The Bee's Knees Special Release - Big Owls and Little Owls

I've got a couple of new stamp sets out today - Big Owls and Little Owls.

Big Owls

Little Owls

I'll start off with a couple of earworms for you from the Big Owls set:

No?  How about this one?

The Little Owls have promised not to give you an ear worm if they can play - but they did manage some corny sentiments instead ;)

Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the Design Team, and don't forget to comment for your chance to win either of the two prizes up for grabs: a $15 gift code, or your choice of an in-stock stamp from The Bee's Knees range.

STAMPlorations Inspiration #227

It's Inspiration Tuesday at STAMPlorations, and today I've got a new home card for you.

If you've got a stash of suitably smooshed card, this is a really quick one to make, and the good news is, you don't have to colour in properly!

The die is Stitched Winter Landscape and the sentiment is from Carved Houses.

Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog for a look at what the rest of the Design Team have created, and don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the store.  And while you're shopping, if you use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY you'll get 20% off.  Happy stamping :)

STAMPlorations Inspiration #226

Hellooo!  It's Inspiration Tuesday at STAMPlorations, and today I've used my set Carved Flowers to create a Ruby Wedding Anniversary card.

It's a rescue card - I stamped the images onto the white panel but stuffed up the largest flower, so I restamped all the flowers on spare card and cut them out and stuck them over the original flowers.  The sentiment was made using Happy Anniversary from Two Of Us, and Ruby was made using the Sketchy Alphabet.

Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the team, and don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the store.  You might want to use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY when you're shopping there to get 20% off.

STAMPlorations Stencil Sunday

I'm over on the STAMPlorations blog with a Stencil Sunday post.  I played with four of the Faces stencils to go in the signature of my Travellers Notebook - remember this?

A signature is the fancy name for the folded paper inserts in a journal.  I used cartridge paper because it's thinner than card and easier to fold.  I've got a couple of shots of each finished project, and a photo-heavy tutorial on the Fresh Beginning project, so grab yourself a cuppa.

My first project uses Faces: Foxy.  I used fineliner pens to create the outlines, then painted her skin with Distress Inks and a No.5 round brush, and painted and sponged the background.

I stamped Trendy Spring Blooms into her hair, firstly inking one of the solid images with Distress Inks, but I wasn't happy with that result, so I overstamped one of the line images in black and dotted the centres with a white Signo pen.  I added some extra stamping around the edges - Beautiful from Hashtag Authentic and one of my favourite grunge stamps from Mixed Media Grunge.

The next one uses Faces: Chic, Bold Sentiments: Fabulous and Scribbly Splattery Grunge.


In my head, that's a fluffy froufrou edging to her cocktail dress.  A bit of Stickles on the earrings to highlight the bling.

For this one using Faces: Pensive across a double spread I just painted the face and skin, and just a bit of background, for an artsy look.

I drew round a few flower masks (Bloom Silhouettes) and stamped a butterfly from Trendy Butterflies.

And now for the step by step tutorial.  Are you still with me?  Need a comfort break or a refill?  Or something stronger?

This stencil (Faces: Grace) is the same one as on the front of the journal, but I just used parts of it and flipped it to change the hair a little bit.

I painted her with Distress Inks, leaving white space for highlights on her hair and the hat.

The eyes are closed on the stencil, but I wanted open eyes so I stencilled the lid without the lashes then drew in some eyes and upper lids.  I added a bit of red hat reflection under her eyes.

Then I added some white highlights in her eyes and on her lips - it makes such a difference.

For her top I used the Mini Foiled Again stencil.

Then I added stamping on the opposite side of the spread - Typografia Motivate - Fresh Beginning, Sketched: Rose, Mixed Media Grunge

If you're still here, give yourself a pat on the back!  I hope the step-by-step helped you to see how you can manipulate stencils to create a variation not he original design.

Don't forget to leave me a comment for your chance to win a $15 gift code.  And if you're shopping in the store, use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY for 20% off.

