Faith, Hope & Crafts

Hello Friends Happy Friday :)   I was feeling a bit emotional last night so I wanted to make something. I love to craft my emotions it really is my therapy. I always feel better after I make something. I wanted to make a tag that represented right where I am at in my life ready to take dive into the unknown. It is scary and it takes a lot of faith to do that but I am so ready for a change.  This stamp is called She Leaped how appropriate right?? I heat embossed it with white embossing powder then I used my water colour paints to colour it.  The sentiment is from another stamp set called With Her Own Wings . Once it was dry I added some coloured sewing floss and some tiny punched butterflies to embellish.  My husband and I leave for Scotland on Monday. I have a job interview and It will also be great to spend time with my family. I never get to go home around this time of year so it will be really nice to spend Easter at home...

Hello Friends Meet  Alfie :) is he not the cutest wee mouse you have ever seen??  As soon as I saw this wee mouse on the Unity Stamp Company blog I fell in love with him. If you know my blog you know I love my Unity Stamps.  They have sorts of wonderful stamps and this is my new favourite. I got this stamp a few weeks ago but this is the first time I have inked him up today. I heat embossed him with black embossing powder and then water coloured him with my peerless water colour paints.  When it was dry I backed him on to some black and pink card. I then dry embossed some turquoise card with a hearts embossing folder and then tied some black jute around it. Finally I mounted it on to a black card base. I made this card to fit into a few challenges today. Virginia's View Embossing Challenge. Simon Says Stamp - Monday Animal Challenge. Craft Stamper - Take It Make It - Anything Goes Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. Mandi xox ...

Hello My Crafty Friends I hope you are all having a good week so far!! I am back again with my second post as a guest designer for the  TIME OUT challenge.  Look at all of these pretty colours in the inspiration photo have you entered yet?? If not you have some time left to get crafty. I got out my distress inks to make this card. I love to get messy with them they make me so happy ha! First I heat embossed this lovely floral stamp called  Untamed Beauty from Unity with white embossing powder. Then I got out my Picked Raspberry and Salty Ocean distress inks. I like to swipe the colours on to my craft sheet and pick up the colours from there.  I misted my card with a little water first then applied the inks and built up layers of colour until I was happy with it. When it was dry I added a couple of gem stones. Finally I mounted this on to a white card base using some foam squares. I had previously scored lines down the card using my scoreboard...

Hello Friends I wanted to make a card for this months Be Inspired Challenge over at the Unity blog. These are the lovely colours for this month. They are so pretty I love them.  I used the colours as inspiration as well as the bottles of flowers in the photo. I bought this stamp a long time ago and I have never used it so I got it out to play with it. You can find it here it is called Bottled Blossoms . I thought it was perfect for my card.  I heat embossed it with white embossing powder on to kraft. Then I paper pieced the bottles and the flowers with the same embossing technique. I made a card base from some lovely American Craft yellow hearts card and then tied some twine to finish. I really love the end result I hope you do too :) Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. Mandi xox Challenges Friends With Flair Virginias View Ch 13 All things Embossed Craft Stamper - March   - Anything Goes

 Hello Friends I was experimenting with some new embossing powders that I bought months ago and have not got around to using. This one is a glow in the dark one.  How fun is that? I thought this was the perfect stamp to use from Unity See Stars .  I used a stencil by Heidi Swapp called  Confetti to create the stars. I stamped with Versamark ink then sprinkled the Glow in the dark embossing powder over it and heat embossed it. I then used my black soot distress ink to create the background. I stamped the sentiment separately and used the same technique. I strung some silver and white twine and then mounted the sentiment with some foam squares. To finish off the card I added some star shaped gem stones. It was really difficult to get a good picture in the dark. This give you an idea of the result you get. It really does glow in the dark really well. It is something different and quite unique don't you think? I need to experiment with it...

Happy Friday I hope you all had a good week.  I was at the craft store yesterday and saw this lovely paper stack called Butterfly Garden . Oh my goodness the papers are so lovely delicate and floral. I have probably walked past this paper stack a thousand times and just never noticed it. It has lots of butterfly papers too so I just had to buy this since I don't really own anything quite like it.   I needed to make a Mother's Day card for my mum and I kept putting off so I was inspired to make the card with these new papers. I kind of threw this together late last night.  The background paper on the card is a very delicate aged pink with little touches of gold but it is not getting picked up in the picture. The photo does not do it any justice really go and see this stack for yourself if you like the look of it. I used the  True Wishes stamp and the sentiment is from the Mother's Day Daisies stamp set both from Unity. I stamped and heat embossed the...

Hello Friends I am excited to be joining the lovely ladies over at the Time Out Challenges blog today. This is my prize for winning the hearts blog challenge a few weeks ago. I get to be a guest designer YAY!! Thank you so much for such a great prize.  This is also their first birthday woo hoo ~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY ~  Time Out Challenges !!! Today they have a new challenge which is inspired by this photo.  Look at all of those lovely colours!!I wanted to keep my card really simple and let the colours speak for themselves. I had the perfect stamps in mind for my card. This little row of  Heart Strings from Unity. I just bought them recently so this was a great time to use them.  I coloured them with my distress inks Picked Raspberry & Salty Ocean . Then I stamped the birthday sentiment from the Sweet Elle stamp set underneath using VersaFine ink. Next I added some green sequins. It looked a little flat still so I got out my Stickl...

Hello Friends I got some new Unity stamps in the mail over weekend. I get so excited when I see that brown envelope arrive at my house, I am like a kid at Christmas ha! One of my new stamp sets are these little pandas how cute are they?? They came just in time as I needed to make my nephew a birthday card. He loves animals so this Plenty of Pandas stamp set was perfect for his card. This is such a simple and easy card to make. I just stamped the panda and the sentiment from the Sweet Elle stamp set  in Versafine black onyx ink. Then I used a balloon stamp I have from Fiskars called Birthday Bash.   This set comes with numbers so I could put his age in the balloon. I painted the balloon in light blue with my water colour paints. Next I strung a little row of sequin stars along the top with silver floss. It looked a little too clean for me so I threw some paint splatters on the card. I absolutely love the way it turned out. I hope he likes his card. He asked to go th...