31 Nights of Halloween - Night 12

Hello, and welcome to day 12 of the 31 Nights of Halloween Blog Celebration!

The card I'm sharing today was made for the October issue of Making Cards Magazine and all instructions for it are in there. 

It's a slider card and I used the super fun Bat Balloon rubber stamp for my image and to make it extra fun I hid the pumpkin behind several gravestones made using the Dracula's Coffin die set.

As you slide the balloon up, 

the pumpkin gradually appears,

until it's in the sky!

     

Thank you for stopping by and be sure to stop by the Whimsy blog tomorrow night at 6pm for more 31 Nights of Halloween !!

Flower Fairy

Hello! It's Linda here today fresh from my holiday in Rome with something sweet to share with you.

It's hard to believe that we're already almost halfway through September and racing towards the end of the year. Have you started making your Christmas cards yet? I really need to get started on mine and to help there are tons of wonderful Christmas stamps and stamp sets available from Whimsy Stamps, including some gorgeous Christmas fairies just released this month.

Today I have a non Christmas fairy to share with you, this is an older stamp but I've been itching to use her for a while, she looks so sassy and modern!

I've coloured her with my Zig Markers, those of you who know me will know that these are now easily my 'go to' markers of choice though I have previously used Copics and Distress Ink Markers (which I still sometimes use).

I made a reasonably simple card, not at all difficult to construct, but quite striking with the use of some eye-catching papers to match your colouring.

After colouring her I fussy cut her out and popped her up on some foam tape, showcased by 2 frames cut using the Shaker Maker Rectangle die set. The background behind the frames is created using the Formal Lattice Stencil and some inks to match the colours on the fairy.
The sentiment is from the Fly By clear stamp set.

I've listed all the products used below with links to the items in the store, just click on the pictures!

    

I hope you enjoyed my card today!

Baby Love

Hello! Linda here on the blog today.

I have a sweet little card for you, using the Giraffe Baby Love stamp by Whimsy Stamps.

This is a great card for so many different occasions, not just for a new baby.

I've also used the Cloud and Grass Edger dies and the Shaker Maker Combo die set from Whimsy Stamps to make my card.

I used a giraffe stencil from my stash to create the pattern on my frame using Vintage Photo and Antique Linen distress inks.

My stamp is coloured with Zig Watercolor Markers and I used a little Tumbled Glass distress ink to add a little colour to the skyline and on the edges of the clouds.




Thanks for much for dropping by!

Stuck on You Cactus

Hello!

I have a simple layered card to share with you today using the cute and pretty 

Fairy and Puppy rubber stamp.

I coloured this one all in Distress Ink markers as a bit of a change from Zigs and used some layers of patterned papers from my stash to match the colours to. 

These aren't at all my 'usual' colour choices but I love them and I actually think they suit the stamp very well.

The sentiment is from the the clear stamp set Polka Dot Fun which has a great selection of simple sentiments that don't take up heaps of room and are great on little 'badges'.

I've listed the products available in the Whimsy Store at the end of my post, along with links to take you directly to the items, just click on the pictures.

Thanks for visiting!

Meet Our Creative Team - Linda

I’m an original Cockney Sparrow, from London, but now in Leeds, working full time in one of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe. I have a grown up son and daughter still living in London. I’ve done everything from making novelty cakes to designing and making elaborate dance costumes, but I’ve been making cards now for just over 4 years and I’m still addicted.


1.)    If you could have a super power, what would it be?  The ability to stop time would be great since I never have enough, but I think I would have to choose the ability to transport anything anywhere instantly. That way I could send my cards to anyone I wanted to without having to worry about posting them!

2.)    List 3 things someone would be surprised to learn about you? I once lived in France for almost a year.   I’m only 5’ 1”, for some reason everyone always seems to expect me to be taller!  I once appeared in modern version of a Midsummer Night’s Dream as a Punk Rock version of Puck.

3.)    What Whimsy stamp or stamp set could you not live without and why? The Abstract Christmas clear stamp set. This has so many great seasonal sentiments that you can mix and match and as an added bonus has a great image that’s perfect for bulk production of Christmas cards and is extremely versatile for different looks. I think this is the set I have used most of all in 2017.

