Dude, you are so old!!

The Trophy Husband had a birthday just recently, and the Ephie Kids and I thought it would be hilarious to use the Krumspring 'For My Caveman' stamp set to whip him up an appropriate card. I even coloured him with grey hair for the occasion!

Actually, the real pun is in the sentiment right? Ironically, that actually comes from a different stamp set, called 'You Pixelate Me', but pairing them together was a natural train of thought on my behalf ;-)

Turns out The Trophy Husband also loved the idea so much that when it was his turn to attend a mate's birthday party the following week, he commissioned me to make a very similar card. He requested the dinosaur from the same 'Caveman' stamp set this time though, and I was very happy to comply.

I created a little scene for my dinosaur with some Thinlits dies from Sizzix. The tree is from the Green Garden set (661375) and the grass and cloud are from the Great Outdoors set (661228) which is a bit of a favourite of mine ;-)

I'm really enjoying the creative outlet of mixing and matching my supplies recently - I must be getting adventurous!

More melonisation

So remember how I was telling you about the awesome #melontierchen challenge on Instagram, and I shared the first attempt at a tag I made, but I thought it was too subtle? Well, I remedied that by having another go, and this time 'doing it right'!! 

You see, the idea is to colour an image to look like a watermelon, and there are of course, variations on that theme. But clearly the mainstay is going to be one section is red with seeds, and the other section is green, perhaps stripy green.
I am totally in love with this cute concept!!

Plus, I also had the new-release Neat and Tangled stamps in my hands finally, and that unicorn from the Magical Day set was just begging to be melonised!

But what's even funner than melonising your favourite images? When your kids want to join in the fun too! Both my girls took part in the challenge last time it was on, and both couldn't wait to give it a go this time around as well. They each had very specific ideas in mind about what they wanted to colour, and strict instructions on what I needed to make their images into!

First up was Moriah (she's 7) who wanted to colour a giant flower. The Sunflower set from Krumspring was perfect for the occasion because of it's large central area, as well as the many many petals, and she painted it with liquid watercolours.... without the water ;-)

Then she told me it had to be made into some sort of shaker card with lots of sequins, and so we collaborated together to come up with this tag.

Then Bethany (she's 10) jumped on the melonising band-wagon as well, and she requested the cute squirrels from the Neat and Tangled 'My Favourite Nut' stamp set. She wanted to try a few different combinations of colours to figure out which worked best, and I love that she's used an ombre approach to both her red and green colours!

Being the avid reader that she is, she requested I make her squirrels into bookmarks. Since I had made a shaker tag for Moriah I went with a similar idea and filled the bottom of her bookmarks with a little vellum pocket full of glitter. Granted, the vellum makes it look like coloured sand... but the thought was there!

Why not try melonising something yourself?
xx

Melonisation and other tag-related matters

You might have noticed but my main social media outlet is Instagram! I think it's fairly safe to say I post there every day and I share soooo much more there than anywhere else. If you don't already follow me there, here's a LINK to my account :-)

I also tend to get a lot of my inspiration from there as well. One of the ideas that's really captured my attention is the melonisation challenge that Pepita Hasenkeks started. The idea is to colour an image to look like a watermelon and there's some great examples under the hashtag #melonentierchen

To be fair, I think the tag I've created here is a little too vague and I'll probably do something more for this round. Last time I coloured THIS and THIS which I think captures the spirit of the challenge a lot more. But I still think it's a pretty cute tag. I've used the Medallion Flower Builder stamp set and it's matching dies from Neat and Tangled.

I love the instant interaction you get on Instagram too. Like when I put out a question about whether I should keep the googly eye on my diecut Natural Bird from Sizzix. I couldn't decide whether it was a bit too freaky, or whether it would pass as cute! To be honest, the majority voted that it was freaking them out...... but I kept it anyway!! LOL!!

And then popped him on a Hooray Tag I created to go in with my latest giveaway over there!

I've really been loving the size and shape of this Classic Tag 2 die, and all the matching elements that come with it are fabulous too. I've used it one other time recently as well, and that was to make this St Patrick's Day tag with all it's green and gold shaker elements.

Do you make tags? Share in the comments below because I'd love to see!

xx

Jot Issue 17

I am sooooo behind the times! I can't believe I forgot to share these here!
The last issue of Jot Magazine (Issue 17) came out at the start of March and it was the best one yet. Yes, I think I say that every time!

Here's some of the projects I had featured in the magazine....

