Mice day for Polkadoodles Launch

Good morning peeps, and welcome to my new followers :)

The lovely Nikky Hall from Polkadoodles is launching two fabulous new Stamp & CD collections on Create and Craft* this morning at 10 o'clock. The two sets that launched in March sold like hot cakes and I expect these will do the same, so tune in early :)

* If you watch Create and Craft on Freeview don't forget that they moved channels yesterday from 36 to 23. You might need to retune your Freeview box.

I was incredibly honoured to be asked by Nikky to make some samples for the show and this is one of my favourite makes. My inspiration for this card was a red bubble paper on the Little Kingdom CD - I'd cut out the white holes with my Craft Robo for another project and thought how much it looked like cheese - the holey kind, that is.

I still had my Robo software open so I cut the same pattern out of a lime coloured paper from the CD.

 I then had a hunt around the digis on the CD to see if I could spot anything that looked like a mouse. I found petals that I could use for ears, plus the head/body, little circles for the eyes (I just needed to add black centres) and part of a flourish that looked like a tail. Result!

I dragged everything into CraftArtist to crop the parts I wanted and resize, then assembed the mouse and printed off a group of them in the bottom right hand corner of a piece of Super Smooth card.

This lovely sentiment from the CD contains all the letters I need for my greeting. How lucky is that?

 'Life takes you to unexpected places.
Love brings you Home'

Of course, I had to go with 'mice day' instead of 'nice day' - any opportunity for a bit of pun :D

I mounted the letters on Kraft card to make them stand out a bit more.

 The mice were coloured in with some Promarkers:
 Satin, March Hare, Tan, Sunkissed and Pastel Beige

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Star Stampz Challenge  USE A DIGI
Sassy Studio Designs  #330 Tictactoe (Button, Fake Stitching, Die Cut Cheese)

Ching-chou Kuik Digital Stamps Use Kraft card
 Send a Smile for Kids Animal cards
Passion For Promarkers Challenge  #343 Make it Digi (used Promarkers)
Cutie Pie Challenge #98 WOODLAND FRIENDS!
The Crazy Challenge #221 Buttons
The Ribbon Girls Use any image
Inspiration Destination  #83 Always Anything Goes

Hope you can check back later when I'll have a sample from the other new collection to show you.
Katrina x

Let your spirit soar for Leonie

Hello peeps, hope you are well.

This is the first card that I made after I received Leonie's masks and stamps and it was inspired by the kite stamp.

I started off by brayering some blue ink onto some 200gsm 'Stamp and Colour' card (Stamps Away), with the darker shade blending in at the bottom.

Next I built up my word 'soar'. I didn't have a stamp that I could turn into an R so I decided to letter-press one of the small 'aRt' masks. Since this was the part I was most likely to muck up, that is where I started.

I placed the word face down onto scrap paper and then covered up the 'a' and the 't' with low tack masking tape.

I then inked the 'R' with black Memento ink.

After (very carefully) peeling away the masking tape, I turned the word over and placed it inky side down on my brayered card. I gave it a good rub all over to the transfer the ink.

I built my 'A' with the branch stamp from the Branching Out set.  I didn't want to stamp the whole length of it so I masked off my background with some copy paper.

For the 'S' and 'O' I used a swirl and a circle stamp from Tangled Tails and Arrow to the Heart.

I finished off with the kites stamp and then coloured in the kites with a Graph'It marker (7210).

I cut the card down to a square, ready to mount onto a 7"x7" card, but it needed something to frame it. I stamped the bubble cluster from Arrow to the Heart all around the edge of some stiff white card and filled in the gaps with circles of my own using a black fineliner pen (.005)

I went around the edges with a black promarker before attaching to my base card. My topper was a bit flimsy to use the same method for getting a black outline, so I cheated and mounted it on black card with a very small border.

Pretty chuffed with it so far, but the 'message' is a bit obscure so I need to write some extra wording on.

Gulp.

I photocopied the design at this point so I could practice without mucking up my card :D

Several attempts later...

As Leonie often says, I then fell out with it. As lovely as the kite image is, it's not in proportion with my card and there's too much empty space.

