Gettin' sweet...and weird!

Hey!

Happy Tuesday! It's a particularly 'sweet' Tuesday here on the blogeroo as I'm hopping on board this month as a guest designer for Sweet Stamp Shop!

Today is release day and three super sets have been released. I was sent two of them to play with: Eye Love and Weird Love.

The card above features some weird love. Never thought I'd type/say that here....ha! But fear not, this is no weird set, but a sweet (what else?) mini-set featuring a lovely sentiment that pretty much sums up how I feel about my fiance and I: we're both a little weird...and I can't quite believe our luck that we found each other and fit together so perfectly (altogether now: awwwww!) The heart is stamped from the set 'Eye Love' and is covered in a good dollop of Glossy Accents.

So enough weird love, how about some eye love? Yup, the name kinda sums up the set: love with a focus on some items you may just find at the opticitans. However I went for something a little more....geeky! :)

The set has this oval shape and as soon as I saw it I thought 'atom'! Then I got thinking 'ion'! And this led to the pun 'ion U' as in, 'I've got my eye on you...' I just stamped and rotated the oval to create the atom shape, adding red dots with a marker and stamping the 'U' from the set in the centre.

Now as I understand it, an atom can be an ion, but not all ions are atoms. I didn't have time to hit the science textbooks to research it! So my escape from any geek design faux pas I may have unintentionally created, was to stamp the inside with another sentiment from the same stamp set.

Now if you subscribe to this being a mini card with an atom, it'll read U....genius. And if you subscribe to it being an ion then the card will read 'ion U...genius'! It's win/win in my book! :)

That's all from me today! I'll be back later on in the month with a couple more projects to share featuring these sets, but for now be sure pop across to the Sweet Stamp Shop blog for more inspiration!

Thanks so much for stopping by here today! Wishing you all a 'sweet' Tuesday!








Products Used

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Playing with pastels...

Hey!

Hip, hip, hooray! It's the weekend! And we're kicking it off on the blogeroo today with a blog hop courtesy of Uniko Studio!

Today the Uniko Studio DT are revisiting an older (but still much loved) set, Pure Florals: Gerbera. You should have come here from the Uniko Studio blog. If you haven't, be sure to stop there first to get the full deets; there are prizes to be won...*wink*

For my project I wanted to pull out my Faber Castell neutral pastels and play. I'm a little bit hooked on kraft-coloured card at the moment and fancied seeing how white and grey pastels behaved on it. The result? I'm pretty happy. Shading over the black lines of those flowers gives them a more muted effect that I likey.

Now before I go on, I must let you know that the layout of this card was totally inspired by this beauty by Jean Martin (oh how I love that card of hers!). I'd have normally kept those masked flowers on the bottom, but Jean totally inspired me to flip my design to have them at the top. 

• Outline images with a light grey marker to make them pop. It can make a real difference (I so wish I'd done a before and after photo now! Ha!)
• Use a post-it note or eclipse tape to make your masks for the masking technique and keep them safe with your stamps sets when you've finished so you can reuse them. Saves time fussy cutting the same mask again in the future.  
• Shhh! Don't tell anyone but I didn't ink up one of the centres of the flower properly. However, there's no such thing as a mistake in creating; I simply took a change of direction and added a strip of ribbon and twine to cover my mistake my design *wink*

Fancy winning some Uniko Studio goodness? There are two ways to do so.

• Comment on the blogs for a chance to win the Uniko Studio stamp set of your choice.
• If you fancy winning yourself a £20 Uniko Studio gift certificate, then be sure to take a good look at the projects featured in the hop. Then pick one and join in the Blog Hop CASE Challenge: simply CASE away (take any element/elements of a card and be inspired by them to create your own version), share and link it up on the Uniko Studio blog. Uniko Studio stamps are not required for this, but we sure do love to see 'em. :)

Now be sure to keep on hopping; your next stop is Amber.

Thank you so much for hippety-hopping by today! Have a great hop and weekend!







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Loopy Twine (and colleagues!) :)

Hey!

It's a glorious, sunny Bank Holiday here so cue some catching up on chores (Boo!), time for crafting (Yay!), and a nice day out with my guy (Double yay!) Oh, and not forgetting of course the bonus day off tomorrow *wink*

Today's card is one I created for a wedding I attended a few weeks ago. It's also a card for our current challenge on A Passion for Papertrey in which we wanna see creations that celebrate (Yup, this challenge is pretty open to interpretation!)

• If you know the wedding colours in advance, then base your card around them and if you know the happy couple well, try to inject their personality/style into the design. However, if like me in the case of this card, you don't know the couple too well and have no idea of wedding colours, you can't go too wrong playing it safe with whites and creams. 
• Big twine bows can be layered beneath a focal point and give more 'oomph'. I kinda like the vintagey feel loopy, carefree twine bows give too. :)
• Work with your embellishments. I decided waaaaaay before I even had a design in my mind that this huge Maya Road flower would feature on my card somewhere. This flower then dictated certain elements of my design. For example, I chose a vellum mat to layer my patterned paper on. The transparaency of vellum means not only will it coordinate perfectly with my card, but it also echoes the floaty, delicate nature of the flower.

If you have any spare crafting time, we'd love to see you play along with us. Or if you have any projects you've already created that fit our theme and have been uploaded since our challenge started then feel free to enter them too! One randomly selected peep will win a $5 PTI gift certificate. Hurry though, the challenge ends tomorrow morning!

And before I leave you, the evening reception I attended with this card had one very cool photo booth in which you had lots of props and lots of fun! Here's a pic of me and my wonderful colleagues on the night - strike a pose! Ha!

Wishing you all a lovely Sunday and fabulous Bank Holiday weekend to those who have one!







Products Used

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