Lofty learns to drive...

A break from looking at Christmas cards today as I'm showing one of my samples for Joanna Sheen's Lofty Celebrations stamps. When Lofty first came out I'm ashamed to say I didn't really like him, but he has grown on me so much and now I really love this cute little fellow.

Obviously this is 'Driving Test Lofty' and isn't he just so sweet waving his no longer needed L plate in the air and looking ultra pleased with himself. The die, tyre marks and the sentiment 'Well Done' are also part of the set and very useful.

The clever thing about this stamp is that you can easily cut the L plate off and use Lofty in his car to make a birthday card for a little one or whoever you want to. I decided to make mine a card for a 2 year old - yes I know Miles has only just had his first birthday, but just this once I am super organised!!!

The other stamps on my birthday card are all by different manufacturers - the number 2 is by Crafter's Companion and is from one of the mouse sets, the 'happy birthday' sentiment is a Studio G and the 'Today' (which took me ages to find) is from a sheet by the Stamp Man. Dotty Paper is from my beloved DCWV.

Both cards are ideal for the challenges at ...

Creative Inspirations - 'animals'
Tanda Teaser - 'In the Wild' - Lofty will be going 'wild' celebrating passing his test and also his Great Grandma lived in Kenya before moving to Devon!!
Bubbly Scrumptious - 'vehicles'
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - 'teenage boys' - well it probably would be a teenage boy passing their test so I reckon this counts.

Let it snow...

Another Joanna Sheen sample card using one of the stamps from the new Messy Rabbit Jolly Christmas set. I decided to do a variation on a step card. I used the bottom half of a sheet of paper from the White Christmas paper pad to create the first step and the top half of the paper for the back.

I think having two layers like that makes for a more interesting card - well hopefully it does! I do like the backing paper pads that Joanna does as they make creating a scene on a card so easy and the new snowy Christmas pads are just gorgeous.

Messy Santa is coloured with Promarkers and of course after my happy accident with the Sakura white glaze pen I have been adding glittered glaze everywhere! Infact I think I had some on my nose this morning as my friend at Slimming World pointed out to me!

My card is perfect for the challenge at the One Stop Craft Challenge where the theme is 'Let it Snow' - hmmmmmmm not this week thank you very much - well not on the ground anyway!

A favourite embellishment...

The challenge at Stamp Something this week is to use your favourite embellishment on a card. Hmmmmmmmmm, I would be lost without organza ribbon and gem stones so I decided to show this 8" x 8" Christmas card made with the new Messy Rabbit Christmas stamps by Joanna Sheen.

I wanted the Messy Rabbit scene to be the focal part of the card, but to add interest and lead the eye in I added an embossed border with organza ribbon round it to the lower part of the card. I tied a couple of extra lengths of ribbon around the first knot in the ribbon to give it more oomph and then added a die cut snowflake (another of my favourite embellishments - I have quite a few) and a diamond gemstone.

The card is really glitzy (and hard to take photos of) as I used silver mirri card embossed with Merry Christmas in cerise and matching plain cerise mirri board for the matting and layering.


The central image of Messy with a snowman was coloured with Promarkers and then cut out and matted onto the black card. The tree is a stamp by Art Impressions and was done in the same way. The fence is a Magnolia stamp, which means that this card also qualifies for this week's Magnolia challenge - embossing.

Check out the happy accident - when reaching for my glue pen to use to adhere the glitter I picked up a white Sakura Glaze pen by accident - oooooooooh the snow was far snowier using that!! Will be using it again in the future.

Thanks in advance for any comments (preferably nice ones!).

Ann xxx