School Days

We've been back at school for a couple of weeks  but schools the other side of the border will now be getting near to the start of the new term.  Over at Sweet Stampin' we thought it would be a good time for a School Days challenge so that you can show off those back-to-school cards!

For once I'm really quite pleased with my DT card, which turned out pretty much as I'd planned:

I'm loving my ink blending at the moment, so I used a Memory Box stencil with some Distress Inks to create the lettered background on some linen card.  The sweet image is a Mo Manning cutie and he's been coloured with Copics.  The school jumper is in the colours of one of our little rural primary schools.  I added some Doodlebug enamel dots and voilà!

We'd love you to join us this week.  We're being sponsored by Crafts U Love so there's a voucher for a shopping spree waiting for our randomly chosen winner.  Grab a cuppa and check out what my talented teamies have made to inspire you here!

Have a great weekend!

Hugs

Tracey xx

Challenges I'd like to enter:

Mo's Digital Challenge - Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes
Deep Ocean Challenge - For the Boys

Bottoms Up!

It's a little drinkie challenge over at Sweet Stampin' this week!  We'd like to see your stamped designs featuring something related to drinks, hot or cold, alcoholic or non-alcoholic!

I used a From the Heart digi to make my DT card

I've coloured the image with Copics, adding some Sakura gold pen to the foil on the bottle.  I had been cutting out some white stamping card and realised that the negative cardstock would make a great frame with a little bit of trimming.  I used a Simon Says Stamp die to cut out the word "enjoy" from both the frame and some red card to create an inlaid sentiment.

It would be great if you could play along this week.  We're giving away a Sweet Stampin' goodie bag to our randomly chosen winner.  Not sure what to make?  Head on over to the Sweet Stampin' Challenge Blog to see the fabulous inspiration projects the Sweeties have made.

I can't remember the last time I entered a challenge, so I'm going to put this card into the Harvest Home (Fruit/Veg) challenge at Without Words.  It's no secret that I like my grapes in liquid form!  I'm also entering Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge which is all about Food and Drink.

Have a lovely weekend!

Tracey xx

Penguins and/or polar bears at CaSS

Good morning! I'm in getting-ready-to-go-back-to-school mode: the Boy Wonder's uniform is washed, ironed and ready to go and I'm in a mild state of panic about a) the amount of work I need to have ready before we go back and b) the fact that I can't find a replacement for my most comfy work shoes, which gave up the ghost at the end of last term.  

The weather this holiday has been disappointing to put it mildly, but the clouds, rain and rather chilly temperatures have at least made it a little easier to contemplate making Christmas cards this summer!  Which brings me to our latest challenge at Christmas at Sweet Stampin' and our Penguins and/or Polar Bears theme.

I do like a nice penguin (and I know I'm not alone here) but having used my CC Designs Penguins on the CaSS card not long ago, I thought it would be only right and proper to use my Tiddly Inks polar bear image which had been sitting in a box waiting to be coloured.

I decided to keep the whole design in shades of brown.  I coloured the image with Copics (W0-5 for the polar bear, E31-37 for the fox and E40-44 for Wryn's clothes). I then used my Simon Says Stamp Falling Snow stencil and applied embossing paste to the image. I opted for Maja Designs paper which I cut out with a large Go Kreate  die. I used the strip from the bottom of the 12" x 12" paper to make my sentiment border, fixing this underneath the image once the paste had dried.  The only embellies are my last two tiny chipboard corners which I had coated with Picket Fence distress paint. 

We have the lovely Sweet Pea Stamps sponsoring us this month so there are some lovely digis to be won.  Why not hop over to CaSS, check out the lovely inspiration designs the CaSSettes have made and maybe even play along?

Have a great day!

Tracey xx

Getting inky

My son watches someone on YouTube who always starts his videos with the words "Hello procrastinators!".  If you knew my son, you would know how apt this is, but over the school holidays I think the same can probably be said about me.  I seem to have spent hours faffing about and now with just over a week before I'm back at work all the stuff I should have done is still waiting...  Hey ho.

However, I have managed to do another course with Online Card Classes and it's been lots of fun.  This time the classes were all about techniques for creating backgrounds and it's been a great excuse to get covered in ink!  Normally when I take these classes I don't quite manage to get a card finished in time to upload to the gallery (see above ;o)) but today I got my act together and here's what I made

I combined ink blending and heat embossing to create a panel in various shades of green and blue. The panel was cut with a Papertrey Ink die and mounted on to my card base with foam tape.  The sentiment is from a set by Altenew and I added a couple of teal gems to complete the design.

 

There a number of inky panels drying in the kitchen which I'll try to get made up into cards before I go back to school.  In the meantime I hope that no one at home is going to expect me to cook anything!

 

Hugs

 

Tracey xx

Sweet Stampin' Bon Voyage

Don't panic!  Sweet Stampin' isn't going anywhere, Bon Voyage is just our challenge theme this week!

We're looking for your stamped creations featuring anything to do with moving on, travel etc. I inked up this Stamping Bella cutie after she had been sitting on my desk for far too long.

I found a (just) large enough scrap of Magnolia paper with a cloud design and coloured the image with Copics.  I'm not too happy with the clouds but I needed somewhere for the sentiment and the things are stuck fast, so I'm going to have to live with them.

Do check out the gorgeous DT makes over at Sweet Stampin'.  We're being sponsored by Crafty Ribbons, so why not play along with us this week?  Hope to see you there!

Tracey xx