The layout I made was for the No Adhesive gallery. I love the idea behind this which was to create a page using no sticky adhesive whatsoever. No glues or tapes, but instead you had to think a bit more creatively.

I thought this might have been quite difficult to achieve, especially for someone like me who likes to know everything is securely stuck down! I ended up using a lot of my sewing machine, but also brads and paper clips, and I was pleasantly surprised how fun and easy this turned out to be.

Next up was a card for the Hearts gallery. I started with this intricate die from Sizzix called 'Natural Love' and made it the focus of my romantic-themed card. I cut it with watercolour paper which meant I could slap some paint on all those detailed leaves.

The word 'love' is part of the die too, but I cut it separately from pink foam so it would add some dimension and form part of the sentiment. And from there the card pretty much made itself!

Last, but not least came this double-page Project Life spread. These can be on any theme and I chose to document the night our family went to our local Lights Festival. The colours of the photos were all a mixture of the black night sky along with bright saturated colours of the sculptures so I had to try and balance that out with my card and embellishment choices.

I also left plenty of space to document the story of the night, and instead of writing a series of snippets on each card that could be read separately I decided to do something a little different. I ended up writing a long 'essay' that just carried on from card to card when I ran out of space.

Jot Magazine is a FREE online digital magazine that celebrates memory keeping. You can download Issue 17 right here.

And watch out for Issue 18, because that's right around the corner! Here's a little sneak peek into what I've got featured in the next issue....

What's happening during May at Krumspring?

I can't remember if I announced it here or not, but after my stint as a Guest Designer at Krumspring Stamps in April I was invited to join the Dream Team for the next few months as well! Super excited!!

You might not have even heard of them right? It's a fairly new, fairly small (but about to go global!) Danish company making top quality acrylic stamps. Apparently Krumspring is a Danish word which means "to do something in a funny or non-traditional way". I love that idea!! 

Anyway, since there's no new releases until the end of the month (watch this space!) we've decided to do something a little bit different on the blog for the month of May and that's to spend a week spotlighting one of the previous release sets.

The first spotlight was for the Avocado Family set. See.... something a little bit funny and different? But it's also super-cute! And despite the fact that The Trophy Husband asked me why I was colouring amoeba I really like them!

They're perfect for expectant mothers, baby-showers and welcoming newborns, and that means I've got lots and lots of uses for them. As you can see, I've already made a few different projects with them - and this doesn't count the entire Project Life page I did as the title page for my own baby album!

During the spotlight week there is a sale on the featured stamp, a challenge, and of course... prizes to be won!

The next stamp to be featured (and which is the current spotlight) is the You Pixelate Me set. It probably has to be seen to be believed what the Dream Team girls have done with this stamp - think Gameboys, Pacman, Micky Mouse and so much more.
But me?..... I wanted to try something completely different...

I used the pixelate squares as a template for cross-stitching and spent an hour or so therapeutically hand-sewing all these crosses to form a simple heart shape. The effect in real life is something quite exciting, and there really are a million possibilities with this idea. 

So pop on over to the Krumspring blog to get all the spotlight stamp set inspiration, and to find out the details on the challenge and competition. Then jump to the shop to pick up the featured stamp on sale, as well as discovering a whole bunch of other sets you're going to fall in love with!

There's another Spotlight coming next week.... and this one might just be my favourite yet ;-)

Jot Magazine May Mood Board

I continue to love working with the Mood Board challenges at Jot Magazine because it pushes me to try different colour combinations and new designs that I might never have come up with by myself. Here's the latest card I've created in response to the May Mood Board which has recently gone live.

It's a quite literal interpretation of the image of the hot air balloon sailing over the top of the snowy forest below. I was really drawn to the idea of the pop of vibrant warm colours of the balloon in the midst of the cold glittery icy scene around it.

What I also love about working with these Mood Boards is that I can mix and match products in my stash without needing to stick to the one designer (which of course I need to do for much of my Creative Team work) and it allows for so many possibilities.

For this card I clearly needed a hot air balloon and so I used a stamp from the Krumspring 'Adventures Ahead' set. I embossed it with copper embossing powder and coloured it with watercolours - adding lots of layers to get the really saturated look I was after.

And the trees were cut in grey cardstock with a Sizzix die designed by Tim Holtz called 'Woodlands'. I sprayed the tops with white ink and then added lots and lots of glitter.

Last but not least I found the perfect sentiment stamp in my Neat and Tangled collection. It's part of the very popular Origami Map set.

If you're feeling as inspired as I was by the Jot Magazine May Mood Board then you can find all the details on their blog over HERE!