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

Celebrating The Great Outdoors

Hello Crafty Friends!

Well, I am back with an Inspiration project for STAMPlorations.

It is all looking a little different this week as we have decided to make some Art Coins, little circular pieces of art with a diameter of 2 1/2 inches or 6.3 cm. Here are mine ...

Inspired by the Great Outdoors, they all have titles. Starting from the left: 'Discover Your Own Paradise', 'Always Take The Scenic Route' and 'Adventure Lives Outside Your Tent'

A bit of sponging, stamping, watercolouring and fuzzy cutting decorated with a few floral nail embellishments and a touch of glitter .....

Throughout August and September STAMPlorations are having 15% off on all stamps, stencils and dies in their on-line store on Tuesdays only, no coupon needed. This offer can be combined with my personal discount code STAMPGIRLMONIKA to give you an added 20% off taking the total discount to 35%, just saying ....

That's it from me for today. Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more Art Coin inspiration from my teamies. Have a lovely week!
hugs
Monika xxx


here is what I used from the STAMPlorations Shop, remember to apply my personal discount code STAMPGIRLMONIKA (not case sensitive) at check out for a 20% discount on their stamps ***, stencils and dies:

Gone Camping, Beach Vibes, Wanderlust Hipster icons, Houses Extras
   

*** Discount code works on sale items too

In The Frame

Hi Everyone,

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. The weather here in the UK has turned into an enchanting Indian Summer. It was truly magical this morning waking up on a canal boat ... low lying mist over the water and adjacent fields ... the sun still low in the sky ... at the end of our weekend cruising on the Trent and Mersey Canal. Quarry Bank Mill went back to the Hire Company, and I am at home writing up this post. Sounds very mundane .... but there is still fun to be had as it is Inspiration Time over on the STAMPlorations Blog.

Here is my card ...

I thought it might be fun to create a framed scene and to have it spill out onto the card ... I decided to use stamps from the Frames and Flowers, Houses Extras, Pets and Graphic Squares sets, and here is how I made it ...

I started by stamping and masking the path, next I stamped my frame and, with a little bit of masking, the trees before colouring my scene using Twinkling H2Os. I stamped and coloured the post box, stamped my sentiment on a matching strip of card, stamped, coloured and fuzzy cut my cat and layered everything as seen before doodling a few birds to finish.

For more inspiration pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog, my teamies created some fabulous projects, and should you feel inspired to CASE any of our projects, feel free to link them up. The linky can be found at the end of each Inspiration Post on the STAMPlorations Blog.

That's it from me for today. I shall be back soon.
Have a lovely week!

hugs
Monika xxx

the sets I used from STAMPlorations, links are in the above text
   

Pets Galore

Hi All,

Today we are having a little playtime over at the STAMPlorations Blog in the form of a Mini Stamp Release Blog Hop.

The sets is one that is sure to get your creative juices flowing. PETS, designed by Shirley Bampton aka The Bee's Knees, is fast becoming my favourite. Here it is:

Aren't these critters just adorable? For my first card I used one of the cats and combined it with the bar code strip from the Mixed Media Grunge set.

I stamped the catty character in Jet Black Archival Ink on white Centurs Pearl card, watercoloured her with Black Soot, masked, stamped the bar code in Strawberry Slush and Crushed Curry, added my sentiment and finished off by rounding three of the corners.
The pearlescent finish of Centura Pearl adds a touch of luxury to this quick and easy card.

Next up is something more involved as I decided to give all the dogs an outing and combine them with the chevrons from the Mixed Media Grunge set and some of the stamps from the recently released Houses Extras set. The result was the following concertina tag card ...

This is what it looks like folded up from the front and below is the inside once opened ...

I used one of my first ever dies, Tag - Super Traditional by Sizzix, to cut my card, I folded my card first before aligning it with my die and running it through my Big Shot. As I wanted something quick to colour my background, I decided to ink up an acrylic block, it exactly fitted the width of my tag panels, with Marina Mist and Wild Wasabi, spritzed a little water on it and stamped directly on the panels. Next I added a light colour wash to the tops. Once dry I added some trees and flowers roughly colouring my trees with ink picked up with a dried baby wipe. As I wanted to keep the sketchy feel I added some doodles to the trunks and trees using Strawberry Slush, Wild Wasabi and Early Espresso markers. Next I stamped, coloured (Promarkers) and fuzzy cut the dogs, attached them to my card, added the sentiments, chevrons and borders and finished off with a few sequins and ribbon.

Please hop along and comment for your chance to win this fabulous stamp set. The hop will be open until 11.55pm Pacific time on Friday 11th September (GMT: 7.55 am Saturday 12th September). You can find all the projects and links to my participating teamies here on the STAMPlorations Blog.

I am entering my cards at:
Craft Stamper September challenge - Take a Stamp, Anything Goes
Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes
Time Out - Make your Mark, the doggy card used markers
Moo-Mania - Landscape, the doggy card for landscape background
Crafty Calendar - Anything Goes

That's it from me for today.
Have fun hopping!

hugs
Monika xxx

these are the other sets I used by STAMPlorations, links are in the above text
 

STAMPlorations August Blog Hop Day 4

Hi Everyone!

It's Blog Hop Time again over at STAMPlorations! Welcome to Day 4, where we're shining the spotlight on Houses Extras, a set designed by Shirley aka The Bee's Knees.

Here is the set ...

and here is what I made of it ...

Well as you can see, I've been playing with the maps from my old diary again for this cheerful project with a child like feel. I used my stitched rounded border die to cut the 'world', attached to my panel just above a decoratively scored line and stamped my trees from today's set into place before colouring them using my alcohol markers. I then used some more alcohol markers and the ARTplorations Clouds stencil to create my sun. Next I white embossed my sentiment from the Fond Expressions 2 set on a black banner, layered everything as shown and my card was finished.

Following up on a point I made yesterday, here is another look at the finished project ... note how the colours change ...

Back to the Hop ... every comment you leave will count and increase your chances of winning one of the great prizes on offer. Commenting closes on Sunday 23rd August and the winners will be announced on Monday 24th August on the STAMPlorations Blog.

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

Prizes:

FIVE (5) commenters randomly drawn from the designers' blogs will each win the stamp set featured for the day.
ONE (1) commenter randomly drawn from the STAMPlorations blog will win a $25 gift certificate

Plus ...

links to previous days:
Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 -

That's it from me for today. I shall be back again tomorrow with more inspiration. Until then , have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

here is what else I used:

 

stitched border die Lil-inkers

alcohol markers were a mixture of Promarkers and Tinge Alcohol Markers