You + Me

Hey!

Right, let's get the formalities outta the way here. Happy 2019! Long time no see! For various reasons, I've been away and I'd say that I've missed you, but I've been seeing most of you on that happy place known as Instagram, and I've still been dabbling in the crafting from time to time. ;)

So, let's kick off 2019 with a good intention. An intention to enjoy the process of playing with pretty things to get a craft fix, and also busting some stash in the process. I have a lot of stash that I've sat and admired for literally years, and the time has come to administer the scissors and glue to it *gulp*!

Cue today's card, which was a creative distraction from cleaning my office upon discovering my stash of the Hello, Love collection by Crate Paper (and the bonus of creating Mr Gray's Valentine's card early!). You could easily use modern-day supplies to create this with some gorgeous gold heat-embossing. Grab a heart stamp and a couple of sentiment stamps to recreate the look!

Right, I'm gonna keep things short and sweet here. But I hope that you all have a great weekend and thank you so much for taking the time to stop by today!

Trendy tulips...

Hey!

Happy Friday Eve and welcome back to the Clearly Besotted teasers from the February release! If you're new to the teasing, then be sure to check out Day 1 and Day 2 of the sneak peeks too. All of the new goodies will be available to purchase from 5th February 10pm GMT (tomorrow!)

Now I know what you're thinking. More flowers, Aimes? Really? Stick with me though. I've kept my promise from yesterday and today's card features a sneak peek of a different set. Yup, those tulips are from the 'With Love' mini stamp set and they feature multilayer stamps which means you'll be stamping detailed tulips in no time. :)

I decided to stamp a lovely row of tall tulips for today's card and then the rest of the card kinda just happened. I had some of the yummy Crate Paper Hello, Love papers left on my desk from creating this card so I decided to use them again. I like to think the striped paper used on the card front adds a trendy touch to the design. Tulips can be trendy, right?

• I lightly blended Broken China Distress Ink along the bottom of my stamped tulips to ground them a little.  It makes so much difference! 
• Confession: I stamped the sentiment with a little too much space above it for my liking. I didn't want to trim the panel down any further, so I simply added a strip of glitter tape across the top to balance the space a little more.  This is our little secret, OK? 
• When working with striped paper, I always consider whether horizontal or vertical stripes will work best for the design. Horizontal worked best here as it contrasts against the vertical tulips. 

Want to see more sneak peeks? Then hop across to Stephanie's to check out more peeks of the release along with links to the amazingly talented Design Team sharing even more lovely projects to tease you with.

The full reveal of the release is tomorrow (yay!) and I'll be back with one more final card. I hope you can come chick check it out...hee hee!

Clearly Besotted Sneak Peeks: Day 1

Hey!

Normally I'd say something along the lines of not believing that it's a new month already, but I'm actually sat here thinking that January seemed to be running in slow motion LOL! Maybe it's a winter  thing, but nevertheless it's a new month which means we have some sneaky peeks of the new Clearly Besotted release to tease you with. Yay! :)

The February release is nothing short of fabulous and adorable in equal measures. I've had such a blast stamping with the new sets and I can guarantee that you're in for real treat. Today's card uses the beautiful 'You Are Wonderful' stamp set which features springtime blooms and beautiful sentiments in a stunning font. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again: No-one designs floral stamp sets quite like CB!

• The vase is a separate stamp. I created a mask of it, placed it on the stamped vase and sponged Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink along the bottom to subtly ground it. 
• I'm going to admit that it did pain my perfectionist ways to mount the focal point at an angle, but the two strips of patterned paper help to balance (and straighten!) it a little. 
• Those little strips of patterned paper are actually strips of contrasting patterns along the top of each 6x6" sheet of patterned paper. They're worth holding onto and cutting up to create fun finishing touches. I like that the 'XO' pattern echoes the sentiment too – bonus!

You'll see that I'm embracing and actually using (yes, you heard me, using!) some yummy new papers from Crate Paper's Hello, Love collection. I'm promising myself that whenever I indulge in a new paper pad that I must use it instead of sit admiring it. I think this is a good start for me!

Well, that's all from me today, but if you haven't already popped over here from Stephanie's (aka: CB HQ) then hop across there now to see more fabulous sneak peeks from the rest of the Design Team including this month's guestie, my talented friend, Keren Baker! :)

As always thanks so much for visiting today. I hope you can join me for more sneak peeks tomorrow!

Inspired by the best day ever!

Hey!

I hope that you're having a lovely weekend! I'm playing a little bit of catch up here and thought I'd share a card with you that I recently shared on the Altenew blog. It shows a fun ways of stretching your stash, including using a small stamp to create a fab border.

