my stamps just didn't want to play ball today!

So over at Less is More Mandi and Chrissie want to 'see double' on a one layer card, so I flicked through my stamps and saw the band-aid in the Lawn Fawn set called 'on the mend' and used the masking method to stamp it twice in a cross .....

.... seeing as I don't have any 'get well soon' type cards in my stash this seemed the best card to make :)
I've been practising my pro-marker colouring and this is first take....I'm amazed!
I'm also entering this into ...Wee Memories Challenge this week as they want to see one layer cards too.

 Edited to add: I'm also entering this card into the first challenge over at Young Crafters Unite! which is 'Colour a Stamped Image'

This next card is for OLW which has begun again after a summer break and the first challenge is to make a New Baby card, this week there is a prize too, for one lucky person :)
I'm lacking in the baby stamps area, especially for one layer cards .... but I did see the pea pod stamp in the PTI set called 'Green Thumb' and it shouted out to be used on a new baby card .... what do you think?

I've stamped in two different colours of chalk ink and then used coloursoft pencils to add shadow for dimension ...... oh and a cute little face too :)
I seem to be on a small card trend at the moment, these are both 4" square, I especially love them for one layer cards

Lovely to have the days to myself again but with guests coming this weekend, the housework is the top of the list, the quicker it's done the more craft time ....Yay

Thanks for your visit, I'd love to hear what you think X

Make it personal @ OLW

Hi Everyone,
A quick post for a quick card and also because I'm deeply engrossed in house tidying (not through fun, more like necessity), nothing like a visit from your MIL to help you pull your finger out:)

"This week's One-Layer Wednesday Challenge is to Make It Personal. In other words, make a card for a particular person that is custom designed for him or her".



I almost thought I'd sit this weeks OLW out as I completely drew a blank and then I remembered a set of Badminton rackets and shuttlecock stamps I bought yonks ago (like you do)! I think they were just waiting for me to discover one layer cards as I quite think they suit it, see what you think....

...... this is for my Brother-in-law who is an avid badminton player and probably the reason I bought the stamps in the first place, they are from Dimension Fourth who carry a great range of stamps some of which are more unusual ... like badminton equipment! lol

So that's it short and sweet, like the card which is 4" square (my fave one layer size)

Thanks for looking in...back tomorrow with another Paper Smooches card and the last stamp set to giveaway:)

Bye X

One Layer clouds

Hi everyone,

Since moving out into the countryside, the one thing I appreciate the most is the uninterrupted view of the big sky we have and watching the weather and clouds roll in and out again, so when I saw the challenge at Jennifer styles blog this week for OLW was to use clouds on your card I decided to recreate my favourite sky scene

I love the wispy lines of cloud above a sunset as they change from the usual white grey to a slate grey with lovely highlights underneath....quite different from the sky at the moment as we have just had a downpour!

This is another 4 inch sq card and I have used chalk to make the sky and then used coloursoft pencils to add the clouds. I've double stamped the seed head in black to give the 'silhouette' feel when you are looking at the sunset.

I hope this fits the challenge as my clouds are quite a small part of the scene :)

It's also a one layer challenge tomorrow at Less is More so can't wait to see what Mandi and Chrissie have in store for us:{

Thanks so much for calling by, I'm sure I'll be back over the weekend X



Ink on Ink at One Layer Wednesday

Morning peeps ,

This will be a quick post to mirror the time it took to make the card .... well after I'd found the stamps and chose the ink colour that is :)

It's for OLW and this week we have to literally stamp a design .... quick layers of ink ...... no sponging , embellishing or masking

I decided to make it a sympathy card as they are the sort you often need to rustle up quickly in a 'no fuss' CAS style .

I'm ashamed to say I re-found these stamps in a folder I had forgotten about and dug out my old Hero Arts shadow inks for the background design ....... I'm surprised they are still inky after hanging around for 6yrs!

I'm actually pleased with it considering it was made in a flash, hope you like it too :)

I'm off to take the mutt to the vets now for his annual jabs , he literally changes before my eyes from a mini Tasmanian devil to a piece of jelly as we cross the threshold into the waiting room , lol :)

 Thanks for your time and have a good day , remember to pop back tomorrow for a little giveaway X

Flower Jars @ OLW

Hi Everyone ,

Ok I'm on a roll now with my cards again but this weeks OLW gave me trouble at first and a heap of rejects too until I decided to go literal with the photo inspiration .

I basically went back to stencilling again using a quickutz jar die and punched flower with a hand cut stem and leaf stencil too . I made the flower into a daffodil by stencilling through a star to make the trumpet face on .
A little bit of mending wool for twine and a hero arts sentiment .
I tend to use these 3.5 inch square cards for one layer cards as they seem less daunting and the texture works well with the ink and coloursoft pencils that I use to add extra definition to the images .

