Where did the last two months go?!

Seriously.... last time I posted was May 8th!!! I've still been checking in on all the blogs on my feed, and at the Hero Arts Flickr group etc, and have even checked out some challenges here and there and started coming up with ideas for card entries. I just don't seem to have felt the motivation to sit and write, or blog the cards I have made- which is strange as I loved it when I was active in all the challenges and blogging before.

A post by an online friend,  Virginia, inspired me today. She was just picked as a Moxie Fab World winner, and will be published in a future issue of their magazine, along with another card she already had picked up for publication!! I was so excited for her to hear this, and reading about how she was so happy to have achieved one of her goals I remembered all those goals I had set for myself in my card making and stamping. Being new to both, having stamped my first card in September last year when recovering from surgery, my goals don't stretch to being published yet- though I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check out the submission calls and submit some cards here and there- my biggest goal since finding the Hero Arts blog and Flickr group has been to win one of their monthly contests. I was entering 2-3 cards for each round for months, but haven't entered at all since March I think. Well, I can't expect to win if I don't even take part can I lol!!

So, as of tonight I am heading back into my craft room and going to get back into entering all the challenge blogs I love, including the Hero Arts challenge.

I have been crafting over the past few months in my absence however, and branching out into other crafts. I actually took part in a craft show in our new town in April, and was really successful- hence the Etsy store I started :) I haven't kept up with that much since it's inception though, and really do need to start adding more items to it. I started making photo coasters, which sold really well at the show and sold quite a few sets online- but honestly there is not much creativity involved in it and I quickly got bored lol! I enjoy making them using photos I have taken as at least that way I get to do some photography in the process, but I started doing personalized ones where people sent me their photos, and that wasn't as much fun... though more popular!!

Here's an example of my own photography on a photo coaster I made:

The photo is of daffodils that popped up and surprised us in our new garden!! It has been so much fun discovering new flowers coming into bloom everyday as the summer unfolds. I'll have to share some more pictures soon.

Mum and Dad bought me an early birthday present of a sewing machine too, which I originally wanted for sewing on cards but now I've been doing some little sewing projects too! I don't have any photo's of projects yet, but will share them as I make more. My biggest project so far was for my Mum's birthday which isn't until August, so can't share it until then!!

As I said in my last post, my parents visited in May and we had lots of fun with them. I got to teach Mum a lot of new stamping techniques and her favourite was heat embossing :) She went home very excited to buy her own heat gun and get embossing! We also made a trip to Yosemite, and hiked up to Vernal Falls, which was beautiful.

That's my Mum and Dad celebrating reaching the falls after the looonnnggg climb :)

We had a housewarming party on our 6th Wedding Anniversary, and enjoyed sharing our new home with some of our friends, eating BBQ and smores :)

That's me and hubby having fun lol!

Before the party, we built our own fire pit in the back yard....

There's me adding the final brick :)

We've had so much fun doing little projects around our new house. So far we've changed out all the fixtures like towel rails etc in both bathrooms, changed out the faucet in the kitchen, fixed our own air conditioning by researching and buying a part online (saving lots of $$$ lol!). I already shared our kitty bathroom project lol, and my craft room. We're planning what to do with the yard next year.... I want it to include some raised beds for veggies, but other than that we're still pretty stumped lol!

I've been enjoying trying new recipes, using my new oven and Kitchen Aid mixer in my beautiful new kitchen! Here's the red velvet cupcakes I made from scratch for hubby's 31st birthday :)

They were sooo yummy!! Though not really in keeping with my other goal I have been working on to avoid wheat and to eat Clean. I'll be posting more on my new healthy eating adventures soon I think. I think I will end up expanding my blog to more things I am interested in, as well as my cards. I enjoy when the people I follow share more every day life things in their blogs as I feel like I get to know them a little more- so I hope you don't mind my rambling about things other than cards :)

I'm also waiting on a start date for a new job I should be starting soon. I decided it was time for me to head back to work after taking a year out to focus on my health and deal with my Endometriosis. I seem to have it more under control now, fingers crossed and so it's time to get out there and meet people in our new town, and make some pennies!

So.... that's where the past few months went lol!

Ok, now it's time for me to get in that craft room and start creating!!

Lynsey x

Happy Mother's Day!!

I have been MIA again, I know- and I am so sorry!! But, I do have a good excuse.... my parents are out here visiting so I am making the most of spending time with them :)

It's especially fun this year to get to spend Mother's Day with my Mum!!! Ok, so technically we are English and so Mother's Day for us was back in March- but as I live in America and Mum is currently visiting me here it still counts LOL!!

