Flowers and Butterflies

We have a birthday club at work and pay a couple of quid each to buy a gift for each others birthdays - since I started card making, I make the cards so that we don't loose half the present to the cost of a card!  I need one for Thursday and decided to go floral after seeing this weeks inspiration challenge at There She Goes:

I have a lovely set of floral stamps called garden of friends from There She Goes so I thought the jug image would be the perfect match for the inspiration photo.  However, somewhere along the lines I went more purple than pink...  Hope this still counts!

I coloured the image with copics, cut with a nestie using the overflow the frame technique, added a couple of mounts and then stamped a background on vellum (I only had lilac vellum...) using two different stamps and shades of ink.  I did a little spritzing to distress the corners and add some shimmer.  Finished with ribbon, a tiny sentiment in pink (which barely shows up on the photo) and a couple of pink butterflies - one die cut, one sticker.

I'm also entering this into Flutterby Wednesday where the challenge is to include embossing on your butterfly, fairy or "thing with wings"   http://flutterbywednesdays.blogspot.com/2012/01/flutter-by-wednesday-187.html  My butterfly has embossed detail to it, but again it doesn't show very clearly on the photo.

I'll be back later with my card for our new Challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge.....

LIM meets 52cct

The 52nd challenge of LIM is here - next week it's their first birthday - who hoo!  I for one can't remember what I used to do on Saturday mornings before last February.....   This challenge is a sketch - a simple strip on a landscape oblong  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2012/01/week-52-sketch.html   I decided to combine it with the challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown which is to use a minimum of 3 gems on your card.  http://52cct.blogspot.com/2012/01/embellishment-challenge-1.html

I stamped a WM bauble onto teal, embossed it in silver and cut it with the matching nestie.  I added the 3 gems to the centre of the stamp and faked some small ones with glitter below.   I added a strip of snowflake DP and attached the bauble by hand back stitching a cord for it to dangle from and a tiny bit of tape to secure the bottom.  I finished with a teal sentiment in the position to match the LIM sketch.

Can't wait to see what the birthday challenge is ladies :-)

Christmas Flower Throwdown

It's week 4 of the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown already and so far my resolution to play each week is holding fast - this week it's Theme week and the first theme is Christmas flowers.  To me that instantly meant I had to get out my lovely poinsettia set by Waltzingmouse as I just adore this set.

I went CAS again and started with a simple masked strip about a third of the way up the card into which I stamped some of the smaller solid and outline stamps in this set in two shades of red momento ink.  Next I inked up the medium poinsettia stamp using pearlescent thyme and pearlescent poppy inks, mixing them on the stamp to get some different coloured areas which gives a single layer image a 3d feel.  At this point fussy cut and mounted the bloom and added gold liquid pearls to the centre.  However, once mounted I decided it didn't stand out enough from the white card so I pulled out my cosmic shimmer paints and very carefully painted it in-situ.  It turns out this was a good move as it is only mounted on 3 foam pads in the centre, the edges curled a little which has enhanced the 3d feel (time for my fave Bob Ross quote - "there's no such thing in art as a mistake, just a happy accident").  I added a sentiment, also from a Waltzingmouse set in the pearlescent thyme ink and added some gold and red pearl centres to the flowers on the masked strip.

I know it feels like Christmas is a long way off, but trust me, when it comes to making cards, you can never start to early, so do join in the challenge it's great fun :-) http://52cct.blogspot.com/2012/01/theme-challenge-1.html

MAWTT also want to see flowers on your creations this week, so this is a perfect fit for their challenge too.  http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-133-blooming-marvellous.html

"Edit - the shimmer just isn't showing up on this photo - poor lighting and nighttime photography!  Will try to get a better shot tomorrow morning as it will be dark again when I get home"

A hole lot of love...

I wasn't all that happy with my LIM entry this week - the face put me off, so when my new There She Goes stamps arrived from the US yesterday I decided to have another go at a cut out card and went for a romantic theme which fits the all you need is love theme at Cupcake this week too.

