Time for a cuppa...

Hey!

Apologies for being MIA for the past week. It's been super-busy here and still is! I'm grateful to have found a spare moment to share a project with you that I should probably have shared with you a while back. Still, better late than never, right? *wink*

Think back to the holidays. Seems like a long way back now, but over the holidays I got a little bit busy with my Cricut Mini and some cool Cricut vinyl to whip up these mugs for my deer friends (Oh c'mon, humour me and embrace the pun!) as well as myself to inject a little bit of the crisp winter indoors whilst we sip on a hot beverage or store something inside of them. :)

This project is soooooo easy. I simply loaded up the shapes in the Cricut Craft Room software, made them the right size, loaded my Cricut Mini with some silver vinyl, clicked 'cut', and peeled cut the deer shapes and applied them to the mug. Easy peasy!

• These mugs require gentle cleaning by hand. No dishwashers!
• A mug is not just for drinking from. I like to use my deer mug to hold my pens and pencils in!
• When giving these away as a gift, you can fill the mug with a warming sachet of hot chocolate (complete with compulsory marshmallows of course!) *wink*

I couldn't pick just one digital deer image for my mugs though, so I opted for two from the Winter Woodland cartridge along with a lovely folk-style deer from the Folk Art Festival cartridge.

For a finishing touch, I used the positive hearts of the folk-art deer to decorate the mug handle:

I still use my deer mugs seeing as we're still in winter and, I fear, about to hit a bit of a cold snap. Although admittedly I have a thing for deer so I think we may be using these mugs all year-round. :)

That's all from me today. A cuppa is calling me...!

Products Used
FYI: The mugs were purchased from my local supermarket at a bargin 49p each! :)

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Happy News x2

Hey!

I'm popping by today to give you a head's up on a couple of exciting things (well, exciting to me anyway!)

First up, I'm gatecrashing guest blogging over on Moxie Fab World today. I'm babbling about an inspiring and super-trendy post from Miss Moxie Fab herself, Cath Edvalson, and hopefully injecting some of it into a project!

Here's a sneak peek of my project:

Pop across to Moxie Fab World to check it out! :)

Next on the agenda I have some more happy news; I've been asked to join the Top Dog Dies Spring Design Team!  Check out the announcement here. I can't wait to get those dies cranking through my Cuttlebug. I've just got to be patient and wait for them to jump across pond *wink*!

That's all my happy news of the day. Thanks for letting me share my happy day of happy news with you!

I hope you have a terrific Tuesday! 

Winners!

Hey!

Happy Monday! It's certainly a happy Monday for two peeps as it's time to draw a couple of lucky winners from my Clearly Besotted Stamps giveaway!

So without further ado, the two winners of a Post It: Love stamp set with coordinating die are:

 Number 5 which is lucky for Gillian who said:

"I just LOVE you all at the CB Design Team. Keep up your good work in 2014 no matter how hectic life is. Your humour is fab."

And the next winner is...

 Number 30 which is lucky for Lesley who said:

"What an excellent giveaway that's a very kind thing to do. Lesley"

Congrats, ladies! Please email me your postal addys and I'll get that stamp set with the coordinating die out to you asap! (Check out the 'Contact Me' tab under my blog header for my email address).

Thank you to everyone who entered and for all of the lovely comments you left about gold. I'm glad that you're not tiring of it yet as I'm certainly not LOL!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Hey!

Hurrah for Friday! Oh how I love thee! :D

I'm feeling the love for Friday, the love for the weekend, and the love for a brand new Clearly Besotted Stamps challenge! 

This month's challenge has a love theme. If you managed to get your inky mitts on the new release, you've probably got some lovey-dovey stamps just waiting to be inked up for this. If you haven't, it's no biggie as you only need to use one CBS product to enter! :)

For this challenge I decided to have a little fun with the set Post It: Love. (Pssst comment on this post by 23.59pm GMT tonight for a chance to win this set with it's coordinating die!). When I designed this set, I had visions of trying to create my own seal for an envelope. It's taken this long to try, but I'm glad I did!

If you're interested, this is how I went about doing it:

1. Stamp the reverse side of the same stamp shape (see step 5 to see why!) in red ink on the closed envelope
2. Ink up the reverse side of the stamp again in clear ink and embossed with clear embossing powder.
3. Repeat step two 
4. Before repeating step two again (you're triple embossing btw!) - ink up the the correct side of the stamp you want to use with clear ink and have the Perfect Pearls on hand!
5. Repeat step two (see why you're using different stamp that's the same shape - you can't ink the reverse and front of a stamp at the same time!)
6. Immediately after the third layer of embossing, press the inked stamp into the melted powder and let it sit until cooled - a few seconds should do the trick.
7. Dust Perfect Pearls onto the design and it should highlight the stamped design. :)  

I wish I could show you this IRL. It was a pain to photograph and looks so much better here in my craft room!

