Phoenix Inspirations

I love my Stampin' Up punches - they are so versatile and can be used in so many different ways - just check in my labels under 2 Step Bird/Owl punch and you will see. So when my friend Louise came round to play last week and showed me these little chickies I just had to have a go (I did get her permission!!) This is made using the 2 Step Owl punch and So Saffron and Daffodil Delight card stock plus a little bit of Pumpkin Pie. See how fabulous they look in a gang Watch out for an Easter project later in the week using these little cuties!! See you soon - Jacqueline xx

OK - who's the numpty that prepared her post last night and forgot to schedule it and left it in draft? Hmm yes well.........any way very late here are my cards for this week's challenge at  52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown . We have an Anything Goes theme this week as it's the 5th week of the month. This being so I have (for one week only) decided to go 'off piste' somewhat and create a couple of 3D objects instead of cards. Please take a look This is a little treat cup hanger that I made at a workshop just before Christmas. It's die cut on the Big Shot and then decorated using the Stampin' Up set Pines and Poinsettias. I've made quite a few of these little birdhouses - they make great holders for choccies!! This one has been decorated with robins made with the S'U 2 Step Bird punch. Some of the leaves have had Liquid Pearls added to look like mistletoe berries. I've also added some frosting to the roof. Mynnette  - my partner in crime...

I made this card a little while ago but thought I would dig it out today to show you. It's not really 'me' but anyhow - here it is Those rosettes were mighty fiddly things to do I can tell you! I think the card stock may have been a bit thick as they would not lie flat to be glued! Here is a close up The cupcake case was also pleated and my sentiment is from Flight of the Butterfly. Colours used were Baja Breeze, So Saffron, and Regal Rose. The patterned paper is some retired SU Springtime Vintage DSP. I'm feeling a bit peeved at the moment - my daughter has just come home from uni, she's only been home 10 minutes and she's dumped her washing, let the cat in my craft room and now gone out to the pub! I wouldn't feel so bad but my husband escaped with her leaving me to clear up the devastation caused by a rampaging cat! I think I may sulk and not cook any tea! Bye for now - Jacqueline xx

It's Mid-week Motivation time over at  Make My Monday  and today's inspiration piece is a Baby Card The card started with me finding the sentiment in my stash and I knew that it would be perfect for this week's challenge - found  here . My blue background is a piece of white card stock sponged with Baja Breeze ink and some clouds that have been stamped and cut out. I cut my grass from green card stock and added a few teeny tiny flowers (Papermania Mini Punch - Flower). The washing line is two thin strips of Chocolate Chip card stock and the washing is punched from my Stampin' Up Two Step Owl punch - they are punched in pastel shades. Thanks for stopping by today and taking a look - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Hello all, I'm back home now and having a play. After four days of no crafting what so ever I am back in my craft room - creating. I thought I would start with this week's sketch over  Simply Stampin' Here is my card I started off with some Everyday Enchantment SAB DSP and cut it to fit my card blank - 5" x 5" Whisper White. I then used Pumpkin Pie, Pool Party and more Whisper White for matting and layering. My images are from my new Charming set and are stamped in Pool Party and Peach Parfait ink. I punched a few tiny flowers to pretty up the border a bit and also added a few pearls. Lucky me - I'm off out tonight to a scrapbook workshop, see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Morning all - it's Monday again so that means it's time for a new challenge over at  Make My Monday . This week the challenge is to make a New Life card. It has to be spring themed too as that's this month's theme. So New Life can include such things as Easter, Babies, Animals or even a New Home. I chose to do an Easter card - the egg stamp in Nature Walk is excellent for this - take a look This is a twisted easel card and I have repeat stamped the eggs and then coloured them in using pencils in pastel shades. (Don't you think they look a bit like choccie mini eggs?) The bird from Nature Walk fits in perfectly as does my lovely Young Vermillion. To prop up the card I have added a nest and eggs bought locally at a shop in town. Punched flowers and pearls add a finishing touch (and also hide a couple of smudges!!!). Thanks for looking - please pop over to the blog and take a look at what my fellow DT ladies have done too - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Hello - hope everyone is having a great weekend - I have a quickie today, scheduled 'cos as you know I'm away at the moment. It follows the sketch at this week's  Freshly Made Sketches   and the colour theme at  CR84FN Color Challenge   And here is my card This is a fabulously bright colour combo including Melon Mambo, Tangerine Tango and Daffodil Delight. My stamp set of choice is the Hostess set Precious Butterflies. All being well I shall be back home tomorrow night so see you soon - Jacqueline xx

It's  52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown  time once more and this week Mynnette has chosen the challenge. She wants us to add Decorative Papers as an Embellishment. For my first card I have made some little Christmas trees. They were die-cut on my Cuttlebug using a nesting Bunting Die (Papermania). I attached them together so that although they stand out from the card they can also fold flat for posting - take a look I have used more of my Christmas Wishes DSP as it seems to be going on forever!!! and I have added a sentiment with a Hero Arts stamp. My second card is somewhat different - I had an idea in my head but it didn't come out as I expected. It's very clean and simple in appearance - what do you think? Again using my DSP I made some rosette flowers but only half  and I made them to decrease in size - hopefully to look like a Christmas tree shape. Actually although it looks very CAS it took AGES to make !! - that'll teach me to have crazy ideas!! ...

