Monthly Archives: July 2014

Jul 20

StampNation Beach Vacation Blog Hop

DSC_0032_zpsbf0d1002

Today we are kicking off the StampNation Summer Beach Vacation event with a Blog Hop.


Each of the StampNation Dream Team members, along with some of our crafty friends, are hopping along sharing cards inspired by our first challenge, “Beach Style”, as well as a peek at our favorite projects from the event!

Here’s my card for the first challenge.

I started by stamping Simon Says Stamp Wide Stripes on a white card base with Platinum Planet Brilliance ink. Then I cut a layer of patterned paper from the Fresh Cut paper pad (Basic Grey) and decorated it with a strip of Kelly Purkey glitter washi tape. I die cut the Polaroid frame from Penny Black in Cosmo Cricket Simple Surfaces patterned paper, and stamped the sentiment from Waltzingmouse My Island stamp set in white pigment ink (WPlus9). I stamped and fussy cut the palms from the same WMS stamp set, and mounted over the scene created by layering stamps from WMS (same set again), and splats from WPlus9 & SU! stamp sets, over a lightly watercoloured white cardstock panel. I finished the card by adding a couple of sequins from Neat & Tangled.


It’s time to hop along now. Make sure you leave comments at each of the blogs listed below to be eligible to win…

One of THREE one month StampNation memberships!

PLUS

$25 Pretty Pink Posh Gift Certificate

Ellen Hutson $25 Gift Certificate


Choice of Lawn Fawn Stamp Set & Let’s Polka 6 x 6 Pad

For each of these prizes, one winner will be randomly drawn from all the blog hop comments. A second winner will be chosen from all the challenge entries at StampNation!

Not a member yet?
Now is is the perfect time!

You will have have until 11:59 pm EST on July 27th to leave a comment. Winners will be chosen randomly and will be announced on Monday, July 28th on Catherine’s blog.

Iwona Palamountain - you are HERE!

Click the graphics below, to get you to the next blog! Have fun and good luck :)

 

Jul 17

CASE Study Challenge #200

DSC_0047_zps6d0e0452

Did you see the number in the title?? We’re having a 200th challenge at CASE Study! I never thought we’d get this far and yet here we are… I’m very humbled today, what magnificent four years it have been! Just you wait until you see what we’ve got in store for our impending Anniversary!!
More on it soon, but for now let’s play another inspiration-laden challenge, featuring Shari Carroll as our Muse! Here’s what we’re serving this week:

I love this timeless layout. I would love to know who came up with it first and gave life to this ongoing trend. Do you know? Is it even possible to track such things??

I took white cardstock with a subtle woodgrain texture for my base, and cut the panel from Cosmo Cricket Simple Surfaces patterned paper. I love the pad it comes in - there’s glittery stuff, vellum and plain paper with a variety of designs to choose from, all fresh and trendy. I’ll be using it a lot!
I layered some die cuts on, cut with the Penny Black‘s brand new A Pocket Full dies and stamped with the coordinating Let’s Chat stamp set. For the speech bubble, I had to alter the stamping a bit since the ‘tails’ face the opposite ways in the die cut and stamp. I simply added the tail with a black pen once stamped.

I also added some ink splats, sequins (as I would, duh!), washi tape tucked underneath the panel and I spelled the work “kid” with some ancient old Thickers :)


Check out the blogs below for the Design Team’s takes on the challenge, or visit CASE Study for the full reveal!

Shari Carroll- July Muse
Tenia Nelson, Amy Tsuruta - July Guest Designers
Amy Wanford (Aimes) (on a Summer break)
Anika Lerche
Anja Curvers
Anna Kossakovskaya (Umichka)
Gayatri Murali
Jill Foster
Jeanne Jachna
Julia Stainton
Michelle Williams
Silke Ledlow (on a Summer break)
Tasnim Ahmed


Jul 16

Pure Color inks meet Copics

DSC_0016_zps8bda5f09

Here’s a disclaimer. I’m a bit late jumping on the new WPlus9 Pure Color South Beach ink collection bandwagon, due to the postage issues. I’m sure plenty of you would have them easily ordered and broken out before they even reached me, which I can’t lie has been driving me crazy since I missed the release festivities as a DT member, but this is unfortunately one of the downsides of being an international crafter. Darn you, postal system 😉
Nevertheless I’m happy to say that they’re HERE! (if you happened to miss it, see the post announcing the collection >CLICK<) Catalogued, gushed over, and most importantly, cracked open. Wahoo! So once I played around for a bit with the new colours, I remembered how Dawn would talk about the ease of use with Copics and I thought I’d experiment. Here’s the outcome…

In result I ended up mixing the old colours (Nautical Navy and Sweet Nectar, Blossomsberry), with the new ones (Mojito, Ocean Drive). I also once again reached for my firm favourite as of late, Spring Blooms stamp set. My goodness, how I love it! I paired its florals with the sprigs from Heartfelt Holiday. I’m all for stretching my holiday stamps!
I stamped the elements so that they form a free form floral arrangement, and then added dimension and interest using Copic markers - two layers / shades in most cases and next to no blending - I wanted an edge to this design. Lastly I took mauve and aqua shades of Inktense pencils, scribbled them lightly around the flowers and blended with a water brush.

For the finishing touches, I added a mounted on sentiment from the older Hope Seed Co. stamp set, and a couple of clear sequins. Eeek! Should I worry about my sequin addiction yet??
The panel was mounted on a PTI Lavender Moon card base and backed up with a length of washi tape.

I hope you like it! I certainly do :) See you tomorrow for the CASE Study 200th challenge post! (what?!)


