Bunting, birds and butterflies

Whilst I look in awe at the DT's creations every week, I often find the colours at CR84FN a bit too much of a challenge for me, but this fortnight was more in my comfort zone, so I decided to have a go and play along.  http://cr84fncolorchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cr84fn54.html

I used a couple of stamps from a new papermania "bunting" set by Lucy Cromwell, one image and one sentiment.  I stamped directly onto a textured 3" base card and then coloured with just 5 faber castell pencils and blended with a dry stump to prevent bleed through.   I'm quite pleased with the CAS results.  As its one layer, it would fit our ongoing challenge over at St Lukes Charity Cards Challenge too.

Sketchy colourful thanks

I needed to make a special thank you card today for my Aunt, and for my special cards I always go first to my Waltzingmouse stmaps so I thought I'd check out this weeks' sketch challenge for inspriation  http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-86february-25-2012.html  and in the spirit of trying to be more daring with my colours I went to todays lovely CR84FN which are kraft (love!) yellow and grey  http://cr84fncolorchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/02/cr84fn49.html

I stamped two layers of the nestie lable stamp in two shades of yellow chalk ink on kraft paper, cut out the central square and layered it up, cutting the circle out so the sentiment is stamped on the bottom layer.  I added the darker ink to the floral elements of the frame, overglittered it and added smoe gems.  I stamped the grey background with a hero arts stamp, layered with a tiny yellow border and created the shape on the sketch adding some looped yellow ribbon for added interest.  I finally brought the detail from the frame to the base card using the cleverly co-ordinating stamps from the same set.  The thank you sentiment is from a paula pascal set.

Can't wait to see the rest of the WM sets that are about to be released - todays samples were awesome.

Dies, colours, love, lace and backgrounds

Well, much later coming to play with the LIMettes today as I've been out shopping with my Aunt who had a cataract operation this week and isn't allowed to carry.  A nice afternoon of card making was required to recover, but I did get carried away which means tonight's mutton curry is now off the menu as I should have started it an hour ago!

Anyhow, this is going to be a big post as I made 3 cards, all using die cuts which is the theme this week at Less is More http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2012/02/week-55-theme.html but I have combined a couple of them with other challenges.

The first one is very simple - a pink base card, with a embossed panel simply stamped with a greeting from Waltzingmouse.  There are two die cut elements on this card, the leaves are stampin up (and came with some stamps) and the felt flower is created using a dynamics die from MFT.  I rolled it around a diamante left over from my tiara making days.

The second card is a simple little one on the theme of "love and lace" which is our challenge over at my charity card making challenge for St Luke's Hospice - do check it out if you haven't already - we have a lovely set of La Blanche stamps as a prize this month.  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/  I stuck rows of sheer ribbon to a square of card a cut it with an old sizzix die (called heart lace), popped out the centre, inked the edges and stuck into onto a vellum layer which was matted onto silver cut with a lace-like nestie.

My final die cut was the one that took the hour I didn't really have ;-)   This is a technique I learnt on Jennifer McGuire's recent Clean and Simple online class (you can still take it and it was a fab class). 

From this photo it may not look that exciting, but if you look at the close up below you can see the hidden technique which is to layer up your die cut shapes on top of each other to create intricate die cut with chipboard like dimension.

For this card I used the lovely colours at CR84FN as my starting point - chartreuse, grey and lavender and die cut one lavender butterfly and 5 white ones, carefully glued on top of each other.  I then made a background for the grey base using a damask stamp from Hero Arts with pear tart ink (as close as I could get to chartreuse).  Annabelle stamps want you to "say it with background stamps" this week, so I am entering this card into their challenge too.  I added a double layer of sheer ribbon and a raised ribbon sentiment (Elzybells) and hey presto, my first Mother's Day card finished.

Thanks for sticking with me if you read this far - better go and dig some fish fingers out of the freezer now - do you think DH will spot the difference?????

More cake.....

