Cupcake Love

Hello Crafty Friends!

February's TAGplorations Challenge over at STAMPlorations is in full swing and there is still time to play along.

The theme for February is: All About Love

The optional twist is: to use Cupcakes

Well, as you can see, I'm 'playing' the optional twist ...

I used the rose stamp for my background, splattered with red watercolour. The hearts and cupcake were watercoloured and fuzzy cut, the rest are layered die-cuts and a piece of decorative tape.

Have you noticed that the Bloomdala Bliss die-cuts make perfect doilies?

If you love tags, why not give it a go and play along? Your project can be anything as long as it features a tag. You can enter as many projects as you want, but one per blog post please, and you don't have to use STAMPlorations products, yet we'd be thrilled if you would. There is currently a free winter/holiday image to download at STAMPlorations Never ending Anything Goes Challenge here. Please check out the full revised challenge guidelines here on the STAMPlorations Blog.

One lucky winner, voted for by the DT, will win a $15 STAMPlorations gift certificate and 3 randomly picked players will win a $5 STAMPlorations gift certificate each.

Ready for more tagtastic inspiration? Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog to see the gorgeous projects my teamies created and, of course, to link up your tag project/s too. You can also find additional inspiration in the Challenge Reminder Post here on the STAMPlorations Blog

That's it from me for today. Have a lovely day!

hugs

Monika xx 

here is what I used from the STAMPlorations Shop, you can use my personal discount code STAMPGIRLMONIKA at checkout for a 20% discount on their, stamps, dies and stencils

Boxed Blooms, Sketched: Cupcake, Romantic Expressions #2

  

Stitched Tags Nesting Dies, Uppercase Alphabet Plate Die, Bloomdala Bliss Festive

  

Borders ... Glorious Borders!

Hi All,

STAMPlorations have got some fantastic new stamps ... Artsy Borders!!! ... four in total ... Butterfly Row, Cupcake Row, Daffodil Row and Daisy Row ... You will LOVE them! They have already become my favourites as they make for easy, quick and classy cards!

They look absolutely stylish, simply stamped in black on white card and paired with a simple sentiment from the Bloom Sketches set and finished off with a few clear gems ...

 

 

This combination would make a great gift as a set of cards, and it is easy and quick to make, just perfect for those last minute birthday presents.

Of course you can add some colour too ...

... through adding some fuzzy cut and coloured elements, butterflies in my case, or ...

... through adding some acetate highlights, or ...

... trough colouring and fuzzy cutting the whole chain of glorious cupcakes, made a little more glossy with a coat of Mod Podge, or ...

... through adding a die-cut splash of colour and spritzing, or ...

... trough creating a faux no-line-watercolour look, for which I stamped the Daisy Row in Sap Green Archival before watercolouring around it with Pistachio Pudding SU ink and highlighting the daisy centers with Crushed Olive DI. To finish I stamped my sentiment from the Boxed Blooms set in Garden Green SU ink and added a couple of decorative score lines  and rounded corners.

There is even room for taking things much bolder ...

.... such as using a very bright colour scheme with a touch of glossy accents for a real Sugar Rush of a sweet treat, or even going all out artsy ....

... with a Gelli Plate print as backdrop inspired by a sunny Spring afternoon sitting in the garden with a cuppa ... birds tweeting ....
There is a little video on how I made the print which I spritzed with gold Artiste Spritzing Ink before cutting it to size. I then added some green dotted Washi, my coloured and fuzzy cut Daffodil Row and Sketchy Coffee Cup, my potting soil stamped Trendy Birds and a Noteworthy sentiment. Some doodles and sequins finished the look.

Well, and at the end once you finished making your card, you can always look over the piece of paper you used to try out your stamps or for stamping off and blending etc. to see, if there is a card like this, you could make ...

I found this piece of paper on the messy stamping paper (scrap paper in other words), I had been using for quite a while, and simply added some stamped splashes from the Mixed Media Elements set, the sentiment from the Bloom Sketches set, some doodles, ink spray and sequins.

Well, all of these pieces of inspiration came about before I was even following my original idea and pairing the borders with their full size counterpart like the Cupcake row with the Sketched: Cupcake and the Daisy Row with the daisy from the Bloom Sketches ... I guess these will have to wait for another post ....


here is the little video:

That's it from me for now.
Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Butterfly Row - Artsy Borders, Cupcake Row - Artsy Borders, Daffodil Row - Artsy Borders
  
Daisy Row - Artsy Borders

Bloom Sketches, Sketched: Cupcake, Boxed Blooms, Sugar Rush, Sketchy Coffee Cups,
    

Trendy Birds, Noteworthy, Mixed Media Elements
  

Springtime Smiles

Hello All,

good to see that you were feeling inspired to use your eye shadows for card making! I would really love to see your CASEs for this technique in our Inspiration CASE Playground.