I'm off out shopping today as it's a certain young ladies birthday at the end of the week and we have another university to visit this week too ...... roll on the end of term :)

Thanks for looking and mind that hot sun today .... the Wimbledon effect has worn off all ready X 

OLW- Aqua,Yellow and Orange

Hi Everyone ,

After my exciting news earlier I thought I'd better come back and share the card I've made for One Layer Wednesday which is hosted Susan at Simplicity this week ....

....... we have to use the colours aqua , yellow and orange on our OL cards , I can only say these challenges highlight my "not very diverse" stamp collection as I never have the stamps to fit my initial idea so plan b was born .... I'm working on my stamp collection by the way :)

The paper lanterns are a stamp that came with a Scrapagogo kit from last year , I've used colorbox chalk ink to sponge on the colour and then added extra dimension with coloursoft pencils .
The sentiment is from one of my new Papertrey Ink stamp sets ..... love PTI , need 2nd mortgage to ship it here though , lol :)

Thanks for dropping in today , it's been quite an exciting one :)

A Summery One Layer Card

Hi Everyone ,

I thought this week I would combine OLW with my LIM card as it's the turn of the nervously anticipated

ONE LAYER WEEK

and the challenge is

IN THE FRAME

We would like to see a frame of some sort or something in a frame... we'd like you to be as inventive as you like.

You could doodle, draw, emboss, ink, paint, colour, print, stamp, emboss resist,  mask or any other method you can come up with to get a frame of sorts into your design.

Over at One Layer Wednesday the theme is summer hols/beach and this week is being hosted by Jennifer and she has a guest designer too :)

Now I do not have any suitable stamps for this theme apart from flip flops , which have been done already , so it was a case of thinking outside the box ....or inside the box when I saw the LIM challenge :)

The scene is actually peeking through an aperture in the card so I hope this still counts as one layer ??

The parasol is a sizzlets die that I've drawn around on the card front and then I used a rectangle nestie placed so as the image extends outside of inner frame and drew around the inside and outside of the nestie, all with pencil.

Then using my craft knife , I cut the aperture either side of the parasol and drew the outer frame in with pen allowing a gap for the sentiment .

I've used Coloursoft Pencils for the Parasol and chalks for the beach scene , adding highlights with pencils and a white gel pen .

Not sure how useful this card will be with a sentiment like that but it just fitted the image nicely and anyway , I really wish I was there so perhaps I'll just keep it to look at on miserable weather days :)

I actually made this card yesterday having spotted the accidental heads up from Chrissie this week on my blogger dashboard .... oops now I've let the cat out of the bag :)

All the challenge details can be found on the links above , why not click and have a go too :)
 

Thanks for calling in today X

OLW-Fathers Day

Fantastic Friday everyone ,

...... yes fathers day is just around the corner and this week over on Susan's blog at OLW we are making cards for the men in our life . It can be a traditional Fathers day or for any male figure in your life who's in need of some recognition :)

I've used the tie from a Woodware set of stamps and cut one of them out so as to reveal the coloured paper insert underneath. The sentiment is another Woodware set called Retro words , love these , they get used a lot :)

I made the card blank myself as I do prefer landscape cards and get tired of the square or A6 size so I bought some thick (290gsm) A3 card to make these , I can get two DL and one slightly slimmer from one sheet :)

The ironing got done as did some house work so I felt justified in making this card yesterday evening :)

Thanks for stopping by and saying 'Hi' X

OLW - cats and dogs

Morning everyone ,

I nearly titled this raining cats and dogs as my little dance worked yesterday and the garden had a drink , woo hoo :)

The cats and dogs actually refers to this weeks OLW , see details here and play along to .... it'll get your grey matter working .

Being an animal lover I have a good choice of dog stamps , not so many cats tho , but I decided to go with this little fella

He's from an Inkadinkado set along with the sentiment and the frame is from a Waltzing Mouse . I drew the eyes in so he was looking at the sentiment and he does kinda look like he's had a bad day .

I will be back at some point with a cat card too when I find the stamps .... probably up a tree somewhere ,  LOL

Thanks for looking , I really appreciate your visit X

OLW - Baby cakes

Afternoon Everyone ,

It's so good to get back to making CAS cards after a couple of scrapbook pages , and so to this weeks OLW at Susan Raihala's blog.......

.......this week we are asked to make a 'New Baby' card and use this selection of baby cake pictures for inspiration .

I find these types of challenge difficult because there's so much to look at on the pictures and I have to really focus on one or two elements or my head spins !

Here's my card

I used these two photos for inspiration



The font is printed on the computer in a very light grey and then I went over it in black pen to join up the letters and extend the line to make a washing line effect . This was the most time consuming part of the card and caused quite a lot of frustration .... but hey we got there in the end :)

The onesie is a Personnel Impressions stamp which I positioned with my homemade stamp positioner and then coloured with Coloursoft pencils .

Just love that white space , I've even made a one layer card for CAS-ual Fridays this week too , I'll post that tomorrow .

See you then and thanks for stopping by today .

