Ahoy! ...

Ahoy my maties! Don't you just love this little pirate pussy cat? It's a digital stamp from Chicken Girl Designs, coloured with Promarkers and I matched it with some papers with a travel theme from Sweet Shoppe Designs.

I think I shall be making more cards with this stamp as it makes me happy :)

Lollipop, Lollipop ...

Ooooh how I love these little rubber characters. Lori Boyd's gorgeous Lollipop stamps are definitley a favourite in my craft room and this one is so sweet with her polka dot dress and bow in her hair. This was one of the cards I made whilst I was away at a retreat a couple of weekends ago with my friend Jane and I teamed the stamped image with some pretty papers from Sweet Shoppe Designs by Traci Reed

The Money Box ...

When I went away last weekend to play with paper with my friends I made some lovely projects, as well as eating - lots, laughing - mainly about nonsense, watching naff television - Gail made us! and celebrating Christmas in March - or as Hannah christened it 'Marchmas'

Jean provided us with all the bits and pieces to make and decorate a Kaisercraft minibook which I still need to add photographs to and Gail held my hand whilst I got arty, painty and crinkly with crackle paint to make a gorgeous mini canvas. We went craft shopping on Saturday morning and I happened upon some pretty Doodlebug chunky glitter in Turquoise. Totally gorgeous so I had to use some of it on the edges of my canvas.

I made a couple of cards, one of them using a stamped image from Jean (I can't remember the manufacturer but I think Jean is hoping to stock them) and another using some Papermania papers. You wouldn't believe it if I told you that I carted my laptop and printer half way across the country only to get there and realise that I had brought the wrong power lead for my laptop so had to buy 'real' paper just incase I couldn't get it to work (for future reference you can charge up a Toshiba laptop with the power lead from a Craft Robo!)

Then on Sunday morning we started the mammoth of all projects. A money box made with a sizzix die, some wooden beads and some florists wires. Gail was again the chief instruction giver and halfway through I was cursing (albeit quietly) as I happily stuck things the wrong way round, upside down and back to front. Anyway, we joined and secured the wooden beads with craft wire poked through the bottom of the box, glued the two pieces of the diecut chipboard cube together, covered it in pretty papers (mine is my favourite Sweet Shoppe papers) and then decorated it and made it look pretty. Then it kept me company sitting on the front seat of my car as I left the others (lucky devils got to stay an extra day) and came home ready for work on Monday monday

Poorly Sick ...

Not me, I'm fighting fit but the next time I am in need of a get well soon card for a friend or family member I have just the thing - this little card and decorated mini mail box tin. Made using a digital kit by SuzyQ Scraps at Scrap Orchard, a metal mail box tin from Target sent over by my lovely friend Robin and a template to make it really quickly and easy by Heather Roselli at Sweet Shoppe Designs

You Make Me Smile ..

So, I've mentioned a few times about the retreat I went to last weekend with the lovely girls who go to my crop and my friend Jane who makes the most gorgeous cards. Well, whilst we were there we both shared our stamps, I showed Jane how to make cards with digital products and she showed me how she colours her stamped images with Distress Inks. She made a gorgeous card using one of my Hanglar stamps and her distress inks and I cardlifted her design completely to make my own card using the same stamp. The little bumbley boy is a Hanglar stamp, coloured with distress inks, I added glitter to his wings. The paper is Cosmo Cricket, the dies nestabilities and the sentiment stamp from Papertrey. Thank You Jane, I love it and now I shall be doing some more :)

A Little Huggabugg ...

I had a bit of a spending spree at Christy Croll's digital stamp store last week and had a chance to play with some of the stamps when I was away at the Gibside Retreat that I attended last weekend. I've used papers by Zoe Pearn at Sweet Shoppe Designs for the purple card and coated the cupcake in gorgeous chunky glass glitter and the second card is Cosmo Cricket paper and Papertrey ribbon and stamped sentiment. I love both of these cards and now I think I am going to have to buy more of these stamps :)

How To Make A Shaped Card ...

Poor neglected blog, it's been quite a while since I last updated it. I just never seem to have enough time to do everything I want to, need a few extra hours :)

Anyway, I have been making a few more shaped cards and when I was away with my lovely and talented friend Jane last weekend I showed her how I make them and I thought I would share on here too. I have used another cat from NitWit Collections, this time from the Me-Wow collection to make this cat shaped card.

Start by deciding how big you want your card and creating a new document at that size and 300 dpi in photoshop and placing the cat element. Don't worry that his tail doesn't fit as we are going to be creative with this part and do a spot of plastic surgery to resize it later on. When you are happy with the sizing print the document

Carefully cut around the cat and chop off his tail, yup - chop it clean off, it shouldn't hurt and we want it to be smaller!

Use a glue stick to reattach the tail at the back making it smaller

Next cover the whole of the back with glue (I use a Tombow gluestick), use some scrap paper under the cat so that you can glue right to the very edge then stick it to a sheet of white cardstock

Using a sharp craft knife carefully cut around the cat leaving a narrow border of a couple of millimetres

Next we are going to attach the cat to a folded cardblank. Position the cat over the folded cardblank, see how his tail and bottom stick up over the fold? The next step is to add strips of adhesive to the back of the cat to attach him to the cardblank but don't put any on his tail or bottom (the bits that stick up off the top)

After adhering the cat to the cardblank use your craft knife again to carefully cut all around the cat, use the edge of the cat as a guide for the knife and there is no need to leave a border this time. When you've cut all around you should have a cat shaped card and you'll have cut through both pieces of the cardblank

After you've cut the cat card out it's time to add an embellishment and sentiment if you'd like. I added a paper flower to my cat using one of the flower elements from the Me-Wow Collection. I just curled the edges of the petals between my thumb and finger, adhered to the cat and added a button tied with twine