This is one of the 'lovebots' and I do love him very much.  Stamped, colour with copics and spectrum noir, and cut out and stuck over an oblong aperture cut with a nestie.  I used my momento pen to just ink up one of the hearts and stamped it as if they were floating up the card.  Finished with a sentiment from the same set.

I never think to use apertures on cards, a bit like one layer and white on white they used to scare me - but now they are another thing to add to my arsenal.  Thanks again ladies for improving my card making skills :-)

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2012/01/week-51-theme.html

http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.com/2012/01/cupcake-176-all-you-need-is-love.html

It also fits with the love is in the air theme over at There She Goes Stamps Challenge too, and its their stamp set, it seems rude not to enter now, doesn't it ;-)  http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.com/2012/01/tsg140-love-is-in-air.html

It also fits with the theme at the Craft Den's Anything Goes challengeblog which is "to the one I love" http://anythingchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-59-to-one-i-love.html

Less is More with holes!

I'm late to the LIM party this week as I was at an all day patchwork workshop yesterday.  I'll share my cushion once it's finished but I got behind as I manged to break two sewing machines in the process of making half a cushion........   Something tells me I should stick to paper!

Anyhow, this week's Less is More challenge is to include an aperture on your card.  I decided to play with more tech, to see if I could break a 3rd thing, and pulled out my cricut and my favourite cartridge - damask decor.  One of the functions on this cartridge is to cut whole cards and this is what I opted for, both because it was quick and I am short of time at the minute, and also because I think the shapes are so elegant.

I cut it to 5 inches on cream pearl card and then simply drew a very thin teal line around the cut area with my new muji pens.  I stamped a simple sentiment on a strip of the same card, edged it in the same way and then added a few teal pearl drops.  It kind of looks a bit like a face now I look at it!

Right, time for bed Zebedee - I'll get around to see everyone's entries tomorrow.

CASual penguins

Well actually there isn't a penguin in sight on the card - but it is just black and white in honour of Penguin Awareness Day in the USA (20th January, no honestly it is!) and the CASual Friday girls took that as their inspiration for an entirely black and white challenge.......

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2012/01/cfc36.html

As I've been taking the online card class this week, I adapted one of Jennifer's fabulous ideas to create your own die cut chip boards, to make my own chip board stickers.

I got some wonderful new stamps from Papersmooches today and the adorable little sheep was the perfect candidate to go black and white with.  I stamped him 6 times, cut him out carefully with scissors and layered them up on top of each other so it has the dimensional quality of chipboard.  On the top layer I added puff paint to the body and googly eyes to the head.  Finished with a couple of strips of black card and the appropriate sentiment from the set.

I really liked the idea so, whilst its not for CASual Friday, I decided to play around with another of the images from the set.  I stamped the little tortoise 6 times again and cut him out (a bit easier than the sheep I have to say!)  This time I coloured the top image with copics and covered him in glossy accents to give him that real dimensional sticker look.  I also added a tiny googly eye which I think makes him extra cute, as does the fun sentiment to go with him. 

It is a bit time consuming, but I think the layering of images makes for a great CAS look.

Catch you later
Craftilicious x

52cct colour challenge

It's week 3 of the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown challenge which I have comitted to do every week so I have actual handmade cards this Christmas (it's only 48 weeks to go you know!)  This is the first colour challenge and I've been struggling with it all week because black and white, even with the requirement of a splash of red, just wasn't saying Christmas to me.

However I've been taking Jennifer Maguires CAS Online class and I hit upon an idea to use an image I bought last year but didn't get around to inking - so here is my little elf, hiding from the reindeer in his lovely red hat.

The image is by Little Claire just stamped and left uncoloured apart from the hat which is coloured with red copics.  I added some puff paint to the fur trim and bobble and glaze to his glasses.  I used Jennifer's great technique to make a dimensional ribbon for the sentiment and mounted it all on black card embossed with reindeer.  The sentiment is from Frame it by Waltzingmouse.  Clean, simple and it makes me very happy :-D

http://52cct.blogspot.com/2012/01/color-challenge-1.html

It's also anything goes week at ABCChristmas so I'm entering my card there too.

http://abcchristmaschallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/for-anything-goes.html

More upcycling for St Lukes

It's just past the middle of the month so time for a little more inspiration for our current challenge over at St Lukes which is to give something old a new lease of life rather than throwing it in the bin.

