The crazy cat lady and her Easter cards...

Can you believe it, after months of nothing I blog twice in 24 hours! I'd forgotten how much I loved it, and really intend to take a little time every day during the week to make a nice cuppa and sit down to write for a while. I'm loving getting back into my creative groove, and am branching out into other crafts than card making which I'm really enjoying. I will always love card making, but stamping on other mediums is just so much fun and there is so much possibility. But, we'll save that for another day as I have a much more pressing topic to attend to....

We've also been busy around the house over the past month with lots of little projects here and there. It's so much fun to be able to make changes and improvements in our home, as before we had always rented and there's only so much you can do in rental houses. I thought I would share with you one of the first ideas and projects we completed after moving in..... whether you think it's an improvement to the house, or just weird will depend on if you are a crazy cat person like me lol!

(If you're just here for the cards, please scroll to the end of the post to avoid my rambling about litter boxes ;) )

Drum roll please......

Yes, that is a kittie restroom lol!!!! Like I said, if you're not a cat lover you are probably thinking I've got a little crazy up here in our new mountain home. You may be thinking the altitude has got to me a little.... But, if you do have multiple indoor furbabies of the feline variety in your home you will be all too familiar with those unsightly litter boxes. And the smell from them. And the litter being tracked everywhere by our little darlings. So, I wanted the litter boxes in the laundry room but I did not want them out on display for all to see. While I pondered on how to pull that off, my eyes wandered to these lovely cupboards along one wall of the room.

Please excuse the mess on top, we were still in the middle of moving in and that counter had become the catch all for anything without a home yet! We are lucky to have plenty of storage in this house (although it's just the two of us, we'll revisit my assessment of storage if and when kids join the household!) so I knew we wouldn't miss having the bottom cupboards, and I hatched my kitty restroom plan. As it would involve plenty of power tools for taking out shelves and drilling holes in doors, and I'm not allowed to use said power tools, the hubby was put to work.....

 Step One: Remove the shelf that was fixed in the middle of the cupboard so kitties don't hit their heads when going to the bathroom :)

 Step Two: Remove middle door and cut out hole for cat door (whilst unknowingly showing off your growing bald patch lol!)

 Step Three: Begrudgingly pose for the camera to show off your handy work :)

 Step Four: Install cat door and rehang cupboard door.

Step Five: Set up litter boxes inside the cupboard. We've since changed to covered boxes as that's what our cats have grown up using and so were have lots of 'accidents' with the low sided open pans in the photo. 

 Step Six: The finishing touch :)

We were feeling very pleased with this new addition of the kitty restroom! The boys' reaction on the other hand seemed more along the lines of "WTF?! You want me to do what?!!!"

But with a little gentle encouragement they soon came around....

Yey, go Odie!!! Always the first to try something new :)

Silvester (the big grey one, who is more mouse than cat in temperament!) however, seems to have a deathly fear of cat doors (??!!) so we had to modify it slightly by removing the actual flapping door.

We also need to get baby locks for the doors as Taz prefers to exit the restroom by pushing open the cupboard door and racing through rather than walking through the cat door. Ahh, cats- who'd have 'em!!

It really has worked perfectly though over the month since we've had it. There's a lot less mess and smells now, and my laundry room looks nice and tidy without cat boxes on the floor on full display. We're quite proud of our litter box solution :)

Crazy cat people... us?!!!

Anyway, most of you are here for cards not litter boxes so we'll finally move along!! As I've mentioned a few times now, I have been making and donating some cards to our local cat rescue (yes, more cats!!) and they sell them to make money for the charity to feed their rescues and spay and neuter feral cats in the area. A few weeks ago, they requested some Easter themed cards to put on their stall.

I shared one yesterday, and as I've once again overloaded with pics I will share just a couple more today....

This simple cutie was made with a $ bin Easter stamp set from Michaels, and a kittie from a Personal Impressions set I picked up in England last year. I water coloured the images using distress inks, inked the edges of the cardstock with some Tea Dye, mounted on a piece of K& Company pp, and used foam squares to adhere it to the card base.

This next card uses a Penny Black stamp (Frolic), again water coloured with Distress Inks, inked on the edges with some Tumbled Glass. I rounded the corners and adhered it to a piece of kraft, rounding the corners on that also. I added some more detail with the gel pen stitching around the edge. I then stamped the card base with Hero Arts Envelope Pattern and inked the edges to give it more dimension, and finished it off with a HA sentiment from the Find Joy set.

