Trying to make a card in 10 minutes......

That's the name of the game over at the newest challenge on the block - 10 minute craft dash - http://www.prettypinkposh.com/2012/08/10-minute-craft-dash-1.html  The first challenge is breaking us in easy so it's a free for all.  I'm glad it was gentle as it wasn't that easy!  I am TOTALLY a tortoise and not a hare when it comes to card making and very rarely take less than an hour to make a card so I thought it would be good to push myself and give it a go.

However, my first attempt was a total fail - I went over the time limit :(   I used the stop watch on my phone and photographed it with my finished card.

I thought this was simple enough to make in 10 minutes - even with the fussy cutting of, and acetate in the glasses (woodware stamp set) but my choice of navy card for the sentiment didn't work with black text so I flipped the strip of card over and stamped and embossed in white (and I didn't static dust as I was running out of time and this was my second mistake as it then took ages to get the bits off I didn't want!)  1 minute and 4 seconds over the time limit - damn it!

Not one to give up though, I decided to have another bash and this time be even more CAS in my design choice to ensure I got under that time limit.  I turned to a cute cat from Papersmoochest this time and stamped her on kraft cardstock in brown ink and selected a matching scrap  of DP to sit her on.  I added some glossy black to her eyes, nose, mouth and necklace, and some white, green and gold to the eyes and left the rest in kraft.  I stamped the sentiment in black directly on the card but then felt it needed a little something more so cut some thin strips of black card to put at the top and bottom of the DP to ground it a little further.  Yeah-hah - almost 2 minutes under this time (so if you average the two out I made 2 in under 20 minutes so I hope that counts!)

Looking forward to playing along with this one (it's bimonthly) to see if it makes me a faster crafter!

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

Paper peppers

There's a great prize on offer over at Papersmooches this weekend with 3 sets of their wonderful stamps plus some Bazzill cardstock and the challenge is to only use plain cardstock and no decorative papers.  http://papersmooches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/contest.html

I often paperpiece my papersmooches stamps so I decided to use that route for my entry and I mixed up a couple of their sets to produce this:

I stamped the pepper image from Vegtastic onto green card twice and cut it out.  I used the same image for the red chilli pepper but just used the central portion containing the face.  I took the glasses and bow tie image from Sunny Side Up and embossed the glasses in black for shine.  I added a strip of yellow cardstock to show that the peppers were living it up on the beach and finished with the sentiment and some hearts also from Vegrtastic.

The deadline closes later today so play quick if you want to join in.

Caught a bug?

Just a quickie tonight before I jump in the bath.  I'm trying to force myself to do more colour challenges as I find the particularly difficult but find that without them I just defer to my default teal in almost every card!   So I'm having a go at this weeks colour Q - I don't have stampin up inks though so am just  guessing that the colours I've used are close enough.

Not sure I have enough orange and I probably deferred too much to my safe blues, but hopefully with practice I'll get better!  Paper-pieced papersmooches bug and spoon finished with liquid black pearls.

CASual movie

I've got a few birthdays coming up this week and next so I have a few cards I have to make and the challenge at CASual Friday's this week gave me the idea for one for our little nephew.  The challenge is to make a card inspired by a movie and as little boys love dinosaurs, I took my inspiration from Jurassic Park but made it cute and cuddly:

I used my great paper smooches stamps and did my fake chipboard trick again cutting the dinosaur out several times and layering him up, colouring with copics and finishing with glossy accents and a googly eye.  The grass is actually an icicle die and I don't have a grass one but I think it works for a jungle...

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2012/02/cfc38.html

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

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

St Luke's Take 2 - News Flash!

It was one of my husband's friends birthdays yesterday and he asked me to make a card for him.  He's not an outdoorsy or sporty type, but loves films, tv and video games so I knew that my papersmooches set was the perfect choice.  This would be a perfect card to enter to our "Let's Hear it For the Boys" challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/10/lets-hear-it-for-boys.html we have a great prize up for grabs and you still have 2 weeks to join us with your masculine themed cards.

For this card I stuck to 3 colours - kraft, red-brown and black.  I like the simple retro effect.  The TV set was coloured with copics direct onto kraft and glossy accents provided the shiny screen.  I split the sentiment and image up for added interest as I like the strong black matt for masculine cards.

I am entering this into the anything goes challenge at http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/10/week-152-anything-goes.html

Thanks for stopping by  x