Need a lift?

My cousin had some routine surgery yesterday and will be off work for a few weeks to recover so I thought I'd send her a card.  I never think "get well" is the right sentiment for these sorts of situations as the person isn't exactly "ill".  So I decided to pull out the balloon image from the new(ish) Waltzingmouse Heroines set as the sentiment to go with it is more uplifting ;-) 

As I was using a WM set, I decided to use this week's sketch challenge as my inspiration for the design - I didn't make it quite the same as my card needed to be portrait as the tag was too big to fit landscape.  Hope it still counts.  http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/challenge-108july-28-2012.html

I stamped the balloon onto a tag, then stamped the balloon and basket elements again onto DP and paper pieced them.  I stamped a kaiserkraft background grid stamp over the kraft card on the basket to make it look woven and then pieced the sandbags out of darker brown card.  I edged the join in the balloon with a thick layer of glitter glue - it reminded me of the Montgolfier Brothers balloon with its gold brocade.  I created a background with blue card using a cloud embossing folder and secured it before adding strips of decorative cloud washi tape (my favourite roll)  I stamped the sentiment onto the same DP as I used for the top of the balloon and gave it the ribbon end treatment.  I finished with some die cut glitter clouds and some teeny-tiny heart buttons.   My hubby thinks I went a bit OTT with the clouds but I liked them and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome :-)

Beach Wedding

If you saw the tiara I made recently - well it was for my friends wedding, which is taking place today in the Caribbean.  I made them a little card to take with them - appropriately themed for a beach wedding.

I cut the flip flops using the PTI die set from card scraps and felt scraps for the little hearts.  I used a scrap of white card to create the beach using distress inks with a blending tool and some pearlised water to hint at waves (it took 3 attempts to get a beach  I liked!)  I used puff white paint to create the foam layer on the beach and some smooch ink in green to get some of that transparency you see in the sea foam (I tried to channel Bob Ross but failed!)   The sentiment is PTI love and marriage set and I've no idea which set I got the numbers from sorry - it's been a few weeks since I made this card.

I'm going to enter into Pixie's Sunday Snippets as apart from the base card, the rest is all from my scraps box http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/pixies-crafty-snippets-challenge-31.html

I'm also going to enter it into this week's Cupcake Craft challenge which is all about the great outdoors - well I'm sure an outdoor wedding counts!  http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cupcake-203-great-outdoors.html

Krafty Christmas Tree

I was doing really well on my plan to make Christmas cards all year by joining in with the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown challenge earlier this year but I fell off the Christmas card wagon in May and totally missed all the June and July challenges.  I've still been following the girls and there have been some great challenges but I just haven't had the time.  I am however back for the final July challenge - which is to use brads http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/july-embellishment-challenge.html and I'm combining it with the Crafters Cafe challenge of making a Christmas card with non-traditional colours  http://crafterscafeblogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/challenge-6-christmas-in-july-wnon_25.html

I used one of my lovely new tree stamps from Card-io stamped in peanut brittle on kraft and I stamped a Hero Arts sentiment in chocolate brown over the stump.  The stamp has lots of circles in 3 sizes and I used craft candy dots in the largest, glitter in the medium ones and tiny brads in cream and brown in the smallest.  I drew some faux stitches in brown around the card after rounding the corners, mounting onto DP with some faux white stitches.

Blue and Green Butterflies

We've had a bit of a rubbish end to this week as my father-in-law has taken a turn for the worst and we spent most of yesterday following him around local hospitals in search of a surgeon who wasn't on holiday!  Thankfully things seem to be looking up a little today so my hubby has gone back to work, I've got the chores done and can now squeeze in an hour of stress relieving crafting before visiting.

I decided to combine my two favourite weekly challenges - the sketch at this weeks Less is More Challenge with the colour challenge at CASual Friday's which was navy, lime and aqua.

I stamped a 6cm strip of white card with various butterflies from my new craftwork cards butterflies and blooms stamp set using 6 shades of momento ink.  I matted it onto some pearl aqua card and punched my favourite border (EK Sucess Agapanthas).  The large butterfly was cut from the same pearl card using my silhouette - I curled the wings using my fingers and popped it up with pinflair glue adding some green gems to the body.  Finished with a lovely Waltzingmouse sentiment in pear tart ink with 3 tiny gems to highlight it.

Catch you later - thanks for visiting.

