let's party at the play date cafe, but don't forget challenge #20!!

It's been busy, busy, busy behind the scenes at the cafe this week and we can now proudly announce our new design team.  They are:

Suzanne Czosek

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby2Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Lisa Somerville

As a senior design team, Julie, Mona and I are saying goodbye to our much loved senior designer Julie Campbell.  Julie has some great opportunities opening up for her but she's promised to keep playing along with the challenge when she can.  We're holding you to that Julie :)

So, to celebrate Julie C's new opportunities, and the new design team, we have a BLOG HOP, with a prize at the end :)  And you get to increase your chances of winning by 3!!

The blog hop starts over at the cafe, and you'll get back to me via Savannah's stunning blog.

Here are the THREE ways to give you the best chance to win:

1. Make sure you stop at each designer's blog and leave a comment.
There are ONLY 9 total so it won't take too long, just limit your browsing time lol!

2. Become a follower of The Play Date Cafe...easy-peasy!

3. Play along with this week's colour challenge

The winner will be chosen by random.org

Julie C has shared with us this lovely bathroom photo for colour inspiration this week.  The colours are

lavender          green          white

There are a few greens in the photo so you can really find your own shade and go with it :)  

I've had a hankering to work small this week so chose to make an ATC using a sketch of some lavender that I did many years ago.  I reduced it on the scanner and darkened the pencil lines before adding dusty concord and crushed olive (yep, that's a new one!!) distress inks.  The butterfly is cut from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  I wanted to give the card a vintage feel as that is Julie's true love!

Now, if you're blog hopping, hop on over to Stephanie's blog to say hi :)  She does such truly stunning cards!

Good luck!!

wow, look at this blog candy!!

Jill over at The Stampman is giving away All TwElvE nEw dIstrEss Ink pAds [or the reinkers if you already have the ink pads].  How cool is that?  Jill, you're so generous :)

Just head over to Jill's blog and leave a comment, and if you have a blog, spread the word!  You have until Mother's Day this Sunday to enter.

ps whilst you're over there, check out the sneak peeks of Tracey's new designs, and Jill's tv dates for craft creations :)

I'm not a big fan of yellow, but...

...that's what the play date cafe colour challenge is for - to challenge you to use colours you may not normally use! When I saw this photo by Maria Medeiros I just knew I wanted to challenge myself (and you guys!) with the colour yellow!

Yellow really isn't my colour, although it is definitely creeping into my box of supplies! A couple of years ago I wouldn't have been able to produce this journal page as I just never bought any products in yellow. But I've learnt what a great accent colour it can be, and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with it on it's own in my journal :)

Spring is certainly in the air here in the UK, and snowdrops and crocuses are adorning the gardens.  The only yellow flowers that make it into my garden are daffodils, well, narcissi really as I love the creamy white ones with the yellowish trumpets.  I also love the noise daffodils make - if you've never heard it, buy a bunch and once the flowers are open, shake them and listen to the sound as the stems and petals brush against each other :)

So do you have a colour you avoid?  I'd love to know what it is.  It intrigues me that we all have our own internal colour palette of colours we like and use. 

Wendy's canvas

I'm scheduling this post (and have my fingers crossed that Wendy has her canvas!!) as I'm in Harrogate taking this class with Dina Wakley :)

I really enjoyed making this, especially as it had been in my head for so long!  It was my first time using grungeboard and I just aDoRe it's texture :) 

My sewing machine had no problems going through it at all.

The flowers are Wendy Vecchi stamps and co-incidentally (and I promise, it wasn't planned!  It's scary sometimes how Julie and I are thinking similar things at the same time LOL) Julie has posted an autograph session with Wendy Vecchi over on her blog 'Julie's Open Window'!

The buttons are from my button tin ... I have LoTS as I LoVe buttons :)  I used Tim Holtz masks and stamps for the background, along with a mixture of adirondack dabbers and spray inks.

Hmm, now I need to get one of these made for me!!!

fairy cakes

Before the invasion of the cupcake we had fairy cakes and I love baking them and setting them out on my cake stand for Sunday tea. 

So my final piece for Wendy using the Crafty Secrets Fairyland stamps just had to be a cake!

I used my Hot of the Press cupcake template again after decorating some watercolour paper with my distress inks and stamped images.

I added stamped images to the paper case, including this ladybird who I just think is sooooooo cute, wandering off to fairyland wearing his walking stick and top hat!

The fairy is attached to the flower on the top of the cake which can be lifted off in order to open the box and see what goodies are inside!  And the little cake tag is part of the template too!

This little fairy will be winging her way to Wendy at The Stamp Attic tomorrow, along with this:

 

which you're only getting a sneak peek of cos it's for Wendy, and I want her to see it in the 'flesh' first :)

pdcc time again? where did the week go?

I'm sure the weeks go faster in February!  Not that I mind the Play Date Challenges coming round, and especially not this week.  Julie's introduced the idea of a 'colour splash'... black and white with a splash of colour.  And this week's colour is one of my favourites - teal :)  I love the contrast of black and white against a colour (or vice versa) so this is right up my street. 

Julie did the challenge graphic all by herself this week..didn't she do a great job for her first time using Photoshop!  That program just seems like gobbeldygook to me, so I'm really proud of her.

I found this black and white fabric whilst at a Quilt Exhibition at the weekend and after seeing some owls similar to this one decided I had to design my own! 

He's a little tiny owl, but full of character.

And he seems to be happy in the trees in my garden ;)

Inspired by ... [hang on, wasn't that yesterday?]

Sue Roddis and her Stampotique stamps!

Sue brought some of the latest Stampotique stamps with her yesterday [she's on their design team].  How cool is that!!!  Now those of you who know Sue will know she loves these images, and anything halloweeny.  My collection of Stampotique stamps lean to the cuter end.  We didn't have much time to play with them whilst Sue was with us, so we stamped a few up on white paper.

Sue has a bit of a drive to get home from mine so yesterday, Helen and I still had some playtime before tea after Sue had gone! So we carried on playing in our journals.  How fab are those heads?

 

My pages were already coloured, and the blue one was stamped.  The door, cat, angel, heads and odd bloke are all part of the new Stampotique release.  Wendy at The Stamp Attic has got the new release on order and they should be in soon [EDIT: Wendy's expecting them March 6th but you can pre-order them from her HERE].