You're Special To Me - Double Challenge

I found another new blog challenge this week over at Annabelle Stamps - and discovered that as well as their weekly challenges, they do a monthly sketch challenge, and its possible to combine the two.  I liked the idea of this weeks challenge, as it was to "say it with emboss resist" and I haven't used my embossing powders in an age.  I used one of the gorgeous sentiments from Stempelglede and embossed it with clear matt powder.  As I was also going to use the monthly sketch from the same blog as the basis for the card, I stamped it into the centre of a nestie circle, leaving the nestie in place, and then used two shades of distress inks (bundled sage and crushed olive) to blend a background whilst maintaining a white border.  I mounted onto another nestie, some gorgeous glittered paper from the laundry line stack from My Minds Eye and added a flower and a few gems to match the shape of the sketch. 

 
Its turned out to be my favourite card of the year so far.......

The challenges are - Annabelle Stamps January Sketch Challenge and Annabelle Stamps Say It With Emboss Resist

Happily Ever After

Over on Kraftin Kimmie's blog this week - the challenge is to create an image with a fairytale theme.  As my husband recently won me the Prince Charming stamp in the Dudes challenge and it arrived in the post yesterday (thanks Kimmie!), I thought it would be churlish of me not to use it to enter the challenge.  I also have the Rapunzel stamp, so I decided to team them up, along with a Magnolia background castle window stamp, which I repeated to create a tower for Rapunzel to let her hair down from.

 

I'm not overly pleased with the colouring, it came out a bit muddy with the trees I think, but I do love the concept so am blogging it anyhow.  I stamped Rapunzel twice, and cut her out so I could get just her arms out of the window, and used two lengths of her hair to get it to the bottom of the tower.  The vines around the tower were created with the wisteria set of tapestry stamps.

Over at the Saturday Challenge, they want you to use two people on your card, so I am entering their "its a couples thing" challenge as well.

Birthday Fairy

I knew I had to colour this image as soon as I first saw it on Mo's Digital Pencil.  I made this card for a friend, who as we were best mates as teenagers, and she is very much taller and thinner than me (not hard on either score lol!) always affectionately called me, 'her little fat friend'.  So I thought I'd send her a big fat fairy to wish on for her birthday!

The image is by Mo Manning and she's a delight to colour with all her voluptuous curves!  I coloured her with copics, distressed the edges of the card I printed her onto with Ranger distress inks in weathered wood, and added the swirly details to her dress and wings with sakura glitter pens.

The DP is from Ella Blue by GCD Studios again - I just love this stack.  I distressed the edges after cropping the corners again with weathered wood.  I mounted her onto some blue card stock (with a mirri layer inbetween) and added a couple of rows of ribbons and some blue gems for added sparkle. 

 

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

ABC Challenge - M is for Magic well fairies are definately magical!

Cute Card Thursday - 1, 2, 3 Recipe - I have one image, 2 ribbons and 3 layers of paper.

Flutterby Wednesday Challenge - Open Week - just has to contain a butterfly, fairy or angel.  :-)

Creative Craft Challenges - Monochromatic Madness - it is all shades of blue except for the flesh tones so I think it counts ;-)

The Big One

I made this card for my husband to give to a friend who turned 60 this week - he's really into fishing so I hit upon the idea of having him catch a "60" on his hook as a different way of getting the number on the card.  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

The character stamp is a Magnolia and I made the scene using the Alota stamps winter pond scene but I only inked up the pond part and then added grass using my faber castell pencils to cover the gaps under his little jetty.  The DP is from Papermania - their new Birdsong pack - this particular one has a basket weave look to it, so I thought it went with the theme of an old fashioned fishing tackle box.  I used my EKSuccess "swiss cheese" border punch to create a decorative strip of "bubbles" down the side.

As he is mostly green, very cute and the "gone fishing" sign is a brad, then he fits the theme over at Cooking It Up With Katie so I'm entering their challenge again this week.

