Phoenix Inspirations

That's right folks - eyes down for a full house - or maybe just a line? Take a look at this week's Bingo card over on  Addicted to Stamps and More For my card I used the bottom line: Paper Piece, Pearls and Love I used my treasured (and now retired) set Growing Green for this card and some scraps of DSP. As you can see I even did inside too! Materials Stamps: Growing Green, Made for You, Field Flowers Ink: Pretty in Pink, Black Stazon Card Stock: Whisper White Paper: Subtles DSP, Polka Dot Parade Accessories: Basics Pearls (if you would like to place an order with me for any of the current Stampin' Up items please see all the details in the top tabs). Don't forget to hop on over to the blog to check out all the lovely cards created this week by the DT - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Good morning all - it's Monday so that must mean another challenge over on the  Make My Monday  challenge blog. We have a colour challenge for you this week - take a look - and here is my card I am quite taken with the technique of colouring onto vellum at the moment so I have stamped my Growing Green images on some vellum with Versamark ink and heat embossed them with white embossing powder. I then cut them out and attached them to my card - a centre step fold card. I cut a border to add a bit of interest to the sides and the front and also added a few gems. The sentiment is from Precious Butterflies oh and my colours are Blushing Bride and Lucky Limeade. Please do pop over to take a look at all the stunning work provided by my design team and I will see you soon - Jacqueline xx

It's an interesting colour challenge this week at  Less is More   - they would like to see YELLOW in our clean and simple projects. Here is my card My 5" x 5" card blank has had a mat of white card stock added which has first been put through my 'Bug in the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I then die cut a fancy square onto which I stamped the fern leaf from Growing Green. The rose was stamped onto a scrap of white card stock, coloured with Promarkers and then cut out and attached with 3D foam pads. I said that this was an interesting colour choice for a challenge because I don't use yellow all that much but more interestingly I had been thinking about yellow roses. I am visiting my mum and dad at the weekend and we will probably take some flowers to my Gran's grave - yellow roses - this seemed the obvious card to make. See you soon - 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

We have been challenged to use up some our scraps for this week's challenge at  Less is More . Now I'm quite good about using my scraps - can't afford not to be! I favour Stampin' Up card stock and those who are familiar with SU know that they have colour families. I have a folder where I store all my card stock in plastic pages - one for whole sheets and another the the smaller scraps in each of the colours. It was from one of these folders that I retrieved a piece of Certain Celery. I also have another plastic wallet full of bits and pieces that I have stamped and not needed or are mistakes or offcuts - take a look It was from this pile that I extricated this little beauty This is the fern stamp from Growing Green - did it ages ago with water colour pencils on some hand made water colour paper purchased when I visited Wookey Hole many years ago. So, when you put these elements together with a little stamping and a scrap of green ribbon - you get this ...

I've gone a bit mad today - it's been over a week since I last crafted properly and there are sooooooo many fabulous challenges about that I just had to have another play!! The card I have for you now is for  Freshly Made Sketches  - here's the sketch I have also followed the colours set out in the current  CR84FN Colour Challenge Here is my card My chosen stamp set is Growing Green and the colours I used were Pear Pizzazz, Basic Gray and Wisteria Wonder. Hope you like it - see you soon - Jacqueline xx

Today's challenge at  Polka Doodles  is all about hand made flowers - punched, die cut, stamped or decoupaged. I love making flowers and spent a long time this morning making some roses However when it actually came to putting these flowers on my card - they just didn't look right. So they have been shelved and the rest chucked in the bin. Back to the drawing board! The card I made was inspired by one of my favourite bloggers -  Vicky  - I didn't copy it but just used the general layout My hand made flowers were stamped using Stampin' Up Growing Green. I stamped them onto decorative paper and cut them out. I then stamped them again and just used the middles attaching them with some 3D foam. The leafy fronds are from the same set and coloured with a Pear Pizzazz marker. The sentiment is from Vintage Vogue. I am much happier about this card - hope you like it - Jacqueline xx

