A little Sunshine in our Lives

Well it's day 2 of sunshine and blue skies where I live...really nice - especially as it is the weekend too!

So since I was feeling particularly 'sunny' today, I thought I would showcase a card on a sunny yellow theme, made with a beautiful Angelica's fairy.

I know I say this often, but once again I have to marvel at the lovely expression achieved on her little face with a few well placed lines...just perfect.

I have kept this card really simple, focussing on the image, which I coloured in with my Spectrum Noirs, and pointing on to some coordinating card stock, finished of with some lovely polkadot ribbon and one of my 'cheats' bows.

Finally - I tried something new, having seen Leanne do it on the TV, and painted over the wings with pearlescent H20 to give a bit of a glimmer. It certainly does the trick, but I think I may need to make the paint a little bit thinner the next time...trial and error - I will get there in the end!

So, on to the challenges to go with this post, which are:

Crafters Companion - Flowers
Cutie Pie - Clean and Simple
Paper Shelter - Make it Bloom
Sister Act - Anything Goes
Sweet Stampin - Buttons, Bows and Polkadots
Allsorts - Flowers
Make it Monday
Spectrum Noir - Spring

Thanks for stopping by today, and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Sharon x

Bright and Breezy

I think that 'bright and breezy' is a good description of the weather and my mood right now. It's Friday afternoon, the sun is shining but still a bit chilly, and work is over for another week, with the weekend to look forward to.

Continuing on with the general 'brightness', here's a card that I made using unusually bright colours for me (I am much more of a pastel gal as you have probably realised if you are a regular visitor to my blog!)

However, on this occasion, I needed to make a card for a 1 year old boy........hmmm...little boys / bright colours......the perfect excuse I think!

So I decided to stamp up one of my lovely Humphrey stamps, which was particularly gratifying, as I don't know that I will get too many opportunities to use this little fella.

I coloured everything nice and brightly with my Spectrum Noirs and, as luck would have it found a paper which really matched nicely amongst my Forever Friends 6x6 pads, which very rarely get to see the light of day.

I had a lovely time colouring this image and found that the bright colours weren't so scary as I thought. as you can see, I also stamped out a few parcels and decoupaged them on to the card, as well as, quite unusually for me, including a sentiment.

Once all that was done I didn't think it really needed anything else, so I have kept the rest of the card very clean and simple with the main image simply mounted on to one backing paper.

So...on to the lovely challenges for today:

Sister Act - Anything Goes
Come and Get It - Kids Birthday Cards
Cupcake Craft - Cute and Cuddly
Cutie Pie - Clean and Simple
Papertake - One Papertaker
Penny's Challenge - Use a Sentiment
Delightful Challenges - Colour My world
Make it Monday

Well that's me done for today. Time to get ready for a lovely Thai meal for a family celebration later on.
Have a lovely, restful Friday evening everyone.

Sharon x

Stamp Addicts on Create and Craft

I'm back again with a quick heads up to let you know that Stamp Addicts have a show coming up on Monday 22nd April, so it's time to set your Sky Plus, video recorders etc.....

Rather than being labelled as a Stamp Addicts Show, it's going to be a Craft Clinic, so look out for their double bill from 11am until 1pm.

Take a look right here to see some of the lovely cards which will be featuring as samples on the show.

Too bad that I will be at work, but I will definitely be recording it!

Sharon x

Happy Days

I had a lovely surprise earlier this week as I received an email inviting me to join the Bearly Mine Design Team!

Of course I took about one second to consider, before I said a big fat 'Yes Please'!

There are loads of lovely digi paper designs available at the Bearly Mine shop, which you can check out right here and of course there is their equally fab weekly challenge which you can see here.

I will be joining in with the fun from the beginning of May, but I'm looking forward to having a play around with the lovely digi papers this weekend, so watch this space as I will no doubt be back with my creations, to share  them with you all.

Thanks  for stopping by today, and I hope that you will hop over to Bearly Mine and join in with the fun.

See you there!

Sharon x

Nothing like a good book......

