Anyone seen my mojo?

Morning all

I’m just popping by with an apology for the lack of posts recently. I’ve completely lost my mojo and don’t even fancy stepping into the craft room at the moment.

I have however, regressed back about 8 years and started doing cross stitch again which I am really enjoying so there will no doubt be some cards made incorporating those soon. I’m having a Christmas phase, probably because the weather has gone so cold and autumnal in the UK recently.

Anyway, once the children are back at school I may be able to clear my head and find that mojo! I’ve even got a new die cutting machine to play with so that has to be an incentive.

Also, look out for a very super post at the end of the week, I’ve joined a Design Team and I’m very excited about it! That’s definitely going to pull me out of my lull. 

So for now, here’s a card I made before the mojo went missing...it’s likely with the other half of the odd socks which mysteriously disappear...or in that hiding place for ‘very important things’, if only I could remember where that was...

Much love

Steph x

Naughty Nutcracker!

Hi all

Sorry for the absence of posts over the last few days. I haven’t found much time to get into the craft room as I’m busy getting things ready for school starting back next week. What started off as checking what fits, ordering more of what doesn’t and making sure names are on everything, in triplicate (!) soon turned into ‘let’s have a clear out’. So of course it took much longer than anticipated at the start of the process!

I did however manage to get a couple of cards made using my naughty nutcracker stamp (from Woodward). And why is he naughty? Because he just happened to appear in my shopping basket which was nothing to do with me of course...🤔

I have heat embossed one of the nutcracker soldiers in black powder and one in plum powder and coloured in with my alcohol markers. I have even made envelopes for these cards as they are not a regular size. First time ever making envelopes so I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out, even if it did take a while to do!

Well it’s been a dismal day here today and really feels like autumn is ready to start so we might be rushing our way into winter...best get some more Christmas cards done!

Catch up soon

Steph x

Back to Christmas!

Hi again! 

Well I thought I’d better crack on with some Christmas cards because once September hits the year seems to evaporate and before you realise it you should have written and posted those cards (at great expense!). What I tend to do each year is make a variety of cards some of which I like to be one layer for postal purposes.

These cards were made so easy because of the fabulous stamp design from Woodware. It is called Peaceful Night and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it! I also bought the Nutcracker stamp but more on that another day. 😉

I wanted a really nice dark card blank so I made my own from heavyweight dark blue card stock. These are slightly narrower than DL size because I wanted to get two out of one piece of A4 card.

I heat embossed the stamp and sentiment with WOW! gold embossing powder and painted it with Gansai Tambi Starry Colors metallic watercolour paints. Now I have to remember to make the envelopes!

I’ve just had a google of Christmas card challenges and two popped up that I have not previously entered so I will be entering and supporting these challenges as follows: 

The Holly and the Ivy Christmas challenge number 77

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas challenge number 503

Thanks for visiting ☺️

Steph

Perfect For Masculine Makes

 Morning all

It was a real struggle to push myself out of bed and go for a run this morning but as I haven’t been for one since last Monday I thought I’d better make the effort! I also find post run a good time to update my blog, providing I’m quick enough to do it before the children wake up.

Today I’m sharing another masculine make for which I have used Uniko Explosion! stamp set. I really do find this the perfect stamp set for making masculine cards (and it’s also good for female grunge style cards). I like the retro ‘batman and robin’ comic strip feel you can achieve with it too.

So here I’ve embossed a square of white stamping card with Stampin Up! Sizzix Brick Wall embossing folder. I have inked Squeezed Lemonade and Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxides through Creative Expressions Mini Splattered stencil onto the brick panel. The red ‘splatter’ is a die cut using Sizzix Thinlits Scribble & Splat die set which I have simply mat onto the panel. I stamped the yellow explosion and sentiments from the Uniko set using the same Distress Oxides and fussy cut them before adding with foam pads and matting on the sentiments. I then layered the panel onto red and blue card sticking with my primary colours for impact. The blue card is actually white card inked with Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide so that it matches exactly. 

As The Male Room are celebrating their 7th birthday I’m entering this card and wishing them many happy returns (again!). 

Well I didn’t make it the whole way through the post before the children woke up so I’d better go and make their breakfast!

See you again soon!

Steph x

Birds and Big Shots!

 Morning all

I’ve had a couple of days of not making it into the craft room due to building a chicken pen. This keeping chickens malarkey is getting expensive! The chickens are about 10 weeks old now and we have a coop for them but their ‘pen’ is currently a makeshift post and netting sort of affair which they regularly get out of. So now we have this cage like pen for them but don’t worry, it is massive and they will have plenty of room!

So with the chickens in mind I’m sharing a bird card today that I started making about six years ago...I kid you not. The bird on this card was inspired by one of the first craft magazines I read and I immediately went out and bought the stamp. It’s probably around that time I realised cardmaking might be an expensive hobby. 😂 So my little birdie has been gathering dust for six years and a couple of weeks ago I thought it was probably time to use him on a card.

Now talking of expensive crafting...I’ve been fawning over the big shot foldaway since it was launched and I was in need of a new die cutting machine at the time but I felt it was out of my price bracket so I got the good old regular big shot. Now I’m debating about treating myself to the foldaway as I have some gift vouchers to spend. Does anyone out there have it and would recommend? Also do I really need another machine???...

Thanks for your advice!

Steph x

Hot, hot, HOT!

Hi all

It’s far too hot for me this week. No one sleeps well in this heat and tempers are frayed. The girls are arguing because they are fed up of lockdown, each other and this heat. I’ve completely lost my mojo so I’ve turned to sketch challenges for inspiration. 

I’ve used the current sketch from CAS(E) this sketch! to create this card. 

