The Final St Luke's Challenge

Due to a number of issues in my personal life, I have had to take the difficult decision to close the challenge I set up to collect cards to sell on behalf of St Luke's Hospice - you can read the full details over on the blog  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

We are going out with a bang however, with a bumper prize package worth over £30 and all you have to do to win it is create a traditional Christmas card.

For my card I used a reflections silhouette stamp and just added a little glitter and a gem - a very simple traditional card.

I'm also going to link this up to Ardyth's One Layer Wednesday challenge this week which is "Song in my Heart" so the song for this card has to "Away in a Manger".....

Thank you to everyone who has played along since the challenge started - you've all made a great difference to the hospice and for that I thank you greatly.

Tara
x

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.

Our Little Furry Friends

Well, it's the 1st of the month which means time for a new challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge and I hope you will all be much happier with this month's theme of "something furry" than you were with our one layer challenge last month which seemed to send most of you running for the hills with your decorative papers clutched firmly to your chest..........

This challenge is super easy - you can make a card for anyone, on any theme, as long as it features something furry - cat, dog, teddy bear or even a furry monster!   For my inspiration card I opted to go for the super cute retro Chester the monkey digi stamp from Pollycrafts (if you like him, be sure to nip over to the shop this week as sadly, it's closing it's doors for ever on the 8th June :-(  so if you want to get any of the great images you've only got a week to buy them before they disappear  http://pollycraft.co.uk/shop/page/1?shop_param=  You can currently get a fab closing down offer of 100 images for less than a tenner which is kind of a no brainer in my book.....

I used the sketch from Paperplayers as my base for my design  http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/paper-players-97-leannes-sketch.html and colouring him with copics before cutting and matting with nestie circles.  The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse and I think it's highly appropriate for the image!

Speaking of Waltzingmouse - they are our FABULOUS sponsor again this month so if you enter our challenge, you can win this gorgeous stamp set.  If you've not tried them before you'll be stunned at the quality of their clear polymer stamps - they are so much better than many clear brands out there - there's no "squish" to them and the results are perfect every stamp!  So enter your furry creation into our challenge by noon on 30 June and you could win this gorgeous set of wonderful and very useful background stamps:

I'm entering this card into a few other challenges - mostly masculine ones to match the theme as there are a few of those around at the moment with father's day coming up fast:

http://tuesdaythrowdown.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tuesday-throwdown-100.html 

http://herecometheboysblogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/challenge-28-anything-goes.html

http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/challenge-184-for-boys.html

Pollycrafts linky party  http://pollycraftdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/its-party-time-come-and-link-up-your.html  you can link up any card here featuring a Pollycrafts image but it's only open until the store closes on the 8th.

Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with over on the challenge site.

St Luke's Mid Month Reminder

Well it certainly seems like we've scared off our regulars over on the St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge Blog with our one layer challenge this month as we've hardly had any players.  So, as its one layer week over at Less is More I thought I'd combine their "use 3 stamps" with our "anything as long as its one layer" to see if we can prompt a few more players to join us.  We have a couple of lovely stamps from Lili of the Valley up for grabs....

My three stamps were from 2 sets - the flower and frame are both old ones from Elzybells whom I loved so much so am SOOOO pleased to see that she is now designing for Penny Black and that some of her old stamp sets (including the round flower set to match this one) are being re-released.  The sentiment is from a new set from Papermania by Lucy Cromwell.   I masked off a strip then stamped the flower and frame, removed the mask and added the sentiment into the gap - simples. 

See ONE LAYER DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SCARY.....................

St Luke's Single Layer Challenge

This month at St Luke's there is only one rule and that is to have no layers on your card - stamp, draw, ink, emboss - whatever technique you fancy  - just do it directly onto the base card.

Now I know for some people a one layer card is a very scary prospect, it was for me when I first started to try, but it does get easier with practice - and you've got a whole month to play along and get in lots of practice and you may even end up as the recipient of this months prize.  We are being sponsored again by the lovely people over at Lili of the Valley and we have a pair of their gorgeous stamps to give away.

I decided to make two inspiration cards - both engagement cards - one full on and one as clean and simple as it can get.

For the first card I drew a double border with a thin black pen.  I then centred a nestability die cut fancy label shape and drew around it with the same fine liner and coloured the negative spaces in black.  I left the die cut shape in place as a mask and masked off the border with post-its.  I stamped a penny black image from the "trims" collection in a variety of inks and added matching stickles to each as the image resembled fireforks to me and went with the celebratory feel of an engagement.  I stamped a Waltzingmouse sentiment in the label once I removed the mask and finished by adding some square black gems to the corners.

