New Pastures

I have made this card for the Cracked Critter Event over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity :)

I have made a card featuring this adorable Cracked Yak. 

This is actually a card for a new home ... Moving onto New Pastures. 

For this card all the stamps I used are from Lost Coast Designs.

The yak is coloured with copics and fussy cut and clear embossed. I added a layer of diamond glaze to the eye and popped it up with dimensions on the card front. The yak was actually stamped onto the background as well, then the fine details didn't have to be fussy cut.

The background is sponged with distress ink then I spritzed the Circle Frame stamp with water and stamped the background. It gives such a cool effect as it removes the ink from the areas the water goes onto. 

The alphabet is stamped with Old Typewriter alphabet SOTA in black ink with a little white gel pen highlights.

I drew the hoof prints, the yak is after all moving ... onto new pastures. 

Here is a close up :

Please go and check out all the other awesome cracked critter makes at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity.

Put a bow on it

This weeks challenge at Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge blog is 'Put a bow on it'.

Sponsored by All Dressed Up, I have used this cute image Little Bookworm:

She is coloured with copics and I used an oval die to cut her out, and matted it onto black card stock. I added the green bow over the top of the bow that was on her hat already.

For the background I tore a page out of a old book. I had decided I wasn't going to read it anyway. LOL

Thanks for stopping by :)

Birthday Girl ATC

Such fun images this week, from Lemon Shortbread, the theme of Wicked Wednesdays challenge is 'Birthday Girl'. She most certainly looks like a party reveler to me ... Her name is Balloon Girl Happy Birthday : 

She is coloured with copics and white gel pen. The background paper was cut with a spellbinders die in my big shot and I added the white dots and typed above the lines with 'Lets Party' and 'Party'. The balloons were die cut from glimmer paper and the twine added for the strings. 

Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you over at Wicked Wednesday soon :)

Snails

Vera lane studios new snail set, called Snails Pace. Its so cool.

I made a birthday card and an atc :

Card is 4.25 x 4.25". Background is distress ink, the images are coloured with copics.

The ATC background is made with dylusions sprays, stencil and a napkin. I typed the words onto tissue paper and attached them with gel medium. I also doodled some white in the background. The exhausted and fed up snail is coloured with copics and clear embossed :)

Thanks for stopping by x

Adventure now or tea first ?

Today I am sharing some inspiration for this months Coffee Fiends challenge over at the Viva Las VegaStamps! blog ... But I am a tea drinker, I don't really drink coffee ! Did I just hear you gasp ? LOL. But fear not .. I still get my caffeine fix :)

The inspiration for the April challenge includes : 

caffeine, coffee, tea, tea time, warm drinks, hyper, hype, cups, recycle, fancy, stain, spill, coffee rings, drips, drops, splatters, vintage, cardboard, corrugated,tan, brown, black, dark, roasted, light, vapor, and last of all.. date time with friends.

Here is my make : 

As my focal point I used this dapper gentleman, Man with teacup 18484. Isn't he great?

I stamped and colored him with alcohol markers and fussy cut him. The rather delicate pink bone china tea cup is embossed with clear embossing powder. I also used the tail from the Fantasy Bird 17852 to make the vapor/steam from his cuppa. Its stamped onto velum, embossed and fussy cut.

The background is sponged with tea dye distress ink and the corrugated cardboard is actually a recycled Starbucks cup sleeve :) I sponged it lightly with distress ink and added black and white splatters of acrylic paint. I also made the tea bag tag, instead of using ribbon.

This is such a fun quote from Peter Pan, and fitted perfectly with this gentleman I think. He looks like hes asking just this sort of question, or perhaps making a sarcastic remark ? LOL

Here is a close up :

If you feel inspired to come and join us, and check out the challenge, go HERE. 

Also, check our the other inspiration posts by the Design Team on the Blog HERE.

Thanks for stopping by xxx

Namaste ATC

At Wicked Wednesday this week, the challenge is Ribbon tags and we are sponsored by Aurora Wings. I have used Mischievous Little Lotus Sprite :

I really enjoyed the colour scheme in this ATV. The background is patterened paper. The sprite is coloured with copics and acrylic paint pen. I went around her in T3 and T6 copic and fussy cut her.

The ribbon tag was added top left. 

Namaste to you :)

Why Hello

Hello ! Today I am sharing my most recent make for Viva Las VegaStamps ! 