 

I've also used a yummy vellum foiled sheet from Crate Paper's Hello, Love collection. I couldn't resist. The colour combo is inspired by what can only be described as the best. day. ever. Our Wedding Day. Today marks our first anniversary and I can't believe it was a year ago today I married my best friend (sorry it's soppy, but it's true!). Here are just a few memories of our special day:

Well that's enough soppy, lovey-dovey antics from me. If you're looking for a crafty fix then be sure to stalk Instagram and Periscope for the winter CHA 2016 show. It's full of the hottest products for 2016 from the best companies and lots of creative peeps meeting up. I've been glued to it this weekend and it's on my bucket list to attend it. However, this year (and especially for today) I'm going to spend my time glued to Mr Gray. :)

Simon Says Stamp MEGA Falling For You Blog Hop!

Hey!

Happy Friday! Hooray for the start of the weekend! How about we kick it off in style with one MEGA blog hop full of inspiration, prizes, an incredible line up (I'm still wondering how I got my name on the guest list) and amazing new products from the wonderful peeps at Simon Says Stamp? Sounds good? Super!

Simon Says Stamp have just released a HUGE amount of goodies as part of their Falling For You! collection. It's all available to purchase NOW! We're celebrating with a good ol' blog hop so you should have hopped across here from the super-talented Mary Dawn Quirindongo. If you haven't, then be sure to start out at the Simon Says Stamp Blog!

I was kindly sent a couple of products from the range and they arrived just in the nick of time to whip up a couple of cards. First up, I fell head-over-heels for the HUGE Falling Hearts 6x6" cling stamp  - it's such a wonderful design! I felt like getting a little arty so I heat-embossed the design with white embossing powder, saturated the piece with water and created a little faux-watercolour ombre look with some Spun Sugar Distress Ink. The sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Floral Bookmarking stamp set and co-ordinates perfectly with the falling hearts.

• I opted to heat-emboss the sentiment onto vellum as it doesn't detract from the pretty background that I spent most of my time creating! 
• I added a little more of a distressed look by flicking water onto the painted piece and blotting it with a tissue. The water reacts with the Distress Ink to give a bleaching effect - perfect for an imperfect look!
• If you're going use a heat tool to speed up the drying process be careful not to apply excess heat to pre heat-embossed images. Burnt embossing powder is not a good look! 

Next up, I played with the Circle Dots stencil which features a very cool design suitable for a variety of occasions and recipients.

I figured I'd just let this stencil do the talking with some gold glitter paste  - to put an extra spin on things I decided to stencil the design over this soft, watercolour-style paper from Crate Paper's Kiss Kiss collection. The sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Summer Garden stamp set designed by Mama Elephant. I'm seeing this peach and gold colour combo everywhere right now and love it!

Well that's all from me today but before I tell you who to hop along to next, be sure to leave a comment as every blog on the hop has a Simon Says Stamp prize pack up for grabs for one lucky winner! A winner will be drawn at random from the comments on April 28th.

And now it's time to hippety hop across to Lydia Fiedler for some more SSS inspiration! Thanks so much for stopping by here today and have a wonderful weekend! :D

Paper Crafter's Library: Featured Artist

Hey!

Happy Good Friday Eve! I'm just popping by today to let you know that I'm flattered to be the Featured Artist over at the Paper Crafter's Library. I've created an exclusive project for them which contains some of my favourite things: Crate Paper, Studio Calico and Clearly Besotted goodies.

Oh, and I've also thrown in some gold sparkles thanks to the product that I can't get enough of at the moment: Cricut Gold Iron-on Glitter material. I love the shed-free sparkle it adds to a project and it's a bonus that it works in my Cuttlebug with my dies.

So if the sneak peek above has you curious, be sure to check out the full feature here!

I'll be back tomorrow with some Clearly Besotted sneak peeks! Thanks so much for stopping by today!

The Best and Most Fabulous...

Hey!

Happy Friday-Eve! I've got this post scheduled but even though I'm not blogging live, I know I'll be grateful for Friday-Eve with the busy week I have!

So let's kick of the pre-weekend celebrations with a fabulous new CASE Study!

Yup it's time to knuckle down and study this card from our muse for July, Kristii Lockart:

You can check out the original post of this card here.

 I was inspired by the theme of Kristii's card and found it the perfect excuse to ink up Sew Happy by The Craft's Meow as well as attempt to use up some of my DP!

I also kinda stuck to Kristii's colour scheme but modernised it a bit with the addition of grey. :)

We'd love to see your take on Kristii's card so why not play along with us? If you're in need of some inspiration, then you must check out the rest of the CASE Study DT:

Amy Wanford (You're here!)

Andrea Ewen

Christina MacLaren
Clare Buswell
Debby Hughes  

Iwona Palamountain (Chupa)
Jean Martin 
Maureen Plut
Teneale Williams
Teresa Kline

Kristii Lockart (July's Muse)

Keeping it short and sweet today! Thanks for stopping by!

Catch ya later!

Card Deets
{The Best and Most Fabulous Friend}
Stamps: (The Craft's Meow)
Ink: London Fog (Memento)/Buttercup (A Muse)
Cardstock: White (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned Paper: Portrait Collection (Crate Paper)
Accessories: Lemon Tart Buttons, Cream Button Twine (Papertrey Ink)