Sweet (pea) Christmas

I needed a break from studying today so I made a Christmascard for a couple of challenges. I used stamps from my DT kit from sweetpea stamps. If you like these stamps then you should check out the new ones that are available for preorder. This company is really blooming and Lynette is coming up with more and more beautiful stamps every time. I can't wait to tell you about the next release, but you'll have to wait a while longer for that. These are not the ones I used for my card. You can see the ones I used at the bottom of this page. It's sheet number 12.
Have you gone and voted for your favourite yellow/red/blue card by the way on the sweetpea blog?

So the card is made following a sketch at Christmas and birthday cards. I flipped it on the side.
I used a colourcombo of turquoise, brown/black and sand beige from color throwdown. Never thought I'd use this combo especially for a Christmascard, but I took on the challenge and even had papers to match!
Other blogs that had Christmas as theme are:
creative inspirations
stamp with Sarah Kay
and Marga has Christmas as a challenge to be in her candy.

Creative card crew had scallops as their challenge.



I never would've guessed that this card would turn out so good. I just coloured the images a little, cut them out with my nesties and glued it all together. That's really how it all went down. Sometimes it takes me forever with a card and it's not even half as nice. Good thing it didn't take too long because I really don't have time for this, lol.

Roses on paper guest DT call

Roses on paper are having a guest DT call for their new line of Belles and Whistles stamps (drawn by the talented Elisabeth Bell)
There are three positions up for grabs for the term of November through December, open to crafters worldwide!

What you need to do is either make a card for the current challenge or upload an old project you've made for one of the challenges after june 15:th.

I was hesitating between a couple of cards. "Feeling peachy", a little love and this one. I finally decided on this one since I think it's an innovative way to use a square sketch. And it was my first try on stitching too. I'm also proud of the colouring and the style of the card. And even if I have developed since I made the card I still think it's one of my better ones.

This one was challenge 15 - using stitching. But to be honest I missed that it was supposed to be a gatefold card, so I don't know if I can apply with this one. If I can't because it doesn't qualify for the challenge then I'm applying with my "Feeling peachy" card. It was the last challenge - number 22 and we needed to use brown, orange and green in our card.


I used the stitching on the back part of the card. I zig-zaged around the dotty paper and used a straight seam on the left part of the brown CB embossed cardstock. I also zig-zaged together the textpart with the brown embossed part. I used a white thread which I then distressed and coloured red with inkpads. I also used my distresspad (vintage photo from Tim Holtz) on the raised parts of the embossed cardstock. I think it makes the details stand out even more.

I used my nesties for the circles and promarkers for colouring. I used:
ruby, cinnamon, cocoa, saffron, ivory and ice grey1. The text is goldembossed.

I'm very happy with the flower cluster. I did the gold text embossing on the big red brad all by myself :) I forgot to add some leaves around there. I've bought a bunch of qk leaf dies and think it will look great with them. But for now, this is what it looks like :)

You can always click the photos to get a bigger view.

Magnolia down under guest DT call

The Magnolia down under store are having a guest DT call. I am falling more and more inlove with these cuties as you might have noticed. I actually have 3 or 4 brand new stamps that I haven't had the chance to ink up yet.

Kellie (the owner) wants to see your favourite creations. I chose mine to be all Magnolias. Here goes. eeek!
It's 8 cards that I've done in the last couple of months. There are a lot of pics, but it's just 8 cards :) I haven't commented much on them, thought they would (hopefully) speak for themselves :)

What I can mention is that I love working with my promarkers. Most of the cards I have done here are for some sort of challenge. I like doing things a bit differently, it might not always turn out brilliant, but I like the idea. I like all sorts of styles, but I'd love to learn more to work with the vintage distressed look.

Here I had a square sketch to follow that I re-made into a folded card. It was my first try on sewing I think. I like this card because it's quite innovative and I even made one of the decorations myself. I took a big red brad, stamped with a textstamp and embossed it with gold ink. You can see it in the middle of one of the flowers.



Here I worked with a 3D challenge. I just went totally overboard with it and loved every second! I'm especially proud of the flower I cut out and poured 3D glaze over. It's part of the patterned background paper, but I made it stand out by coiling it a little bit. Tilda is mounted on 3D tape.

This is my latest magnolia card and stamp. I'm trying a more distressed look lately. Loved working with this stamp!

I worked a lot with shading on this card. I really wanted it to look like she gets light from the flower/snowflake.

A more simple card for a sketchchallenge. I think it was a rectangle they had and I made it an arrow. Thought it worked perfectly with this image. I also doodled little "x-es" and "o-s" around the image.


Handmade flowers. The middle of the upper left flower is handmade.