Jul 13

Sketchbook Saturday Challenge #126

DSC_0019_zps0defacbf

Ready for a new sketch?? I promise it’s on my agenda to catch up with the comments on the previous sketch entries, but I wanted to post this first before its overdue status is still fairly acceptable *wink*. I felt like layers today as I wanted to cut into some new, delicious papers. Enjoy!

So here’s what I’ve done. I dug into the papers from the Hello Sunshine 6×6 pad by Pink Paislee. I die cut one of the papers (the chalkboard style) with the brand new Polaroid frame die from Penny Black, making the sentiment fit within the frame. I wrapped some Maya Road Shine Gold twine around the card and arranged a few die cuts found in Kaisercraft Collectables packs, around (Summer Breeze) and in the frame (Sweet Pea) - including the adorable deer that I’ve been waiting for a fitting project to put it on.

This card merges woodland and intense Summery, almost Hawaiian themes, in a way that makes me giddy. I always try to reach for the elements that would spice up the boring, rigid lines of the sketch and (hello!) florals do the job good enough in most cases. I love the way the leaves and flowers seem to be sprouting from behind the frame. I can’t wait to see what you make with it!

***************************************************************************

If you would like to play along:

- You’re kindly asked to save the sketch image onto your computer first, and if you make a card based on it, please link back to this post.
- Share the link to your creation via the Inlinkz widget below, so that I can come and check it out!
Perks:
- A new sketch is posted every other Saturday night (ideally but I might be late at times), and the link widget is open for two weeks. However, you’re welcome to play any time! Just leave a link in the comments section and I’ll pop in to see it.
- Every now and then, I’ll be inviting one person who uses my sketch, to join me for the next one!



Jul 11

A tag and a bit of yummy

DSC_0023_zps74e31df4(1)

Hello there! Thank you for the love, in the yesterday’s comments especially - that card is one of my current favourites and I’m glad you like it too. There’s a little sumthin’ that I’d like to share tonight, firstly a tag inspired by the CTS#84 sketch (below).

I inked the stamp sets from Altenew, Hennah Elements (flowers coloured using Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils and a waterbrush (Aquash)) and my fav Label Love. The white dots were added with Ranger Inkessentials white opaque pen, which so far looks much more promising than the Uniball Signo pen that I’ve been using in the past. In fact, it’s been giving me a major headache and that’s why I switched. Happy now!
Here’s the sketch:



——————————————————————————————-

I’m also sharing a recipe for a delicious rhubarb cake that I put a photo of on my Instagram the other day, and which yielded requests for details (wink wink, Donna and Lucy!) I wrote there that this recipe wins so far in my cookbooks and I tried quite a few recipes for the rhubarb cake in particular; it’s a sort of a Polish old-style favourite. The recipe is translated from Polish as well, so please keep it in mind when using measurements - especially cups.

Rhubarb Cake

  • 1 margarine / unsalted butter (250g), softened
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup sugar (250ml)
  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 1 cup potato flour
  • 1 packet vanilla dusting sugar, or 1 generous tbsp
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1 tbsp vinegar
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 kg rhubarb
  • extra 1 tsp flour for the rhubarb
  • icing sugar for dusting

Heat up the oven to 180°C (356°F). In a large bowl beat margarine with eggs and sugar. Add sieved flours, vanilla sugar, baking powder. Add milk, mix well. Add oil, vinegar and lemon juice.
Wash rhubarb, remove any hard fibres, cut into pieces of up to 1 cm thickness. Put in a bowl and bust with a teaspoon of flour.
Grease a big baking tray (30 x 40cm - I used 33 x 23cm and it was just fine), pour in the cake mixture and sprinkle the rhubarb over evenly. Bake 45 min to an hour, depending on the oven. Check the readiness with a wooden skewer after 45 minutes.
If you like, dust the top with icing sugar and leave to cool… or not. LOL!

It’s a lightweight, fluffy, lightly sour cake, perfect for an afternoon tea. Enjoy! xx

Jul 10

CASE Study Challenge #199

DSC_0029_zpsd94440ab

It’s time for a second week with Shari Carroll, wahoo! I love the card we’re serving for this challenge, clever and striking. Loved from the moment I first saw it two years ago. With the craze for die-cutting that the paper crafting world is experiencing right now, I think this one’s going to be popular.

I didn’t try too hard to be original. I knew I wanted to try the same technique but with a different die. What I didn’t see coming at first, is that I’m going to grab the paper from the same (old!) paper pad - Bo Bunny‘s Country Garden. The die is Full Card Hexagons from Simon Says and I cut it in white cardstock, and backed the assembled piece with a layer of vellum, as opposed to cardstock in the inspiration card. It muted further down the subtle yellow of PTI‘s Lemon Tart CS.

I added a few perfectly colouristically coordinated accents - a couple of butterflies and sentiment die cut from Kaisercraft‘s Curiosity collectables, and Coral Sparklets (also from Kaisercraft)

I’m sharing this card with Virginia’s View Challenge #5 - Die Cutting.
Check out the blogs below for the Design Team’s takes on the challenge, or visit CASE Study for the full reveal!

Shari Carroll- July Muse
Tenia Nelson, Amy Tsuruta - July Guest Designers
Amy Wanford (Aimes) (on a Summer break)
Anika Lerche
Anja Curvers
Anna Kossakovskaya (Umichka)
Gayatri Murali
Jill Foster
Jeanne Jachna
Julia Stainton
Michelle Williams
Silke Ledlow (on a Summer break)
Tasnim Ahmed


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...