Clearly besotted September Teasers Day 4

I’m back again with another character from the fun set Mischievous Plushies. This time we’re visiting Snow White – or is it Snow White, is it the wicked Queen in disguise? Or have I completely been mistaken and it’s actually ‘Enchanted’?

Don’t we all need to be fearless? I especially need to to be more fearless – like when I’ve got to visit the dentist or have a colonscopy! I reckon there’s lots of occasions you could use this to send to friends and even when they’re starting a new job or a new course.

True to form, I’m using lots of dots and have coloured in the squirrel using Copic markers.

She’s really very cute isn’t she! I quite fancy a crown in real life. Anyone else thinking they’d rock one too?!

Please do visit Clearly Besotted‘s blog (and on Instagram too) and then onto my favourite royal Michelle Short. Lastly pop over to visit our fabulous guest designers Francine Vuilleme and Alberto Gava to see some superbly inspirational projects.

Hope to catch you here again tomorrow for Release Day x

Clearly Besotted September Teasers Day 3

Hello! How are you doing? Are you ready to dance? Why don’t you grab your fave shoes and join in with Cruella? I guess she gets a pretty bad wrap but everyone gets a second chance right? Here’s another project using the sets from Mischievous Plushies.

Yes! You can see her strutting on the dance floor can’t you. I decided she really needed a discoball so used up a little scrap and added some permanent ink and then scored along the lines to try and make it appear a little more 3D.

The light bouncing off from the ball is cascading down towards her and she’s sparkling in the glow. Simple colouring using Copic markers and I’ve not shaded as much to make it look like the light is catching her.

Being fierce is important sometimes isn’t it and not always of the ‘be fierce dahhhling’ but more of the tiger mom kind?! Whether you need to be fierce on a night out or fierce to get something resolved (let’s not talk about the British Gas saga I underwent this week after my gas/electricity bill)!

Time to shimmy over to Clearly Besotted‘s blog (and on Instagram too) and then onto my fox-trotting teamie Michelle Short. Lastly tango over to visit our fabulous guest designers Alberto Gava and Francine Vuilleme to see some more fabulous projects.

See you tomorrow x

Clearly Besotted June Release Day

After all of this strenuous crafting over the past few days, it’s time to take it easy…or not! You might be one for working outside or are a real gym bunny. Either way, this new set called Gym Plushies is sure to be popular for the funny sentiments.

I’ve used the Cloudy Day Stencil again- where would we be without it!! Just using some gentle blending with a light blue ink. I took the clouds down past the stamped images- I’d stamped the scene twice. Normally I’d colour in all the image- but I wanted to be selective in order to do a quicker make.

Using Copic Markers to colour the trees in, you can nearly hide the sponged stencilled clouds, which avoids having to mask the image. I simply coloured the bottom part so there was some colour to add the characters on to.

Chick has really had enough exercising. He found that simply adding the towel behind his neck was exhausting, so called his exercise session done and headed off towards the icecream van for a slushie!

There’s more to see from Clearly Besotted‘s blog (and on Instagram too) and Michelle Short who has her her video and then pop over to see our wonderful guest designers Francine Vuilleme, and Alberto Gava.

As usual, the release goes live at 8pm GMT. All sets are available tonight on the Clearly Besotted store and also from Simon Says Stamp , Art Creatiu, Cloud 9 Crafts and Card Nouveau too.

Don’t forget to enter into the giant giveaway over on Clearly Besotted’s Facebook page. It’s a fabulous opportunity to win the whole release!

Thankyou for being with me again this month.

See you soon xx

Clearly Besotted June Teasers Day 4

Well, hi there! I really couldn’t resist inking up the “Plushies In Wonderland'” set again. I loved the sentiment and so designed the card around it.

I’m always pulling out the Cloudy Day Stencil although I wish I’d use more colourful inks. It’s supposed to be brighter and less pastel; I really should remake it! I added some inks through the stencil and then stamped and coloured the characters with Copic Markers.

Wouldn’t you want to read a story with these guys in?! I drew a basic book shape with the pages open so that the characters could literally bounce off the pages. Sometimes a really basic bit of drawing can be a useful focal point.

The Mad Hatter koala is suitably quirky and full of fun. I love the rabbit and pocket watch- I am looking forward to making some fantasy styled backgrounds to place them in. It’s true that reading take you on adventures where you can lose yourself.