I did a floral anniversary card for my first "upcycled" project so for my second I wanted to go for something a bit more masculine.  I used a couple of items destined for the bin - the top off a bottle of beer and a bundle of straws that managed to get emptied out of their box into the bottom of the cupboard so weren't really any longer clean enough for drinking through!

I started with a kraft 5 inch square base card and added a stripe of black grungy texture with a kars stamp.  I cut sections of the blue striped straws and stuck them to a strip of card covered in d/s tape and tied around some black bakers twine.  I cut a bright blue ribbon shape from more card stock just a little thinner than the grunge stamping and cut it just so it overhangs the card base for a bit of interest (trimming a few mills of the card base means it still fits in the envelope) and I stuck the straws to that.

As I'm currently taking the brililant card making class by Jennifer Maguire I also combined one of the challenges from one of the lessons which is to make your own embelishment.  I stamped a black circular happy birthday sentiment onto white card, trimmed it to fit inside the bottletop and then flooded it with glossy accents.  Sentiment and embelishment in one.  I attached this half on and half off the straws again for added interest - it has made for a very thick card though so probably not one to post - more of a hand delivery.

Do check out the challenge blog over at St Lukes as the DT are sharing more inspiration for you today and as its been a bit of a testing challenge the number of entrants are low so your chances of winning the lovely ribbon bundle are pretty good and you still have over 10 days to get your creativity flowing.

Another bird

I started Jennifer McGuire's new online Clean and Simple Card Making class tonight and decided to use one of the techniques to have another crack at this weeks LIM One Layer Bird Challenge

I embossed the birdhouse stamp with black powder, masked off an area around it and then used small squares of foam with distress inks and pearlised water to create a patchwork effect watercolour background.

A murder of crows......

It's one-layer week over at Less is More this week, and we need to include birds.  My title for this post is reference to the fact that I've got a lot of birds, and because I've murdered a lot of card stock in the process trying to make something blogable..........

I'm not showing all the failures, but have shown one here in my first photo as I had a third attempt once the stencil had dried.  For the first I tried to apply flitter-glue through this nellie snellen stencil and then apply glitter - I got FAR too much glue on it and it bled - one murdered bird down!  I tried to use distress inks - same result - that one went in the bin.  I finally settled on pencil crayon and then once the stencil was removed I added some stickles to the dots.  I think I might add some bakers twine for him to stand on as now its in photo he needs grounding.

Next attempt - let's get back to simple stamping - it's safer ground!!  Can't remember who made these stamps - it's a set of love birds but I choose to do just one - I'm on a bit of a valentines kick at the minute - not sure this works very well in pink though - it's a tiny 3 inch square.

This set of birds is by Verve.  I bought the set because I loved the sentiment.  I live the strong colours, but I'm not sure about my placement on this one.

So we tried something more centrally aligned.  A waltzingmouse frame in Paris nights momento ink, with birds and a sentiment from a marion emerson set inside in grey and black.  I was using the longer sentiment from the set (which I bought today from the Ross Papercrafts Show) but the stamp is dodgy and needs to be replaced.  The shorter sentiment doesn't have the impact though unfortunately.

This was my final attempt, and I'm sort of happy with this one.  A stampendous stamp, simply coloured with pencils with a little added glitter.  The sentiment continues my valentines theme as inside it reads "I love you!"

I used to be in the YOC (Young Ornithologists Club) but after this weekend - I'm off birds for good!  Can we have an easier subject next week please ladies :(

spots, stripes and scallops!

For my card today I've made something combining a couple of challenges - this weeks CASual Friday which is scallops and MAWTT which is spots and stripes.  As Annabelle Stamps is sponsoring CASual Friday I an also entering this into their anything goes challenge for this week.

I started with a square kraft base and cut a scallop from a sheet of scrap card using a spellbinders edgeability and used it to create a mask.  I used mahogany and walnut stain DI to create the first two rows of scallops and then cut a final row of scallops form striped paper and finished it with a red spotted ribbon.  The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse and stamped with chocolate pearl.  The final element is a chipboard flower, covered with chocolate glitter with a red button centre.