Today I am playing along with the CR84FN Challenge which this week is to use yellow, pink and bright pink, which is not a colour combo I would normally be drawn to, but, quite by accident, I used pink and yellow together on my cake for the blog waltz at the weekend and I was pleased with the outcome.   So here I am again, with another cake, and more pink and yellow!

I'm also making this a second entry into this week's CAS-ual Friday's challenge - which is all about sweets and treats.  I'd ordered this stamp last Thursday before the challenge went live - must have been psychic so am so glad it arrived in time for me to play with it!  I hope this still classes as clean and simple enough for the challenge.

The stamp is a from the little peeps range by Stamping Bella and I've coloured it with copics.  Mounted simply onto pink, with a piece of seam binding ribbon sandwiched in between the layers.  The yellow die cut is a marrianne designs and I joined them together with a yellow cherry blossom.  The great sentiment is from the eat cake set by Waltzingmouse which I just can't seem to put away at the minute I love this set so much so sorry if you're bored of seeing it already!!!

Have a great day :-)

Craftilicious x

Meet Fred!

When I saw this stamp I knew I had to have it - I had NO idea what I would ever use him for but Flamingo Fred just stole my heart :-)

I decided to stamp him onto some kraft cardstock and colour with pencils - just a couple of shades of pinks and purples and then put him to one side until I needed him.  When I saw the colours at this weeks CR84FN, I thought they would be great to match with Fred, so I matted him onto some light and dark plum, added an embossed layer of craft and some stars.  The sentiments are made up from different sets - one from a party invite, the other from a random word set.  The reeds are from there she goes.  Finished with a little bow - now who could resist those comic eyebrows???

I am entering Fred into the following challenges - a couple requiring you to use kraft cardstock, and then the CR84FN colour challenge:

http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/2011/05/challenge-165-lets-get-krafty.html

http://thespottedchick.blogspot.com/2011/05/thats-krafty-thursday-51.html

http://cr84fncolorchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/05/cr84fn29.html

Thanks for stopping by - Craftilicious x

clean and simple twine...

I haven't done much crafting this week as I've been a bit ill and also because my craft room currently looks like this while we TRY to organise it:

This is new kitchen cabinet awaiting a worksurface, occupying a tiny corner in my very cramped, and multi-purpose craft room come back bedroom (we took a sofa bed out of this corner believe it or not as it mostly just served as somewhere to put the ironing and my need for somewhere for my growing stamp collection trumped the ironing which can now go in the attic to be forgotton!) I'll show you afters, when its finished, but it might be a long wait.............

I did see something in craft stamper this month though that gave me an idea to play in the sketch challenge at http://cleanandsimplestamping.blogspot.com/2011/03/134.html  I cut some circles from my smallest nestie and covered them in d/s tape and coiled garden twine from the centre out (they used bakers twine in craft stamper but I thought this would be more textural).  I put a new craft-candy dot in the centre of each, and mounted on a woodgrain background (waltzing mouse way out west set again) with a green mount to match the craft candy dots.  The sentiment is from There She Goes.

 I took my colour inspiration from this weeks create for fun http://cr84fncolorchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/04/cr84fn22.html

My First 2011 Christmas Card.....

Another really quick card and quick post tonight as I continue to get everything ready for our new charity card challenge - check out the link to find out more http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-monthly-challenges-starting-2nd.html

One of my DT for this challenge - Deborah  is also a designer for CR84FN and I've never played in their challenges before so I thought it was time I played along.  The wanted a card with the colours of garnet chartreuse and cream and for some reason, even though its March, just lead me to think Christmas!  So this is what I came up with:

The base card is cream, the garnet strip is handmade paper with gold, red and cream stitching, and the chartreuse circle is from Craftwork cards, embellished with some garnet gems.  This is the challenge site if you want to play along http://cr84fncolorchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/cr84fn21.html.

I used the lovely CAS sketch over at Less is More for the basis of my design - my second entry in this weeks challenge as I love the simplicity of this sketch  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-8-sketch.html

I am also entering into the Christmas in Spring challenge over at the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/challenge-127_26.html 

See you all Saturday for the first St Luke's Challenge -eek getting nervous now ;-)

Craftilicious x