A graduation card for my cousin. I'm extremely proud of this one :)



Ok, so now you've seen a little bit of what I do, thanks for looking. And for my loyal readers: keep your fingers crossed :)

Baby card for Alison

I've made a baby card for Whiff of joy's illustrator Alison (the one that designs my favs Charlotte and Charlie and the animals) and her husband Jim. They are having their first baby - today I think.

Since I don't have any of the cute animals yet (waiting for them though) I decided on one of my fav stamps of all times. I don't have the opportunity to use it much so when I had the chance I took it :) The stamp is a Suzy's zoo stamp and quite hard to come by. I have put together a tiny collection of them. If you know where to get them, please let me know!

I used this brilliant template from this week's challenge at create 4 fun. I remade it a little to make it fit a boy better. It's a little jumsuit or whatever they are called. I used my promarkers and the blender to make a soft shade of blue on the bunny. I also edged the inner shape with pastel blue and the little pocket aswell. The outer shape is edged with a soft blue ink and embossed with glitterpowder. The buttons are actually brads since I didn't have two of the same buttons. I thought the buttons and letters were a little bright and made the bunny disappear so I poured dimensional glaze all over him to make him stand out.



It was such a great challenge and just in time for the babycard I wated to make.
The glitter looks a little messy I think, but it's ok. It's babyclothes, they are messy all the time anyway, lol. I just made it look real :D
There is also a babytheme at diecut dreams and I'm entering this week's challenge with this card. Just suits so perfectly with "die cuts", don't you think?
Everybody art has a theme of "shapes or punches". Can't get more shaped than this :)


Edit: After hopping around on the DT blogs I'm glad I didn't make a card with the Whiff of joys because it certainly would've been the ugliest card in the bunch. Now at least it's different. It's "special" lol.
I also forgot to mention: if you want to send Alison a babycard too you can read all about it on Katharina's blog. There is candy to be won if you need an incentive :)

Promarkers: pastel blue, blender and an old pantone pink
Stamp: Suzy's zoo
Shapes: nestabilities

Contest and my latest candy

Don't know if there will be a card today since I have an exam again on monday. Eeek! It probably will be anyway, can't stay away since I study on the table next to my craftyinvaded one :) But I have to limit my cardmaking to 1 hour. The card I made yesterday "only" took me an hour (without the colouring) Sheesh, I'm not very timeeffective, am I? LOL.

The designteam of sweetpea stamps have gotten a challenge: to make a card with the colours yellow, red and blue. It was quite the challenge! Who did what is a secret and now YOU can go and vote for your favourite (click the link above and vote on the sidebar. There are 5 cards to choose from).
The voting closes at the end of the month. I can't say which is mine, but I can tell you this: the winner will get to choose one free sheet from sweet pea stamps and if I win I'll have it as candy. Now you just need to figure out which is my card. I can tell you it's yellow, red and blue ;)

Speaking of candy:

I need to brag a little about one of my candies that I won. It's my first Sugar Nellies! I'm so happy about that because now I will be able to enter the sugarbowl blog challenges. I want to order some sugar nellies, but all that shopping takes so much time. What to buy...decisions, decisions :) Don't you love the little owls? I have just ordered an owlstamp and have an uninked one at home. I'm sure it will be a lOWLy card, haha. Ok, now I've blabbed too much. Off to study.

See ya

Feeling "peachy"

I bought this stamp (together with some of her friends and other necessary items)last friday when I "helped" Stämpelgården to celebrate their third anniversary. I coloured the image straight away, but haven't had time to finish the card. It fits a lot of autumnchallenges, but it's mainly for the justmagnolia challenge blog - following their sketch.

Other challenges that I have joined with this card are:

stampin for the weekend - colours brown orange and leafy green.
stampchallenges - brown
roses on paper - orange, brown, green and following a sketch from another challenge.
By the cute and girly - autumn glory.
The pink elephant - fall.
Crafty cardmakers - ribbon and fibers.
Crafty calendar - autumn.

I also made the the secret crafter saturday challenge, but forgot to upload the card. Grrrrr.

I'm practicing to get as many challenges as I can in one card. There is a new challenge where you have to do that. Unfortunately her theme is "pink", otherwise I might have a good shot at it. She is really good though. I think the last time I looked she has a card incorporating 17 challenges!!!



Promarkers: ivory, warm grey, cinnamon, burnt sienna, henna, umber, pastel yellow, pumpkin, berry red, cool aqua and marsh green.
Papers: Basic Grey and wild asparagus
Stamp: Magnolia

Queen kat designs bloghop

Hi and welcome to my first bloghop ever! I hope you have enjoyed all the inspiration from the DT members.
You should be arriving from Stephanies blog. If you haven't you should start from the beginning at the qkd blog.