I cut some kite shapes from patterned paper (the 6x6 Paper Firefly pad from Prima) and doodled around the edges. I attached white wire to the backs and glued on little paper bows with tiny dots of cosmic shimmer glue (my new favourite adhesive)

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
 Through The Craft Room Door - Always Anything Goes

Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog #274 Anything Goes
The Sisters of Craft  Always Anything Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge #1 Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams  Spring is in the Air
We Love 2 Create #8 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Open-Minded Challenges #4  Easter / Spring / Pastel Colors
Addicted to Stamps #124 PASTEL COLOURS
SSS Work it wednesday Pastels
 Pile It On  #106 - Doodle
CAS(E) This Sketch!  #168  Sketch
 
AAA #62: Anything Goes

 

Thanks for stopping by,
Katrina x

Squid Soup and Shaker tutorial

Hello lovely peeps, and welcome to my new followers.
I'm chuffed to bits because I've now reached 50 Google Connect followers (the neat freak in me likes round numbers :D  )

Yesterday I had a chance to play with my new Lemonade Fizz Stamp Soup stamps from Polkadoodles.

The idea is that you build up your own flowers etc. with the individual stamps. There is also a CD to accompany it with some other digi stamps, sentiments etc. and papers with a pink/aqua colour theme.
 
I just started stamping on scrap paper first to see what flowers I could make

But then I got waylaid because I spotted a squid :D

The idea of making a male card from floral stamps and papers really appealed to my quirky side, so I set about making a shaker card with an underwater theme. I've included instructions for those who've never made a shaker card before.

I stamped the largest flower onto green diamond paper and cut out the middle petal for the squid body. I traced it twice onto my card (which is covered with the stripy aqua paper) in pencil so I could see where to stamp my tentacles.

I stamped various leaves onto other Lemonade Fizz papers and cut them out for my seaweed.

The next step was to make the shaker frame.

To make it more sturdy I glued the paper onto some card with Collall photo glue and die-cut a circle from the middle using a large X-Cut circle die.

Next I glued a square of acetate onto the back with Collall all-purpose glue (it sticks to glass among other things, so I figured it would work on acetate)

I added a double height of adhesive foam on a roll as I find that if you only use a single layer then your shaker bits get wedged in and won't move.

I arranged my seaweed around the front of the frame and attached with Cosmic Shimmer glue for speed.

When you're ready to assemble just sprinkle your sequins etc.  in the middle of your base card,

then peel off the backing tape from the foam and carefully position the frame over the top.

Just realised that the eyes are in the wrong place for squid but it's too late to move them now.  Never mind, I'm sure you get the idea.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge #126: anything goes with a twist ...Make it Male
Mod Squad Challenge -Water, Water, Everywhere
Paper Shelter Challenge #245 - For the Boys
Craftin Desert Divas  Shake it up
Scrapbook Stamp Society Challenge Blog  #89 Anything goes option Flowers
Crafty Girls Creations   Always Anything Goes
Crafting for all Seasons  #124 tic tac toe (sparkly sequins, stamp, backing paper)

Tinker- Dream  #40 Shaker Card 

I'm going to spend the rest of the day giving my craft room a long overdue tidy :D

Whatever you're doing I hope you have a good day,

Katrina x

Happy Birthday Human for Leonie

Hello again peeps.

For those of you lucky enough to get Leonie's stamps last night, here's another card idea for you.
My starting point was this border stamp - it looks to me like a row of little aliens :D 

I've made a big version of the alien with circles of card. The largest one was coloured with Ripe Persimmon Distress Ink and Spiced Marmalade.  I drew the antenna onto black card and cut it out.

For the eye I inked the edge of the smaller white circle with Squeezed Lemonade DI, glued a small black circle on and covered the whole thing in glossy accents. I went off and had my lunch while it was drying, to avoid sticking my thumb in it or something.

For the sky I stamped and embossed some stars onto the top half of a piece of white card with clear embossing powder. I then went over it with a blending tool and Twisted Citron & Peeled Paint DIs

For the foreground of my alien planet I dragged some Dusty Concord DI over the inside of Sheena's 8x8 Pebbles embossing folder and ran it through my Ebosser with some more white card.

To complete the scene I added a moon which was embossed with Sheena's snow folder (I've used the debossed side). I also added some more stars with a white pen.