Hello I'm here to day with a scheduled post as I am away for the weekend visiting mum and dad and looking forward to having a great time. My card today follows the sketch over on  Stampin' Royalty   and the 'Think Spring (Or Autumn)' theme over on  SUO Challenges I have used Whisper White and Baja Breeze card stock along with some Springtime Vintage DSP. My swirls and flowers are from Everything Eleanor and are coloured with a Pool Party Stampin' Write marker and my sentiment is from Bird on a Branch. My card follows the Spring theme - not Autumn as I live in the UK. Hope everyone has a fab weekend - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Morning all - I had great fun making this card I'm about to show you. It took two hours to make - the whole of Midsommer Murders!! I do find crafting in front of the telly at night very relaxing. I followed the sketch from this week's  Pals Paper Arts  challenge   and the theme over on  The Paper Players   Here is my card I used two different shades of grey card stock plus Whisper White. I also added some SU retired DSP in Baja Breeze. The flourish is from Everything Eleanor and has some Boho Blossoms placed around it with my buttons on top. My Sentiment is from My Friend. I'm off now to visit my dad - he's in the middle of his radiotherapy so I expect he will need some cheering up - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Hello everyone - today is Mid-week Motivation day at  Make My Monday  and if you head on over there you will find a step by step tutorial on how I made my flowers for today's card. Firstly here is a close up of my flower - it's a pansy It's made using the Stampin' Up Butterfly punch. I also used Perfect Plum and So Saffron card stock along with Perfect Plum and Elegant Eggplant ink. The veins were added with a Concord Crush Stampin' Write marker. I made three of these fabulous flowers and added them to a card - take a look The tags are made with Crumb Cake card stock and the Large Tag punch and just elongated a little. The base is Whisper White and the sentiment is from My Friend. I found a few scraps of ribbon to tie in my tags. I hope you like this folks as it's going in to this week's  Simply Stampin'  challenge which is 'Totally Tags'. Also  St. Luke's Charity Cards Challenge  - Spring into Spring and  The Kraft Journal  - An...

I found the time today to follow the sketch from this week's  Mojo Monday  challenge. I am going away at the end of the week and I have been frantically crafting and getting all my DT pieces made and scheduled. I also have a meeting tonight so have been typing minutes and compiling agendas. The thing was though - Louise dropped round and brought with her my new Stampin' Up set - Charming so I just had to have a play! Here is the sketch I followed   and here is my card My card stock colours are Poppy Parade, Lucky Limeade and Whisper White, I also used a little of my precious S-A-B DSP. My inks are Poppy Parade and Lucky Limeade. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

This week at  Less is More  Chrissie and Mandi would like to see some MASKING. Now post-it-notes are never far from my side and are perfect for this technique. I dug out a stamp that I have had for years - it's an Easter egg so it only has a limited time span for use and got stamping. The eggs have been coloured with Promarkers - the purple one was stamped first and then covered with a post-it-note, I then stamped the yellow one followed by the blue one at the back. I was tempted to stamp more  but this 'Less is More' so I stopped at three. Less is More is not an option though when it comes to Easter eggs - don't you agree girls?! - Bye for now - Jacqueline xx

Today at  Make My Monday  the challenge is to make a 'Spring Fold Card' but still following the monthly Spring theme. Confused? Take a look at my card There is a tutorial to follow here  and it's really easy to follow - I promise! So my card - is made using Whisper White, Almost Amethyst and Garden green card stock. The pansies were made using the Stampin' Up Butterfly Punch and the leaves, square label and border were die cut on my Cuttlebug. Here's a close up of my flowers Please pop over to the blog to see what my fellow team mates have come up with and I will see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Whilst adding my last post I was informed by blogger that I was unable to upload any more photos as my Picasa web albums had reached their limit - I didn't even know I had a Picasa web album let alone a limit - hee hee. So what I have done is I have paid $5.00 to upgrade from 1GB to 20GB and I now have plenty of space. Phew! I just wanted to know if this had happened to anyone else - did you pay to upgrade or did you delete photos from your earliest posts? I have deleted a couple of photos and I just have a huge black square and a ! where they used to be which is quite unsightly, it would also take loads of time to do this and make any significant difference. Please tell me what you think - thank you - Jacqueline xx

Thursday night was workshop night and me and the girls made 'Spotlight Cards' - this is where you take a stamped image in black ink and then spotlight an area in colour Growing Green is an excellent set to use as there are large areas suitable for colouring in. To build my picture I used post-it-note to mask off areas so that I could make a bigger picture and give a 3D effect. Here is a close up of the spotlit area Stampin' Write markers were used for the colouring in Lucky Limeade and Blushing Bride - I used matching card stock for matting and layering. Of course as this was a workshop you will find a step by step tutorial here  on my Craft Club Blog. See you later - Jacqueline xx