Here's my card following this week's sketch. I'm a huge fan of these little monsters and think they are the cutest ever. I didn't want to make any scary Halloween cards. I think they look so sweet - they are just misunderstood :D
I loved playing with orange/green/brown and these wonderful papers. The tagcircle is actually a sticker and with my phenomenal abilities I managed to computer generate the sentiment to fit it. Let me hear an impressed "ooooooh", lol. I know I am impressed because computers and I...we're not an item.
The saying says:

Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.

Thought it suited the little goblins quite well, running around in the forest leaving trails.
They are drawn by the talented Jonathan Pitcher and you can find them and other monsters HERE.


Hope you got some inspiration from me. You are almost at the end of the hop. Next person to visit is Ashley.

Promarkers: warm grey2, pumpkin, terracotta, henna, marsh green and old pantone465-T.
Papers: Basic Grey "mellow".

Halloween card

Edit: I will be sending this card to Jordan since he loves animals. There is a foundation called make a child smile where you can send cards or gifts to sick children. I just found out about this. Hope you'll send something from time to time.


Just a quick post showing you a house mouse Halloween card I've been working on. I meant to make it for the house mouse challenge DT call, but for some reason they closed the call early! I was so annoyed. It said it would close monday at midnight. For me that means monday night, not sunday night. Grrr, I'm still mad about that. Anyway, the mousies shouldn't suffer for my bad mood. Here they are:

I used a very pretty corner punch I got from a House mouse friend years ago. It makes it possible to make frames because it decorates the background cardstock and leaves little corners to put the image in.

I'm entering with this card on several challenge blogs that had Halloween as their theme this week:

Simon says stamp
Cuttlebug challenge
Allsorts
Papertake weekly

And finally Crafty cardmakers had "ribbons and fibers" as their theme.

I'm quite happy with the quality of the phots today even though they were shot in the same lamlight as usual. The trick? I got a tip from a friend: put a piece of coffee filter over the flash to make it less white. Didn't work on all cards, but I think it worked pretty well here.

Now I'm off to study and sleep. See you tomorrow for the bloghop :)

House mouse stamp: "Halloween Purr-ty" HMTR1031

Big news to share!!!

I've been holding these news for about a week now and it's definately time to share:

I'VE BEEN ACCEPTED TO THE QUEEN KAT DESIGNS DESIGN TEAM!!!

These two cards and my blog landed me the spot! You have to go take a look at the wonderful stamps I'll be working with. The first month I'll be on the Royal court team and the last 5 months on Whimsical ink sorority. I'm sooo excited because I love the mermaid stamps! They are so easy to colour and don't need any extra embellishments - they speak for themselves (so to speak, lol)

I really didn't think I would make the team since the other ladies are so talented. I didn't think I would fit especially since the mermaid card was messing with me big time. It honestly took me hours to finish it and I wasn't very happy with it in the end. I thought the colouring and idea was good, but not really the outcome (but schhh, don't tell the owner, lol) Although now that I look at it it doesn't look as bad as I thought. I'm my worst critic, that's for sure. I was very pleased with the flamingo card at least, so that's always something :)

There are so many fun things going on on the qkd blog. Every wednesday we're having a Royal Kat bloghop, every saturday there is a challenge at the Whimsical ink sorority and every first wednesday of the month there is a new release!

And speaking of fun things, there is a huge sale going on at the moment. All kinds of wonderful things are discounted, so take a look:

Current Sale... (Begins 10-7-09)

* 27% off of all QKD stamps
* 55% off of all clearance
* 15-20% off of all Past Kits
* 10% off of all paper packs
* 20% off of the scrapbooking kit section
* 10% off of all grab bags
* 10% off of all acrylic blocks


I just got to play with some stamps from the new release and I can't wait to show you. I don't want to jinx it, but it's going to be fabulous :) So make sure to come back tomorrow for my first bloghop ever. I'm so excited!

Now I'm off to finish the card for the bloghop.
See you tomorrow.

Bloom where you're planted

Some of you might have seen this card half-done already, but today I managed to finish it. I started on it ages ago and meant to finish it for the Whiff of joy GDT call, but didn't get the time. I followed a sketch made by Ila. I just loved this sketch and I actually think this is one of my best cards ever.



Hope you like it as much as I do. I'm aaaalmoooost a little annoyed at the leaves being asymmetrical, but I'm trying to endure it, lol. One of them coooould be a liiiitle bit to the right... :D

Good thing I don't have repositional glue or I'd never be done with a card, LOL.



The text is embossed with clear embossing powder over "laurel leaf" Versacolour ink to give it a nice shine, like dewdrops.

Promarkers: ivory, cool aqua, marsh green, lilac, amethyst, cinnamon, burnt sienna (I think)
Stamps: Girl from Whiff of joy, sentiment from sweet pea stamps
Papers: Wild asparagus
Leaves and hinge: quickutz die
Embossing: cuttlebug