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2012/01/cfc35.html

http://annabellestamps.blogspot.com/2012/01/say-it-withanything-goes.html 

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-130-spots-and-stripes.html 

I'll be back later with this weeks' LIM entry - been busy today helping a friend prep her wedding invites - I've stamped 100 this morning!

Craftilicious x

Paperpieced Uptown Girl

Another close to the deadline entry - I really must get more organised!    The challenge this week at Allsorts is paperpiecing and it's one of my favourite techniques  http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/week-136-paper-piecing.html

As I needed to make a card for my friends birthday on Sunday, I went with one of the gorgeous Uptown Girls from Stamping Bella - I ADORE these girls and can't wait to see the new ones.  My friend doesn't read my blog unless I point her at it, so I'm pretty safe to share:

I stamped the dress onto some K&Co papers with a small pattern and then added some shading with pencils and copics in the same tonal values.  Finished with a little stickles.  There is a first on this too - real sewing!  I finally opened my sewing machine that's been sitting in a box for 18 months as I've been too scared to use it.  I'm going to a patchwork cushion class at my local craft shop next Saturday so I needed to learn how to use it first.  Lynne, the lovely lady who runs the shop, set the machine up and talked me through it and all was going well - until I got home and had to thread it up - I had 6 attempts - gave up and then DH did it for me!   So I stitched my mats together and also added some stitched lines to the DP (hard to see on the photo)  Finished with craftwork cards sentiment inked to colour match.

Catch you later

52 Christmas Card Challenge Sketch Week

I almost missed the 52 CCT this week and am just squeezing my entry in before the deadline - not great for week 2 - promise to try harder next week.  This week they have a nice simple sketch for us to follow   http://52cct.blogspot.com/2012/01/sketch-challenge-1.html

I struggled with ideas as I had planned on using my nbew magnolia which holds a sign but I wanted it to hold a circle and it wouldn't.  So I decided to add snowflakes around my circle instead.  Strip of matching snowflake backing paper  on a gold base card and a few red gems to finish.  Not sure it looks all that festive but it will have to do for this week.

I just found out that I got an honourable mention for my first card for this challenge too - thanks so much for picking me ladies.  http://52cct.blogspot.com/2012/01/top-honor-and-honorable-mentions.html

New mus-stash!

There are lots of challenges around at the moment asking us to show off any new stash that Santa kindly delivered - the thing is which stash to highlight.  However, when I saw this weeks pile it on challenge was to make a manly card and that there was a CAS challenge over in the craft room, I knew which set to pull out - this fabulous Fun-tashe-tic set from the Crafts Meow that I'd been coveting for months...

A very clean and masculine card - I do like simple squares for mens cards.  Simply stamped in black and white with a grey mat and tiny matching grey brads.  I'm really pleased I got this set - I love the humour of it and can see me using it a lot!

I have quite a list of challenges for this one, but then that is the idea of pile-it-on....


http://pileitonchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/pile-it-on-2-manly-cards.html

http://craft-roomchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/clean-and-simple.html

http://ladybugscraftsinkchallengeblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-51-use-your-new-stash.html

 http://www.stampsruschallenges.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-did-you-get-for-christmas.html 

http://simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/simon-says-new-something.html 

http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.com/2012/01/cupcake-174-something-new.html

Catch you later.
Craftilicious x

Waltzing with Purple LIM

After a break for Christmas, my favourite weekly challenges have returned and as this week's Less is More is a colour challenge then I can combine it with the Waltzingmouse sketch.

It's a nice and simple sketch to ease us into the New Year and I chose to stick quite literally to it, and use the colour theme of "mostly purple" from Less is More and here it is.

I used a rich lilac and a dark purple as my colour themes and stamped one of the gorgeous Waltzingmouse doily stamps onto lilac card with lilac memento ink and cut it out my hand.  I added a purple flower button, replacing it's green centre with a lilac brad and gemstone.