So, I just wanted to pop on here to wish all of you lovely Moms out there a lovely day and hope that your families look after you for a change today :) I will be cooking a good old fashioned English roast dinner and sharing a fun day of family and hopefully some card making.... I got her Jennifer McGuire's Technique Garden DVD from Hero Arts!!! She loves making cards but is scared of inking and other techniques and as her internet connection is very slow she can't watch all the free tutorials online. I figured this way she can put the DVD on and learn from the same pro that I learned all I know from :) (Also, of course it means I get to watch some new Jen McGuire stuff tomorrow- hehe!!)

Here's the card I made for Mum. Nice and happy and summery....

I repeat stamped the sentiment from the HA Find Joy set onto a piece of card and then inked it with distress ink around the edges. I stamped the flower from HA Be Happy with black Stazon and then watercoloured the leaves and center of flower with distress ink. I stamped the petal portion of the flower again on some K&Company patterned paper and paperpieced them over the original flower. The bee was also stamped onto patterned paper and then adhered onto the card. I drew in the antenna and stamped the trail from the same set.

Notice the little vellum wings on the bee? :)
Mum will love that little touch!!

I've been really busy with another new project recently which I look forward to telling you about when my parents have left next weekend. Until then though, please forgive me as I disappear for another week to spend time with family and enjoy playing hostess for the first time in our new house!!

Lynsey x

Just playing....

I received my first order of Hero Arts cards and Core'dinations Distress card stock in the mail yesterday and I am loving all the Hero Hues colours :) They put me in the mood to play with my lovely colourful inks and what better stamp to show off pretty colours than the Hero Arts Large Blossom!!

I heat embossed the image in white four times and then used Distress inks to colour them before mounting on coordinating card bases in various styles.

Nothing complicated here, just having some fun in my craft room :)

My boys seem to think it should be a lazy day today.... shame I have so much to do and can't join them!

Is there anything cuter than a pink nose and pink toes?! Aww, just love him :)

Have a great day!

Lynsey x

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

Finally all settled in and back to stamping!

Hi there! Ok, so I have to start with a huge apology for being gone for so long and not visiting and commenting on the blogs I follow and love for a long time. I've truly missed my online crafting world and the friends I was getting to know- hopefully we can pick up where we left off :)

So, we're all moved in now, the last box is unpacked- and most importantly my new craft room is up and running, yey!!

You want pics right?! Well of course....

I did the whole project myself and I'm very proud of it :) so I'm going to start right at the beginning lol! Here's the small guest bedroom at the beginning of its transformation. Starting to get colour on the walls...

We decided to keep the guest bed from our old house as it's always good to have that extra bed in case you get more than just a couple of people staying at one time. This meant losing space in my craft room of course, but I came up with the idea of removing the closet doors and using the closet as an alcove for the bed. This way we still had room for an office area at the end of the bed. I painted it a contrasting green to bring another pop of colour to the room.

 I really loved how it turned out, the bed fits perfectly- and just look at this bedding I found on clearance at KMart after I had painted.... doesn't it fit perfectly :) My kitties think having the bed in the room is a good idea too as they can now snuggle up on the bed and keep me company while I craft! ( I have some butterflies from Target to stick up in the alcove but I haven't got round to that yet!!)

As I said, with the bed being in the closet (lol) we had room to put our office area at the end of the bed, freeing up more space on the other wall for my area :) Here's the office set up...

Now onto the good stuff!! My new craft room, YEY!!!!

With my much needed standing height cutting station for my Cricut- hopefully I'll use it more now it is out and easily accessible! I made this by just placing an Ikea table top over the bookshelf and using 2 of the adjustable legs you can get at Ikea at the other end.

 All of the furniture and storage is from Ikea- Love That Store!!

I am so in love with our idea to use the Ikea kitchen storage system to store all my inks above my desk so they are in easy reach. I loooovee my Distress Inks and Alcohol inks and I'm using them even more now they are right there in front of me. I'm a lot tidier too as I can put each one away as I use it rather than having a stack of inks on my desk waiting to be put in a drawer.

I know there is some discussion about whether you can store Distress Inks on their sides, but I have ever since I had them and have no problem with the ink pooling or drying up. If you don't like to store them on their side though, you could just as easily lay them flat in those racks. I have the sponges stuck to the back of each one with velcro, so it's just easier and more stable to store them on their side.

 I had been wanting to figure out a better way to store my clear stamps so I can see them easier and so use them more. I was ready to try to convince hubby that I really needed one of those Clip it Up systems, but then while in Ikea I saw these hooks that go on the kitchen storage rail system...... LOVE!! Also love that they were something like $5 for the pack of 5, much cheaper than that spinny thing and doesn't take up desk space :)

Did you notice the divider insert in the top right shelf of the bottom storage? My cards fit perfectly in the smaller cubbies, all lined up waiting for me!! That bottom storage is an Expedit bookshelf from Ikea on its side so I can use it as counter space too.