• If you use ultra-thick embossing enamel (UTEE) instead of your regular embossing power then you may only need a couple of embossing layers, or even just one!
• It sounds obvious, but make sure you have your card inside your envie before you do this LOL! Oh, and make sure it's a card without too much dimension, i.e flat, so it's easier to stamp on the envie once it's tucked inside.  
• I used a mini envie for this project - it measures 6cm x 7cm. 

Be sure to check out Stephanie's blog for the full challenge deets and to take a peek at what the rest of the super duper talented CBS DT created - you're bound to love it! *wink*

Products Used

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Release Day & A Giveaway...

Hey!

Happy Monday! Well, it's back to the old routine now as it's the first day of term. Kinda sad that the holidays are over (and that I was typically ill for the majority of them!)

Not only is it a happy Monday, it's also happy release day over at Clearly Besotted Stamps! The new release is available to purchase from 10pm GMT tonight! :)

For today's mini-card I combined a new and an older set: Key To My Heart with Post It: Love. I love that the stamp from Post It: Love means you can create custom stamp-style embellishments using stamps from other sets. Here I partially inked the word 'love' from a longer sentiment to create this stamp embellishment. I love the font and I reckon that handwriting/calligraphy is going to be BIG in 2014.

FYI: Apologies for the photo. I was creating yesterday and completely ran out of daylight so I resorted to taking a quick shot of this card on my desk. Can you see how clean and tidy it is? *wink*

• In order to accent the 'love' sentiment, I traced sections of it with a gold pen. It's hard to see in the photo, but it really makes the sentiment stand out.
• My vellum panel looked a little plain so I added detail by painting gold lines using gold Perfect Pearls mixed with water. I think the imperfect nature of them emphasises the script style of the sentiment and carefree splatters. (That's my excuse for wobbly lines and I'm stickin' to it - ha!)

Now Post It: Love was designed by myself and released a year ago. Stephanie very kindly gave me two sets including the coordinating die to give away at the time, but my life turned upside down in Jan 2013 and I never got around to giving them away. I've kept them all this time just waiting for the chance to do it this year and I'm ready!

So leave me a comment on this post by Friday January 10th 23.59 GMT and I'll select two peeps at random to win a Post It: Love set with a coordinating die. Only one comment per peep, please and international entries are more than welcome!

That's all from me today. Be sure to pop across to Stephanie's blog for yet more inspiration from both herself and the design team. It's the final sneaky peek before release time! :)









Products Used
Please Note: The stamp set, 'Key To My Heart' will be added once available for purchase and the gold cardstock I used was salvaged from random scraps in my stash. I've offered an alternative here, but it's not textured.

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A lightbulb moment...

Hey!

Happy Sunday! I hope the weekend is treating you well. For us it's been a weekend of sorting and organising. Admittedly it's kinda tedious, but the end result is so refreshing. I even have a tidy creative space; you can see my desk and everything! Not sure how long it'll remain in that state though LOL!

I'm here with the final day of sneaky peeks from the Clearly Besotted Stamps January release (available for purchase tomorrow 10pm GMT) and today's card is giving you a peek at what I think is a versatile die. :)

I had a lightbulb moment when I checked out the coordinating dies for the new set, Up in the Air. You could even call it a literal lightbulb moment as that balloon-shaped die transformed into a lightbulb shape before my very eyes!

This was so easy to create. If you're interested, here's how easy it is:

• Die-cut the balloon/lightbulb shape from yellow and light grey card
• Stamp a lightbulb related sentiment on the yellow die cut
• Smother in Glossy Accents 
• Practice patience in waiting for it to dry! ;P
• Decorate by adding detail on grey die cut to adhere to shape and add extra shine with a white gel pen

So there you have it: a balloon die disguised as a lightbulb!

Here's a shot to show those Glossy Accents at work. :)

Right, I'm off to create some crafting chaos in my tidy craft area. I'm going to promise myself that I'll tidy up after *wink*. In the meantime, why not pop across to Stephanie's for more sneak peeks? :)

Thanks so much for visiting today!

Pictures speak louder than words...

Hey!

Well I'm back for day two of the sneaky peeks of the Clearly Besotted Stamps' January release. Remember: All new products will be released on January 6th at 10pm GMT.

Today I'm featuring the adorable set, Key to my Heart. I'm really quite smitten with this set! For today's card I did a little selective inking and let the images of the set do the talkin'. :) Apologies that yet again I've got a little black and gold number for you. I promise that tomorrow's creation features neither black nor gold LOL!

• Using images instead of words works not only for this stamp set. See what you've got in your stash and experiment!
• I had to mask a larger sentiment stamp to selectively ink the words I needed. I find that washi tape is brilliant to use for this: simply stick tape over the sections of a stamp you don't want to ink up and remove them after inking. I stole this tip from Jennifer McGuire, here. :)

Be sure to stop by Stephanie's blog if you haven't already, there's much more to see including links to the rest of the Design Team's wonderful creations.

Right, I'm off for a fuddle today (a local term for a gathering of friends who each bring something yummy to eat). I'm not short of treats to take after Christmas and I'm hungry already LOL!


Products Used
Preview products will be added once available for purchase.

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