Today at  Less is More  we have been challenged with choosing 3 past challenges and making a clean and simple card. I chose my 3 and made my card but looking at it I think it may have involved a couple more but here goes Gosh that's a horrible photo - the light is not good at the moment sorry. I started off with a 5" x 5" card base in white and faintly drew 3 squares (wk 4) into these I stamped a flower from the Stampin' Up set Growing Green. I then took a fine liner pen and squiggled a frame around each one (wk 19). I then rubbed out my guidelines and added 3 butterflies (wk 16) punched from red paper (wk 9) so really that's 4 challenges - hope you don't mind Mandi and Chrissie Thanks for the great challenge ladies - have a good weekend - Jacqueline xx

It will come as no surprise to my regular blog readers that I am a Stampin' Up freak. I love stamping and buy loads of stamps, but for me Stampin' Up are the be all and end all of rubber stamps. So it was with great pleasure that I created today's card with three Stampin' Up challenges in mind. Firstly I will show you my card I started as always with a white 5" x 5" card base and the layout was taken from the sketch over on  Simply Stampin' The colour scheme was taken from this week's  Colour Throwdown And finally the challenge this time at  SUO Challenges  is Favourite New Stamp Sets. My newest set is the Growing Green and I love it - definitely a favourite. It looks great with the extra bling don't you think? The sentiment is from Bird on a Branch and I have used some 3D foam pads for extra dimension. Thanks for stopping by today - hope to See you again soon - Jacqueline xx.

I have been meaning to join in with this challenge blog for a while now but I've only just got round to doing so. Not only does this blog raise awareness of the charity but if you send them your card they can sell it to raise much needed funds - did you realise that they have to find 4 million pounds a year? Anyway I'm having a go, here is my card The challenge is to produce a card that is Black and White and one other colour. You can use tones of the third colour and Grey. So today I have combined one of my own stamps and the fern frond from Growing Green. My third colour was red as when I designed this stamp I had poppies in mind. I coloured it in with Promarkers and hand drew the frame with a black fine liner. As in my previous card I masked off the flowers with post it notes to enable me to over lap and add depth. Please pop over and check out the St Luke's challenge and I will be back soon - Jacqueline xx

Hello - where is all the time going this week - it seems to be rushing by at great speed. I'll tell you something - I haven't stopped still long this week so far either. I've been up to my eyes in workshops, stamp making and dt work - not that I don't love it  I'm having a whale of a time, just wish I had a little time to stop and catch my breath! I'm so grateful that I am so busy, there have been times in my life when I have been very low but discovering crafting and blogging and meeting all my crafty friends on line has been quite a life saver. Anyway I made loads of new stamps this week but didn't have chance to put them up on the web site as I sold most of them at a workshop I took on Tuesday night. As soon as I have made more - you will be the first to know. I have managed a bit of crafting for no reason other than to craft and came up with this This is a one layer card made by stamping and masking. I drew a feint frame in pencil and then started by...

It's taken me most of the day to complete this card - Louis (our 10 week old kitten) has discovered my craft room. I've tried to keep the door closed but 9 times out of 10 he's darted in before you can blink. take a look Yes - he is licking my ruler! Any way he is asleep now so I am able to show you the card that I finally got finished. It features my new set Growing  Green this time stamped on to water colour paper with a black Versa Fine ink pad The images have been coloured in using water colour pencils and then blended with an aqua painter. We did cards like this last night at my monthly workshop - I used my new 2 Step owl punch that time, but that as they say is another story! See you again soon - Jacqueline xx

I think I have mentioned before that this is one of my favourite challenge blogs - mainly 'cos I just love Stampin' Up products, and what better place to show off my new Growing Green set than over on the Simply Stampin'  challenge blog. We had a sketch this week: And my card looks like this: I have used Garden Green, Ruby Red and Whisper White, the stamp set as I said before is my NEW(!) Growing Green set but the sentiment is from Just Believe. Looks a bit Christmassy don't you think - that wasn't my intention, I think it must be the colours I used! I have some great ideas for this set - please do join me again to see what they are - bye for now - Jacqueline xx