I'm really enjoying water colouring with Distress Inks. It's so easy to get a nice look and to blend the colours- and I have the whole collection of inks so there's a huge pallet of colours available to me :) I had started to buy Copics last year but they are so pricey and I wasn't that great with the ones I had, so I'm loving that I can get a similar look with my beloved Distress Inks!

Is there anything those little wonders cannot do?!

Hi, I'm Lynsey and I'm addicted to Distress Ink (and cats, and Ikea....)

I think I may need help lol!

Love Lynsey x

The challenge motivation worked :)

Remember how I was saying yesterday how I had been really struggling with getting motivation to sit down and get out my stamping supplies and get creating again with all the other distractions I have going on in life right now......

Well my plan to peruse my favourite challenge sites worked, and after a quick (well ok about 2 hour long lol) read on my fave blogs I ran off to my craft room and happily pulled out my new Hero Arts stamps and got stamping!!

My first card was inspired by the current Hero Arts challenge to create a card inspired by the 2011 Catalogue and to use the masking technique in a project. I was also inspired to use the butterfly stamp by the current Create challenge to use butterflies, and to use the silver embossing by the current Etsy Inspired challenge featuring the Etsy store Modern Bird where you can find some really lovely handcrafted silver jewelry.

The card was inspired by one of the cards on page 17 of the HA catalogue, using the Dictionary Greeting friend stamp and the large canvas stripes design block. I stamped the friend definition onto the card using Aged Mahogany Distress ink, and then masked it before inking the whole card front with Victorian Velvet and then stamping over it with the design block in Aged Mahogany. I made sure the ink was fully dry before embossing the butterfly, from a Martha Stewert set, using silver detail embossing powder. The card was actually a pinkish coloured card which I flipped inside out so there is the nice surprise of the colour pop inside.

My second card was also inspired by the Hero Arts Challenge. I loved the Large Blossom cling stamp the minute I saw it, and the card pictured on page 39 of the catalogue just sealed the deal!

I created another one layer card here (for some reason I thought that was part of the HA challenge lol, maybe that was last month and I missed it!!). First I embossed the Large Blossom onto the card with white poweder and then masked it before inking the entire card front with Scattered Straw. I then stamped the Large Canvas Stripe design block  using Wild Honey, off-centering it a little to put it at an angle on the card. I then coloured the flowers using peeled paint, scattered straw, wild honey and a little aged mahogany, applying the ink with Fantastix. The sentiment was stamped with black Stazon, and then finally I used my Crop-A-Dile to attach the brads at the corners of the Canvas Stripe block to make it look like a separate piece attached to the card.

Ok, I'm off to catch up on all my fave blogs and get commenting on the beautiful creations in the galleries :) Hope you have had a great day....!

Catching Up...

Hi all! Sorry it has been a while since I posted- I know what you were thinking, there goes another new blogger running out of steam after two weeks!! I have no excuse, other than being distracted with a few stresses in life- its still all going on now, but I'm hoping to be able to report a positive outcome on Friday...watch this space!!

With everything going on I kinda lost my crafty motivation for a bit, but I have still been hopping around on all the wonderful blogs I follow, and checking in at the TwoPeas and Hero Arts Flickr Pool galleries and getting all inspired by the creativity out there! I have done a little stamping here and there though, and thought it was about time I got them posted on here!!

First up, I wanted to say a huge thanks to Daria (DJC) over at Two Peas for the oh so cute Hero Arts Birds and Branches cling stamp set she sent me after I won the random drawing for a RAK in her Stamptoberfest challenge. I couldn't wait for it to arrive, and as soon as it came in the mail I sat myself down and had so much fun playing with it (after perusing the HA Flickr Pool for inspiration of course!!). Here's what I came up with so far...

I stamped this little guy onto two different patterned papers and then cut the wings from one and body from the other and after stamping him again on some white cardstock I adhered the body over the white cardstock image, and used foam dots to adhere the wings, giving them dimension. I coloured the crown and beak using prismacolor pencils. I created the background by stamping the flower stamp from the same set repeatedly using bundled sage and peeled paint Distress Inks. I then inked over the bottom with bundled sage, and the top with tumbled glass to give the look of a sky. The orange piece was inked in spiced marmalade and then I ran it through my Texture Boutique using the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Everyday Sayings and was stamped using black Stazon.

