Guest Designer Post - Inkspirational

Hi Friends,

I'm thrilled to be joining the ladies over at Inkspirational Challenges as Guest Designer for the latest challenge, Cue Card below!

I have to admit I racked my brains for ages trying to come up with something unique to use from my stash. I couldn't find any play-related stamp sets although, following some online research / window shopping, there's now plenty on my wish list! 

In the end I decided to go with a musical theme and some rather inky and not in my usual 'Clean and Simple' style backgrounds. Uniko recently released some music related stamps and I'd also purchased a few Visible Image sets at Christmas, which I was keen to ink up again so here goes:

Both cards use the 'Music Speaks' set by Visible Image with a 'You Rock' sentiment and musical notes from Uniko. The background on the first card is created by 'smooshing' Distress Inks, whereas the second one is a Brusho based creation! 

I hope you like what I've created for the challenge and you'll feel inspired to play along too. I don't doubt that there'll be some spectacular ideas from the regular design team HERE and I'd like to thank them for inviting me to join them today! 

Happy Crafting and thanks for your visit today!

Male Room Challenge #71 - Guest Designer Spot

Hi friends, a little mid-week post for you today!

I'm delighted to be Guest Designer at The Male Room for this week's challenge where the theme is to use some metal. I scratched my head for quite some time on this one and tried various ideas but in the end it came down to this cute little anchor charm that I found in my stash, teamed with a selection of Uniko stamps.

Stamps used: Uniko - Background Blocks Horizontal Stripes and Scattered Polka Dots plus Nautical Treasures. I used the polka dot background as a fuzzy cut piece for the sails although it would definitely look out of place at sea I think! 

I'd like to thank the Male Room design team for inviting me to Guest Design and hope you feel inspired to play along with them in this challenge.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and have a fun and crafty day!

Guest Designer for CASology

Hello crafty buddies, I'm so excited today as I've been invited to be the

Whoopie! 

That's what I thought until I realised what the cue word was for the week!

So having scratched my head and tipped my stamps upside down

I came up with a card using 2 'bark' images which I hope fits in at CASology!

I started out by dry-embossing a panel of watercolour card with a

'bark' effect texture before inking over the top in various brown distress inks.

A little spritz and flick of my favourite water and perfect pearl mix before 

die-cutting the top edge with a stitched curve border die. The little puppy

(not barking here) is from the Mama Elephant Playful Pups set along

with the cute sentiment. 

Don't forget to check out the fantastic talent from the CASology DT HERE

I certainly can't wait to see how they've interpreted the Cue word.

I've loosely followed the sketch from this week's challenge at 

CAS colours & Sketches so will pop my card in there too as well

as another entry for the HLS CAS challenge - Water Colour Spritz!

As always thanks for paying me a visit today and I'll catch up with you again soon!

Guest Designer Spot for MUSE

Hi there crafty friends I've got some mega exciting news for you in this post as I'm Guest Designing for The Muse Card Challenge today!
Whoa! I was speechless (for just a second) when I received the message from Ardyth asking if I'd like to create a card for this fabulous challenge!
Without thinking too deeply about what I'd create, I zipped a message  straight back with a HUGE 'Yes Please!' so here's my card  and I hope you'll feel inspired to play along this week!

If you follow my blog regularly you may remember I attended the

Happy Little Stampers craft retreat in Swindon, UK last month.

As well as meeting a bunch of equally excitable crafty ladies we were 

introduced (some for the first time) to the magical properties and uses 

of Brushos by our super host and organiser Kylie of Happy Little Stampers.

So I'm 'hooked' and here's another example using Brushos to create a heart-shaped 

 jigsaw ... it really was tough piecing this one back together and had me wishing 

for a little piece of that Press n Seal stuff that so many American crafters use.

I love vibrant colours and die-cuts on my cards and here I've used the Neat & Tangled 

Heart of Gold die along with a 'Sending' word die by Simon Says stamp. 

The 'Hugs & Kisses' sentiment is by Clearly Besotted and to enhance the 'yellow' 

 in my 'brusho' heart I've added a strip of designer paper from Echo Park.

I can't wait to see how you are inspired by my card, perhaps using die-cuts, brushos, the layout or maybe the colours. Whatever takes your fancy and I'm certainly  looking forward to visiting your blogs this week to see how you've 'cased' it.
Here's the link to the Muse Challenge blog to play along.

