2014 Round Up!

Hello!

The last day of 2014 has finally rolled around.  I have loved my cardmaking this year and started this blog in March.  I wasn't too sure when I started it whether it would be the kind of thing that I would be able to keep up alongside work and family commitments but I have really enjoyed becoming part of this community and have made some lovely blog friends over the past nine months!  In fact I have published 198 blog posts this year and received over 2,300 kind comments - thank you to all who stop by, your encouragement and supportive words mean a huge amount to me :)

I have seen lots of inspiring posts from bloggers who have picked out their favourite cards of the year.  I have enjoyed looking back over my posts this year and have chosen the following selection to share with you.  It was a tough job getting it down to my top 12 and I left out favourite Christmas cards which I posted here!  Apologies for such a photo heavy post.  I hope you stick with me....

My favourite crafty things this year have definitely been stencils.  I have dabbled with watercolouring but not really got bitten by the bug!  I have loved playing in challenges as well which I think have really helped me to develop and try new things.  I have had a great time on the design teams for A Blog Named Hero and Time Out.  My stint at ABNH has come to an end but I am starting the new year on the design team for Make The Day Special - my favourite online store for all of the fabulous American releases so I am looking forward to having lots of fun with Tara and the talented DT!

My crafty new year resolutions are to play along in more sketch challenges (sketches scare me!), make more one layer cards (the fabulous Shery from Stamplorations has a one layer challenge starting in January so that is good timing) and to have a go at mixed media which fascinates me.  I am not sure where to start with it given I have a mainly CAS style but would love to give it a go - I love the texture and richness of mixed media creations that I have seen online.....

I hope that you have a wonderful new year and are looking forward to lots of crafty adventures in 2015.  I look forward to seeing what you get up to and thank you again for supporting me over this past 9 months :)

Bye for now! 

Sarah x

Inkspirational

Hello!

I hope you are enjoying your weekend.  Have things calmed down after the festivities or are you still in the middle of family celebrations?  We have our next set of visitors arriving tomorrow so I took the opportunity to get a bit of crafting in today!

I made this card inspired by the photo over at Inkspirational:

I went for a fairly literal interpretation as I loved the cityscape and dramatic purple fireworks.  The cityscape die is from Mama Elephant and is layered up several times.  The sky is blended from distress inks and the fireworks are silver embossed using a discontinued set of stamps from Banana Frog.  The sentiment is from WPlus9.

Here is the inspiration photo:

I will also link up at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge which is Anything Goes.

I hope you like it and are looking forward to a fab new year :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Sarah x

My Favourite Christmas Cards of 2014

Hello!

Have you been enjoying your Christmas break?  I have had a little meander around blogland this evening and saw that my friend Nonni has taken part in a fun linky over at the fab Debby Yates blog to share our 5 fave Christmas cards of 2014. 

I have had a look back through my posts and came up with the following:

I loved the rustic Christmas trees that Uniko Studio brought out this year and made a number of cards with them.  These trees white embossed against teal with a few pops of red is the favourite card that I made with them.

A card made using my beloved Hero Arts stamps.  I stamped the wreath several times in different greens and stamped some little flowers in red to look like poinsettias.  A really simple design but I like the depth created by the layered wreath.

I used a stags head stencil to stamp the Nordic border from Waltzingmouse through in red.  A bit of distress ink around the edges provides some definition.  I like the dimension that this gives even thought it is one layer.

This is a really simple one layer card using a beautiful winter scene from Hero Arts.  Lots of lovely white space!

An inky scene created with distress inks.  I like the details that are outside the masked square.

Thank you for bearing with my fave Christmas cards.  I shall be back tomorrow with a new card.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Sarah x

The LAST Christmas cards....

Happy Christmas!

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful festive season with friends and family....

As well as being Christmas Eve, we are almost at the midpoint of our Time Out Challenge to make a card inspired by the phrase:

Christmas is Love with All the Trimmings

Here is the card that I made for my hubby this year which I think combines the love and trimmings aspects of Christmas:

We don't have any mistletoe in the house so I may just have to hold this card over our heads!  The stamps are from Waltzingmouse and the stripes on the red card are from my favourite stencil of the year from SSS.

And here is my final, final Christmas card.  Kraft card, snowflakes and stags seemed to feature on a lot of my cards this year.  This card covers two out of the three:

The snowflake die is from Hero Arts and is inlaid in to the kraft base.  The sentiment is from Altenew.  I will join this card up at CAS on Sunday where the theme is Christmas and also at SSS Wednesday Challenge which is Anything Goes and runs for 2 weeks!