I don't seem to be able to find too much time for reading these days, but, in days gone by, one of my favourite things to do was to curl up with a good book. I think that this lovely digi from Saturated Canary captures that idea perfectly..especially when your curled up on your favourite cushion!!

when I printed this digi, I got a bit carried away and printed it a bit large - it's almost A5 size - so I had to go with an 8 x8 card base which is unusually large for me. Thanks good ness I had my grand nesties for the scalloped circle!

For this particular card I had already picked the papers before I coloured the image, but luckily I was able to find the perfect matching colour in my Spectrum Noir set to make sure that everything came together.

There's just a little bit of decoupage on the skirt, but other than that I have kept everything fairly plain and simple so that the focus is on the image.

Unfortunately, due to the size of my digi, her hair was really BIG....and I found it quite hard to colour as a result. I wanted her to have a sort of tousled look, but I think she has just come out with a bad hair day....oh well  - I am no good at styling my own hair either so I guess she takes after me!!

Of course I can't leave without entering some challenges, so here they are:

Paula Holifield - Anything Goes
Creative Inspiriation - Anything Goes
Delightful Sketches - Round Up
Saturated Canary - Anything Goes
Sister Act - Anything Goes
Card Crafters Circle - Dies
My Mums Craft Shop - Easter Colours
Forever Friends - Die Cuts
Make it Monday

Thanks for stopping by.

Sharon x

Tiddly Inks rule!

One of the wonderful things about blogging is that you come across some real talent, that you would never have known about through the usual channels, and, for me, Tiddly Inks is one such lucky find.

I had seen some lovely images on people's cards and could tell from the style that they were all by the same artist.....eventually I realised that these came from Tiddly Inks...I googled it... and the rest is history, as they say.

After much oohing and drooling, I eventually managed to choose a few digi images (restricting myself to 'a few' was a bit of a problem) and they sat on my PC for quite a while before I eventually plucked up the courage to colour one in!

This little cutie pie was the result......man - I so wish that I could draw like that!!

As she was a digi, I printed her 3 times and decoupaged her so that she stands out from the CAS background that I created, inspired by an old sketch from Less is More which I really liked.

I coloured her in promarkers, inspired by my lovely NitWits backing papers and threw in a few die cuts for good measure. I even made the flowers using a lovely little flower die that I picked up from the Hobbycraft show in March.

I was really pleased with how this card came out and I think I will definitely use this sketch again some time as I am quite a fan of the clean and simple look.

Finally, here are the challenges that I would like to enter with this card:

My Mums Craft Shop - Easter Colours
Forever Friends - Use Dies
Passion for Promarkers - Cut out your image
Fab n Funky - Spring Colours
Sister Act - Anything Goes
Card Crafters Circle - Die-ing to Impress
One Stop Craft = Pastels
Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes
Make it Monday
Sweet Stampin - Pastels

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you all have a lovely, sunshine filled weekend.

Sharon x

In the Pink with LOTV

I'm back again for my second post of the day, to reveal the second outcome of my burst on 'Pinkness' yesterday.

As you can see it's a lovely LOTV stamp which is the star of the show again, accompanied by a whole bunch of gorgeous dies from my collection.

I started off, colouring with promarkers and adding a bit of glitter for those fairy wings.

I then went about the business of creating my stepper card, starting with some plain pink  Bazill and mounting some lovely patterned paper from my SWALK Winter Cheer CD on to it.

I then used my nests to mount my image, whilst the white flowers are from Memory Box and the pink ones are Marianne Creations.

It's not often that I would go to town with my dies like this but, since the Grand Calibur was out anyway I thought I would go for it, and I am quite pleased with the result. I have had a lovely time with my dies lately, so I really must make the effort to get them out more often I think......watch this space!

Here are the lovely challenges that I would like to enter this card in to:

In the Pink - Lets Fly Away
Sister Act - Anything Goes
Make it Monday
Bearly Mine - Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations- Anything Goes
Totally Gorguss - Anything Goes with Sparkles
Delicious Doodles - Folds
Allsorts - Spring has Sprung
Forever Friends - Die Cuts / Punches

Thank you all for visiting today.

Sharon x