Mature Engagement

Hi All,

for today's Inspiration Roundup post over at STAMPlorations, I am sharing a card I made for my friend Sue a few weeks ago. It is an engagement card she wanted to give to her fiance who likes lilies ... the colour red was also mentioned ... here is what I made ...

I stamped, coloured and fuzzy cut the calla lily from the Smile set, cut an oval shape from Cherry Cobbler card, used the same colour card for my base card and spritzed with gold, layered everything up and finished off with a few golden confetti hearts.

The inside featured a verse Sue had chosen and a 2nd generation stamped image of the calla lilies. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo.

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more inspiration and to leave a comment for your entry to win a $10 gift certificate.

That's it from me for now, I shall be back again tomorrow with more Blog Hop Inspiration.

Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is the set I used:
Smile

STAMPlorations Birthday Blog Hop Day 1

Hi All! It's PARTY TIME!!!!! STAMPlorations is turning 3 and they are celebrating BIG! It's Blog Hop Time!

..... and Shery is releasing a new product too ... CUTplorations thin metal dies. More about this later ...

First up is my DT contribution to DAY 1 of the blog hop. Working with the special release set Kathryn's Big Wishes, I went off into fantasy land and imagined her travelling the world. Here she is floating above the World Birthday Cakes ....

Simple masking and colouring is all that is needed to make this card. I started off by stamping Kathryn and her balloon using my MISTI before arranging the cakes to suit, colouring, stamping my sentiment and finishing by layering on a purple base card.

Now back to the blog hop ... as with every blog hop there will be prizes for commenting on participating blogs. You can find all the links for DAY 1 here on the STAMPlorations Blog.

The prizes for commenting are:

Prizes for commenting on the STAMPlorations blog and STAMPlorations designers blogs:

• THREE (3) winners of $25 gift certificate
• SEVEN (7) winners (1 per day) of $10 gift certificate

All prizes will be randomly drawn using Random.org
.... hold on, that's not all ... there is also a Linky Party you can join to help us celebrate

How does this work:

• there is a mood board below for you to draw inspiraiton from
• create your project (No back linking, projects must be new, but you can use any brand of product. We would be tickled pink if you were to use STAMPlorations products, but it is not necessary.)
• display the mood board in your post
• link to any of the 7 blog hop posts
• the linky will be open until 5th July

Here is the mood board, remember it needs to be displayed in your blog post to qualify ...

Here are the Linky Party prizes:

• one winner of Kathryn's Big Wishes
• one winner of three CUTplorations word dies, winner's choice

All winners will be drawn by Random.org.

The release of CUTplorations Thin Metal Dies will be celebrated during the last three days of the blog hop from Sunday 3rd July onward.  

This is me finished, one last look at my card, which incidentally has quite a few of the mood board elements ... cakes, balloon, colours ...

I shall be back soon. Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

link to DAY 1 of the Blog Hop

here is what I used:
Kathryn's Big Wishes, World Birthday Cakes
 

Be Free

Hi All,

It's Inspiration time over at STAMPlorations. For today's DT project I played with the Trendy Birds 2 and the wonky stitching from the Patchwork Frenzy Graphic Squares sets plus a little help from the Dots All Over ARTplorations Stencil.

I sponged a piece of white card with Baked Brown Sugar ink and using water and the Dots All Over stencil beached some dots into it before sponging a few dots in Tangerine Tango. Once dry, I gold embossed my bird, added some darker sponging and outline with Early Espresso before finishing with some sentiment and wonky stitching stamping in the same colour.

Here is another look at the finished project, the bird emerging from the shadows .....

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more inspiration and to enter their monthly prize draw.

I shall be back again tomorrow to help celebrating their birthday .... please check in again.

See you then
hugs
Monika

here is what I used:
Trendy Birds 2, Patchwork Frenzy Graphic Squares, ARTplorations Stemcils: Dots All Over
  

Girls Girls Girls

Hi All,

It's Tuesday and this means Inspiration time over at STAMPlorations. For my DT piece I made this card-in-a-box using Groovy Shoes with a little help from A Girl And Her Shoes as I decided to join the revival of this 3D card style with a little bit of Retro Fun.

I first made this style of card about 10 years ago, how time flies. It has since had a revival, and, inspired by Jackie at last night's craft club meeting, I had to give it another go.... shoes and box seemed to be a good combination.

There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube here on how to make this type of card hence I decided to simply focus on the stamping and colouring I did. The base was easy, I just used the shoes and randomly stamped them on pink card (regal rose) using Melon Mambo and Elegant Eggplant. Next I stamped my birthday sentiment in black and a couple of sentiments from the A Girl And Her Shoes set in Mambo and Eggplant before adding some flowers into the mix ...

I stamped, coloured and fuzzy cut my shoes and flowers (for the laced-up ones I used my gelli plate for mirror stamping), assembled the box and finished off with a little glitter from my sparkly gel pen and some faux stitching in black ...

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more inspiration, to browse, enter challenges and simply have fun!

That's it from me for now. I shall be back soon ...

Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Groovy Shoes, A Girl And Her Shoes
 

CASEplorations June Reminder

Hi All,

this is just a quick reminder post. You might remember that over at STAMPlorations' CASEplorations Challenge we are CASEing this card made by Shelly Kurth ...

Well, I thought one could easily use another shape and do some jiggling about ....