Thank you for all of your visits and kind words over the past 9 months since I started this blog - I wish that I could have sent you each a Christmas card!

Festive hugs,

Sarah x

A few cards

Hello!

Just popping by with a quick post amidst the last minute Christmas rush :)  I am slowly starting to feel in the festive mood....might even make mince pies tomorrow!

First up is a card playing with my fab new Hero Arts stars die.  It is a good size and perfect as the focal point on a card....it does most of the work for you.

I coloured a piece of watercolour card with distress stains and water and sprayed it with Mister Huey shine spray.  The die cut star panel was layered up several times to give some dimension and a few of the stars were scattered around the edge.  The sentiment from Hero Arts is silver embossed. 

I shall link up at the A2Z Scrapbooking's December challenge to use watercolouring.

My second card is inspired by the challenge at AAA Cards to use plaid:

I used some stripes and stitches stamps from Inky Doodles to create a plaid effect and die cut some baubles.  Some stitch stamps white embossed around the edge and a sentiment from PTI completes the country feel to my Christmas card.  The AAA link is closed but I can still join up at Addicted to Stamps where the themes is Anything Goes.  Also I will link up at CAS on Sunday where the theme is Christmas.

I hope you like them and are still finding time to create during the holiday period :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Sarah x

Snowy Cards

Hello!

Nearly at the weekend and the Christmas holidays :) I am just popping by quickly with a few one layer cards:

 

I masked the edges of the card and stamped these beautiful snowflakes from Waltzingmouse Stamps in first and second generation teal ink.  The sentiment is from Uniko Studio and embossed in silver.  The sentiment gave me the idea for my second, more CAS version.

 

I die cut a butterfly and used it as an aperture to stamp the snowflakes in shades of blue and aqua.  I like the wintry butterfly!

 

I will link up at Less Is More where this week's one layer card theme is snow and at CASology where the cue card is snow.  I will also link up at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge which has a wintry theme and at the Anything Goes Challenge at Addicted to Stamps.

 

I hope you are still finding time to fit in to some crafty time in the run up to Christmas :)

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Sarah x

Time Out Challenge #21

Hello!

Are you ready for our last Time Out Challenge of 2014?  It is a word inspiration this time:

Christmas is love with all the trimmings

I hope you are feeling festive and full of the Christmas spirit!  Here is how I was inspired:

I decided to turn my Uniko snowflakes into ornaments and combined them with heart gems and the lovely sentiment.  It is a really simple card but I think it captures the spirit of the phrase.

We are joined by a fabulous guest designer for this challenge - Shirley from Shirley Bee's Stamping Stuff.  She is an amazing card designer who does cool things with inks and mixed media.  She also designs for Stamplorations.  You definitely want to check out her blog :)  I hope you will visit Time Out to see what the DT have created and to take Time Out to play along with us!

I will also link up at CASology where the cue card is Snow and at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge where the theme is Winter Inspiration.  There is also a winter theme at Merry Mondays.

Thanks, as always, for stopping by :)

Sarah x

Sunshine Daisies

Hello!

I hope you are having a good week....I decided to take a short break from Christmas card making and think of sunnier days :)  My main reason being that I had recently got the lovely Hello Sunshine Daisies stamp set from Hero Arts and wanted to play with it!

I made 3 cards:

 

They are fairly self explanatory.  I coloured the lovely flowers with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping on the first two cards and so I will link up at A2Z Scrapbooking's current watercolour challenge and at Virginia's View distressing challenge.

 

I tried something a bit more graphic on the last card by stamping the daisies in grey archival ink and overstamping them with a big circle from a HA set.  I quite like the spring pastels.  I will link this card up at Addicted to Stamps current Anything Goes challenge.  This is a surprisingly versatile stamp set - I don't always go for florals but there are lots of techniques that you could use with these.

 

I still have more Christmas cards to come but am starting to think more about cards that I will need for next year....

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Sarah x

 

 

Waltzingmouse Pajama Party Card #2

Hello!

I'm back with a second card for the Waltzingmouse Pajama Party.  This time I worked with the Bedtime Story sketch:

 

I stamped the pinecones in versamark on kraft cardstock and dusted with Perfect Pearls gold.  I stamped and die cut the pinecones and popped it up over a die cut panel with the sentiment embossed in gold.  I die cut the kraft panel with a die from Clearly Besotted.  I have used this quite a lot recently and like the bit of interest it gives to the focal point.