It's time for  52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown  again and this week we have a *THEME* - take a look   My first card features a Polar Bear - star gazing It's an easel card attached to a drawer - great for combining cards and gifts in one and this one would hold a lot of Christmas choccies I think!! Here's a close up It's a Pollycraft digi image and the backing papers are from Pollycraft too - some I purchased a couple of years ago. My image has been coloured using Promarkers. My second card is equally as cute Three reindeer, one with a red nose - I wonder who he could be?! These were made using my 2 Step Owl Punch - a couple of alterations here and there and some googly eyes. Don't for get to visit  Mynnette  - she's done some lovely cards too and then pop over to see the challenge - you might even want to take part! Bye for now - Jacqueline xx

If you pop over to visit my lovely blog buddy  Mynnette  - you will see this   Sadly this is not something that I have acheived every week however I did spread a little around last night at my monthly workshop. I have been running my craft club now for 5 years and this month was the fifth anniversary so to say 'Thank You' for their support I made my ladies a little gift Along with the printed schedules each one received a little notebook and matching bookmark. Here's a close up The notebooks are 3" x 3" and the covers are chipboard covered with My Mind's Eye paper. They have been bound using a Bind -it- all machine. The ladies of my Tuesday morning group will get theirs when they come to class in April. Pop back tomorrow and I will show you what we made last night - bye for now - Jacqueline xx

Found a new challenge blog recently called  Retro Sketches  - they have rather a nifty style about them - take a look at this week's sketch   I kept to the clean and simple style of this sketch by not adding any embellishments - just basic matting, layering and stamping I have used Whisper White and Calypso Coral card stock and Calypso Coral and Lucky Limeade ink. My stamp sets of choice this time are Everything Eleanor and Bird on a Branch. I have been a bad blogger this week as I have done zero commenting so I am off to bed now in the hopes of rising early in the morning to catch up - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

It's Mid-week Motivation time at  Make My Monday   - comes round quick doesn't it?! This week our Spring challenge is to make a Mother's Day card or a Thank You card. Well the Mother's Day card is in the bag so I made a Thank You card. The lovely daffodil image is one I found floating around my scraps drawer - it's left over from a sheet of toppers printed from the Joanna Sheen RHS CD Rom as is the patterned background paper. I also used scraps for all my matting and layering - that's right folks - no whole sheet of card stock was harmed during the making of this card! The ribbon is from some gift packaging - one end was terribly frayed 'cos it got tangled up in the box and I sort of just pulled. Luckily there was enough to ruffle a strip and make a tiny bow. My sentiment is from Simply Said - one of my favourites and is die cut on to a nesting label. My Boho Blossoms punch is never far from my side and was used to make my flowers along with some pin...

Simply Stampin'  have a colour challenge this week - take a look So I was having a play and decided upon a wall hanging for a change as I have some spare space on my craft room wall. I also managed to sneak in some scraps of the SAB papers too as I am completely obsessed with them at the moment! So here it is hanging on my wall - the larger triangle is Very Vanilla - along with the the leaf stems, the largest flower as i said before is SAB paper punched with the 5 Petal punch. The rest of the flowers are punched with the Boho Blossoms punch in Crumb Cake and Poppy Parade. Now as I am sat looking at it - it looks very lonely on it's own. Perhaps I will add some more triangles and make some bunting to hang across the whole of the wall - stay tuned as there may be a sequel to this post! For now though here is a closer view of my hanger - bye for now - Jacqueline xx

It's  Make My Monday  again today and we still have Spring as our theme - the challenge is to make a Mother's Day or Thank you card. This card is for my MIL - take a look Now this is the part where I tell you all the stamp set s I have used to make my card but today I thought I would run a little competition. What I want to you to do is leave a comment below telling me how many sets I have used and to list them. (Clue: most but not all of them are Stampin' Up). I will announce the winner next Monday and I will even provide a small prize. If there is more than one person getting it right I will drawer the winners name from a hat!- good luck! Jacqueline xx

Well it's that time of the week again and I have two more Christmas cards to show you. It's colour challenge week at  52CCT  and here is the colour combo that Mynnette has chosen for us For my first card I went for squares - lots of them, and added some candy canes from the Hung up on the Holidays set - take a look The candy canes are stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink and they are mounted on to green card stock and then onto blue. The Winter Wishes sentiment is from a Papermania set and is stamped in Handsome Hunter ink. Here's a close up My second card uses a stamp from My Friend and I have hung it from fir tree branches (Lovely as a Tree) and then glittered them in blue I think I went a bit over the top with the ribbon - but I like it!! Here is another close up Thanks for looking - don't forgot to skip on over to see  Mynnettes blog  too 'cos she has some lovely things to see too - see you soon - Jacqueline xx