What do you think? I used a die-cut oval frame, some stamped and fuzzy cut feathers plus stamped sentiment, twine and a little bit of spritzed colour. Feathers and sentiment are both from the Trendy Feathers 2 set.

Interested in CASEing Shelly's card?... pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more CASEing inspiration and to enter your make. See you there ....

That's it from me for today. I shall be back soon.

Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Trendy Feathers 2

On My Mind

Hi All,

It's Tuesday and that means Inspiration time over at STAMPlorations. Today I have 2 DT pieces for you, one which I made before the move and my most recent make inspired by LIM's current theme of 'splatters'.

First up is my card featuring the Calla lily from Smile in combination with a sentiment from Trendy Feathers 2.

I simply stamped, coloured and fuzzy cut the Calla lily, spritzed some Elegant Eggplant on my base card, stamped my sentiment in Elegant Eggplant on a strip of card and layered everything up as seen adding a sequin to finish. This is sort of a 'tidy my desk' type of card: the lily was originally coloured for my card here, but was a little too pale to be used, the frame is the off-cut from my golden circle used on this card here and the sentiment was a strip I tried on another card, but didn't use.

Next up is a card I made using STAMPlorations' current Stamp Club set called Gone Postal ...

... in combination with the splatters stamp from the Mixed Media Elements set. I first stamped the splatters in Cherry Cobbler. Next using black Archival I stamped the car and with a damp brush drew some of the colour from the stamped splatters along to colour my little car. Once dry, I masked the car and stamped the postage frame and sentiment. With my mask still in place I spritzed a little Cherry Cobbler to add a few more splatters and splashes before adding the wavy postage mark and layering with a little tilt on my red base card to finish. I quite like the little tilt, it reminds me of several letters coming through the door and landing on top of each other ....

I am entering my second card at
Less Is More - Splatters

Well, that's it from me for today. Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more inspiration and to leave a comment for your entry in their monthly prize draw.

I shall be back soon with more inspiration.

Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Smile, Trendy Feathers 2, Gone Postal, Mixed Media Elements
   

Happy Day

... as I am easing my way back into crafting after the house move.

Hi All,

My room is mainly up and running now and I had to take a break from organizing the house to do some crafting. A little birdie in the name of Shery told me that STAMPlorations are sponsoring the Less Is More challenges in June. As one of them is coming to an end today I thought I'd have to sneak a card in quickly for their colour challenge - Purple.

Here it is:

I was working with STAMPlorations current Stamp Club set called Gone Postal and combined it with the script from Mixed Media Elements and a sentiment from Blossom Overture.

I stamped the postage stamp frame and masked the frame bit before stamping my butterflies in black Memento. I then used Pastel Violet and light Violet Tinge Markers to colour my butteflies and LV1 Spectrum Noir to colour the frame. Next I stamped my sentiment and the script in Elegant Eggplant using generational stamping to create more depth. I finished off with some Elegant Eggplant spritzing, a touch of sivler gel pen on my frame and a gem on my butterfly.

That's it from me for now.

Have a lovely weekend!
hugs
Monika xxx

here are the sets I used:
Gone Postal, Mixed Media Elements, Blossom Overture
  

Explore Art

Hi All,

It's Inspiration time over at STAMPlorations. As my DT piece I want to share a card I made using the French Marigold - Large stamp combined with a sentiment I made up from Bold Sentiments: Create and Explore

I simply stamped the Marigold in black, black embossed the word 'Explore' before stamping the word 'Art' to complete my sentiment, added a few spritzed splatters and added some coloured acetate discs attached with matching brads to finish. A quick and easy card to make. The little discs are movable for added fun.

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more inspiration and leave a comment whilst there for your chance to win a prize.

I shall be back soon with more inspiration.

Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Bold Sentiments: Create and Explore, French Marigold - Large
  

CASEplorations June

Hi All,

It's time for a new CASEplorations challenge over at the STAMPlorations Blog.

This month we are taking our inspiration from Shelly Kurth and her lovely CAS card below.

Shelly blogged about her card here.

With Summer fast approaching, Maria must have been thinking weddings. What would inspire you?

• CAS style
• Wedding theme, could also be engagement, anniversary. ...
• Circular topper
• Twine
• Pastel shades
• Two roses

Well, here is what inspired me:

• Engagement theme
• CAS style
• Two roses became two birds
• Circular topper became a ring

When I first saw Shelly's card, I immediately thought of creating a ring topper for an engagement card in which birdie wanted to play a part.

I die-cut my circles from golden and white pearlescent card, partially blended the white one with Strawberry Slush and Smokey Slate inks and brushed lightly with a damp brush. I then stamped and fuzzy cut birdie from the Small Birds set, doodled and fuzzy cut the diamond, stamped my sentiment from the Trendy Feathers 2 set, layered on a pearlescent white base card and finished off with a touch of glitter glue for added sparkle.

You could easily transform my card into a wedding one by adding a few tiny gems as a mini tiara to one of the birds and giving the other one a bow tie and possibly a top hat too. .... in fact I almost did before deciding that I'd rather wait for Shirley to come up with the accessories set.

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more CASEplorations inspiration and to link up your wonderfully inspired make(s).

I shall leave you with a last look at my creation.....

Have a lovely weekend.

Hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Small Birds, Trendy Feathers 2