This is the sketch:

 

That's it from me :)

 

Sarah x

Waltzingmouse Pajama Party

Hello!

A super quick post from me this morning before I go to work to link up with today's pajama party over at Waltzingmouse Stamps:

I didn't get the chance to make as much as I was planning for this month's PJ party but got the chance to ink up the lovely Nordic Winter to play along with Challenge #3 Old Pajamas:

 

It is a really simple design with the borders stamped in navy and topped with a sentiment from Tis The Season embossed in silver.

 

I might get something else made after work this evening....

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Sarah x

Gold and Silver

Hello!

Are you having a good weekend?  Our tree is now up so we are starting to feel a bit more festive, just have another 1,000,000 jobs to do :)  Crafting isn't high on the to do list but I still indulged in a bit of play time.

Here is a card that I made for a few challenges:

This gold embossed swirly tree is from Inkylicious and added lots of green pearls.  Matted on green and gold cardstock.  I will link this up at Inkspirational where the challenge is gold and another colour along with Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge to bling it on!

I also wanted to play along with this week's CASology where the cue card is Silver and decided to use these fun stamps from Altenew:

The big diamond is from Avery Elle and embossed in silver.  I thought it would make a cute engagement card.

That's all for today.  I hope to get a chance to get inky again tomorrow :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Sarah x

Festive Coffee!

Hello!

I have loved seeing all of the fantastic inspiration from the Holiday Coffee Lovers Blog Hop which has been organised by the lovely Amy Tsuruta.  

I am not actually a coffee lover.....but I do love a creamy hot chocolate in a big mug on a chilly day :)  I decided to make a festive card along those lines:

The mug is from Paper Smooches Cyber Café with a white embossed snowflake from Clearly Besotted and a sentiment from Hero Arts.  The panel was die cut from Clearly Besotted and layered over some patterned paper. 

I have also made a card for the Merry Monday's Challenge to use silver, gold, white and another colour:

I silver embossed these lovely wreaths from PTI and embellished them with gold sequins and purple gems.  The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.  It is a similar layout to the card above with the die cut panel.  I will also link up at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge to Bling It On!

I hope you like these cards...it has been a mad hectic week so I am amazed that I got anything made :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Sarah x

Normal service is resumed.....

Hello!

Following yesterday's unscheduled detour from Christmas cardmaking I am pleased to announce that normal service is resumed and I am back with some festive cards :) 

This is a card I made using the beautiful winter vines set from Uniko Studio.  I simply drew a circle and stamped the images in first and second generation ink.  The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.  I shall link up at Uniko's current Anything Goes challenge - my last entry, I promise!

Next up is a card that I made using a new set of stamps from Altenew that I got from Make the Day Special.  I love these silhouettes and went with the stags head:

I stamped the stags head in red (obviously!) and cut it out.  I mounted it on a die cut circle stamped with the fab woodgrain from Waltzingmouse Stamps and then on another circle which I inked and then dusted with Perfect Pearls.  It is quite golden in real life but looks like woodgrain on here which I like too :)  Some gold splatters, gold thread and a sentiment from WPlus9 to finish.

I shall link up at Simon Wednesday's Challenge - Christmas/holidays.

I hope you like these Christmas cards - they are quite different styles!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Sarah x

LIM and Waltzingmouse Fanatics

Hello!

A quick post from me with a few cards for challenges.  I have taken a brief break from Christmas cards :)

I love the fresh colour combo for this week's Less Is More Challenge and decided to softly ink through a Memory Box die in Tumbled Glass as a background for a lovely dragonfly die cut from Clearly Besotted.  The dragonfly is two layers which have a nice shimmer created with aqua and white/silver shimmer sprays.  The sentiment from PTI is stamped in Hero Arts Tide Pool.

Eta - I also meant to link this up at Addicted to CAS where the code word is Dots!

Next up I wanted to make a card to play along with Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge which is a sketch.  Here is what I came up with:

I used my Waltzingmouse woodgrain stamps and a fave sentiment from Uniko Studio.  I thought that the grey and teal combo would be good for a boy's card.  Here is the sketch - my card is a fairly literal interpretation.

 

I hope you like them!  Thanks for your visit - I really appreciate it :)

Sarah x

ABNH and stuff

Hello!