OLW 53 - Take Two

Morning Everyone ,
..... So , I was hoping Blogger would reinstate my last post but I guess not unless I'm near the bottom of the pile !

So here is my card , again , for OLW which is being hosted by Jennifer Styles this week and we are to make a new home card using at least two coloured inks .

The two inks are green for the grass and blue for the stippled sky , barely visible in the photo , and the image is coloured with Coloursoft pencils .
The cute picket fence image is from a Woodware set along with the sentiment and the frame is Waltzing Mouse stamps .
That's it , short and sweet ...... a bit like the card :)

Now I've re-posted I suppose Mr Blogger will decided to find my first post ...... I think they call that Sod's Law !

Thanks for stopping by X

OLW goes round & round

Hello again .... I know .... two posts in a day , well I'm busy tomorrow so thought I'd post my OLW card this eve :)

This weeks OLW marks a years worth of challenges as we are on challenge 52 , I have only been playing along for about 8 weeks but love the weekly mind stretching it causes me . Here are the particulars this week ....

      "This week's One-Layer Wednesday Challenge is to use a circle or multiple circles on your card. You can get really creative with this. For instance, the centers of some flowers are circles, brads are circles, pierced holes are circles. All those would count. Or you can make a round card, punch a round window into a card, or accent your card with bit of polka-dot ribbon. I'll bet y'all can think of LOTS more creative ways to incorporate circles into a ONE-LAYER card."

So here is my card

I've used an Inkadinkadoo stamp from a set conveniently called circles and dots and then used my Making Memories eyelet punch to make holes on a round of dots . You can just about make out that the rest of the card is embossed and I stamped the sentiment with an old Hero Arts alphabet . To give a flash of colour through the holes , I used a brown paper insert , not that it's very visible in the photo. 

Oh and I forgot to say .... because it's OLW's birthday this week Susan is giving a prize away to a lucky winner from this weeks submissions , see the link above for details :)

Thanks for stopping by .... again X

Three of a kind @ OLW

It's coffee break time so I thought I'd post my cards for OLW this week over at Jennifer's blog here.

This is this weeks requirements -

"The challenge is to make three one-layer cards.  Yes, three.  Make three cards all using the same image stamp but vary the occasion by changing the sentiment and/or ink colour and/or card stock colour.  You must use the same image stamp on each card."

I have to say deciding on a stamp was hard , knowing you had to vary the design and occasion on a One Layer Card .
These are my cards

The stamp is from Birds Galore by Inkadinkado and it's shape didn't leave me much choice for positioning on the card so I decided to change the way I used it instead . The first image is stamped on a sponged background , the second is embossed with silver powder and the third is chalked after stamping with Versa mark .

This challenge took some thinking about but I'm finally pleased with the result after several attempts :)

Thanks for looking X

One Layer Weds 50

Evening everybody and Happy Easter ,


I've grabbed some crafting time today to make a card for OLW 50 over on Susan Raihala's blog here . We have to use an old well loved stamp/s that have not seen ink for a while and make a thank you card . Here's my creation

These little stamps are a collection of small cube stamps from Hero Arts ( I think ) , and they allow you to mix blooms , stems and pots to make your own flowers and I've had them for ages . I used to use my marvy pens with them initially but now Mr Holtz has come onto the scene they've had a new lease of life and now I use my own handmade stamp positioner they are easier to use too .

Just thought I'd share these pictures of our local woods that are covered with a carpet of bluebells at the moment .

We went a couple of evenings ago when the weather was so warm  to take the dog out , the sight and smell that greeted us was amazing  in fact the pictures do no justice to it at all . If only they could invent scratch and sniff technology for blog pictures :)


Thanks for stopping by , I'll be back tomorrow with some more pictures of our Easter weekend at home.


Bye for now x

Green and Pink - OLW 49

Afternoon peeps ,

One Layer Weds is being hosted by Jennifer Styles this week over on her blog here , and the requirements are green and pink using a stamp that has never seen ink ( you can use other colours in addition to green and pink ).

This stamp is Studio G and cost about 99p if I remember correctly but has never been used until yesterday . The leaf is one from a Judikins cube , I think I've used some of the other leaves but not this one .
I've kept it clean and simple and quite enjoyed making it , this is first attempt too , now that's unusual :)

Thanks for looking , I'll be back Saturday with my LO for Scrap map Saturday .

Non-floral sympathy card

Hello again , second post today ,

Time is running out for the OLW challenge here so I managed to make my entry this morning .

The requirement is a One Layer Sympathy card without using flowers or tree images so after searching through my stamps I came up with nothing suitable , I've ordered a set of stamps that would be suitable but they have not arrived in time so I decided to use stencils and chalks . I used a nestie to make a stencil and then chalked a dusk skyline , silhouetted hills and then added a few birds , the sentiment is from Stampin Up .
I'm quite pleased how it turned out as the sky colours give the card a tranquil feel and the embossed border frames it nicely ... its surprising what you can produce when the supplies are limited :)

That really is all for today , thanks for looking X