While browsing online for craft room inspiration I kept seeing people using these Ikea picture shelves as storage for their wood mounted stamps. So, I can't claim this as my own idea, but I love how it looks :) I also didn't realise how many stamps I already have after 7 months of stamping and so need to buy more picture shelves for future purchases :)

Did I say I love Ikea?! I had so much fun picking everything out to make my room functional for me, and attractive at the same time. I love how cheap it was too, I can't remember exact figures now- but it was well under $500 for the lot! I do have all the names for the pieces, so if anyone wants them just leave a comment and I'll get them to you.

Ok, so you're probably all photo'd out by now so I won't go into the cards I have made recently yet- we'll save that for another post. I'll just leave you with one that I already posted on my Flickr pool but hadn't put up here yet. It's a card I made for our friends' wedding last month. It was my first time using this layered background technique, and I pretty much followed Shari Carroll's video on how to do it.

I really loved how this technique came out, and so used it again for one of the Easter cards I made and donated to our local cat rescue. They sell them on their stall outside our local PetSmart to make money to feed their rescues,  and spay and neuter the local feral kitties :)

Ok, so that was 2 cards! I have plenty more Easter cards that I have made for the cat rescue, but I will save those for another day to give your poor computers a rest from all these pictures!!

I look forward to catching up on what everyone has been doing over the past couple of months.

Love Lynsey

Surrounded by boxes!

Hi all!

I realized I haven't posted in 10 days, and unfortunately don't have any cards to share today either, but I just wanted to pop in and let you all know I am still alive- just very busy!! We're finally closing on our house, YEY, and should get the keys tomorrow, double YEY!!! So, as the title suggests, I am knee deep in boxes and packing paper getting us all packed up and ready to move! We're pretty much all packed apart from the kitchen necessities and food, our clothes... oh and my craft room lol! Even though I haven't had a chance to create in the past week, I just can't bring myself to pack away all my lovely stamps and inks in case I do get time to play! This of course is ridiculous as if things do go to plan and we do get the keys tomorrow we'll be actually moving, and cleaning, and unpacking etc etc for the next week and will have even less time to play.... I guess once I've finished typing this I should just go and get it done- but it is only 5.30pm and hubby doesn't get home from work til 11.30pm, and I've pretty much packed everything I can for now..... maybe I can have a little play before packing :)

I had to laugh when I saw the weather forecast for this weekend. Winter has been pretty mild here and we've seen barely any snow, even up in Tehachapi where we're moving to, which is at 4000ft. So, of course this weekend, when we should be starting to move and have a carpet cleaning company scheduled for the new house, they are forecasting snow- and lots of it! Down to the desert floor, which means snow at our current house, and a whole lot of snow at our new house!!! This would be very exciting if we were all moved in, snuggled up on our new sofas with our new pellet stove keeping us warm. However, we will be driving up and down the mountain with loads of boxes- that is if they don't close the roads!! Ah, nature how you like to play with our plans lol!

Now, see if it does snow and we can't start moving I will definately want to be in my craft room having some stamping time..... maybe I'll just pack it up next week :)

Lynsey x

My new stamps arrived just in time....

To join in at this week's Play Date Cafe challenge to take colour inspiration from this collage

Being relatively new to this challenge blog, when I first saw the inspiration picture I panicked a little- arrgghh, Vintage!!! LOL! But then, Michelle over at the blog was kind enough to come to my aid and clarify that it is a colour challenge, and so the only requirements for the challenge there that I used the colours, phew!

Then I thought, what is a challenge if not supposed to be challenging- that's the whole reason I decided to take part in thm! So, I added my own little caveat to the challenge that my card did need to be vintage themed. I'm not sure if what I came up with would technically be called vintage, but to me it is compared to my usual style...

I took a piece of pink textured cardstock and stamped it with HA Small Stitched Flowers in Victoian Velvet Distress Ink and then distressed the edges before adhering it to a cream coloured card inked with Antique Linen. I then took a beige piece of Core'dinations cardstock and stamped the HA Envelope Pattern in Vintage Photo before sanding and distressing the surface and edges. I stamped the leaf image from HA Delicate Leaf Clusters using Vintage Photo and then sanded again to soften the image. The sentiment, from HA Find Joy set was stamped using Walnut Stain. I adhered the distressed panel to the pink panel and then added the flower which was stamped with HA La Lettre in Victorian Velvet, and sprayed with Tattered Angels mist in Latte. The button was adhered with a little glossy accents.

Just had to share a quick pic of one of my boys checking out the pretty flowers hubby suprised me with for Valentines Day, aww! I also got two cards, one from hubby and one from my fur babies- aren't I a lucky girl :-)

Ok, time to get on with making dinner.....

Lynsey x