Carrot and Orange

Happy Friday everyone. What a bizarre week it has been. I don't think anyone who lives in England thought we'd ever see the scenes we witnessed this week. I turned on my tv on Tuesday night to see shops on the road where I used to live in London on fire and looted.  Unbelievable.

But it's at times like these that I think the simple things in life like crafting and cooking bring even more comfort than normal. I managed to find time to do both this week for my dad's birthday. I was trying to stay away from the blues and browns (yawn!) I always head straight for when making male cards, so instead based the colour scheme on the flavour of the cupcakes - carrot and orange!

Card details:
Stamps: Tiny Treats Birthday
Card: Stamper's Select White, Orange Zest, New Leaf
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Other: Copic Sketch Markers, Double Ended Banner dies, Limitless Layers 1 3/4" dies, Arglye Impression Plate

This is also my card for our brand new challenge on A Passion for Papertrey - check out the challenge here, and the prize you could win;)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hugs,

A corner of London

Hello lovelies, how is your week going? I was up in London yesterday on a course so took the opportunity to take a friend to one of my favourite corners of the capital:

Neals Yard. Image: Jonathan Gregson

Walking into Neal's Yard feels like stepping into another world, away from the hustle and bustle of touristy Convent Garden - a historic and funky courtyard with a hippy edge, full of natural health shops and vegetarian restaurants including my personal favourite, The World Food Cafe. See the open windows in this picture? That's the cafe - I urge anyone who loves world food to stop by! 

Neal's Yard. Image: Mikelo

The cafe is run by husband and wife team Chris and Carolyn Caldicott and not only feeds (sorry for the pun!) my love of world food but also my love of travel photography. Chris Caldicott is a travel writer and photographer whose stunning images adorn both the walls of the cafe and the pages of their beautiful cookery book - it makes me want to pack my suitcase every time I look at it!

So it's time for a new challenge over on A Passion for Papertrey and this time round we're focusing on borders - check out the post here for more info.

I went a little scallop crazy for my sample, and yes I forced myself to use purple  - but only because it was made for someone who loves it!

Recipe:

Stamps: Birthday Bash Sentiments/Make a Wish

Ink: Plum Pudding/Memento Tuxedo Black

Card: Stampers Select White

Paper: Bitty Dot Basics (plum pudding & black)

Other: Medium Scalloped Die/black Copic Sketch Marker

Right I have some tennis to watch now! Have a good rest of the week!
Hugs,

I'm back!

Hello hello blogland! My few months' break from blogging last year turned into a longer break that I'd anticipated but it's time for my comeback haha!

Life got very busy at the end of last year and, more than that, I lost my crafting mojo and also my love of blogging, so I decided to have a break for some time out and to reflect on why I wanted to blog. My blog was just a place to showcase my cards and felt like it was becoming a chore so I knew the best thing was to step back from it for a while.

During that time I took a fabulous online blogging course which re-inspired me and made me realise I wanted my blog to be more personal rather than just a place to show my cards. I'm still not sure what my blog is going to become - I just know it didn't feel like me so hopefully that will change a bit:)

I also had my blog re-designed, there is still a bit of tweaking to do on the other pages but I love the look of it - a big thank you to Kelly at Creative K for designing it just how I wanted.

Stamping will still be at the heart of my blog and be warned - I have a BIG backlog of cards I've made over the past few months to share! But for now it's time for a new challenge over on A Passion for Papertrey - check out the blog for full deets, here is my sample:

Card Recipe: (All supplies PTI unless otherwise stated)
Stamps: Scattered Showers
Ink: Ripe Avocado/Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Card: Kraft/ Ripe Avocado/ Stamper's Select White
Paper: 2008 & 2009 Bitty Dot Basics
Other: Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)/Ripe Avocado Twill/sewing machine/Tag Sale 2

Thank you for your emails asking if everything was ok with me during my absence. It feels good to be back blogging and to be amongst my lovely bloggy friends again :)

Hugs,

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig

Happy St Patrick's Day to you all, and especially to my Irish Friends!

I've always adored Ireland - the landscape, the music, the traditions and, of course, the craic ;) - hopefully I'll be able to have a sup of the dark stuff tonight to celebrate ;) It's a funny thing that we British tend to celebrate St Paddy's Day more than our own national day!