I'd also like to enter my card at the Happy Little Stampers Challenge  ... Anything Goes with Dies It would be rude not to as Kylie (owner of HLS) taught me all I know about Brushos! LOL!

Thanks as always for stopping by my blog and huge thanks to the  Design Team at Muse for asking me to help out this week.

Happy Little Stampers - CAS Guest Designer

Hello my friends ... can you hear me squeal? Well believe me I am happy dancing and singing because I'm a Guest Designer for Happy Little Stampers - CAS challenge this month!
Whoopie! and what a fantastic technique there is for you to have a go at.

Don't worry there's a tutorial if you follow this link and it's fairly 

straightforward otherwise I wouldn't have a card for this post! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFo8vqohJIg

I ended up making 2 cards and the second card was my first one ... 

if that makes sense! I suddenly realised I hadn't used any HLS products.

I think I prefer the butterfly one anyway!

So I used a mosaic stencil from Simon Says stamps with

red, orange and yellow distress inks to create the background.

I've die-cut it using some Snow drift dies from MFT Die-Namics

and used the HLS Butterfly Birthday set, colouring the butterfly with

the same distress inks and adding some white gel dots for added interest.

It's an Anything Goes week at Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge

so as I've used one of their stencils I really ought to pop across there with this one!

For this one I've used the rose builder stencil from My Favourite Things in

a whole new colour way and the sentiment is from WPlus9 Doodle Blooms.

Please head across to the main challenge blog where the Design Team have come up 

with some AMAZING creations and I hope you'll feel  inspired to play along! 

Thanks so much for calling by today and thank you to the HLS team

for inviting me to guest design with them this month!

The Challenge #33 - Guest Designing

Hello Friends and Happy Bank Holiday if you are in the UK Hope you are having fun. I'm happy dancing today as I was lucky to come in the Top 2 at The Challenge last week and it was my first time of entering  ... AND I was asked to guest design for this week's challenge! So double celebrations! It's a sketch challenge this week and to be honest it freaked me out to begin with as I haven't done a layered sketch card in a while. In fact I made 2 but the first one isn't blog worthy! Here's my card followed by the sketch.

Card Recipe:

Altenew: Henna Elements heat-embossed in WOW sparkle EP

MFT Die-Namics: Stitched Square dies

Clearly Besotted: Say it in Style sentiment

and Stand Alone elegant butterfly die

Here's the sketch for you to follow and of course 

Enjoy and have some fun!

I'd also like to play along at Addicted to CAS

with my card as the theme is White, Black and Gold

Just hope it's 'CAS' enough for ATCAS!!!

and Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Quick Edit: Thanks Loll for suggesting this card would fit

at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge - dies & punches

I hope you get chance to play along at 

The Challenge

and there's more fabulous inspiration from the design team

so have a little mooch HERE first before you head off to craft.

It's always a pleasure to know you've stopped by my blog and thanks so much.

TIME OUT Challenge GDT Reminder

As a super privileged Guest Designer for the Time Out Challenge I'm back with a gentle reminder as there's still time to link up. We are CASing a stunning card created by the super talented  and wonderfully creative Kylie Purtell of Kylie is Addicted to Stamps Here's my take on her card for today

and here's Kylie's card

Card Recipe:

MFT Die-namics: Lily dies

Photo Frame die, Chevron Stencil

Clearly Besotted: Sentiment from Fabulous Fuchsias

Doodlebug: background paper

Once again you'll want to see some more fabulous inspiration 

before heading off to your craft room so please check out 

the Time Out Challenge blog and all the wonderful DT creations.

As I've used these beautiful rosey colours again I'm heading across to

 Inkspriational with a second entry

Happy crafting and can't wait to see what you come up with.

TIME OUT challenge Guest Designer

*** This is my first post of the day so please pop back later for the first day of Uniko Studio Sneak Peeks ***

Morning Blog friends and thanks for stopping by. Today I'm very privileged to Guest Design for the Time Out Challenge following a surprise win last month.
Can you hear me squealing with hysteria? What an amazing challenge blog, super duper DT and what's more there's always something new to get your teeth into (or scissors!)
So today we have a fabulous card to CASE created by the super talented  and wonderfully creative Kylie Purtell of Kylie is Addicted to Stamps Here's my take on her card

and here's Kylie's card

Card Recipe:

Uniko Studio: Pure Florals - Gerbera

heat-embossed in white onto watercolour card, painted

 using Distress Inks in Picked Rasperry & Mowed Lawn

Paper Smooches: Stitched Tag Die

Crafts Too: Lattice Embossing folder

Clearly Besotted: Sweet Rose Sentiment

Ribbon, twine and gems from my stash

I'm sure you'll want to see some more fabulous inspiration 

before heading off to your craft room so please check out 

the Time Out Challenge blog and all the wonderful DT creations.