Cupcake Theif

It was our monthly book group meeting last night but this time it was a bit of a special one as one of our group turns 40 this weekend.  Now there is always cake at a birthday party I know, but for this particular friend it's not just a nicety it's a necessity - she always claims she has a "second stomach" specially designed for cake so will always say yes to dessert even if she was stuffed after mains.  So there was an obvious image for her card - the fabby cupcake theif from Mo Manning

I decided to restrict my colouring of her (except for hair and skin) to the lovely colours at this week's Color Throwdown challenge - teals, purples and vanilla.  http://colorthrowdown.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/color-throwdown-202.html   I carried on the colours to the background with some DCWV background papers, a EK sucess border punch with the cherries replaced by purple gems and a Forty cut on my silhouette in two shades using the very nifty "offset" feature which is just brilliant!

I'm also going to enter it into this weeks challenge at Mo's Digital Challenge which is to use an image of a dog or of someone "in the doghouse" well she'd be in the doghouse for sure if she tried to pinch my friends birthday cupcakes!!!! - http://mosdigitalchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/challenge-145-final-gdt-call.html

As it was made for a friend, I'm also going to enter it into this weeks Do You Stack Up challenge which is "for a friend"   http://doyoustackup.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/dysu-82-for-friend.html 

Strawberry dreams

With friends and hubby's birthdays and taking family to hospital this week I've been MIA from blogland but I managed to make a quick card tonight for a couple of challenges.  I started with the sketch from Retro Sketches and the Cue word from CASology which this week is Fruit.

I pulled out my new mini stamp set from Waltzingmouse with it's great big juicy strawberry.  I stamped the berry onto a tag with lady bug and rhubarb stalk ink and stamped the leaves onto scrap card with pistachio and cottage ivy and fussy cut them out before sticking onto the tag.  I dotted the seeds on the strawberry with a glue pen and sprinkled with glamour dust.  I stamped a sentiment from the same set onto some red card and cut it with a label die.  I used a ribbed kraft base card and finished with some gingham ribbon and a red floral button.

Here are the links to the challenges I'm entering with this card:

http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/week-3-fruit.html

http://retrosketches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/retrosketches-21.html 

http://www.craftysentiments.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/food-challenge.html

Home is Where the Heart is

Another quick post today before the deadline on teh challenge closes - Addicted to Stamps wants to see CAS this week and my hubby needed a new house card to give to a friend he's meeting tonight - this is the result of the two needs:

Really quick and simple - maya road house stamped onto DP, paperpieced door and windows.  Washi tape for grounding and a heart and sentiment from the same set.  The tiny blue button was pink but I changed it with embossing ink and powder.


http://addictedtostamps-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ats-clean-simple-cas-challenge-1.html

50 and still ROCKING!

It was my best mate's husband's birthday yesterday - and it was a big one - he'd reached his half century so we had a bit of a get together in a local pub for tea and cakes (well it was a Sunday!)  It was a nice sedate afternoon in the sunshine but sedate is not his normal presona, he's a bit lot of a rock fan so when I spotted this fabulous image from Just Inklined I knew I had to make his card with it.

The image is coloured with copics (with spritzing with colourless blender on the guitar case to get a velvet look) and a layer of glossy accents on the guitar for some appropriately rocking shine!   I cut the sentiment on my silhouette and stuck the letters onto a red base.  I cut the image panel to fit over the red base and added a thin black strip above and below.

I'm going to enter it into the following challenges:

Anything goes with a sentiment - http://perfectsentimentschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/psc41-anything-goes.html


Anything goes - http://digidoodleshopsbest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/challenge-117-anything-goes.html

I Spy Christmas with TSG

Just a quick post tonight with a Christmas card I made this week using the sketch this week from ispy for the Christmas in July challenge using TSG Stamps.

I've used the really cute "no peeking" set from There She Goes  - coloured the images with copics and stamped the circle with faux stitching around them and die cut them out.  I mounted them onto green and did some matching faux stitching around the edge with a white gel pen.  The merry christmas is from a Fizzy Moon set and is embossed with white.  I think this is a really versatile sketch that would be great to use with lots of mini images.

http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/tsg165-christmas-in-july.html

http://ispysketches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/issc25-with-elzbieta-b.html

As this is a christmas card I'm going to enter it into this week's Annabelle Stamps say it with Christmas challenge http://annabellestamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/say-it-withchristmas.html

Stitched with love

This week's Less is More challenge is a toughy - sewing!  Thankfully though it can be real or faux and unlike Chrissie whose cards this week rock with her first time machine stitching, I'm not so brave with my machine so I've gone down the faux route.  I may try real later in the week when I'm not alone in the house and there's someone to administer first aid if it goes wrong......