I also made another quick birthday card which I have sent out to one of my friends back in England...

This was a really easy card. I just stamped the big birdy onto white cardstock and then stamped the balloon (from Hero Arts Birthday Messages) to look like he was holding it, cute huh! It made me smile! I adhered it to a metallic blue card, and then to add a little detail I used my new Martha Stewart Score Board to score a border around the image, and then used a white gel pen to make little dots inside the border. Finally, as I thought he needed a little dressing up, and because I am becoming a little obsessed with gems, I put purple gems over each of his white spots on his back. Simple, but cute, I thought!

Thanks again Daria!!

Phew, this is going to be a long post as I still have 3 more projects to show you, hehe!! I guess I have been a little more creative in my blogging absence than I originally though.....

Next, a couple of cards inspired by Jennifer McGuire's Thinking Inking Holiday series over at TwoPeas. I can't wait to see those videos every Monday morning, with only a couple of weeks left I will miss them when the series is over! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the projects focused on stamping with paint. I had bought a set of Paint Dabbers after watching the original series of Thinking Inking but hadn't used them yet, so after watching the new projects I was determined to give them a go. I picked up the Hero Arts Flower Medley stamp at Michaels (along with some other goodies of course, hehe!) and thought it would be perfect to use with my paints.

I inked up the stamp with Lettuce and Pool Paint Dabbers to give the effect of grass and sky, and stamped it onto white cardstock. Then I coloured in the flowers using finger daubers and Wild Honey and Scattered Straw Distress Inks. I dry embossed the white piece using my Texture Boutique and Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, and then stamped the sentiment from the Hero Arts Birthday Messages set using black Stazon. I tied a bow around the card with ribbon, adhering it with Glossy Accents. I adhered the pieces onto a metallic brown card and added a little dimension and shine using gems in the center of each flower, and a pearl in the middle of the bow. This one will be going to my Nan for her birthday at the end of the month, and I'm excited to be able to give it to her in person as I will be in England for her birthday for the first time in 5 years, yey!!

My next card inspired by the Thinking Inking classes used the technique Jennifer explained, using alcohol inks on sticky back canvas. I had both of these items and had not been finding much use for them, so as with the paint dabbers, I was excited to get some new ideas.

The colour combo for this card was inspired by the current EBTKS challenge. I inked a piece of sticky back canvas with various blue (can't for the life of me remember which, sorry!!) alcohol inks, adding a few drops of pearl mixative to give the fabric some shimmer. Once it was dry I white embossed Hero Arts Snowflake Tree onto the canvas, and 'stitched' around the edge with a white gel pen. I stuck it to a metallic card and stamped the sentiment (from Hero Arts Holiday Cheer Messages) using black Stazon. I couldn't resist some pearls in the center of some of the larger snowflakes on the tree, and a snowflake button stuck at the top!

Finally, I wanted to try my hand at stamping on candles again. Anne Gaal's November blog challenge is to stamp on a candle, and Hero Arts Blog challenge this month is to create a handmade gift (or gift tag), so what better time to have another go at it!!

I stamped Hero Arts Blooming Butterfly onto tissue paper with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink. I then wrapped the tissue paper around the candle and heated over the image with my heat gun until the wax melted through the paper. Once the image was completely melted onto the candle, I trimmed off the excess paper and again gently heated over the edges until they melted into the candle. I added a ribbon, and pearls, all adhered with glossy accents to add a little more prettiness to an already pretty candle!! This will be going to my best friend for her birthday, yey!!

Ok, I think I'm done.....oh wait, I must report that I have been progressing slowly but surely with Weight Watchers! I weighed in today and got my first 5lb sticker, yey me!! You know what that means- time to order my first 5 Copics, wahoo!!!

Last but not least, I have to take a quick moment as tomorrow is Veteran's Day to say how proud I am of my husband, Jason, who served 11 years in the US AirForce, and also to thank all of the men and women who have served in both the American, and English military, past and present. You are all in my thoughts every day.

Lynsey x

Christmas is Coming....!

I've had a great time today playing around making Christmas cards! I'm flying out to England for 3 weeks at the end of November so need to have all cards and gifts made/ purchased by then, and as tomorrow is the last day of the Hero Arts challenge I figured today was a great day to jump in and get started!