I am over at A Blog Named Hero today with a card inspired by my favourite post from this year.  It will be no surprise that it involves stencils....

Head over to ABNH to see who inspired me....

I will also enter this card in to the SSS Flickr Challenge #7 (my third) which is about stencils.

While I am playing with stencils and embossing paste here is a Christmas card made with a lovely stencil from Clarity Stamp:

 

I used white embossing paste on kraft, coloured the little heart in red pen and added some glossy accents.  A bit of white ink around the edges to soften the kraft.  I like the rustic/Nordic look of this design - do you?

 

I will link up at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge to make Christmas/holiday cards.

 

I promise to put away my stencils for my next cards!  Thanks for stopping by :)

 

Sarah x

 

 

Sparkly Silver

Hello!

How is your weekend going?  Well, I hope!  The boys were at their Nana's today so it has been a quiet Saturday catching up on cleaning and crafting.  I started off with the intention of tidying up my craftroom but ended up making more of a mess with stencils and embossing paste....

I used a combination of distress inks to create the night sky - Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans and Salty Ocean and SSS's Falling Stars stencil with silver glitter embossing paste.  The heart and sentiment are stamped from Hero Arts Written in the Stars set.  The heart is embossed in silver and stamped on grey cardstock which was sprayed with a bit of shimmer mist.  A strip of silver glitter tape finishes the card.

This was one of those cards which I haven't made for any real reason other than to have a play with some crafty supplies.  Stencils have definitely been amongst my favourite crafty products of 2014 and I now use them on lots of cards.  As it is a SSS stencil I will enter it in to the SSS Flickr Challenge #7 and as the background uses distress inks I will also join up with Virginia's View Challenge to Distress It!

Whilst I was working with blues and silvers I made a very simple Christmas card (still need a few!):

This beautiful dove stamp was my favourite Christmas stamp from last year's Uniko Studio release. It is just so lovely!  I used clear wink of stella on it and matted the panel over some navy blue and silver glitter card.  I thought I would leave it CAS after all of the distress ink and embossing paste on the first card :)

I will link this card up at SSS Wednesday's Challenge which is Christmas/holiday cards and at AAA Card Challenge's Blue Christmas - I am really enjoying the AAA challenges now that they are fortnightly.  I never seemed to get time to play along before :)  I will also link up with the CAS challenge over at Addicted to Stamps.  Finally, I will link up at Merry Mondays where the challenge is 'feathered friends'.

I hope you like my sparkly cards - thanks for stopping by!

Sarah x

Time Out Challenge #20

Hello!

What a fantastic response to the last Time Out challenge - it was great to see over 140 gorgeous creations!  This time we have a gorgeous card to CASE from one of my absolute favourite cardmakers - Amy Wanford (Aimes) of Crafting Confessions:

 

Isn't this adorable? Aimes has a fantastic CAS style and makes the coolest cards.  Her blog is definitely worth a visit but I am sure you already know that :)

Here is my take:

 

 

I was inspired to use Uniko Studio's Stunning Snowflakes set along with the new Background Builders Winter Vines set.  I silver embossed the vine and sentiment and stamped the snowflakes. 

 

Head on over to Time Out to see the fab inspiration that the DT have in store for you along with our Guest Designer - Milla.  Her blog Mustesormi is well worth a visit.

 

I will also link up at AAA Cards where the challenge is blue Christmas, at Uniko Studio's Anything Goes challenge and at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday challenge which is Christmas/holidays.

 

Finally I will join in at the lovely Kylie's Christmas card challenge which is open until 21 December.  There is a chance to win one of her fab watermark and signature designs which I have been admiring on lots of my favourite bloggers creations:)

 

I hope you get Time Out to join us over this busy time....

 

Sarah x

Stencil Fun

Hello!

I have been to the dentist today and feel rotten so this is a quick post....

The current challenge at the SSS Flickr Group is to use stencils.  I do love my stencils....

 

I coloured some white cardstock with Worn Lipstick, Scattered Straw, Spun Sugar and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Inks and die cut the SSS balloons.  I put versamark ink through the SSS Falling Stars and Diagonal Stripes stencils and then dusted them with Perfect Pearls in gold and blush.  I did the same in the background and gold embossed the sentiment and stars from the SSS birthday set.  The pearls give a subtle shimmer and interest.

I will also link up at SSS Wednesday Challenge which is Anything Goes and at Virginia's View Challenge which, this month, is distress.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sarah x