Just a suggestion...and a card

I mentioned in my last post, that I have just started working for the very talented Ju Kneipp. She lives in Brazil, and is a designer at Cat Scrap and DigiScrapper Brazil.

Every Wednesday is Dollar Day at DigiScrapper Brazil - and I have to say WOW at the number of fab kits they regularly include. If you want to sample Ju (or any of the other designers!) work, this is the perfect day to snag a bargain. Today, for example she's got 4 kits up for $1 (which is under 80p!!), including one of my faves:
...seriously, who can resist these cute frogs? Needless to say, I've been spending.... :) I would have a couple of cards made with her designs to show you today too, but my DH has put our camera somewhere 'safe'. Humph.

Its the school half-term holidays over here in the UK, and I've just had a lovely day with Alex: going to the cinema to see Tooth Fairy, and then for noodles afterwards. He's growing so fast, that its lovely to have him all to myself. I doubt I'll be so sentimental towards the end of the Summer holidays (!), but half-term holidays are just wonderful. It does mean alot less crafting time, but I do have one card to share today that fortunately I had already photographed!:

Its a digital card, which I made using Eva Kipler's Barefoot in the Park, carefully merged with a sweet digital stamp from the Pure Innocence range by Heather Ellis. I used a paper from the kit to 'make' the little girls dress, and then added additional colour to her and the butterfly with just a light dust of chalks. The photo above is linked for more details should you want them :)

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Sx

Spring flowers and Chinese take-away

We are having beautifully sunny weekend here in the UK - I have washing drying in the warm, gentle breeze, my son is happily surveying his kingdom from the top of his climbing frame and even my husband is in a good mood! All is well, in my little corner of the world :)

I wanted to share the card above with you today 'cos it such a nice Spring day, and it was made with a sweet kit called 'Touch of Spring' from the lovely ladies of Polka Dot Plum designs! I made it for the April edition of The Fix, from DigiScrap Addicts - which includes this kit and an additional three others too. Bargain, and well worth checking out, ladies and gentlemen!

The card was made using my Sizzix Big Shot and template to cut the vase out, though I really do think you could achieve a similar look using sticky foam pads.

All the flowers were from the kit; I just printed and snipped them out then dusted the edges with pink chalk. The tag is actually a journalling element from the kit, but it works prefectly as a tag too, don't you think?

Chalk is definitely my favourite colouring medium - I love the delicate hint of colour it gives, plus I never seem to be able to get an even, neat flow of colour when I use pens, though I am very willing to concede it is simply because I don't practice enough with them!

On to other things...

I subscribe to the weekly newsletter from Scrap Orchard, and was very sorry to read that both Megan Turnidge and Yari of Jady Day Studios were retiring from designing. Their creations are just lovely, and I'm sorry to see them both go. On the good side for we consumers, they are both having fantastic retirement sales, and I highly recommend indulging! Oh, don't miss out on picking up a Megan's hybrid templates - they're a real bargain. I made these with her takeaway box template:

...all decorated with Kate Hadfield's gorgeous Chinese Zodiac doodles (but if you like what you see in the photo, you can grab them all ready-to-print from here!).


Wishing you all sunshine and fluffy white clouds...


Sx

Hills made from clouds, and fonts

Sometimes when I see a kit, its simply love at first sight and I have to have it. This happened when I saw Zoe Pearn's Away We Go (from Sweet Shoppe Designs) - I just fell for its fun retro feel. I teamed it up with some birthday 'And I Quote' wordart by MandaBean, and voila!

I had to modify the wordart a little in order to make it 'fit', and I also printed the large car separately onto card so that I could layer it with sticky foam pads. ....oh, and the hills were made by layering the greeny paper from the kit over an expanded cloud element. Did you guess?

Do you have a weakness for fonts? Well, have you discovered the amazingly generous Kevin & Amanda.com's Free Fonts?

If you like your fonts to look more handwritten, or are looking for something just a little different, then you must, MUST check them out! Their font creations are all free to download, but do check their terms of use if you plan to use them for anything but a personal layout or card. I can't tell you how much I love the fonts from these lovely people!

This card of mine used 'Smiley Monster' from Kevin & Amanda.com - plus Zoo Day by Kristin Aagard, of course!

Bye for now,

Sx

Pink Petticoat challenge

Liz, of Pink Petticoat fame, set a nice blog challenge recently to create a new look with her papers using our printers. I made a tablecloth!

I opened, rotated and printed striped duck-egg blue paper of her Lola's Boudoir kit in Word, so that the stripes were quite compact. I then repeated the process with pistachio stripes, et voila!

The cakes and the 'plate' are from her Cupcakes kit printed on a washed out duck-egg blue background, then layered onto another duck-egg blue background. The cups are part of a font from Scrapnfonts , again coloured and layered.

I've printed the stripes using the pistachio and pink, which will make a very cute little girls dress on a card sometime in the near future - or maybe a picnic blanket!

By the way, my source of card blanks has dried up (why, Lakeland Ltd? How could you do this to me? sniff...), so if anyone could recommend a new source of excellent quality blanks I would be really, really, really grateful. Or does everyone make their own - and if so where do you get your card? Liz - may be this is another query that could be added to your mini forum along with the printer question (which I was very interested to read by the way)?

I'm off to add Liz's lovely new logo to my blog (if I can remember how...)

Sx

All papers and cakes: Pink Petticoat; Cup images: Scrapnfonts; Ribbon & bloom: Poppicrafts; Brad & rub-ons: Doodlebug Designs; Chalks: Dovecraft