Seize The Birthday - Rainbow or Anything Goes

Hellooo!  We've got a new challenge for you at Seize The Birthday - Rainbow!  You can see my (sort of) rainbow, can't you?  But if you don't fancy rainbows, you can still play along with Anything Goes as long as it's a birthday theme.

Our Surprise Party Guest is Su Mohr - pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog to see what she and the rest of the design team have made, and play along with us.

STAMPlorations Inspiration #225

It's Inspiration Tuesday at STAMPlorations, and I'm still on a mission to use up bits and bobs from my stash.  I found this cup and sleeve in my stash so I added a bit of Distress sponging to the cup and ran the sleeve through an embossing folder (which you can just about make out in the photo).  Then it was just a case of using one of the new stickers and a sticker sentiment to pull it all together.

Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the team, and don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win a $10 gift code to the store.  While you're at the store, if you use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY you'll get 20% off all stamps (excluding new release and retiring), stickers, dies and stencils.

Happy stamping, happy shopping!

STAMPlorations Inspiration #224

It's Inspiration Tuesday at STAMPlorations.  Meet my reconstructed card.  I raided my stash (again - I keep raiding it, but it doesn't seem to be going down any!) and I found this car (Enjoy The Ride), which had previously adorned another card that I no longer liked.  The HB2U - I'd dropped an inked stamp on that card so I chopped up and salvaged what I could.  Then I just needed something to tie both elements together and one of the new Stickers was a perfect fit.  Easy peasy :)

Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the team, and don't forget to comment for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the store.  And when you're at the store, don't forget to use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY for 20% off.

Blueberry, anyone?

I laughed my socks off when I read about Darnell's exploits with a pack of frozen blueberries, and I think Loll's idea to create birthday cards for Darnell with parts of the blueberry-stained mop-up card was genius.

Darnell's already got her birthday card from me but in the spirit of sharing, I've made a blueberry-splattered card for the CAS Watercolour Challenge.  The all-in-one stamp is from Woodware.

I'll stick to adding blueberries to my breakfast and my G&T (not the same meal, I might add!).

Craft Stamper Take It, Make It

Hello, and welcome to a new challenge at Craft Stamper Take It, Make It!  As always, it's Anything Goes, as long as you use real stamps.

I've used stamps from two Funky Fossil sets (The Quick Brown Fox and Beautiful Inside And Out).

One lucky randomly chosen participant will get this fab prize:

The winner chosen by the Design Team will get their entry and a profile published in the magazine and the blog, and an opportunity to guest design in a future challenge.  What's not to like?

Pop on over to the blog and play along!

Seize The Birthday - Sunshine (Or Anything Goes)

Hello!  We've got a brand new challenge for you at Seize The Birthday - Sunshine!  (And I'm pleased to say I'm actually getting some of that after an underwhelming June.)  If sunshine doesn't float your boat, you can still play along with any birthday-themed project.

I used stamps from my Carved Flowers set to create a palm tree and sunshine on a sponged background, then added flip flops (Card-io) and sentiments (Altenew and Card-io).

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog for some fabulous inspiration from the rest of the team, and from our Surprise Party Guest, Su Mohr, and play along with us.

STAMPlorations Inspiration #223

Hello!  It's Inspiration Tuesday at STAMPlorations.  I'm still raiding my bits and bobs stash, determined to actually use those extras that I make when I'm making another card.  I had already stamped, coloured and fussy cut this floral image months ago - well, if you're stamping an image once in your MISTI, it's so easy to stamp another while it's there.  It's also as easy to colour two or more images while you've got your inks or paints out.

The background was made from inking Distress Inks onto bubblewrap and spritzing.  The stamps are In Bloom: Fancy Frangipanis and Classic Shoes for the sentiment.

Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog where you'll see some more fabulous inspiration from the team.  Don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the store.  When you're shopping at the store don't forget to use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY for 20% off.