House Mouse goes Swedish

I was actually thinking of a suitable birthday card for a friend when I stumbled upon the Creative Card Crew's Show us the colours of your country while looking at the House Mice and their cheese parcels (which is such a cute image) .. this is what came out.

It also gave me a chance to try out my promarkers on the House Mice, which worked surprisingly well. The mice themselves - i.e. the image - is embossed using black Versafine and clear powder (Versafine works very well for embossing, you just have to hurry a little..)
The flags are old OLD stash (probably 1950s, Christmas decorations from an old store), as is the lace. Paper shaped with the nice free patterns over at Lili of the Valley's.
Let's see if I can put this over at the House Mouse challenge blog as well as with Simon Says

Hearts for Henry Mouse

Valentine drawing closer, time to get into that romantic feeling.. what better way than with cute Henry with heart (he is adorable, hugging a heart), coloured with promarkers and some glossy inkssentials (because the gloss gives such a lift), more hearts, gold embossed and promarker coloured butterflies, edge with stickles (glitter glue) and some bling, sparkly cut-out flowers, small sparkling hearts.. The embossed borders of the butterflies do not show very well unfortunately, they give a lot of glitter to the actual card

So, will our loved one get the point, we wonder, or do we need to sprinkle on more hearts...
While we wonder .. entering this in passion for promarkers and Bunny Zoe's Crafts Challenge. Oh and I can't resist adding him to the "Getting Warmed Up" challenge over at Stampin For the Weekend.
Perhaps it can fit into the Whiff of Joy "Love is in the air" challenge as well..

Take it easy

The pavements and roads are icy, slippery and full of gravel buried in the ice, so it's quite dangerous to be out walking. Add a bit of distraction in the form of message sending and you have an accident waiting to happen.
So, for those unfortunates it's time for a card. Ever-cute Henry with a broken foot, coloured with promarkers (of course).

I like the scissored borders, nice effect. The upper leaves are cutouts from the letterpaper at the bottom. The sign is hand written. Got to get hold of a printer one of these days...

Musing Melinda - thinking of you

Finally got around to buying a few Whiff of Joy stamps designed by Elisabeth Bell - they are all beautiful but this one has to be one of my favourites. She's so sweet.... and it's amazing how different colouring completely change the look (I have done another one with green ink and brown-green colouring, might finish that later today).
Lovely Musing Melinda, embossed in gold (VersaColor), coloured with promarkers (yellow and blue tones, plus skin tones and ivory). Various papers (old stash and new), scissored borders, some punched flowers, stamped butterflies, handwritten sentiment in gold.

The dark-blue paper is about 20 years old (actually a stash of long-forgotten letterpaper), the card stock (watercolour paper) and scissors about the same age (old stuff keep well :-)). Stamps and flowers brand new (as is the embossing - only got the heat gun a few days ago!)
Entering this in the CES Challenge Angels&Fairies and into the always fun Sketch N Stash challenge

  

House-Mouse

I love the House Mice but I'm finding them very hard to colour in to make them justice. This simple card is made with watercolour pencils, so far the best way but I'm trying to get to grips with the promarkers - try and try again.
The text says "It's a girl!", not sure if it shows in the photo. Plenty of pink, hearts, flowers

Entering it in the House-Mouse blog jump "New beginnings" just for the fun of it - it's actually a bit too simple to fit with all the gorgeous designs there..
I definitely need more House-Mouse stamps.. practice makes perfekt, right?

The great people over at Crafty Cardmakers have a challenge out now for pencils, so here goes.. 

We love Henry (and Whiff of Joy)

Today I got my new Whiff of Joy stamps (YAY!), including the ever-cute Henry, so I just had to try something love-inspired.. but simple, as I didn't have much bling at home. Coloured with watercolour pencils, the heart has a glossy accent (by Inkssentials), shapes cut by hand (no cuttlebug or dies in this household. Yet..), a little lace, some green & pink rhinestones, some flowers, two stamped & coloured butterflies and a bunch of watermark-stamped golden butterflies - so far my favourite stamps from that clear stamp sheet. And a handwritten sign (no working printer handy).

The flash made the colours a bit weird, it's a lovely old-fashioned shade of pink and an almost mossy green.
It's a very old & new card - the stamp I got today. The water colour pencils I bought 20 years ago and have hardly used the last 15 years.. the pattern paper with the butterflies is 10 years old, the pink paper bought today.

This goes into the Whiff of Joy challenge no. 95
And, since it's a mix of new and old, into the Sketch and Stash challenge

And yes, the recipient liked it :-)

Butterfly box

Well, since the snow continued to fall what better way to spend the day than with a bit of scrapbooking, themed for dreams of summer..

Decided to try decorating a gift box of sorts, nice for perhaps a gift certificate at a craft store?
Tried a variety of larger stamps but they did not quite do it so in the end I went for butterfly stamps (from My Paper World), coloured with promarkers and some stamped on the cardstock (versacolor gold inkpad) as well. Some stickle glue, some flowers, a gift tag and a gold ribbon to tie the top together.
Pretty basic, just an easy box to make while still fun to decorate.

And, while I'm at it, I'll enter this attempt in the Truly Scrumptious Challenge "Dream of Summer"  and with "Anything Goes" over at Papertake Weekly 

Check out the gorgeous cards at Papertake Weekly, made with stamps from Lili Of The Valley - so cute!

Giordano stamps

Recently bought one of the cute Giordano stamps and had to try making a card with it. These cute animals are to-die-for on cards and cut-outs, but it turns out that in stamp form they are - not surprisingly - very hard to colour with any sort of justice to the original image.
Anyway, it turned out like this in the end

(and just might end up as a birthday card).
To indulge in more of these cuties, check out the selection of Giordany stamps at the superb webshop of Joanna Sheen - http://www.joannasheen.co.uk/craft-supplies/giordano-studio-rubber-stamps/
I'm entering this in the fun "Anything Goes" Fuzzy Wuzzy Challenge while I'm at it.

Finally caught up with the world

.. once in a while you want to try something new. Or, in this case, try something that's seemingly old news for everyone else, like creating your own blog.

I have a vague suspicion that the content won't write itself (no fun with an empty blog, is there) so it will be interesting to see whether Inspiration will suddenly strike - or not.

While waiting for this momentous event, let's check out the weather..

Yup. Still winter outside. Which means it's possible to indulge in some scrapbooking without wasting precious time in the garden.