I hope you’ll go over to Clearly Besotted‘s blog (plus on Instagram too) and then pop across to the wonderful Michelle Short. We also have Francine Vuilleme and Alberto Gava, who will have done something wonderful!

See you for the Release tomorrow!

Keren x

Clearly Besotted June Teasers Day 3

Hello! How is your day going? I wonder if you’ve got jobs in mind like this toiling two? Hands up for those of you who love DIY?

I like simple achievable projects but my skills need working on. I’ll happily mix up a unique paint colour or try a fun fabric addition. I’ve always wanted to do wallpapering! Well, back to this wonderful new set titled ‘Do It Yourself’…the perfect description of the handmade greeting process.

So much fun ! As soon as I saw the set, I wanted to do a pegboard styled background. I grabbed my Mama Elephant peg board die and die cut using some yellow cardstock to match the card. It’s an easy addition that really brings the card to life.

Now to colour the characters in. I’ve used a limited colour palette to go with the yellow. I love the dripping paint- isn’t that always what happens! For any family members who love DIY, this is going to be a great set. Want to make it more geared to a particular gender? Easy- add their favourite colours, flowers, etc etc.

We have Father’s Day coming up in the UK soon, so I thought adding one of the sentiments of the sets would be at least one card ticked off the list!

I can’t wait to go and see what Clearly Besotted have created over on Clearly Besotted‘s blog (plus on Instagram too) and then head over to my lovely teammate Michelle Short. We also have Alberto Gava, and Francine Vuilleme and I know they’d appreciate you visiting them.

Until tomorrow, I’ll see you then,

Keren x

Clearly Besotted June Teasers Day 2

Hello! How are you today? We’re going a little Nordic today with the new set ‘Viking Plushies’. These cute swashbuckling guys are all ready to party like it’s 700AD 😉

I wanted to do a night time party banquet scene with the ‘Viking Plushies’. So this is what I ended up with.

To make the background, I blended some Squeezed Lemonade Distress ink into the area where the candles would be, added some Fossilized Amber around the edges. I then added a flame shaped sticky notes to add over the yellow for when I blended Black Soot over the top so I didn’t slip and blend black over the yellow area. I added some directional water splashes to give some texture to the background and look as if it was windy.

Next I coloured in the food laden table adding some fun dots to give a little magical vibe to the food. Obviously one of the cute vikings isn’t content to sit at the table but has clambered onto the table ready to pounce onto the chicken!

The Penguiviking is in charge of guarding the food against marauding robbers. This was such a fun scene to colour and there are so many different characters to create fabulous scenes with.

Please now go to see Clearly Besotted‘s blog (plus on Instagram too) and then jog over to the wonderful Michelle Short. We also have Francine Vuilleme and Alberto Gava who continue to delight us with their amazing projects so please visit them as well.

Do come back tomorrow for a look at another set!

Keren x

Clearly Besotted June Teasers Day 1

Hello everyone! How are you doing? It’s so good to be back with another round of Clearly Besotted teasers. This is a really diverse set of stamps and I’ve definitely got a favourite or two!

Today I’m focusing on ‘Plushies In Wonderland’. This has a nod to the Alice story and have most of your favourite wonderland characters. I love the scene where Alice appears in Wonderland and meets the white rabbit. I thought I’d give the rabbit an enormous mushroom as a background.

Isn’t he so cute! The mushroom was super easy- just a red piece of cardstock with some details added and then add the underside and stalk and add lots of details using Copic markers.

The background was created by adding some heart masks with punched out hearts on some sticky notes. Then I blended some Oxide inks over the top and removed the masks. Add some little gold, black and white dots to add a little magic.

The rabbit is bouncing around with his cup of magical potion hot chocolate, having such a brilliant day!

I do hope you’re enjoying your day, and we’ve got more inspiration for you on the Clearly Besotted‘s blog (plus on Instagram too) and then fly over to the wonderful Michelle Short. We also have Alberto Gava and Francine Vuilleme who always bring such creative ideas.

Do come back tomorrow when there’s more to see!