I mounted it onto a white base card decorated with a strip of dark purple cardstock with a lilac stripe below which I cut with my new spellbinders edgabilities (currently very much on sale on create and craft).  I covered the join with some purple metalic tape.  I finished with a two part sentiment in the same colours from the say it loud set again from Waltzingmouse.

I'm on a bit of a mission to get organised in my craft room this year and have set a deadline of the end of Feb.  I had a good start this week and have completely cleared my desk and the floor.  I'm waiting for some storage delivery for my CDs which hold my clear stamps which hopefully will be here tomorrow and then I'm going to get properly organised.  My resolution is to put stuff away when I've finished with it, and so far so good on that score.  I've bought some stuff twice recently thinking I've lost it, or not realising I have it, so I have a large poster on the craft room door which says - YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE.....      UNTIL YOU CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!!!   This is my mantra for 2012.   Have some other new storage ideas which we'll set up today as we're housebound again due to a Sunday football match which means we'll lose our parking space if we go out before the match finishes. 

Catch you later.

Tara

CASual chipboard

This week's CASual Friday challenge is to use chipboard.  I had a dig around to see what chipboard I had and I found a pack of chipboard ribbon sliders that I've had for ages but hadn't even opened - I think they were K&Co.  I picked one and used that as my starting point and this is what I came up with:

I chose some complimentary coloured striped paper and stamped a floral silhouette stamp from inkylicious directly onto it, stamped a kaisercraft sentiment directly onto the ribbon and added some glitter highlights to the edge of the chipboard and the stamp.  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2012/01/cfc34.html  There's is a bit of an error with the chipboard but you can't tell what it is unless you get up close and I'd stuck it down before I spotted it so hey ho, let's call it a deliberate design feature!

See you tomorrow with a couple more challenges as I have more time to play tomorrow.

Night all.

52 Weeks of Christmas Cards - Week 1

There is a new challenge on the block designed to get us making a Christmas card each week so we have plenty ready come next December.  I managed to only send 6 handmade ones last year and will not do that again this year so I'm going to try to play every week.......

Week 1 is a nice easy anything goes - so here's my first entry  http://52cct.blogspot.com/2011/12/our-first-challenge.html

Supplies:    Hero Arts Mini Sparkle Christmas Set, Momento Ink, Ribbon and scraps of paper from stash

Thanks for setting up the challenge ladies - what a great idea!

CAS Flashback Friday

At flashback Friday this week they want us to refeature our first clean and simple card - for me that was an easy find - it's the first LIM challenge I played in last year.   It was the first one layer week and it had to feature flowers - here's my card:

It was done my masking and stamping with two inks onto a DL card using my beloved Elzybels stamps - still miss that store!

And here's a link to the original post from last February http://craftilicious-yorkshire.blogspot.com/2011/02/simply-less-is-more.html

Birthday wishes!

It's my nieces birthday today so naturally I made her a card ;-)

The main image is Mama's Purse Peeker from SCACD (currently on sale) - I've had her a few months but this is the first time she's seen ink.  She is coloured with copics and then in keeping with our "recycling" challenge over at St Luke's the dotty strip of card is the bottom of a card I received.  The background pattern was created with one of the beautiful doily stamps from Waltzingmouse using Pear Tart Momento ink to match the colours I've used.  The sentiment is from a papertrey ink set that just happened to be on my desk.

I am entering this card into the following "anything goes" challenges:

http://cupcakecraftroom.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-2012-challenge.html

http://thepapershelter.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-45-anything-goes.html

Papersmooches Sparks Inspiration Challenge

I've not played along in this challenge before but when I saw the inspiration photo this time, it really spoke to me and I knew instantly what I wanted to do.  Here's the inspiration - I love the colours with the grey...

I had an idea for a valentines card so thought I'd get ahead and here's what I came up with just using the one stamp set - Boob Tubes - which I totally love!