I’m trying to incorporate more patterned papers into my cards and despite this looking ‘fussy’ it really is a clean and simple card as all I’ve added is two die cut envelopes, a heat embossed sentiment ‘note’ and some enamel embellishments.

Right I’d best go find that mojo...or at least muck around in the craft room for a bit and pretend I’ve done something productive! 

See you soon!

Steph x

And the winners are...

 Good morning all

Thank you for following my blog and in some cases my Instagram and Facebook pages also. 😄

You are all very welcome and I hope you enjoy following my card making journey.

Now for the important bit...the winners selected randomly this morning using random.org are:

1. prpetron@xxxx.com        You have won the Tattered Lace Japanese Lady Die

2. Suklin Gardiner                You have won the Apple Blossom Stamp Set and Sue Wilson Die

3. jackie_gray@xxxx.com    You have won the Clearly Besotted Stamp Set

If you could all please email me with your postal address and I will arrange to get these sent out as soon as possible. My email is stephmortimer4@gmail.com.

Thank you and congratulations!

Steph x

Happy birthday Mum

Hi all

It’s my Mums birthday today and I have made her a set of cards in a coordinating box. I thought this might be useful since my parents aren’t going out to the shops currently. I used a lovely card making set which came with an issue of Papercraft Essentials. 

I don’t usually like the card kits and these cards are definitely different to my usual style but I really enjoyed making them and layering up the beautiful papers. In fact I’ve started making a lot more layered cards thanks to these. I am determined to use up my large stash of patterned paper!! 😂

What I also found with these was how quick they are to make when you don’t have to do any stamping or colouring.

Well better dash, we are off to visit my Mum to wish her a happy birthday (socially distanced of course) and the girls have baked her some Smarties cookies...which I guarantee will be eaten by my Dad!! 

See you again soon

Steph x

Sending Sunshine and Rainbows

Evening all

Phew what a hot and humid day! The heat I can take but the humidity obliterates me. Thankfully it’s a bit cooler tonight so we might all get some more sleep, last night wasn’t great for any of us. 🥵

My card today uses the wonderful Concord & 9th Brighter Days stamp set. I love CN9 products and treat myself to them every now and again.

Firstly I stamped the two clouds which I had to mask in order to get the rainbow behind. I stamped the rainbow arches in red, yellow, green and purple before masking the top arch to stamp the sun. The rainbow image was die cut using a stitched square and mat onto blue card the size of the card front. Finally I stamped the sentiment in blue and mat this onto a slightly larger piece of blue card and adhered using foam pads.

AAA birthday challenge have a tic tac toe board and this card follows the left hand most column. Bright, masking and rainbow.

Right time to try and settle and get some sleep. I’m up early tomorrow morning for a run...supposedly! 

Steph x

Happy 7th birthday Male Room Craft Challenge!

Morning all

So August is also a birthday month for The Male Room Craft Challenge. I’m helping them celebrate their 7th birthday with this male themed card. 

Here I have used the stamp set that came with issue 82 of Creative Stamping and coloured the images with Tonic Nuvo alcohol markers.

I fussy cut the images by hand although I do have a Scan n Cut sometimes I like to do a little fussy cutting, especially if the images are easy to cut. 

Now the tricky bit for this card was to die cut the circles and ovals onto the patterned paper but then get the smaller dies to line up and cut the plain card below. That was a bit of a faff and is clearly why I prefer CAS!! 😂

Finally I added the sentiment using a white oval with inked edges. I have lifted all the images with foam pads but I have doubled up the height for the main images of boots and camera. 

This card really sums up our day yesterday. In my wisdom (!) I decided to take the children on a nice long walk. One we hadn’t done before through the woods and fields around our village. And we got lost!!! It’s actually surprisingly easy to wander off the path in the middle of a field. 🤦🏻‍♀️

But we didn’t panic, we sat down and had a picnic instead. 😂 

And after some sustenance I decided the best route was to climb though some tangled fencing, brambles and nettles and find our way back to the original path...and call it an ‘adventure’. This seemed to go down alright with the children!

Hmm I wonder what mischief we can get up to today...

Thanks for stopping by.

Steph x

Dance on the table!

Afternoon all

A fairly quiet morning this morning as Daddy took the girls out to a poultry farm. During lockdown we have bred eight chickens from egg stage but two were definitely cockerels so they had to go live somewhere else because we don’t want to upset the neighbours! We still aren’t sure if the remaining six are hens or not yet so we will have to let them grow a bit more and find out.

Today’s card uses the fabulous Uniko’s Background Builders Arts Decoratifs stamp set. I’m loving the current Deco trends. I’m in the process of Deco-ing our main bedroom with new bedding, wallpaper and dark blue paint. 

Firstly I lined up and stamped the border stamp on to a piece of white card slightly smaller than the A6 card front. I mat this onto black card and coloured every other image with gold Nuvo marker. Next I cut a piece of black card to fit inside the stamped frame and mat a slightly smaller piece of white card on top. On this white card I stamped just one of the border images in each corner by masking the rest of the border as I inked the stamp. Remove the mask and then stamp! I stamped further Deco images and the sentiment from Uniko’s Anniversaire Art Decoratifs stamp set. I coloured all the images on this panel with the gold Nuvo pen and added black enamel dots to the corners of the sentiment. I added the smaller panel to the card front using foam pads to give it some height. 

As it’s my mother in law’s birthday tomorrow this card has been sent to her already. It’s also my birthday tomorrow and since we won’t be going anywhere due to the Covid situation I may well drink champagne and dance on the table!!

With the ‘dance’ theme I thought this card would be a good one to enter into the current challenge over at Time Out Challenges. 

Catch up soon!

Steph x