This is a little 4 x 4 inch card and I printed the sentiment onto another sheet of white card and double mounted it on the base card.  I stamped the image onto it - it was one of my bargains from last Sunday a 12 piece JustRite set reduced to £2.99 - I don't have a mount that fits it but I find you can just tape the groves onto an acrylic block.  I stamped it 3 times, coloured the heart, the leaves and flowers on the different ones with copics and then layered them up.  I added some silver and glossy accents to the needle and pins and some glossy accents to the button on the flower centre as I couldn't find a real one small enough in my button box!

Black Cheddar

I know lots of people don't like working with black base cards but I do it quite a lot as I really like the effect it gives so unlike some people I was quite pleased to see the challenge at CASual Fridays this week - http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cfc62.html

I stamped and embossed one of the camera images and a roll of film from the There She Goes "Oh Snap" stamp set directly onto my square black base card.  I embossed one of the sentiments onto red and cut out an embossed map pin from the same set to make it look like it was pinning it to the card.   I like the little hint of red against the black and white.

Great challenge ladies - thanks so much.

Wordy Anniversary

It was my friends Anniversary this week and I wanted to make a card in a very clean and simple style as that is her taste so I decided to use my silhouette to simply make "Happy Anniversary" the focus of my design.

I started by drawing an oblong in silhouette studio just smaller than my base card and typing ANNIVERSARY into it so it filled the width as I intended to use the negative of the die cut letters.  The "Happy" was an existing download (part of a Happy Birthday sentiment) so I edited it to be just one word - adjusted it to be the size I wanted and then moved it out of the oblong so it would allow me to stick it on top.  I then selected another download - a pair of linked hearts, again sized them, then moved them to the side too to cut.

Once cut, I carefully removed the die cut oblong leaving the letters on the cutting mat.  I stuck some decorative paper behind the word Anniversary and carefully glued the "inner bits" of the letters into place.  I saved the die cut letters for another time.  I coloured the Happy with a copic marker (Peony) and inked the edge of the die cut oblong with the same marker.  I decided to use the negative of the linked hearts rather than the thin shape itself as I felt the design needed a little more weight - I coloured those with the same marker and added one tiny red gem to the right hand one.  I stuck the oblong to the base card, glued the "Happy" on top just overhanging some of the cut out letters and glued the hearts in the bottom corner.

I am going to enter this into this weeks Paper Players challenge which is to create a card with a sentiment as the main element of your design.  http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/leannes-clean-simple-challenge-104.html

Waltzing Through The Great Outdoors

It's that time of the month when all Waltzingmouse fans come out to play and this month the blog party theme is the great outdoors http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/july-2012-waltzingmouse-stamps-blog.html

I couldn't resist the urge to get the new stamp sets out or to try the cutting files that go with them on my silhouette.  I used the sketch from last week's Waltzingmouse Sketch challenge as my starting point and this is what I came up with.

I started with some yellow DP with some distressed dots and created my own background using the large palm tree from the "My Island" set using pistachio and peanut brittle momento ink.  I wrapped some wide striped ribbon around the bottom as per the sketch.  I then used the freebie cut file that matches the North Shore main image and cut it out kraft card on my silhouette.  I simply stamped the image on top in black (almost lined up straight too!) and then stamped the flowers again onto the yellow background paper and cut them out to add a tiny highlight.  I finished with one of the sentiments from My Island.

Time to waltz around the rest of the blog party and see what other outdoor inspiration everyone else has come up with.  Thanks for stopping by :-D

Tara

I've been a very naughty girl....

 ....I "popped in" to the Summer Crafting event at Doncaster Racecourse "for a look around" and this is the result.

Yes, my name is Tara Cardwell and I am craft shopping addict.  There is no hope for me short of locking me in a room and cutting off my internet access.  All I can say is good job I don't have children to feed!   The show was much bigger than I thought it would be and there were quite a few bargains to be had.  [The only downside was the Zentangle stand - I wanted to take a shot of me pointing at it to send to Susan Goetter who is a mad keen Zentangler to say - I saw this and thought of you - but the mean lady told me off!  But I did see it, and I did think of you Susan!]  All I have to do now is find somewhere to store all this new stash - so I started to tidy but then immediately opened the first stamp I was going to file and it dropped right side down on an open ink pad and suddenly a card was born - well it would have been a waste of ink right ;-)

