Wishing You Happiness

Hello Crafty Friends!

It's Tuesday and this means it's Inspiration Time over at STAMPlorations.

I am sharing a card, I made for my neighbour who was about to move house ...

... but then I couldn't give it to her, because she had moved by the time we came back from our latest stay at our caravan. I don't have her new address to send it on either. Never mind ...

I got the opportunity to play with Houses, Houses Extras, Fond Expressions 2 and my watercolour pencils.

Before I go, I want to give you a heads up about the new dies available for pre-order at STAMPlorations ...

PRE-ORDER 5 NEW CUTplorations DIES!

Love dies? We have 5 awesome CUTplorations dies sets coming to the store and they're available to pre-order! Until September 22, you can pre-order individual sets at 25% off with code PREORDER25! Want all 5 sets? Pre-order the bundle at a whopping 40% off with code BUNDLE40! These dies will ship between October 15 and 22. See all dies HERE.

        

Again, I am keeping it short and sweet today. Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog to check out the fabulous projects my teamies made.

That's it from me for now. Have a lovely day and enjoy the sunshine!
hugs
Monika


here is what I used from the STAMPlorations Shop:

Houses, Houses Extras, Fond Expressions 2
  
or current offers in their shop, check out the graphic below


what else I used:
Spring Green Prism ink - Hunkydory Crafts
mixed media card, kraft card, watercolur pencils, black fine liner, black Versafine ink - my stash

Happy Holidays

Hi All,

Back again with more inspiration for you. Over at STAMPlorations it's the last one of this year's Inspiration Posts.

I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you all for your support and lovely comments this year, it really meant a lot to me especially during the last few months. I must also apologize for not visiting your blogs of late. It has been an enormously stressful time mentally and emotionally getting ready for some major changes I need to make. All will be revealed on Christmas Eve, but what I can say say for now is that cardmaking and blogging will still be part of it. I shall also be staying on STAMPlorations' Inspiration Design Team.

Now to today's project inspired by the Christmas decorations in and around Market Street in Hoylake where I live ...

I stamped and gold embossed the stars (Balloons and Banners), stamped and masked the houses (Houses), masked the moon and sponged my sky using Night of Navy and the shadows using Basic Grey inks. I then coloured my houses using Promarkers, first in bright colours before muting them by adding Cool Grey 3 on top with the exception of the windows. Next I used my Starlights Metallic Paints to stencil the tree (ARTplorations Christmas Trees Stencil), added a grey outline and gold glitter highlights before stamping my sentiment (Holiday Sketches: Christmas Flower) and layered on a matching base card to finish.

That's it from me for now. If you like CASEing and you find some time over the festive period, why not CASE one or more of our Inspiration Projects and link them up at the Playground. We, my Teamies and I, would love to see your creations.

Have a lovely Christmas!

hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used, links are in the above text.
   

Night of Navy and Basic Grey inks - Stampin'Up!
Artiste Gold Shimmer Pearlescent ink Pad - docrafts
Gold Satin Pearl WOW embossing powder
green and red Starlights Metallic Paints - Imagination Crafts
Promarkers

CASEplorations July

Hi Everyone,

It's time to explore CASEing again in the STAMPlorations Inspiration CASE Playground. This month we are taking inspirations from a card  made by Tenia Nelson, who is part of the STAMPlorations Challenge Design Team. She made this funky new home card:

You can find her original post here on her blog Jazzy Paper Designs. Well I had a go at making two cards this month. First up is a card I made for Katie, a friend's daughter. She and her partner have just bought and moved into their first home!!!! ... a real achievement given that they are still in their mid twenties! When I looked through my sentiments deciding which one to use, it really tickled me thinking that Katie rather than buying lots of shoes would buy a house ...

... and I hunted through my stash to find these paint brush and paint pot papers, added a few stamped splashes using a stamp from the Holiday Artsy set and layered them on my chevron embossed base card (core-dinations). I stamped my house from the Houses set, fuzzy cut, layered and fuzzy cut again for the shadow, added the die-cut SOLD, a piece of Washi and my altered sentiment from the A Girl And Her Shoes set. As you can see I roughly kept the same layout, the one chevron became the chevron embossed base card. Here is another look ...

Next up is a card I made in advance for Nick's sister who is in the process of selling her house and buying a new one. It has a different slightly more patchwork like feel to it ...

... probably because I used rose patterned paper and stamped stitching from the Graphic Pentagons set on the Washi. I did pick the papers to reflect her mature age and the card reminds me of a mood board of her style. Instead of the chevron I used the heart from the Sentiment Builders: Love set. I kept with the stenciled YAY (ARTplorations Hello and Company stencil) and added A New Home which I made up from another two of STAMPlorations Sentiment Builders Christmas & New Year and Happy. This time I kept three of the rounded corners and a couple of sequins finished my card off perfectly.

If you enjoy CASEing or want to give it a go even if you've never done it before, pop over to the Playground to join the fun. There are also lots of other things going on over at the STAMPlorations Blog, currently you'll find the Birthday Blog Hop, the never ending Anything Goes Challenge for projects using STAMPlorations goodies, commenting to win on the Inspiration and Spotlight Posts plus the new monthly and sketch challenges will start soon too. Links to each of these as always are found at the top of the home page.

I shall be back in a little while with my third installment for the Birthday Blog Hop and Linky Party.
Until then....

hugs
Monika xxx

stamps and stencils used, links as always in the text...
      

Stamp Spotlight Houses

Hi Everybody,
Welcome to Day 1 of the STAMPlorations Stamp Release Spotlight Blog Hop Week!!!

Today we, the STAMPlorations Girls and our guest designer Laura Bassen, are shining the spotlight on: The Bee's Knees: Houses


These wonky houses are great, you can use them on their own or build little street scenes with them and use them any time of year, that's including Christmas!
Here is my house-y card

I die-cut my fluffy cloud border, stamped and coloured my house, layered it on my base card, stamped my sentiment, rounded one corner and finished off by adding twine, charm and sequins. This could be an easy and quick New Home card.

Apart from The Bee's Knees: Houses I used the 'sweet' sentiment from Sugar Rush.

Check out what the rest of the team made! You'll find links to all our projects here.

Commenting closes 3rd February, and the winners will be announced 5th February
Prizes:

SIX (6) commenters randomly drawn from the designers' blogs will each win a $10 gift certificate.

ONE (1) commenter randomly drawn from the STAMPlorations blog will win a $30 gift certificate.

There might even be some surprise prizes.

 We'll be back again tomorrow with more inspiration,

Have a lovely day!

hugs

Monika xxx