Light it Up for Autism Awareness

Hello and welcome to the Light It Up Blue For Autism Awareness Blog Hop!  It's World Autism Awareness Day today and having friends with autism, friends with children with autism, and teaching kids with autism I was honoured to be asked to take part in this blog hop.

The National Autistic Society describes what autism is here.  

Lots of fantastic sponsors  have shown their support for Autism Awareness and you can see the complete list here: http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-light-it-up-blue-for-autism.html

If you would like a chance to win a prize from one of these fabulous companies leave a comment on this blog, and any of the other blogs participating in today's hop! You can find the other blogs taking part in the hop here.  Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced on Monday April 6. 

The theme for this campaign is 'blue' so I used as much blue as possible, plus my new stamps from Fred B Mullet

After smooshing my tag through some blue brusho inks I stamped some Stampotique numerals, lightening the intensity of the ink by stamping it onto my underpaper before stamping my tag.

I applied a couple of blue distress inks to the fern stamp and spritzed it with water before stamping it on my tag.

It didn't come out as clearly as I thought (but oooo, love the effect at the bottom of the tag!) so I added some stenciling...

..and some sprinkles of water, which I dabbed off - love that effect!

Spraying White Dylusions ink through my circles stencil added this gorgeous splash of pink 'cos I rarely clean my stencils.  It adds a great contrast!  You can tell I got carried away here and forgot to take my step by step photos - I also stamped a fern by Fred B Mullet.

It still needed a little something so I used my fern die with a security envelope and love the contrast of the black and white paper against the blues.

I'm going to give this tag, along with a little collection of blues, as blog candy to someone who leaves a comment on this blog; I'll use random.org to pick a winner.  Other blogs in the hop also have their own individual blog candy.

It's a shame I can't include the matches, they have cute blue heads!!

So head on over to http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-light-it-up-blue-for-autism.html  and have fun blog hopping!  And don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win, the draws will take place on Monday April 6th :)  Happy Hopping!

a busy time at Port Sunny

...but such fun!  I was demoing the new Hot Picks stamps and co-ordinating dies from Paper Artsy on Paddy's stand.  Apparently Leandra will be bringing out a new set of Hot Picks each month - oh dear, I need to start saving up :)  I gave away quite a few sample pieces, especially as I met a lot of people who had distress inks at home and hadn't ever used them.

I used the top of my plastic box to dab some ink on from the pad, sprayed this with water, then swiped a piece of white card across it.  Once this was dry, I cut the shape using a die, then stamped the co-ordinating image, again using my distress inks.

I did start the day with a pink phase, but I must have given those samples away lol.  I also used a combination of stencils to colour the paper, dabbing the ink through after picking it up on cut n dry foam.  I fell in love with the dragonfly, but this was my very favourite one :

 I just love the mustard and blue colours together.  The text stamp is from the Hot Picks set.  By just inking up part of the stamp, and holding it with the edges curled up, you can add texture without the words being too clear.  The following is the only photo I took on the day (so no embarrassing photos of Wendy and Sue to get my own back with!).  Paddy sent me off for an hour over lunch, and demoed some fabulous pieces using sticky back paper, gold flakes, embossing powders, the cuttlebug and Stazon Ink.  But guess what?  I don't have any pics of those sample pieces ...sorry!

If you head over to Sue's blog, you can see an 'altered' sample of mine though.  I discovered that the leaf die makes a fabulous bird shape, so Sue took one away to give it a hat and boots at my request, but I LoVe the knobbly knees he now has too lol

playdate at Wendy's

Isn't it nice when you get to have a playdate with friends?  Especially when you get to meet blog friends in real life :)  The only trouble is, time speeds up!! 

It was Wendy's day off from the shop so Hels, Ruby, Wendy and I got together for a playdate.   And had a FaBuLouS time :)  Ruby put us to shame by speedily polishing off a beautiful card with some yummy papertrey stamps, but I forgot to photograph it!!  Sorry Ruby!!!  Email me a pic and I can add it in x

 

 

Wendy put these beautiful brooches together and mounted them onto stamped postcards.  Aren't those colours yummy?  Wonder where she saw this idea?!!! ;)

Hels made two stunning tags with distress inks and Tim's dies.  They are really, really GoRGeouS; the heart has little tiny sparkles inside, to match the crown.  

 

 

And I made butterflies with prima papers and Tim's butterfly die.  And you'll never guess, all these dies and papers are available at The Stamp Attic ;) (including that yummy, yummy, narrow, red, ricrac)

did you know that today is 'Earth Day'?...and PDCC#26

It's printed on my calendar but I did have to look it up in Wikipedia to check what it was as I'd never heard of it before, although it was started 40 years ago.  Apparently it is "a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment".  In honour of Earth Day, Julie chose some earthy colours for this week's play date cafe challenge:

But get this!  I reckon that terracotta colour is the exact colour of 'rusty hinge', one of Tim Holtz' new distress inks.  So it would have been wrong of me not to play with my new distress colours for this challenge ;)

Not having any ink or paint in that pinky/peachy colour I decided to start with that colour card for my base.  It's been ages since I decorated an envelope so out came my Cricut and George cartridge and I cut a pale envelope.   Then it was time to get inky with the gorgeous Rusty Hinge and Tumbled Glass - they are both so yummy!!

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I used a little butterfly mask by Heidi Swapp as well as my faithful sequin waste to create some texture.  Along with a few splatters of water of course!

I do feel that this little envelope is begging for a tiny book to be tucked inside before finding a home in one of my journals.  I love how it's turned out, but it was a complete act of faith that if the colours worked so well in the challenge photo then they must also work on my piece..and they did!!  

We've got a very talented celebrity designer, Jen Tapler, over at The Play Date Cafe this week, and sponsorship from Mod Podge, so it's really worth heading over to the Cafe to see what all our designers have produced as inspiration for you, and to link your project to be in with a chance of winning this prize:

 

I love this image, all those little pots are so colourful!   Thanks Amy for this generous prize :)  ModPodgeRocks is Amy's blog which has lots of wonderful ideas for using mod podge, including making fabric bowls with your scraps of material!!