I just adored the little bear and can see the sad look on his face even from the back of his head.  I stamped him on my most exciting find - some lovely sheets of properly brown kraft card (some of the stuff around now is more buff than kraft) so I bought some in A5 and A3 size - did I say it was a bargain 50 sheets of A3 for a tenner - er yes please thank you very much.  This is the A5 folded in half to make a cute and tiny miss you card.  Simply and quickly coloured in pencils with a little glint from a sakura pen on and around the 3 little hearts as they float their way to the missee (if indeed there is such a word).  As there are 3 little hearts, I'm going to enter it as another entry into this week's Less is More challenge by means of justification of buying more stamps - see I needed it for a challenge!  (and he was on sale for £2.50)  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/week-76-one-layer-challenge.html

Time to get in the bath to soak my sore calves and foot blisters..........

Night all
x

CASual Stripes and a Sunshine Cue

There's a new blog on the block this week and it's all about CAS - my favourite kind of challenge :-)   So just by the skin of my teeth, I am managing to squeeze in a quick card for their first challenge.  They give you a cue card each week and this week's cue is SUN.   http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/week-1-is-here.html    I've combined their first challenge with this week's CASual Friday challenge which is stripes of colour http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cfc61.html

Yes, the cameo has been out to play again (in fact it lives on my craft table now and is definately there to stay, the cricut has been well and truely relegated to a hard to reach shelf!).  I cut the sunshine and rays from white card stock and coloured it and the rays (my stripes) using a variety of orange and yellow copic markers.  The sentiment is cut from black card stock and glued simply onto the sun.

For other cameo fans - there is another new challenge starting next month just for cards made using it - check it out - http://thecameospotlight.blogspot.co.uk/  (thanks for the heads up Jenny)

Making my own sun is probably the only way I'll see it this summer as the jet stream is still pushing weather more like autumn over the UK - even looks like we're in for a wet Olympics :-(

Less in threes

It's Saturday so time for a new challenge at Less is More and it's the now "not so" dreaded One Layer week.  I did use to dread this challenge every month but now normally don't give it a second thought - not today though - I've really struggled.  I don't think it's the One Layer that's causing the issue - it's the breadth of opportunity - I always seem to struggle with challenges where you can use almost anything in your stash - I  never know where to start!

So - the result from me today is 4 very random cards - 3 of which I'm not particularly pleased with, and one which I think turned out pretty well.

For my first card I decided to use one of my new  PTI sets - I really like the seed packet.  For this one, my 3 was colours - pistachio, rose bud and peanut brittle momento inks.  It seemed like a good idea but it didn't really work out.

So I tried another PTI set - the harvest berries I've coveted for so long but have only inked up for the first time today.  I decided to use the same rose bud and pistachio inks (the new pistachio is my fave of the new colours) and my 3 this time is 3 multiples of the tripple berry stamps.  I finished with the jumbo birthday sentiment - also from PTI stamped in the rose bud.  I think this time the placement is off!

For this tiny 3 x 3 inch card I really wanted to use my super cute ants from Lawn Fawn - I bought this mini set for these 3 ants - which for anyone who knows me will seem very strange.  I HATE ANTS.  But for some reason, these ones really called out to me so I bought the set.  The problem this time was I wasn't really sure what to do with them - I went for a bit of a pun sentiment which I wrote by hand but it feels a bit meh...

So, I decided to go back to my comfort zone of a nice simple image which I can colour.  I dug out a There She Goes set this time - called Bomb Diggity.   I stamped the girl running with the bomb in the bottom right corner and coloured her with pencils so the colour wouldn't bleed through.  I added another couple of bombs from the set (my 3 element on this card) and added one of the sentiments in between.  I also used just 3 main colours - black, red and brown (you just have to ignore the skin colours and the tiny bits of yellow).

At last, one I think is successful - phew - I could have been sitting here all day and it's really time to do some laundry!

Laters ;-)

Sports Mania

The challenge this week at the Craft Room is all about sports  http://craft-roomchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/sports.html  so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to share some cards I made to send to my friend Lynne for her Candlelighters Children's Cancer fundraising box

I made all of them using the Sports Mania Cartridge on my cricut - some more sucessfully than others I have to say.  I think the framed "balls" are the most sucessful images on this cartridge for simple cards - getting the sizing right on the footballer was clearly impossible!

Less is Gold

I'm very late to the Less is More party this week - I had to get my tiara order finished  (see below) and the tennis got in the way of my concentration somewhat!  There's been little time for "free" craft all week as I've had orders to complete and lots of paperwork for my Paper Crafts Magazine submission which was all a bit grown up and scary!   However, I managed to find a spare 10 minutes last night for a gold creation (I must admit gold is never one of my go to colours, I find silver much easier to work with when I go metallic) which is not earth shattering, but it's passable I guess.