I had lots of fun with my Hero Arts stamps, embossing powders and of course my Distress Inks! I don't think I'll ever get bored of watching the embossing powder melt, or trying out different colour combos with my inks!

Here's what I came up with, which is your favourite?

Oh, and in other news... I started Weight Watchers last week. After all the meds I've been on, and sitting around a lot more, and well okay eating too much (!), I decided as part of my taking time out for me I need to lose weight and get down to a healthy BMI. Anyway, I had my first weight in today and I lost 2.6lb, yey me!! I've decided that I will reward myself with a Copic marker for every pound I lose, that way I won't feel as guilty for buying them, hehe!! I'm going to propose this plan to hubby tonight, I already have my first colours picked out so he really can't say no!! Thinking that I will save up until I have lost 5lb each time and then buy them to save on shipping, or maybe 10.... though don't think I can wait that long!! It's good motivation for me though as I'm determined to lose at least 2.5lb this week so I can place my first order!! No Halloween candy for me then, well maybe just one piece!!

Lynsey x

Etsy Inspired Challenge card

I came across the Etsy Inspired Challenge Blog a few weeks ago via Virginia who is one of their very talented deisgners. Every week they choose a different Etsy store to use as inspiration and challenge followers to create a project inspired by the items in that store. This week they were inspired by Stilleto Heights, a store with very cool vintage collage pieces. I was particularly inspired by this piece in their store

I love the border on the left with the distressed looking green and black, and the vintage picture of the couple with script overlay. The old fashioned picture reminded me of some old photos we were recently given of Jason's great grandparents. No stocking and suspenders in these pics lol, but I love them for the style and colours in the photos. I decided to use my favourite of the family photos to make an anniversary card inspired by the above design. Here's what I came up with..

I printed the photo onto regular paper and then adhered it to a piece of cardstock. Then I black embossed the bottom piece onto a piece of cardstock using Hero Arts S5213 Dots and Flowers and inked over with Faded Jeans Distress Ink, rubbing Metallic Rub Ons on top. These were both adhered to a blue metallic look card. I punched a scallop edge on the bottom of a piece of vellum and attached it to the card using eyelets, and a little Glossy Accents along the bottom edge. I then stamped K5344 La Letter and a Martha Stewert butterfly stamp randomly onto the vellum using Pumice Stone Distress Ink. Finally I embossed the sentiment (from Hero Arts Everyday Sayings) in white at the bottom.

I really enjoyed making this card, and I think it's one of my favourites so far, what do you think?

Thanks for looking,

Lynsey x

Feeling thankful for my Mum!

As most of you will already know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. It is so important for us women to remember to do our self exams monthly and to actually GO to the doctor if we find something that seems unusual, or get unusual pains, to get it checked out. I learned the importance of this ten years ago when my Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had been experiencing tenderness and numbness, and was a little worried but kept putting off doing anything about it thinking it would go away. She didn't feel a lump, so figured it couldn't be anything too serious. Luckily, her coworker convinced her to go to the doctor and just get it looked at. The next few months were a whirlwind, as she was rushed through the notoriously slow NHS to be treated for advanced breast cancer.

It's not something I like to think of often, but sometimes I just have to take a minute to be thankful that Mum got the courage to go to the doctor that day. If she had put it off much longer, she may not have been with us today. I know I often take my Mum for granted, especially for everything she has done to support me through my health issues the past couple of years, and I can't even imagine how hard life would be without her. She was so brave throughout her battle, and I can happily report she is now healthy and happy! I wanted to take some time this month seeing as it is the tenth anniversary of her diagnosis, and also breast cancer awareness month to hopefully spread a little awareness myself, but also to let my Mum know how much I love her, and how thankful I am to have her in my life. As I have been getting into card making over the past month, I decided what better way to celebrate my mother than by making her a card!

I was inspired to create this card by the sketch over at EBTKS Challenge #25, and I will be entering it in their challenge to hopefully spread a little awareness over there also!

I made the ribbon stamp myself using my Cricut, Cuttables stamp sheet, SCAL, and a free SVG from SVG Cuts and then clear embossed it onto the pink stripes that had been adhered to the card front. The sentiment was printed from Word onto the backing piece which was cut using the Accent Essentials Cricut cartridge and inked with Spun Sugar and Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. I inked white ribbon with Worn Lipstick and folded it to form the awareness ribbon, and added a little bling with the gems! Finally, as I thought it was missing something, I 'stitched' around the card using a white gel pen!