For the second card I took another nestie label and this time fixed it with a little masking tape on the inside of the card and dry embossed with a ball tool on both the cutting edge and the inner embossing edge.  If you've not tried this before, it's a nice easy technique - easier with a lightbox (but I didn't have time to dig mine out so it is possible without one).  Secure the die inside with the cutting edge facing the outside of the card, turn it over and rub gently with a bone folder - this creates a soft line on top of the cutting edge so you know where to put your ball tool to begin.  The trick is to go over the lines a couple of times to get the depth (I use a double ended tool and start with a thicker end then use a narrow one for definition once the fibres have stretched) - if you go too hard and deep too fast, you just rip the card stock.  You can do the same thing on an embossing machine but I think you get a deeper impression by hand.

Once I'd created my raised shape, I just stamped and embossed the same sentiment from Waltzingmouse with WOW Amber Rose Embossing Glitter and went over it with a little glossy accents for extra shine.  I finished with a tiny silver gem on the start and finish of the sentiment and added a slightly larger silver gem in each corner of the label.

See - one layer cards don't have to be difficult or scary...........

Love and Lace for St Luke's Hospice

It's time for a new challenge over at St Luke's and this month we've gone all romantic and are looking for cards with a love and lace theme - not just valentines but weddings, engagements, anniversaries or just a card for the one you love to show how much you care.

For my inspiration card I went very pink and girly with lots of frills - a bit of a departure from my normal style.  I think it would be suitable for either a wedding or an anniversary.

I started with the idea to cut through the top layer of my card and join the gaps back together with my hearts - an idea I CASed from the super talented lady of LIM.  I then added the lace to the bottom section using my sew-easy tool and some thick embroidery thread to colour-match my base mat.  I stamped my sentiment into the top corner of that layer.  I cut my hearts on my cricut, ran them through an embossing folder and coloured the smaller one with a copic.  I carefully ran an inkpad flat over the embossing to get a suede-like effect.  I glued them into place to hold the two sections of card back together and added a pearl heart for balance and detail.  I added a layer of delicate floral paper as a second mat.

There are lots of similar challenges to ours at the moment so I'm entering my card into the ones below as well:

St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge - L'amour - http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

Valentines - http://wagsnwhiskersrubberstamps.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-71-valentineslove-card.html

Lots of Layers -  http://crazy4challenges.blogspot.com/2012/01/crazy4challenges-c4c121.html

Stitching - http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-167-stitching-faux-or-real.html

Valentines - http://toptiptuesday.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-69-valentines-tipper-week.html

Embossed, punched hearts  http://cookingitupwithkatie.blogspot.com/2012/01/cooking-it-up-88-punch-me-embossed.html

Do come and play along with us - we have a lovely set of La Blanche stamps as a prize to our favourite entrant.

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/

St Luke's Christmas

For our theme over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge this month we decided to be easy on you after the dreaded "boys" cards that so many of you didn't like last month!  So our theme this month is a seasonal one - just make something for Christmas - any theme or style as long its Christmassy then anything goes!

Our sponsor this month is Lili of the Valley and they have kindly donated a pair of matching stamps from their super cute collection - I love LOTV images as they are great to colour.   We have these super cute mice making cakes and a pair of "recipe" sentiments to go with them as prize this month:

For my card, I decided to use one of my own LOTV Christmas stamps which I hate to say had not seen ink until now despite me buying in over 12 months ago!  It will be getting inked again soon though as its nice and quick to colour but makes a striking Christmas card.

I coloured her with copics and stuck mostly to Christmas reds and greens and just added some very pale blue-green for the snow along with a little glitter for that frosty sparkle!  The DP are from an old DCWV Christmas stack and the sentiment is cut from one of the DP sheets.

Now it's your turn - we can't see what you all come up with to get us in the mood for Christmas....

http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/11/christmas-is-coming.html

Craftilicious x

Let's hear it for the boys!

This month over at St Luke's Hospice Charity Card Challenge we are all about the boys - you can make any card for any guy of any age for any occasion as long at it's masculine it counts.  I know we sometimes struggle with male cards but hopefully we'll give you lots of inspiration throughout the month and hope to see a record number of entrants.  We've got an AMAZING prize this month from the lovely ladies at Craftie Charlie and here it is:

It contains all these brilliant goodies which can be yours if you enter the challenge and are the DT's favourite for the month:

• My Mind's Eye Limited Edition 6x6 Double Sided Paper Pad - Dwell
• East of India Pale Pink Ric Rac
• Inkadinkado Mini Stamp - Thanks
• Tsukineko Memento Dew Drop - New Sprout
• Ranger Liquid Pearls - White Opal
• K&Co Glitter Chipboard Alphabet - Smitten
• K&Co Amy Butler Lotus Embellishment Jars
• Creative Expressions Decorative Pins - Cream Pearl

So, I'd better get on with my card - I've gone for a get well card, for an older guy and used this great oldish image from High Hopes.  I've coloured him with copics, cut him out and mounted him on some green paper embossed with a circles folder - this gave me the idea of "golfing greens" so I've put the ball in one of the "holes" and made a flag with some ribbon and a cocktail stick and a peel off sticker 18.