The tree (Hero Arts) is stamped in gold (but looks browny-yellow in the photo) and then I added gold stickles to the hearts.  The sentiment is from PTI (button it) and I added a gold mat to bump up the gold element a little more.  The card base is a pre-embossed one I've had in my stash forever - think it was originally a QVC/Create and Craft kit.

In case you're still reading, this is what I spent my weekend making, for my friend who gets married in the Dominican Republic this month.

 

There are hundreds of different sized pearls, swarovski crystal (4 sizes) , tiny crystal seed beads and diamante's - all wired on by hand with very thin silver wire to keep the weight down - so you can probably see why I had little time for card making!

I added some hidden blue beads to the underneath of the band so she has her "something blue".

The matching pins are for her sister who will be her bridesmaid.

It's really nice to think that a little bit of me will be with her on her big day on the other side of the world.  Maybe she'll even wear it again for their Reception when they come back in August.

Back to cards now - they're soooo much quicker ;-)

HB2U!

My husband wanted me to make him a card for a work mate this week and as said person is a technology geek, I knew I wanted to use my new Papersmooches set but I wasn't sure what to do with it.  Then I saw this sketch at Retro Sketches and inspiration struck.  http://retrosketches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/retrosketches-19.html

I love the little details you get with this set - particularly the little bird for twitter.  I decided to go with a blue colour theme so will also enter this into Addicted to Stamps this week http://addictedtostamps-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ats-addicted-to-blue-challenge-1.html  I stamped the Ipad image and added the sentiment (using Elzbells alphabet stamps) and the twitter icon and emoticon and cut it out so mount onto my denim tag.  I criss-crossed the chevron paper with some space invaders ribbon and mounted the controller icon over the middle.  My husband was really pleased with it and thought it was perfect for his mate.

It would also be a perfect entry for our ongoing month-long challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge which this month is all about teenagers - we have a great prize from The Ribbon Girl so do play along  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/teenage-kicks.html

CASual Text

Hi - sorry I've been somewhat MIA this week - it's been a bit hectic around here and I had a lot of orders to complete - one of which fits this week's CASual Friday text theme so I'm squeezing in an entry before the challenge closes tomorrow.    This is a commission for someone whose husband is a mad keen cyclist so the sentiment really fits:

The text was created in word and printed and I added a little bling to the 50.  I stamped a row of bicycles using a prima mini stamp using shadow stamping to create a feeling of movement.  I added a little colour to the main image of the bike with pencils.  I finished with a little green wire bike embelishment and a tiny heart.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the lovely comments on my first project acceptance for Paper Crafts Mag - I think I've finally calmed down after all the excitement of finding out on Friday.

Right time to make another card before bath and an early bed.

Today is a VERY good day!

Just a quick post with happy news - certainly lifted my spirits after all the rain:

Firstly - this morning I found out my paper-pieced card had been showCASed at Less is More - that certainly brightened my morning :-)

Secondly - I have a day off so I got to spend all afternoon watching Wimbledon - and after 74 years the UK finally has a competitor in the finals on Sunday - that makes me very happy :-)    And now Jonathan Marray is through to the men's doubles final - the first Brit to do so for 52 years so it's a British double this weekend - AMAZING!

and then to make a good day into a BRILLIANT day I just got a "happy mail" from Susan R Opel, Creative Editor at Paper Crafts Magazine which means that I'm one of 7 new designers who've had a submission accepted for the January/February 2013 issue - you can't imagine how much that made my whole weekend :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D    Just got to wait 6 months before I can share the project with you all ;-)

 I'm off to open the bubbly..............

Laters x

Chillax

I got my new Waltzingmouse stash on Wednesday and as we're stuck in today on our few days off for our anniversary because of the rain, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to play with it and as we're not getting any sunshine I thought I'd make my own!

I used this week's sketch on the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/challenge-104june-30-2012.html as the basis for my card, but spun it around.  I stamped the sunburst on some white cardstock using ladybird, tangelo and canteloupe momento inks mixed directly on the stamp.  I added the super cute hut in black over the top, masked off the side of the card and stamped the small plam trees so they fell off the edge, then added the shadow bottom to make a complete image.  As this was black it was a bit unbalanced so I added some black ink to the edge of the sunburst and overstamped it for a distressed look.  I stamped the large trees separately and cut my hand (yes I do have the cut file, but I was trying to be quick as I have a tiara to make today too, coincidentally for a bride getting married in the carribean!).  I finished with some DP, yellow card stock, orange bakers twine and a couple of flowers cut from some wired ribbon.