Keren x

Clearly Besotted May Teasers Day 3

Hello again! I think I’m safe to say that everyone agrees that bees are pretty magical. True, you might not like them buzzing around you if you’re a little scared of them, but what they do, and how they live is pretty amazing. With them being pretty integral to our lives (sustainability, food production, ecological balance and more), we need to look after them and their habitats…

but today I have a truly magical bee! She’s called Beelinda and she spreads joy, wonder and magical fairybee dust. What? You didn’t know there was such a thing as a fairybee? Let me educate you 😉

Fairybees are part of a subsection in the fairy kingdom that just put fairy mistakes right again. You know, those pesky fairies that drop their wand because they were too busy thinking about their hair, those ditzy fairies that dream so much about spells that they forget to cast them, or those dreamer types who sprinkle fairy dust over the wrong people or animals. So that’s where fairy bees come in.. with a swish and a casting of fairybee dust, everything is well again. She is included (along with some other friends in the new set ‘Beewitched By You’.

They regularly get to attend fairy disciplinary meetings which, (truth be told) they find quite inconvenient but these meetings are quite supportive and fairies leave feeling better about themselves with an action plan of how to do better. They also tend to hear the same fairy honey sandwich.. you know..tell them something sweet about themselves, explain how they can do better, and then add sweet lashings of affirming honeyed encouragement. If ever you’re fortunate enough to see a bee wearing a peculiar hat, you’ll know you’ve just witnessed one of life’s secret wonders; the fairybee!

My card is different to how I designed it. It was supposed to be an offset hexagon (going with the whole bee hexie thing) and when I placed it on the card I realised I should have just stamped the main bit centrally and left it at that. I’d stamped it and coloured it already so had to chop off the left hand side to match the right so I ended up with a squished hexagon shape… but hey, the fairybees helped me finish it 😉

It’s now time to go and visit Clearly Besotted‘s blog (and on Instagram too) and then hop over to the wonderful Michelle Short. We also have Francine Vuilleme, Kitty Day and Alberto Gava as our fabulously inspiring guests so please visit them toox

See you tomorrow, to look at another new set.

Keren x

Clearly Besotted May Teasers Day 2

Hey. How are you today? I’m glad you loved yesterday’s new set. I’m actually using it again because I love it quirkiness so much. If you know much about what I do, I also sometimes work for a large company called Fiskars who manufacture (amongst other things) scissors. They have bright orange handles on thier classic range and so I thought I’d have a pair of orange handled scissors.

I thought it might be fun to have them cutting through some paper- like a piece of paper from a notebook so that was where my idea developed from.

Cutting a slit in a piece of patterned paper (that I’d already punched a notebook top into) was the first step and then I had to carefully roll it without crushing it and then glue the rolled bit to itself so it didn’t come undone. Having double sided patterned paper was really handy as it gives a little colour to the card.

Shame about the scissor’s handles… they are rather too tiny to be fussy cutting and my papercrafting scissors need sharpening.. they’ve fussy cut a LOT over the years. I tried to disguise the jaggedy edges and you can see here how unsuccessful I was- but from a distance….noone will notice (haha!).

Isn’t the sentiment just perfect! I just lined it up and stamped on the card base before adding the patterned paper and then added the little fun pen and some scattered hearts which are all in the set.

I’d love you to go and visit the Clearly Besotted blog (plus they’re on Instagram too) and then hop over to my favourite teamie Michelle Short. We have Kitty Day, Francine Vuilleme and Alberto Gava as our fabulously inspiring guests so please visit them too x

See you tomorrow, to explore another new set.

Keren x

Clearly Besotted April Teasers Day 4

Well Hi! How’s your day going? Today is all about love; sending love and being loved! We’re revisiting the set ‘Paper Play’ with the cutest little raccoon. I wanted to try and do another origami shape.

It’s not easy folding the paper and this shape ended up looking like something that had eaten too much! So I recreated the same shape but just used pieces that I folded in the same way so it ended up thinner.

I stamped the heart from patterned paper and trimmed out and I love how it changes the look of the image. The sentiment was stamped onto a strip of patterned paper too. The whole card came together really quickly.

Unless you looked really closely you’d never know- and who doesn’t love a good shortcut. I did want to recreate one of the characters with a boat shaped card blank- maybe I’ll try that next week!

I added them onto a piece of patterned paper and then another piece onto the base. It provides impact without having to do any colouring; result!!

Please pop over to the Clearly Besotted blog and Instagram too. Plus also my superb team mate Michelle Short.

Please also go and visit Francine Vuilleme, Adele Emery, Mona Toth and Alberto Gava to view their wonderful creations.

See you tomorrow as it’s release day!