I made a simple card using this adorable whimsical dog image : 

Don't you just love his thoughtful expression.

The dog is stamped directly onto the background with black versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder, then coloured with water color pencils and white paint pen.

But its the background I wanted to talk about today. Anyone who uses acrylic paint or other mediums with a brayer, what do you do with the sheet you roll the excess paint off onto ? When you look at the sheet as a whole it might look as mess, but if you cut it down to card size, it appears quite different. You can see here some scrap papers I had used / background opportunities I had created:

I cut one of the sheets to a card front size, then stamped and colored the dog. The messy/painty paper takes on quite the different look as a background to my focal image. Again I always add a little white detail to any image, it just makes them pop :

 I wanted to ground the image onto the card, but not add anything too imposing.  I masked off the colored dog as shown below and stamped a scenic image over it in grey, I used the water mill scene :

Finally I stamped the 'Why Hello' sentiment and matted the card front onto plain white card stock and onto a black card base.

I think everyone probably has scraps of paper with ink or paint on them, try them as backgrounds before throwing them out :)

Nikki x

Some piggy advice :

Love this new piggy set, Bacon Bits from Vera Lane Studios :

I love the expression on this little piggy's face, he looks like a bit of a know it all. Here he is, dishing out advice : 

I used a couple of elements from different sets by Vera Lane Studios, Pig is one of the Bacon Bits, the cloud is from the March Birthday set and the ground is from The Organics. 

The base is a playing card, I gessoed and added blue acrylic paint. The rest is coloured with copics and fussy cut. The words are typed on my typewriter.

Thanks for stopping by x

Colour themed atc trade, coral and turquoise

Using some vintage photos from the photo pack by Ranger, I made these ATCs for a colour themed trade :

I am not really a scrap booker, but I do admire this style of scrap booking, so thought I would start off with a smaller, more manageable version :) 

And a close up of my fave ATC : 

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely day xxx

Fun little ATC

This fun little ATC features the newest release from Vera Lane Studios, Helga's Hedgehog : 

Everything is coloured with copics, and fussy cut. I doodled a little design into her dress and edited the green vine a little.

The background is actually from the Helga's Hedgehog set. I resized it to fit my ATC, printed it and sponged it with distress ink, sponging the edges grey and matting onto grey card stock. Final touch was a little Wink of Stella pen on her wings and eyelids.

Thanks for stopping by x


I actually made another of these little ATC's and stamped flowers in the background, I really liked how it turned out :

He's a Bird Dog

I am taking part in the ATC trade at the Vera Lane Studios facebook group, Cat or dog person. 

I think this ATC makes its pretty obvious that I am a dog person : 

The Vera Lane Studios images I have used here are : 

Dog from Rescue Puppies, Cloud from Helga's Hedgehog and Wings from Wings for Things.

Who remembers the Everly Brothers song, Bird Dog ? Although not my era, I grew up listening to this type of music and very much appreciate it still now : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I65PxlOlHA4

The background of my ATC is actually a playing card, painted with blue and white acrylic paint. I matted it onto card stock that I had coloured with W3 copic.

The dog and wings are coloured with copics (mostly W1-5) and fussy cut. I actually cut the dogs back legs off the dog as it looked better with the wings. But of course had to re-add the tail :) And I thought he needed some additional embellishment, the glittery blue collar was perfect :)

The cloud was printed and covered with the Marvey snow marker. When it was dry I heat embossed it and it goes all puffy. I actually edited the cloud a little, removing the large cloud piece. I also added some cotton wool below the cloud to enhance the fluffy cloud-like feel.

I glued down the cloud, the dog on top and finally added some coloured dots and the words I typed on my typewriter. 

Final touch was adding some diamond glaze on the eyes, as I always do, but I did that after I took the pic. It gives a really awesome glassy eyed look.

Thanks for stopping by x

Garden Friends ATC

Miss Rach is this weeks sponsor of Wicked Wednesday, she has the cutest cartoon critters ever. She is a prolific drawer and has new images every day, you should check out her etsy store or Facebook :)

The challenge this week is 'Garden Friends'. I have used this cute lady bug for my ATC : 

The lady bug is coloured with prisma pencils, copics and white gel pen. Then I did some fussy cutting and added wire for the antennas :)

The background is distress stain applied with a baby wipe, then I used flowery washi for the ground.

Please come over and join the challenge at Wicked Wednesday :)