Love you Mum!! xxxx

Trick or Treat!

Too early for Trick or Treating? Not according to the 2 girls that came to our door on Sunday night dressed in tu-tu's and carrying big pillow cases for their expected loot! When Jase pointed out that they were two weeks early they went on to explain that they were grounded on Halloween so they had to do it early, uhh okay! They were out of luck here as we don't get the candy in until a couple of days before, but I wonder how many other houses on the street they managed to swindle out of some treats! I feel extremely old and boring when I say this, but "ugh, kids!!".

Anyway, our premature trick or treaters combined with the huge (well huge for California) storms that have been passing through the past couple of days have started to get me in the mood for Halloween. Last night, with my flashlight beside me in case the storms knocked the power out, I put together this Halloween card. See below for details:

I created the polished stone background by pouncing Purple Twighlight, Sunset Orange and Pitch Black Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks onto acetate until I got my desired effect and then adhered this to white paper to highlight the colours and texture more effectively.

The purple layer was dry embossed using the Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes folder in my new Sizzix Texture Boutique, and then I swiped Black Soot Tim Holtz Distress Ink over the raised pieces. I rounded the corners and then adhered to the card, rounding those corners also.

The haunted house design was cut using my Cricut Expression, from the Pumpkin Carving cartridge, and then heat embossed with clear powder all over to give it a more shiny texture. This was adhered to the acetate background and then adhered to the card front.

The sentiment and crow (which Jase said look like seagulls, yeah thanks lol!!) stickers are from this set by EK Success.

If you click on any of the product links above, you'll see Joann has up to 40% off all their stamping and scrapbooking supplies! I'm a Joann's junkie and lurve shopping online with them. You can always find free shipping codes by searching on Google too, which is great when your local craft stores have a really small selection of goodies!

Oh, one last thing!! I participated in a couple of challenges for Stamptoberfest over at Two Peas, and won the random drawing for one of them!! Woohoo!! I never win anything so it was such a surprise, and I can't wait to get my cute new birdy stamps in the mail from the lovely, generous Daria!

Curious about Copics

Isn't it amazing how when you stumble across a new interest or hobby, you discover just how big that world is, and how many people all around the world discovered it before you!! I have been learning so much over the past month, and meeting so many people who have such a passion, and talent for stamping, and card making. The different techniques and styles out there are amazing. One particular product that keeps catching my eye in card designs that I love is Copics markers. They are very pricey, and being me I would have to have them all, so I am hesitating trying them, but I love the effect they give and I'm so curious to try them out.

Take a look at these wonderful cards that Kathy over at The Daily Marker has created recently....

Aren't they gorgeous!! I love the colours and blending, yum!
I just discovered Kathy last week as she was doing a challenge with Jennifer McGuire, and loved her work. Then to my suprise I woke up this morning to find Kathy had become the second follower to my blog, yey!! Thanks Kathy! Anyway, over on The Daily Marker, there is a Blog Candy giveaway, which I have learned means you can win a load of cool stuff, which is always a good thing!! Take a look at all this:

All you have to do to enter to win is head on over to her blog (using the links above) and either follow her, or post about the candy on your blog (and add the pic to your sidebar) and then put your name on the list for the drawing that ends 11-8. Easy peasy! I'm off to get my name on the list.....

Discovering a creative side...

The first great thing I have discovered since I have been 'taking time for me' is that I do actually have a creative side to me!! I was always the student that was good at science, maths, english etc, but neeevvveeerrr Art, it was just never my thing. Jase and I have always joked that when we do have kids I will help with the 'academic' homework and he will help with the art projects! But, when Mum was over helping after my surgery she got me making a couple of cards. I quite enjoyed it and thought I might carry on doing them on my own. I started looking around online and discovered Stamping. I AM HOOKED!!! It is amazing the things you can do with plain white card and stamps and ink! I found a series of classes called Thinking Inking by a designer called Jennifer McGuire, and was so inspired by her! I've been busily stocking up with supplies and this week got started playing around and making my own cards.

You can see my projects so far displayed on the gallery at TwoPeasInABucket.com here.

Here's one example, my favourite so far....

What's really funny is all those worries and thoughts about work that used to run around my head and keep me up in the early hours of the morning have been replaced by ideas for cards and techniques I want to try LOL! It's much nicer to think about stamping than payroll though, much nicer!