I'm entering Let's Ink It Up - Anything Goes as well

The Creative Card Crew want mens card this week so it fits their theme also.

Forget the Prince....

.....It's all about the shoes!

I made this card for my friends birthday today - like most of my girlfriends (well like almost every girl everywhere really!) she has a thing for shoes so I thought this image was just perfect for her.  Cinderella comes with the matching sentiment and the obligatory shoe.

The paper is from Ella Blue by GCD Studios a gorgeous double sided paper stack in shades of blues and browns.  She is coloured with copics and stickles for added sparkle, and mounted onto grey card and silver glitter paper.  The large blue flower is an old making memories pack, not sure its still available - it had a pink centre which didn't match so I covered it with a Craftwork Cards birthday circle sentiment.

As this has a flower on it, it qualifies for this weeks challenge at Kraftin Kimmie's blog - Kraftin Kimmie Flowers Challenge

The teal blues and browns also qualify it to enter in the  Allsorts Challenge Blog

I'm also entering it into the Stamp Something challenge which is "anything goes"

A Card For Katie

Katie Renz, an American crafter and blogger, is unfortunately, quite ill with stomach cancer at the moment, and this week over on the the color throwdown blog  they are asking not only to make a card using pink, brown and blue, but also, to send the card you made to Katie to cheer her up after her chemo.

I used Elzybels (shop now closed so no link, sorry) fairy stamp and coloured with copics in the colours for the challenge.  I struggled to find patterned papers in my stash that fit the colour theme and weren't too fussy when used together, so I opted for mostly plain or mottled papers in the colour themes, and I embossed the pink with an embossing folder.  Some glitter, paper lace and ribbon with a brad finish it off along with a handwritten sentiment.

My card is in the mail, winging its way across the Atlantic - hope it brings a short smile in a very hard time for Katie.

Some digi-stamp artists have grouped together to put a wonderful kit of stamps together and the proceeds from the sale are going to help Katie - you get great stamps and a great price - Katie gets some much needed help - it's a win-win if you ask me so head on over to Jak Heath's website to take a look at what's on offer!

I'm also going to enter this into the Cooking it up with Katie - Pink Embossing Challenge 

Sprinkle Stardust

This card is for a friends birthday which is today - so Happy Birthday Linda!  It's the first time I've tried the masking technique to get a background image behind a character - I've used backgrounds before, but I've cut the character out and stuck them on.  My alignment was slightly out, so she's not quite sitting on the wall properly, but it's close enough for it not to have ended up in the scrap bin.

I love this image, with all the glitter, and the sprinkle stardust sentiment is just right. (sorry not sure where I got this stamp again - I must try harder to note down when I buy stuff!)  I coloured the image with copics and added definition, particularly to the grass which is a bit thin for copics, with my Faber & Castell Polychromos Artists Pencils (unfortunately I don't have this great big beautiful box, just a handful of individual ones)  These are great pencils which blend really well with sansoder.

The Happy Birthday sentiment and the bird on a branch are both Elzybels stamps, which are no longer available so no link - sorry.  It was quite refreshing to go straight onto a card without any background papers for a change.

As this is my favourite Magnolia image, in no small part due to the fact that it requires you to add lots of my favourite embellishment in the form of glitter for the stardust, I am entering this card into the My favourite things challenge on the Just Magnolia & Hanglar and Stanglar Challenge Blog

Surprise Package

I made this card for my nieces birthday - it's actually a Christmas Magnolia image, but I think she works well as a birthday surprise too.  The little banner is a Magnolia stamp too.  The sentiment is an Elzybells stamp, but unfortunately Elzybells has closed its doors so this is no longer available to buy I'm afraid.

As usual, she is stamped on smooth white card and coloured with Copics.  I'm not sure what the DP's are - they were in my "pile".  Martha's loop border punch and a bit of velvet ribbon add some extra detail.  (sorry about the dodgy photo - this was taken before I learnt how to clean the lense!)

