Baby Banners

I needed a congratulations on your new bump card and this weeks' challenge at CASual Fridays to incorporate flags and banners sparked my inspiration for it http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/cfc104.html

I used this cute little pregnant lady from Magnolia and coloured and paper pieced her before fussy cutting her out.  I then stamped the gorgeous little heart banner from WPlus9 in pink and black onto DP from Basic Grey Kneehighs.   It was finished with a Kirsty Wiseman sentiment stamped in pink onto some white card embossed with a PTI texture plate.

New bump

One of my friends had great news to share this week - she's cooking a special little bump ;-)  Naturally I needed to make a card to celebrate this fact and it meant a chance to ink up a magnolia I bought for just such an occasion.

Nothing says happy to me like bunting so I was happy to see the challenge at Cupcake crafts this week and used that as my starting point for the card.  http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/cupcake-204-bunting.html  I picked out some MME papers and stuck the copic coloured and fussy cut image onto them but decided it needed something more to make it "happier".  The bingo challenge at ATS this week pointed me in the direction of buttons and embossing for emblishments  http://addictedtostamps-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/ats-bingo-challenge-2.html so I added some ribbon, a little floral button and then heat embossed the congrats (waltzingmouse) sentiment directly ont the dp.

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

Use Ribbon -  http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-pink-elephant-challenge-tpe160.html

Anything goes - http://cardsundmore-challengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/challenge-62-anything-goes.html

It wouldn't wash at Wimbledon...

I've had a couple of these lovely new Magnolia stamps from their sporty release for a while but this is the first time I've managed to ink one up.  I'm combing a few challenges with this image - I started with Copic Oz's getting sporty challenge - hence the image choice.

For the colour choices I took my inspiration from the pink elephant's photo inspiration challenge, which were pinks and greens which is the same challenge over at cupcake craftroom so I am entering their challenge too.  Finally, there is a new challenge and they just want you to feature people so this counts for the Touch Twin Markers Challenge also, and until next year you can use any markers to colour your image (I think I may need to try these too - I do have such a weakness for pens - a little like Pauline from The League of Gentlemen.......)

So back to my card, the image as I said is Magnolia, stamped in momento ink, coloured with copics and as much as I like it, not sure she'd be allowed on court at Wimbledon in this little pink and green number!  I cut her out with a nestie, using the cut out technique for the racquet.  I cut the ball out by hand.  I used a couple of old K&Company DP sheets as they matched the copic colours very well (an no I didn't pick the papers first - this was a pure fluke!) and added a little webbed ribbon as it sort of reminded me of a tennis net.  I made the sentiment up from my "words" and alphabet sets from Elzybels.

Thanks for stopping by
Craftilicious x

Easter Gift Cards

I have some Easter gift-cards to share with you today.  I made them for my bookgroup mates and gave them out last night so I can safely share today without spoiling the surprise:

From the front they just look like a card, but they hide a secret inside:

They are actually 3cm deep, and have a pocket inside into which a little chocolate lamb and some jelly hens are secreted....

Here are close ups on the individual ones - I just adore these new tilda Easter images - particularly the one with the bunny - that hat with the big bow is a delight to colour.

Here is the list of challenges for these - its quite long as there are a lot of Easter challenges out there this week ;-)


At Copic Oz the challenge is to create something to do with Easter and colour it with....  well Copics naturally ;-) http://copicoz.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-easter-challenge.html

http://magnoliadownunderchallenges.blogspot.com/2011/04/magnolia-down-under-challenge-92.html



http://craftyourdaysaway.blogspot.com/2011/04/cyda-challenge-18-easter.html


http://stampinfortheweekend.blogspot.com/2011/04/challenge-7-easter.html

http://pileitonchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/04/pio-16-smells-like-rubber.html


Thanks for stopping by today - Craftilcious x

An 80th Birthday "Cake"

It was my Auntie's 80th birthday on Sunday and she really likes my cards so I wanted to make her a really special one she can keep.  I saw amazing card by the very talented Kathrin aka Krumel on her blog back in February and despite the complexity being beyond my normal card making attempts, I decided I wanted to give it a go.

The most exciting part of the card, which is basically a boxy easel card, is that is has a little cake inside and a box to hold the candles.....

There are very good instructions on how to make this card over at Stempeleinmaleins (stamp something) a German blog, but most of their stuff is in English too.   This is what it looks like when you take the candles out of their little box and put them in the "cake".