When I was first asked by a friend to make her a Christening card with an image of rabbits at the bottom of a cross (to match a painting of a rabbit she was giving her grandson) I didn't think I'd be able to do it. But then I came across my PTI Bitty Baby Blessing set which by chance contained the perfect size bunny!



Recipe:

Stamps - Everyday Blessings(PTI)/Bitty Baby Blessings(PTI)
Card - Stamper's Select White/Aqua Mist
Paper - Pretty Pastels
Other - Copic Sketch Markers/Oval Nestabilities/Aqua Mist Twill ribbon (PTI)/computer generated sentiment

To stamp the bunny in reverse so it faced the other I simply stamped it on a spare flat piece of rubber, then stamped that onto the image - the outline was slightly faint but nothing going over it with a Copic Pen couldn't fix (and WAY better than my drawing skills!)

I'll leave you with my favourite Irish Blessing - and may the luck of the Irish be with you today!!

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you
In the palm of his hand.


Kate xx

Summer Days

Hi all! I had every intention of posting last night but got totally caught up with Murray's match at Wimbledon - wow, what an epic!! It was so tense I could barely watch, I can only imagine how amazing the atmosphere must have been like on Centre Court!

As well as Wimbledon one of the things I love about summer is mouth-watering summer fruits - every Thursday I buy several punnets of strawberries from our local Farmer's Market and I've been going crazy for blueberries too. Over the weekend I bought these:


And had a very productive day's cooking with them:


Blueberry and Vanilla muffins, Blueberry conserve and a Blueberry and Apple pie... like crafting I adore the creative process of baking, and they all taste pretty good too!!

Yesterday we set a new challenge over on A Passion for Papertrey - this week it's all about buttons. Here are my samples for the challenge:


I sewed all the buttons onto the card in a rough heart shape:


And made a matching notebook with my new Bind-It-All, definitely need some more practice as using this but I just love it's possibilities!


All details and info on entering the challenge (there's always a prize!) are on A Passion for Papertrey.

Thanks for visiting!

Kate x

Inspiration...

This was the inspiration piece I chose for last week's Inspiration and Themes Challenge at In Love With Stamping:


I love the fresh and clean lines and colours of this bed linen from John Lewis - no wonder my eye was drawn to it - it's my favourite mix of aqua, neutrals and yellow.... in fact it's a pretty good match for the colours I chose for my blog design isn't it!

Here is the card I made based on the picture - the colours I chose were Sahara Sand, Whisper White, So Saffron, Close to Cocoa and Sage Shadow.

I used my brand spankin new Swiss Cheese fiskars punch for the bottom Close to Cocoa layer - fun isn't it! The Sage Shadow layer was stamped with the same colour ink with the Sanded background stamp and used Stampin Up markers to colour the sentiment. I really like this card (am I allowed to say that lol!)

Recipe: (Stampin Up unless stated)
Stamps - Occasional Greetings/Sanded backgrounder
Ink - Sage Shadow/Markers - Close to Cocoa, Sage Shadow, So Saffron
Card - Whisper White/Sahara Sand/Close to Cocoa/Sage Shadow
Paper - So Saffron DSP
Other - Scallop border punch/Swiss Cheese border punch (Fiskars)/Labels Four dies (Spellbinder)/buttons (Papertrey Ink)/linen thread/Kraft ribbon

For any Papertrey fans - we've set a new challenge over on A Passion for Papertrey today, to make a card with at least two flowers on it, here's my sample:


Thanks for visiting and have a great week, see you soon I hope!

Kate x

Papertrey card

Here's a peek at a card I've posted over on A Passion for Papertrey.... along with my eulogy to Raspberry Fizz!

Exciting news!!

Hi everyone - hope you had a great weekend! We had some glorious sunshine and for the first time in about 4 months I was able to lie outside on the sun lounger - heavenly! Not quite bikini weather but still!

Now today I have some very exciting news! Whilst I adore Stampin Up (and certainly wouldn't be a demonstrator if I didn't) I am also a huge fan of Papertrey Ink.

I'm sure my lovely friend Steph needs no introduction - not only is she a hugely talented stamper who can adapt to all styles of paper-crafting but she is also hugely generous with her blog candies.

Steph and I met online and found we had a mutual love of Papertrey so decided to start THIS


I hope you'll visit us.... there may even be something exciting up for grabs *wink*