Today's card uses a mixture of STAMPlorations stamp sets which are: Boxed Blooms, Blossom Overture, Mixed Media Grunge, Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds and The bee's Knees: Small Birds.

This card started off as an Easter card project which never got properly underway. I simply run out of time and turned it into a card capturing the essence of Spring. Daffodils are still in boom around here and they looked especially pretty in the Easter sunshine. I always love seeing their bright and cheerful yellow popping up as an early sign of Spring. I used Promarkers to colour mine. I then masked them off and stamped the backdrop using one of the stamps from the Mixed Media Grunge set, our current Stamp Club set, in orange turning the stamp as I went along. I removed the mask and and continued into stamping a border using the same stamp. I added some extra texture using the dots from the Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds set before black embossing the word smile (Boxed Blooms) and stamping the sending you a (Blossom Overture) into place. I added a doodled border, used my warm grey Tinge Alcohol Marker to add a shadow and popped little birdie from the Small Birds set on to finish. I decided to layer on a dark blue base card as it best enhanced the cheerfulness; black was too stark, kraft drained the colour, and orange, green and yellow didn't work either. Guess that blue sky we've had of late wanted to be included too. :-)

My next card is the one I intended to post on Good Friday, but as you know my husband had other ideas ...

I used stamps from the Blossom Overture set, coloured with alcohol markers layered on a texture base card. I purposefully layered my panel off center to add some subtle interest.
If you feel inspired to CASE any of today's card, you can link up here where you'll also find more inspiration plus when you leave a comment you'll be entered into a random prize draw the winner of which will receive a $15 gift certificate or 2 ARTplorations stencils of their choice.

Here are the new April release stamps for you to have a quick look at, we will be introducing each set with a week long blog hop starting 20th April ...

if you can't wait until then you might want to pop over to the shop now .... Shery has extended the 10% off offer on these sets until 12th April plus you'll get free international shipping too and if you area STAMP CLUB member you can also claim your 15% discount on top!

Well that's it from me for today.
Have a lovely weekend!
hugs
Monika xxx


the sets I used:
      

ARTplorations Stencils Blog Hop Day 3

Hi All! Welcome to Day 3 of the ARTplorations Stencil Blog Hop where we, the STAMPlorations Girls, put stencils through their paces.

Today is less bright and daring, and I worked with the ARTplorations Stencils Oh My Stars! and Bubbles.

For my first card I dry embossed the Oh My Stars! stencil using my Big Shot and a rubber embossing sheet, which you simply place on your stencil before adding the required plates (check your machine instructions as these vary depending on make) and putting it through your machine.I left the stencil in place and sponged More Mustard ink to highlight the stars even further. I then removed the stencil and did some more sponging before adding a die-cut frame (Tattered Lace), swirl, sunflower and sentiment (both from the Bloom Sketches set) and finishing off by adding a butterfly (Trendy Butterflies) and pearl.

For my next card I created a background using inks and crafting mat. First I swiped some Tempting Turquoise ink over my crafting mat, spritzed it with water and took a print by placing a piece of card on the inked & spritzed area and smoothing over it using my hands. After it had dried I repeated the process using Island Indigo ink. Depending on how wet you make the ink on the mat, you end up with a more or less splattered look. Mine wasn't very wet, this allowed for the swipe marks to add a different type of texture and interest. Once dry I rounded three corners, attached my Bubbles stencil and sponged some more Island Indigo all over keeping it darker towards the edges. Next I white embossed my sentiment from the Boxed Blooms set and added a die-cut border (Tattered Lace) before finishing off by adding some tiny stars and butterfly (Trendy Butterflies) with pearl.

SIX winners, that's two per day randomly drawn from all the comments left on our blogs, will receive their choice of ARTploration Stencil.

THREE winners, randomly drawn from comments left on the STAMPlorations Blog Blog Hop Posts, will receive a $15 gift certificate from the STAMPlorations Store.

plus surprise prizes

Commenting finishes 13th March and the winners will be announced 15th March. Good Luck!

Make sure you leave a comment when visiting our blogs, you can find all the links here.

Have fun hopping!

hugs

Monika xxx

Here is what I used:

    

Tattered Lace dies by Stephanie Weightman
all inks mentioned from Stampin'Up!