I've just found a challenge blog which is new to me, which used only to do the ever-so-hard-to-obtain Hanglar and Stanglar stamps, but now they've added Magnolia's into the mix, so I'm going to do a last minute entry into their Anything Goes challenge

Classy & Fabulous!

One thing I am determined to do this year, is to actually use some of the craft stash that is currently overflowing out of my very large craft room (I am such a lucky lady to have SUCH an understanding and uncomplaining husband - mwah to you Mr C!).  So in the spirit of this, I'm starting the year as I mean to go on, by not only making cards for the special peeps in my life, but also just for the hell of it!  And what better way to achieve this than by entering the many challenges that exist out there in blog-land.

So this gorgeous little lady - Samantha from my favourite Moonlight and Whispers range at Kraftin Kimmie is being entered into two challenges this week:

• As I finally managed to get my hands on some kraft card stock, she qualifies for That's Krafty Thursday #45

•  And as she's a Kraftin Kimmie image and as I used no ribbon, she also qualifies for the Time to Unwind challenge too.

The image is stamped on smooth white card stock (I use A4 sheets from Rymans - its economical but great for copics and pencils with sansoder) and coloured with copics - she just had to be a red head ;-)  I mounted her onto a scrap of sparkly blue paper, embossed with tiny stars, and added a bit of spotty red foil (which was actually the bottom of a Christmas card I trimmed off before recycling).  I added a paper punched strip of pearly white paper with one of my Martha Stewart punches and a suitable sentiment - I'm really sorry though I can't remember where I bought this sentiment set from.

Happy Birthday SugarBowl!

To celebrate their second birthday over on the Sugar Bowl they are having a special challenge with two great prizes.

There was a sketch to follow, plus the additional theme of  "embossing" so I made this card to play along.

I used "A Little Hug" by Leanne Ellis, and coloured with pencils blended with sansoder and blending stumps.  The embossing is the Damask embossing folder from Crafts Too.  I used my Martha Stewart branch punch on some white vellum and also added some flower brads to match the sketch.

Happy Birthday Sugar Bowl!

Strut Your Stuff!

New Year, new stamp.  I got this gorgeous Kraftin Kimmie "Vivienne" stamp for my birthday back in November, but I haven't had chance to colour it in until now.  I thought she would be just perfect for my friend whose birthday it is in January, so I coloured her in with copics, and made her blonde to match the lady in question.

I added a little sparkle to the feathers and necklace with stickles, and popped her onto a background paper from my My Minds Eye Laundry Line which is one of my faves.  Unfortunately the image is unclear as apparently "I don't know how to clean my camera lense..."  Other half does though so hopefully photos from now on will be a bit better (Unfortunately I'd already given the card away before he pointed out the error of my ways!)

As this is a new stamp, it fits the theme this week over on Cupcake Craft Challenge - Something New so I am entering my card into their challenge for the first time.

Skaterboy!

This card was a custom design for a friend for her grandson who is currently mad on skateboarding.

I used The Greeting Farm's Skater Ian stamp and coloured with copics, then I made an urban background.  A sky blue paper, layered with grey and beige offcuts at the bottom to make the road, then I cut strips of pale grey and beige to make skyscrapers.  I made windows by just dabbing the chisel end of my black copic in rows.  I finished it with a ramp for him to jump over.

Kraftin Kimmie's Dudes Challenge

The challenge over at Kraftin Kimmie's blog over the holidays was all about the "Dudes" and it was an intriguing one, not only did the image have to feature one of Kimmie's dudes, but you had to get a dude in your life to make the card!  Yes, you had to share your stash with a boy!!!!!!

I thought it sounded like a fun way to spend New Year's Day so I decided we'd both use the same stamp and see what we came up with.  I decided we'd use Willard and get a head start on next years Christmas cards....  Can you tell whose is whose?  I was hoping it would be easier to spot mine, but it turns out my other half took to my copics like a duck to water - I may have to find a hiding space for them!

In case you were still wondering - mine was the blue version......