I've used a really cute tilda and some matching magnolia balloons which I stamped on acetate with stazon and then stamped again and cut out the balloon part on paper and coloured and glittered and stuck them behind the acetate so that you don't have to cut around the fiddly strings.

It fits the following challenges:

http://magnoliastamplovers.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-msl-challenge-ribbon.html  - use ribbon

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/2011/03/challenge-92-more-than-1-fold.html  - more than one fold - this one has lots of folding!

http://justmagnolia.blogspot.com/2011/04/week-100-simon-says-stamp-special.html - anything goes

http://copiccreations.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/challenge-no-47-your-favorite-copic-technique/   favourite copic technique - this took some thought initially but then I realised that the thing I like to do most with my copics is the shading which makes the characters look like they have really shiny hair!

I did enjoy making this card, but it took me two FULL evenings, so I don't think I'll be making them to order any time soon.....

Thanks for stopping by
                                   Craftilicious x

Welcome little lady

My husbands niece had a little baby girl at the weekend, making me a Great Aunt for the third time - although no-one dare call me that - the nieces and nephews aren't much younger than me, so it feels odd for them to call me Auntie, so they only call it me to tease me!  To their kids, I'll be Auntie, that feels much better ;-)

They were told they were having a girl, so I had some bits and pieces put aside to make the card, but I didn't want to temp fate and make it before we knew for certain.  Hopefully they received it yesterday so it should be safe to blog it now:

The baby image is a real cutie from Magnolia - just love the frilly knickers!  I coloured her wtih copics, cut with a nestie and mounted on some bo bunny dots with a couple of sentiments.  It's not obvious from the photo (tried several shots but couldn't get it to show up clearly) but the white layer is a DCWV card front with "Baby" embossed all over it.  I added some lovely sheer ribbon, a pearly heart pin, some pink flowers with pearl centres and popped it on a couple of layers of DP, the final layer cut with MS PATP loops punch set.  It's and 8x8 inch card overall.

I'm entering the following challenges with it:

http://alphabetchallengeblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/r-for-ribbons.html

http://thecraftypad.blogspot.com/2011/03/challenge-111-use-ribbon.html

http://justmagnolia.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-96-simon-says-stamp-special.html  - Anything goes with optional glitter

http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/p-is-for-pearls.html - the centres of my flowers are pink peals and the heart is a pink pearl pin.

It's all about the power of flowers at http://simplycreatechallenges.blogspot.com/2011/02/38-power-of-flowers.html  and http://gingerloftchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/gl13-use-those-flowers.html

Thanks for visiting today :-)

                                          Craftilicious x

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.

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.

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

Antipodean Wedding Card

I made this card for a friend whose sister is getting married on December 1st on Hamilton Island in Australia (the one from Murial's Wedding).  I made a box card, with a picture of the love heart reef which is just off Hamilton Island as the background image, a Magnolia arbour stamped and cut out as the middle ground, and an Elzybels bride and groom stamped a cut out on the frame in the foreground.   I used my new copic sketch colours from the 0000 range - the more 0's the paler the colour - perfect for snow and wedding dresses!  I stamped extra flowers from the Magnolia arbour and stuck them over a MarianneD swirl.  The side view below shows the layers a little clearer.

A Crafty Recipe Solution

I made this cute little recipe tin for a friend who, like me, loves to cook.  Some of the stamps from Magnolia's  A Little Yummy for Your Tummy Collection made the perfect addition to the normal divider cards and they look cute with their faces poking out of the tins.

I love the little oven mit brads and the ginger bread cooker cutter on the outside.  The papers are Die Cuts With a View from the Nana's Kitchen Stack which is a personal favourite of mine, I added a little red gingham to complete the country kitchen look.

Lots of new stamps

I've been a bit carried away with rubber stamping recently, mainly due to following a great card makers blog from America - Paula Tracey - her cards are amazing and her colouring techniques from copic markers or prisma colour pencils and blending tools are hard to beat. I don't really have any of her artistic skills but I'm practicing hard.



The first card is a sugar nellie stamp coloured with copics, the background is pencil coloured and blended with sansoder with a star and swirl backgorund stamp.

My second card was a mothers's day card for my aunt and god mother. A cute magnolia girl coloured with copics and gently glittered with fairy dust, sitting on a nestabilities lable frame, with a martha stewart border punch and one of the gorgeous new flower stamps from elzybels a her circular happy mothers day sentiment.