Happy Birthday Joe!

Gretchen Rubin said "Motherhood: the days are long, but the years are short" and I couldn't agree more!!  

Today my youngest son Joseph is 22. It doesn't seem that long ago that he arrived as my third child in less than four years.  He is now all grown and has his own life, but I occasionally wish we were back there still, even though some days were very long :)  

I managed to get a picture of him with his siblings at his birthday lunch on Easter Sunday.

He wasn't very impressed and didn't smile on any of the pictures I took lol!

For his card I used a lovely image from Clearly Besotted called Love You Tons.

  I stamped this on a watercolour paper circle and used Distress Inks to watercolour the image.  I then backed it with a black circle from the stitched circles set by My Favorite Things.

The background is a fabulous Hero Arts stamp called Painted Diamonds.  I stamped this with Versamark ink and heat embossed with WOW metallic brass powder.  I love the effect this embossing powder gives!  I then used the same technique for the sentiment.  

Hope you like it.  TTFN Jude xx

Three Amigos - La segunda parte (part two)

Good morning, hope you are all having a good week. As the title says, this is the second of my Three Amigos cards. I do love this set and can see me using it loads.

This time I didn't use the dies but stamped directly on to the card and coloured them with Copic Markers.

I used the small sentiments that come with the set for the characters signs, 

then I used a block sentiment from a Crafters Companion stamp set called Camden Town, all stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I gave them a faint outline with a blue Copic, to make them stand out, and then layered the piece with some silver/grey card and put it all on a 7 x 5 card blank.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Balloon bunny

Having been away last week I'm a little behind on my card making.  I really need to get myself more organised! (Jen would say that's a permanent requirement lol)

Anyway I did manage to make this cute little creation for my youngest son's birthday on Thursday.

I cut a stencil using a Die-namics Sun Ray from My Favorite Things and inked through it with several shades of memento ink.

The bunny and balloons are from a stamp and die set by Mama Elephant called Up and Away, which I coloured with Copic markers.

The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp's What's Brewing? set.

Hope you like it.  TTFN Jude xx

Three Amigos

Good morning and happy Easter Monday. Don't you just love 4 day weekends? they are the best, I think all weekends should be this long lol. That would make for much happier weeks ;o))

Anyway, today's card is made using the Mama Elephant set called The Three Amigos. I have wanted this set for some time now and eventually bought it on sale, yay. 

I  stamped the characters with Tuxedo Black Memento Ink and coloured them with Copic Markers, then I cut them out with their corresponding dies.

I used a couple of the sentiments that come with the set and one from the Mama Elephant Mini Messages set, and stamped them with Jet Black Archival Ink.

I used a small shaped card blank and randomly stamped all over the front with a tiny arrow stamp that is also in the set, and then raised the three amigos up on foam pads in the centre.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Birds in a tree

I found a really good tutorial for creating tree branches with watercolour paints and had to give it a try.

This takes a very small amount of paint, a brush and a straw!  Firstly add a blob of watercolour paint to the edge of a piece of watercolour cardstock.  Using the straw, blow the paint across the paper creating the branches.  Change direction to make the paint move around.  Repeat this several times down the edge of the paper.

Once you are happy with the branches take a small paintbrush and add in the leaves.  I also added a few little bluebirds for some interest.

I'm quite pleased with my first attempt and intend to try a few more 'trees'.

Hope you like it.  TTFN Jude xx

Get well soon

Good morning all, hope you are having a good week and looking forward to a nice Easter weekend. As mum was in the hospital last week, this is the get well card I made for her. 

I'm happy to report that mum is on the mend and will hopefully be up on her feet and back dancing very soon lol.

I used a Hero Arts Diamond Background stamp and stamped it with Versamark ink. Then I heat embossed it with Wow Metallic Brass Embossing Powder.

I used the Wplus9 Pretty Little Peonies stamps and dies for the flowers, and stamped them with Dandelion, Cantaloupe and Tangelo Memento Dew Drop inks.

I used Cottage Ivy and New Sprout Dew Drop Inks for the leaves and then stamped a sentiment using the Lawn Fawn Scripty Sayings stamps. Then I cut this out with an MFT Stamps Stitched Banner die.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you next week.

xxx

Little birdie

It is my youngest son's birthday next week and I really need to get him some cards made.  So far I've done two but I obviously can't share those yet.  Instead I made a quick card using an idea I saw on Pinterest.

The stamp is from a set by My Favourite Things called Things with wings.

I stamped it directly on to a small card blank and coloured with Copic markers.  I added a simple sentiment and a small heart to fill a little of the white space.

The finishing touch is the hand doodled border which makes a real difference.

Hope you like it.  TTFN Jude xx

Lets Celebrate

Good morning all, hope you are having a good week. We are on a little break with the family this week at sunny Mablethorpe. Ha ha, anyone that knows Mablethorpe will know that it's not often sunny lol. But we are hoping for the best.

Today's card is a little watercolour piece that I did while participating in The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge. 

The balloons and sentiment are from a Simon Says Stamp set and I heat embossed the balloons with True White Embossing Powder from Ranger.

Then I watercoloured the balloons and background using Distress Inks, I drew in the strings with a black fine liner and then stamped the bows with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

To finish it off I cut the sentiment out with an MFT Stamps Stitched Banner die and lifted in with foam tape.

Hope you like it, have a great week and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Lucky stars

Hello again friends.  I haven't made many cards lately as I've been super busy so most of the ones I have to share a a few weeks old!  This one is from my brother's birthday 3 weeks ago :)

I cut a star shaped die from a piece of white cardstock then returned the stars to the empty space.  This sound a lot easier than it was!  I fiddled about for ages to get the stars lined up again, but the effect was worth it when I'd finished.

Once I had everything lined up I stamped lots of smaller stars across the card using an ink which was the same colour as the background cardstock.

From the same colour I die cut the uncle three times and layered them together to give it some depth.  I thought the sentiment fit very well, what do you think?

Hope you like it.  TTFN Jude xx

Roses for Rose

Good morning all, hope you have had a good week and are looking forward to a nice crafty weekend.

Today's card was the original card that I made for my friend at work. By the time it was finished I wasn't sure about it, which is why I ended up making the much simpler one from Monday's blog post. However my friend loved it so she ended up with both lol.

I used a Clearly Besotted and a Clear Impressions large rose stamp for the background piece together with a smaller rose cluster from Clear Impressions and the single bud again from Mama Elephant.

I coloured them all with Copic markers, and then matted the panel with lilac and olive green Coredinations card.

I then cut an MFT Zigzag Stitched circle die and raised it in the centre of the card on foam pads, and overlapped some of the tiny bud stamps.

Then I used the Simon Says Stamp cup die and a rose die from a magazine for the centre. I cut them from plain white card and then coloured them with Copics.

Then to finish it off I cut a small tag from an MFT Blueprints set and stamped a sentiment from the Mama Elephant Mini Messages set.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Watercolour love

Yesterday our cousin Kirsty celebrated her birthday.

This is the card I made for her.

I took a piece of watercolour card and used four shades of pink to red paint from my Gansai Tambi watercolour set.

Once this had dried flat for a couple of days I added die cut hearts and a simple sentiment.

This style of card is very simple to make.  I set the background aside for quite a while but you don't have to.  A heat gun speeds up the process a lot!

Apart from the drying time it is easy to make a batch of cards very quickly using these ideas.

Hope you like it.  TTFN Jude xx