I drew and cut the spaceship by hand out of silver mirri card, complete with windows for the little aliens to look out of. The mirri was a bit too shiny for me so I sponged Black Metallic Marker (from Letraset) over the top and I loved the way it turned out.

 The alien's legs/tentacles were cut from black card using my Die'Sire icicle die and I attached the whole thing to my card with a spring (well, why wouldn't you :D  )

 For the sentiment I've cut up letters from a stamped greeting but you could also do these on your computer. I finished the scene off with some purple plants which were stamped with one of the paisley designs

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Sisterhood of the Snarky Stampers #57 - E is for Embossing
Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge #126: anything goes with a twist ...Make it Male
Creative Moments #91  Always Anything Goes w/optional twist "Make it Funny"
The East Wind Challenge #53 ~ Make it 3D
Penny Black and More  Birthdays
Country View Crafts' Challenge Spring (used spring to attach topper)
Retarte  #75 - Anything Goes
Love to Scrap  #76 Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create  #172 Anything goes with optional twist:  use recycled materials 
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends  #302 Anything Goes

See you again soon,
Katrina x

Swing Friends for Leonie

Hello lovely peeps, hope you are well.
Welcome to my new followers, I'm thrilled to see you :)

Did you watch Leonie's fab show on Hochanda last night?
The product launch continues this morning at 9am and there are more shows planned for 12, 4 and 7pm.
The stamps were so popular that unfortunately they sold out, but you can still get hold of the masks/stencils.

This morning's card is a little scene that I've built up with one of Leonie's masks, some of her stamps and an old Crafters Companion stamp (that I have never inked up before now, hang head in shame)

I taped the largest 'friend' mask down onto Neenah solar white card with low tack tape (this was before I got my Stick n Spray which would have made the job easier, lol).

Then I inked up the 'Friendship' stamp (Crafters Companion/Santoro) with black Archival ink and stamped it over the top so it looks as if the swings are hanging from the word.

Next I wanted to add some colour with my Distress Inks but I didn't want horrible black smudges on my work, so I carefully slid some scrap paper under the mask so I could wipe off the black ink safely.

I built up the colour by applying the ink with a dry baby wipe - I used  'Picked Raspberry', 'Spiced Marmalade' and 'Festive Berries' Distress Inks

I thought it looked unbalanced with the swings hanging from the word as it wasn't central, so I decided to add a tree branch for them to hang from instead. There's a very handy branch in the stamp set which I stamped several times through the middle of the word (with the mask still in place so it will look like the branch is behind the word)

I then used one of the floral stamps to add blossom to the tree branch.

 I've been a bit subtle with my inking so when I remove the mask the word doesn't 'pop' as much as I'd hoped. Still, I like the pastel look so I decide to draw an outline around the word instead.

The 'outy' stencil bit comes with the kit, so I just lay it over the top
 

and trace around it with a black fineliner pen  (I did the inside loops of the letters freehand). Much happier with it now.

I coloured the image in with pencils and added a bit more foliage to my branch. The ropes from the swings needed extending a bit too so I got my ruler in line with the rope, drew in two vertical lines and then drew diagonal lines between them to match the stamped version.

I cut the piece down to a bit smaller than A5 and doodled some lines around the edges.

 I made some paper flowers by die-cutting circles from coloured paper, cutting them into rough spiral shapes and then rolling them up with a quilling tool.

After matting my piece onto an A5 card (edged with Picked Raspberry DI) and glueing on the flowers, I also added a bit of greenery with leaves punched from green paper with a papermania punch.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Sassy Studio Designs #329 Pastels
The Crafty Addicts #13 Anything Goes/Springtime
Creative Corner Spring Flowers
Melonheadz Friends Challenge LET'S GET GIRLY
Scrapbook Stamp Society Challenge Blog #89 Anything goes option Flowers
Lemon Shortbread #13 Anything Goes
Simply Papercraft #27 Anything Goes

Please take some time to visit the blogs of Leonie's other Design Team Members.
They are:
Nick - http://nickinbarnsley.blogspot.co.uk
Jane - Isleofcraftycreations.blogspot.co.uk &
Elaine - Cakecoffeecraft.blogspot.co.uk 

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back this afternoon with another sample for you.
Katrina x