There are still a few days left to join the challenge and you could win some of their lovely stamp sets - http://papersmoochessparks.blogspot.com/2011/12/challenge-dates-dec-29-jan-11.html

I have more to share today too as I've been busy so will catch you later....
Craftilicious x

My faves from 2011

Everyone seems to be doing a retrospective at the moment so I thought I'd join in - it seems that top 5 or top 12 are the things to do, but I'm bucking the trend with my fave 6 cards that I created last year:

 

New from Old

Our theme this month over at St Luke's is an appropriate one for the start of a New Year - is to give a new lease of life to something old and tired and destined for the bin…  Don’t throw it away, turn it into something magical and give it a new start for 2012 by putting it on a card!

So, my card, started as a Christmas cracker, and some tissue from around a gift.  Here's the cracker before we pulled it....

 ....and here's what I turned it into:

I started with a 7 x 5 white base card and added a strip of black glitter card (from my snippets drawer to maintain the spirit of recycling and not using anything new except for the card itself).  I then cut to points off the top of the paper crown from inside the cracker (thankfully they were nice silver ones!)  I fixed this to the card with some homemade tissue tape.  I stamped a row of black circles onto tissue recycled from a gift using a papertrey ink stamp and repeating it in a long line.  I stuck a strip of d/s tape to the back, and then trimmed the excess tissue from either side of the tape with scissors to make my own tissue tape - a bit fiddly but a much cheaper option that the stuff you buy!

I then made my flower - entirely from the cracker.  I cut 4 die cuts from the centre of the cracker tube which I had carefully opened and flattened.  I used two showing the outside of the cracker, and two I used the inside kraft colour and inked it with black DI.  I cut the ribbons into 8 pointed strips and stuck them under the centre to create another layer to the flower and then used 3 of the baubles which were wired to secure the layers together.  I added a couple of die cut leaves which were cut from the remaining bit of the paper crown.   I thought the colours would work for a silver anniversary so I added a simple papertrey ink sentiment and 3 clear gems to finish.

I'm definitely inspired to find more things to use that I would normally throw away as I'm really pleased with the results - I think the flower looks quite expensive when it was actually essentially free!  I hope you'll be suitable inspired as well and will join us for this challenge - you have until the end of January and can win this lovely kit kindly donated by The Ribbon Girl.

Do play along  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

CASual Twine

I've been trying all week to make a card for this fortnights CASual Friday challenge which is to use kraft and twine.  I saw the technique for making French knots in papercrafts magazine recently and wanted to give it go - in retrospect, trying to use thick bakers twine probably wasn't the right material to try it with!

After several attempts here is what I came up with for the challenge http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2011/12/cfc33.html

The central image is a papertrey ink image stamped on kraft in green ink and cut with a nestie.  I then back stitched the stems and added french knots for flower buds.   I added a green mat and a strip of brown card.  I then used my new sew-easy tool (I'm still to scared to get my sewing machine out of its box) to sew the scalloped border and used the same twine.  I added a few brown spotted craft candy dots to match the twine and a sentiment in the same green ink, which is from a hero arts sentiment set.  Simple matted onto a square kraft card to finish.

I'll be back later with my new challenge card for St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge - it's a great one for the New Year!

Warm Birthday Wishes

It's my friends birthday today and as she has spent Christmas skiing in France I wanted a winter image for her card - I was sure I had Stamping Bella's Snowbunny in my stash but I think I must have just liked it a lot when I've seen others use it as I definitely don't have it (yet).  So, as I had my Bella file out, I opted for Quinn, one of the Uptown Girls.

She is stamped onto kraft card and coloured with pencils with a little sansoder for blending and a gold promarker for the buttons and coat trim.  I used the warm wishes sentiment that she comes with, but then added "on your birthday" using words from the say it loud set from Waltzingmouse.  I used a reverse corner punch on the image and the blue matt, then added a snowflake DP from DCWV to a plain kraft card base.

I am going to enter this into the Little Miss Muffet Challenge this week which is anything goes  http://littlemissmuffetchallenges.blogspot.com/2011/12/challenge-25-anything-goes.html  and if you check out the site you can get a cute wintery freebie image to play with too :-D

It's also anything goes over at aud sentiments http://audsentimentschallengeblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/challenge-44-winner-of-43-and-dt-call.html  so I'm entering their challenge too.


Happy New Year!