I love this new set and can't wait to make more with it.

Our Anniversary

It's our 5th Wedding Anniversary today, and naturally that meant making a card for my husband.  Normally I show him all the stamp sets I get when they arrive, but I managed to "hide" one of my recent PTI acquisitions when they arrived a few weeks ago, as, as soon as I saw it last year, I knew I wanted to make a card for him with it as it's just perfect!

A very simple clean and graphic card - perfect for a fella.  I stamped the "great lovers" from the Love and Marriage set (anyone know who Ozzie and Harriet are btw???) in black on some white card stock and then added the "you and me" underneath in red.  The forever and the tiny heart are also from the same set, simply stamped and the heart got a layer of wow nuetral shimmer embossing.  I finished it with a layer of black glitter paper for a narrow mat and then a little trendy washi tape with a love them that looks like it's attaching the panel to the card although there is some d/s tape underneath as it didn't hold!

Time for a quick bath before we go out for a meal before the horrendous weather decends over night - we're staying in tomorrow with buckets at the ready as there's an amber flooding alert AGAIN for South Yorkshire - we bought each other purfume and watches - perhaps we should have clubbed together for an ark!!!

CASual Circles

This week's CASual Friday challenge is to use 2 circles on your card -  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cfc59.html  This proved to be a difficult challenge for me - I prefer my focal elements to be in odd numbers not even, and I played around with lots of circles in pairs but didn't like the look of any of them!

However, I got myself a new toy last week - a Silhoutte Cameo and I finally got it hooked up and had a play on Friday night and over the weekend I managed to put together a pair of cards, both with 2 circles that I was happy with. 

For my first card I downloaded this pretty floral circle from the silhoutte store, and the Happy Birthday text and cut them, along with a round base card (I managed to weld that myself) all from white card stock. I had a bit of an issue at first with the weight - 80lb - the US measurement used by the machine didn't translate to gsm the UK weight so I had the blade depth too shallow.  Seem to have cracked it now though.  I then coloured the parts with pink and black copics, glued them down and added a few black gems to the centre of the flowers.  A very quick and simple card but a good start to using my cameo.

I wanted to play some more so I cut another image from the store - this time a "hello" in a circle frame.  I lifted the positive carefully from the cutting mat and then used transfer tape to remove the negative as I noticed it made another perfect circle.  I coloured the positive with copics and layered it over the negative on a tall black card.  As the text was very "loopy" in style I decided to add some loopy DP and some matching green cardstock punched with my MS loop punch.

All in all, not bad for a first outing for the cameo - I think it will do great things once I get my head around it all....

Rock Star!

Welcome to July (yes it is July believe it not, the weather isn't much of an indication that we're in the midst of summer!!!) and with the first of a month comes a new challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge and this month it's all about teenage kicks - cards for the teenagers in your life.  Something fun, funky and modern (and nothing cute and fluffy as they so don't do that anymore....)

 We have been generously given a £10 voucher by the lovely ladies at The Ribbon Girl as our prize this month too so it's great opportunity to stock up your stash if you're our winner.......

As I so often do with teenage cards, I've gone digi, and used one of the fabby Kenny K images - I use his and Mo Mannings for these kind of cards all the time as they really capture the teen feel.

She's a total rock star so that was the sentiment I used too - I printed the "rock" and cut it by hand (starshine font) and added some sparkle highlights with sakura pens and some tiny gems.  I then cut some stars on my Silhoutte Cameo, white cardstock and coloured them with copics and stickles and used the largest to be the "star" in the rock star sentiment. 

For the layout of the card I used the sketch at this weeks' I Spy as my basis - it's fun so it lends itself to our fun and funky theme http://ispysketches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/issc22-with-julie-mogford.html  I used some My Minds Eye papers to cut the rounded end strips from and stuck them to the card before attaching the rock star image to the middle.  She had been printed onto white colouring card and coloured with copics and a little puff paint for her fur trim and fussy cut leaving a narrow white border.  To finish I added more stars and some more gems for added sparkle.

I hope that inspires you to join our challenge - our numbers have been a little low this summer - so I wanted to remind you that you don't HAVE to send your card to play along - by playing and publicising the challenge you're still doing "your bit" to help us so please join us if you have the time.