I'm also linking up at Inkspriational where the theme is 'Rose'

and although this definitely isn't a rose I've definitely used shades of rose!

A super quick edit here as having swooned over my fellow DT members

at Timeout I realise I could have linked up at the current 

Simon Says Stamp Challenge: All things Bright & Beautiful

(I'm sure my card will fit well there!)

    

Happy crafting 

UNIKO STUDIO: REVEAL, RELEASE & GIVEAWAY DAY!

Whoopie! Release Day is here at last.

Thanks for stopping by again. 

Today the August release is available to purchase here

and I've a few extra cards I made (below) using these terrific sets 

                   

                   

First up and I don't know if this isn't a bit OTT but I tried to use something
from each set on one card. Hmmm can you guess what comes from what set?
Plus there's a sneaky image from an earlier set of Uniko stamps!



I'm going to post this at the Simon Says Stamp challenge for this week
where the theme is 'Make it Sparkle'
As I've used some sparkling silver embossing powder and sparkly gems
from my stash I'm hoping it'll fit perfectly.

Next up I needed another birthday card for a young boy so thought this was
the perfect excuse to ink up the Big and Bold Wish set again.

I've stamped the images onto vellum with Versamark Ink then heat embossed with silver.
The candles are coloured on the reverse with Promarkers
and to finish a couple of gems and Doodlebug sequins.

Last but not least I couldn't resist another Sweet Baby one.

My sister is having her second baby in December so I'm hanging onto this one for her.

This one was quite tricky but I'm thrilled with the result.

I've used stamps from both the Strike A Pose and Sweet Baby sets

to create my Duck's bath-time card!

It's a shaker card, which I don't make often (why don't the sequins sit where you 

want them to whilst photographing, no matter how much 'shaking' I did)

The frame is backed with glitter card and I've punched some little hearts to

add to the sequins. 

To finish a strip of DP from Echo Park, Doodlebug Sprinkles, hemp cord 

and 2 little mini tags with embossed sentiments from the set.

As usual there is a Design Team & Guest Designer Blog Hop so please make sure you 

dash along to all the DT & GDT members, in the order below, 

and make sure you leave a comment along the way

to be in with a chance of winning the entire release.

Beverley

Amber

Erika

Gillian

N@ Ali

Nicki

Ren-Yi (Summer Break)

Taheerah

Sandie
                Sarah (that's me)

Finally Beverley is offering free shipping on orders of £25 or more if ordered TODAY. 

Thanks for following me this week and I hope you are going to join in with 
the Blog Hop and perhaps be the lucky winner of this Release.

Good luck!

Have a great day and catch up with you all soon.

                                                            

UNIKO STUDIO: SWEET BABY

Morning Blog Friends and thanks again for stopping by today.

It's the final 'Reveal' from the Uniko Studio August release 

and today we are introducing:

Sweet Baby

This is such an appropriate set for Beverley as she is just weeks away from giving birth
to twins, gorgeous little boy twins too so this card is for her.
I'm sure you'll agree she's going to have a truly wonderful time with these
little 'uns despite all the hard work it'll be well worth it.

It's a pure delight when I make baby cards because it's such an exciting time for the
new parents and this set has got every image and sentiment you could wish for.

The 2 little vests have been heat-embossed in white onto some Doodlebug 'Snips & Snails' DP

before mounting on die-cut straight and scalloped circles. 

I hope you've enjoyed the 'Reveals' this week; 

I've certainly enjoyed putting the cards together 

and I'm in love with each one of these sets. 

I just hope those little 'Beans' give Beverley some time to continue her stunning Uniko work.

 Once again don't forget to check out the other DT & GDT blogs for more inspiration before the

Full Release tomorrow and if you can pop back then there'll be more inspiration, 

a blog hop to reveal along with a special offer from Beverley. 

Full details over at Uniko Studio.

Beverley

Amber

Erika

Gillian

N@ Ali

Nicki

Ren-Yi (Summer Break)

Taheerah

Sandie