 As well as being my DT entry for St Luke's I am also entering the following challenges:


One for the boys -  http://oldiebutagoodiechallenge.blogspot.com/2011/09/challenge-27.html

Use a stamp older than 6 months -   http://simplycreatechallenges.blogspot.com/2011/09/53-challenge-older-than-6-mos.html

Ribbon loops -  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2011/09/cfc22.html

Sports -  http://cardsformen.blogspot.com/2011/09/challenge-20-sports.html

Don't forget that our challenge is a little different - we don't just play for fun and prizes, we play for charity - we ask our players to post their challenge entry (if they can) to the Hospice and we then sell them at craft fairs and markets to raise vital funds to help keep the hospice open - we've had over 800 cards donated to date.  Check out the challenge site for more details http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by ;-)

Craftilicious x

St Luke's Mid Month Inspiration

It's time for a little more inspiration for our month long challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge which this month is a buffet.  You can make any card you like but you have to include 4 things from a list of 10 - check out the blog to see the whole list.  We have a great set of Waltzingmouse stamps as a prize this month so do join the fun!

This is a mini card - just 3 x 3 inches, which is the requirement for this weeks' CASual Friday challenge, so I am also entering this card into their challenge.  The four items I choose from our buffet were pattern papers, embossing, punches (die cut) and gems.

The patterned paper is from an old DCVW Christmas Stack and then I used a snowflake embossing folder on some blue mirri card and used these to create my background.  I stamped one of the christmas baubles from the Waltzingmouse Vintage Ornaments set onto silver mirri using stazon ink and cut it out with the corresponding nestie.  I popped this up on foam pads and finished with 3 blue gems.

Don't forget to check out the challenge for a chance to win - you still have a couple of weeks to play and remember our blog is a little different - we play for charity, so if you can spare the card you enter (or any other handmade card) then just post it to us at the address on the sidebar of the challenge site and we'll sell it for the charity at a local fayre.

Thanks for visiting :-)

Craftilicious x

St Lukes Pick Four Challenge

Our challenge this month over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge is a card buffet - we have a choice of 10 embelishments and you have to use exactly 4 of them, no more and no less.  I opted for pearls, ribbon, punches and embossing (my sentiment is heat embossed) - if you want to know what else you could choose then you'll have to check out the challenge site where you will also find the rest of the Design teams inspiring projects.

I used a couple of Waltzingmouse stamps for my project, as they are our gracious sponsor this month, and as a WM fan I own quite a few stamps it seemed appropriate to play with them.  I stamped the large flower in two shades of versamagic chalk ink mixed directly onto the stamp, and did the same with the matching leaves - both are from the  Big Blooms set.  I layered the three sized flowers once cut out with foam pads and added a pearl in the center.  I used a MS punch on some plain brown kraft paper and added a sentiment from the say it loud set which I just adore as the different sized text makes it so versatile.  I embossed this with a pearly powder to match the pearls in both the flower centre and on the ribbon.

If you've not come across our challenge before, then its a little different, we ask you to play along, upload your card, then if you can spare it, and the cost of a stamp, you post it St Luke's Hospice and then I sell them at local craft fairs and all the proceeds go to the hospice - so far we've done 2 fairs and raised £335!  So you get to play, help and charity and can even win a prize :-)  If you join in the challenge this month, which runs until noon on 30th September, you could win a fabulous complete set of Waltzingmouse stamps which will be with the winner in time to create some great Halloween projects as the set we have this month is Wanda's Pantry:

I am also entering this into the following challenges:

Top Tip Tuesday's  - Shabby Chic
Make it Mondays link party- anything goes there every week
Scrapbook Sisters - anything goes
Totally Gorguss - as you like it


Thanks for visiting ;-)
Craftilicious x

Summer beach

The recipe at cooking it up with katie this week is to use some embossing, make it for summer, and use a punch or die cutting.  So I've used the recipe to create another reminder for our "beside the seaside" challenge at St Luke's this month.  To me, nothing says summer by the beach more than an icecream - I have fond memories of the "lemon-top" from Scarborough as a kid, so I've gone with an ice-cream for my card.  Unfortunately my ribbon was pink, not yellow, so my lemon-top became a raspberry-top instead!

The icecream is an ellison thin cuts die, layered onto a couple of nesties and I embossed the base card with my "stitches" folder which in this case reminds me of the waffle cone on an ice-cream.  The sentiment is from a hampton arts set - stamped in pistachio to match the mat behind the ice-cream and because that's my favourite flavour...

I am also entering this into the stamp challenges dog days of summer challenge.

Do have a look at our challenge site at all the inspiration the DT girls have to offer and then enter your cards before the end of the month for the chance to win a voucher from Quixotic Paperie.

Now we just need the sunshine........
Craftilicious x