Up, Up, and Away!

The Happy Daze challenge for August is Circling the World. I do hope you will join in as there is a great prize! This is my contribution:-

I am entering this for the Artistic Outpost Referral Programme for August, the theme of which is Anything Goes. You can buy their stamps from here in the US, or from Happy Daze in the UK.

You can find more details of how I made the card here, on the Happy Daze Blog.

Returning to my Nest

After a fraught seven months, we have spent our first night in our own home. It feels very strange at the moment and there is a huge amount to do, as you can imagine. Nothing of my original home remains and I can't find anything and have nowhere to put anything, so it is very disorientating. We don't have any furniture and are sleeping on the floor. It will be a long time before we have finished sorting everything out with the insurance company, and have replaced our contents. I found the move back exhausting and much worse than I expected, especially in this incredible heat we have here in the UK at the moment. We didn't have a removal company and did it all just the two of us, despite many very kind offers of help (from very busy people who already have enough on their own workloads!). I wanted to leave the rental home absolutely spotless as you can easily be asked to pay high cleaning charges but the rental agent inspected everything and was very pleased.

All this sounds a bit negative but actually our house is looking absolutely beautiful. Our lovely builders did a great job, completely to our specification, and we are pleased with the choices we made for fixtures and fittings and decorating. Thank you so much for the wonderful support and kindness I have received from all of you; it has helped enormously.

Aperture Notebook for Happy Daze

I have made a little notebook using the little girl from the Artistic Outpost Think and Wonder set from Happy Daze. I also used the Spring and Summer Distress Inks and Inka Gold. For more details please visit the Happy Daze blog.

I am linking this to the Artistic Outpost August Referral Programme, the theme of which is Anything Goes. You can buy Artistic Outpost stamps from Happy Daze here in the UK, or from Artistic Outpost in the US.

A Summer's Garden

I have made this card for Happy Daze, using the Artistic Outpost set called Bloom and Grow. I used microporous tape from Superdrug to make the faux washi tape:-



I used the 3 sizes of bee from the Bloom and Grow set:-

I am also entering this card to the Artistic Outpost August Referral Programme, with the theme 'Anything Goes'. You can buy Artistic Outpost stamps from here in the US, or from Happy Daze in the UK. You can see more details of how I made the card on the Happy Daze blog here.

Stampin' Up Everyday Enchantment Card

I wasn't sure whether to blog this or not, as it is completely different to my normal style. I go to a Stampin' Up card making class with some friends one Saturday morning per month, and it is good for me to learn to do a more clean and simple style. In January I had made all my birthday cards for the year but they were all trashed by the burst pipe so the five cards I make at the class every month have kept me going whilst life has been a bit muddly. I've just bought the Everyday Enchantment designer paper series and the matching stamps called Fresh Vintage which are designed to go together, so I thought I would make a quick batch of cards as we are soon to be moving house again.

I particularly wanted this stamp set for using with distress markers. I used brush markers when I first started rubber stamping and it is great to go back to it, and it was fun to pick out the colours from the background papers. I really must get some more nesties or something similar though, as I don't have many options for matting and layering cards. The ribbon is also Stampin' Up, in Calypso Coral. I finished the card off with a tiny butterfly - I thought the paper was a bit pricey so I got out my tiniest flower and butterfly punches to use up all the tiny scraps!

I probably won't have a chance to make very many things over the next few weeks apart from DT commitments, but I hope to still be able to see what you are all doing!