4.)    What is your favorite color combo and favorite coloring medium? I don’t really have a favourite colouring medium as I like to experiment and have coloured with many different mediums, including alcohol markers, coloured pencils, distress inks and inktense pencils, but my favourite medium of the moment is definitely Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers.  Again I don’t really have a favourite combo, but I love anything bright, such as lime green and bright pink, teal and orange or turquoise and violet.

5.)    If you had to survive on just 3 foods, what would they be?  Who needs 3? Just give me coffee and chocolate lol!

6.)    What do you like most about being a member of the Whimsy Creative Team? I love that the team is so versatile. Everyone has their own style and their own vibe, it’s like one big creative melting pot, you can’t help but be inspired, Denise is such a great boss and Alanna and the team are so friendly it’s a joy to be part of it all.

7.)    What challenges you when stamping/crafting? I think it’s so easy to fall into a rut and lose your mojo, so I like to challenge myself to try new things, be that a new technique or a different colouring medium or using different materials etc. to change things up sometimes.

So hard to choose just one, but I love this image and I love the way the card turned out, the bright colours and the variety of mediums (distress inks, Zig Markers) and techniques (watercolouring, stenciling, ink blending, masking, die-cutting and fussy cutting),used.

Snow Man Tidings - Shadow Box Card

Hello!

I have a little shadow box style card to share with you today using the Snow Man Tidings stamp set.

I stamped and coloured my images before cutting them out with the matching dies and setting aside.

Then I made my pink sky and cloudy background with a stencil and distress ink and glued that to my card base.

I made some snow banks with white cardstock using the borders dies.
I added some glitter to the trees with some Nuvo Glimmer Paste  and then cut several frames from the same deep pink card stock as my base. I glue my elements to the snow banks and the snow banks to some of the frames adding extra frames between to add dimension (if you want to cut less frames or have less weight to the card you can substitute craft foam or foam tape between layers, but I prefer the neatness of using the extra layers of cardstock).

I finished with a frame cut from pink glitter paper and popped the final elements up with foam tape.

I used the following Whimsy products on my card, click on the pictures to take you to the products in store.

Thanks for dropping by!

31 Nights of Halloween Night 28

Hello!

I hope you're enjoying our 31 nights of Halloween spooktacular! We're almost to the witching hour, just 3 more days to go. 

Now when you look at my 'Halloween' card, you'll see that it actually has a birthday sentiment on it. This is because in the UK we don't really send Halloween cards and our Halloween celebrations are really not so spectacular as over in the USA. 

However, people DO have birthday's on or around the Halloween celebration, so this still counts as a Halloween card right? 

I really wanted to give my card a fab spooky background, so I used my Distress Oxide inks to blend a moody night sky lit by the moon's glow, masking the moon and then colouring in later with a mix of Distress Oxide ink and a couple of grey toned Zig markers.

I coloured my vampire to coordinate with my background, with Zig markers and cut him out with the matching die. I die-cut the rest of my elements from black card stock, heat embossing my sentiment in white on top of my large gravestone and assembled my card. 

I added a little ink and some Wink of Stella to some of my elements to give them a glow and sparkle, and added some dots of white pen and glitter pen to my sky to look like stars.

I mounted my panel onto a plain black card base and just like magic (black of course) my card was complete.

I've added all the Whimsy products used below, with links to the items.

I have a prize to giveaway today, so for the chance to win  please visit my blog by following the link here and leave me a comment telling me what you usually do to celebrate Halloween. You have till the 30th October to enter, and the winners will all be announced here on the 31st.

Don't forget to keep checking back here every night for more Halloween fun and giveaways!

Quick and easy Christmas cards.

Well I can't ignore it. Christmas is truly on it's way and it's time I started getting serious about making my Christmas cards.

I don't know about you, but though there are cards I will spend a couple of hours on for special people, if I need to make a lot of cards, I need to simplify so that I can make lots in less time. 

Sometimes though when batch making cards you don't want to make them all the same right? 

So when I received the Abstract Christmas stamp set I was overjoyed, because this was a stamp set that was very versatile, (not to mention that it comes with so many mix and match seasonal sentiments that work great with other stamp sets).

So below I've shown a few examples of different ways I've used this stamp set and each card took only around 15  minutes to make on average.

A stamp set, some ink and embossing powder, plain card,  a couple of basic rectangle dies and simple embellishments was all it took to make these cards and I finished them all in an evening. 

You can find a link to the stamp set I used below.

Time to get started on those Christmas cards!