New Beginnings Blog Party

It's the 17th of the month, which can only mean one thing, it's time to waltz with the mouse over at the Waltzingmouse Blog Party :-D   The theme for this month's party is "new beginnings" which had me a little stumped at first, but in the end I decided to go with a wedding card.

I stamped the gorgeous dress from You're Lovely onto some papermania patterned white vellum and embossed with with white pearl EP.  I brushed over some blue distress ink, spritzed it and buffed with a tissue so the white patterned showed through but gave a soft blue hue to the dress.  I cut a nestie shape in white and embossed with text and mounted on a blue matt.   I decided to make it a DL card so embossed another strip of white with dots for more texture, mounted it onto silver and rounded all the corners, adding a blue bow.  The sentiment is from Big Day Additions and is perhaps my favourite ever sentiment set - those flourishes Clare designed are just TDF!   I simply stamped it onto the same blue card as I used for the matt around the image and embossed it with fine detail white EP.  I think it came out quite elegant in the end.

Looking forward to hopping around all the other blogs to see what new beginnings everyone else opted for.....

I'm also going to enter it into a new challenge I've found the Crafters Cafe Challenge which is a monthly challenge and this month they want pastel colours - well my soft blues are very pastel.  http://crafterscafeblogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge-3-spring-with-pastel-colors_18.html

Artistic glitter

Just a quick post tonight as I'm trying to finish my book in time for book group on Thursday and I have a fair way to go....

Over at do you stack up they want cards that feature glitter or bling  http://www.doyoustackup.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/dysu-67-glitter-bling.html which is the same as our current challenge over at St Luke's this month http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/   I had a new set of stamps from There She Goes who are sponsoring the DYSU challenge I wanted to play with and thought it would work so here's my card.

I love the image and think there is so much truth in the sentiment (I think that's why I struggled to doodle on this week's LIM challenge!).  I coloured her in copics and then added thick stickles to the paint brush and tube and added a layer of glitter card just to up the glitter ante a little.

Catch you later

Opposites attract with doodling

 

I've been struggling with this weeks Less is More challenge all day - they would like us to "doodle" on our card in some way.  I doodle alot when I bored, but I only ever seem to draw stars and they're not even proper ones, so this was a tough challenge for me - almost as bad as the dreaded acetate :(  

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/week-62-one-layer.html

I've been trying out lots of things on paper with the first ink pad I grabbed and the pen that was out on my desk and they just happened to be orange and blue which are opposite on the colour spectrum (and sooo not my go to colours) and something just clicked.  The challenge at CASual Fridays this week is to use two opposing colours so I have made a card to combine both challenges.  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/cfc48.html

I stamped the happy birthday ticket in momento tangelo and then hand drew the squiggly lines and circles with a bright blue fine liner from muji (I LOVE these pens and was so glad when they brought them out in 15 colours not just black and blue).   Not the most inspiring card ever, but better than anything else I've come up with so far!

Christmas kisses

I've got a lovely long day of crafting all to myself today so I've been hopping around to see which challenges to play in and decided to combine two to begin with - the waltzingmouse sketch http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge-93april-14-2012.html along with this week's Christmas card challenge over at 52 christmas card throwdown which is a green and white colour challenge  http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/colour-challenge-4.html

I went for my favourite stamp from the festive foliage set and stamped it onto green dp to paperpiece it onto the white circle onto which I hand drew a dark green line.  I added 3 pearls to be the berries on the mistletoe and dotted each with some green stickles to add the detail back in from the stamp.  DP is from My Minds Eye Be Merry and the bottom strip was embossed using a sizzix folder.  To allude to the scalloped edge on the sketch, I tied 4 knots in a strip of green ribbon and finished with a matching sentiment from the same set.

I'll be back later with more challenges hopefully.

Relax!

In typical procrastinating fashion, I've had a whole month to play along in the Quixotic Paperie sketch challenge and leave it until I have 2 days to go before I actually get around to it!  http://quixoticpaperie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/quixotic-paperie-sketch-challenge-no5.html

I've always been in awe of Mary J's fabulous little circular cards - she packs so much in to them yet still makes them look clean and refreshing and I never seem to have the knack.  However, with one of her sketches to follow, I had to give it a go - so here's my interpretation.

I used the lovely yoga girl from kraftin kimmie and coloured her with copics.  Layered on teal, an embossed white circle with a little DP and lace to finish.  The sentiment goes with the stamp but I only used one word of it rather than the whole sentiment.

While I'm here, I thought I'd share a card I was commissioned to make for a wedding over Easter weekend as I now know it's been opened.

I printed the sentiment and then matched the ink and ribbon and stamped a border top and bottom using Waltzingmouse stamps with a few gems and then stamped a matching frame from the same set around the text, with an embossed lable behind.  Apparently it went down really well.

Green Ribbon

I decided to have another go at LIM this week - I do love green   http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/week-62-colour-challenge.html  and it seemed like a good opportunity to combine it with this weeks challenge at There She Goes which is to use ribbon  http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/tsg151-ribbon-time.html

The very first set of stamps I bought from There She goes was one of their gorgeous sentiment sets of which the above is one.  I love how large and flourishy it is and thought it would look great with little else on the card so I selected 3 shades of green ribbon in different thicknesses and fixed them behind a smooth panel on a textured base card.

Friendly snowflakes

This weeks challenge at 52CCT is a gorgeous sketch which I found really inspiring so made a card straight away without too much thinking for a change.  http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/sketch-challenge-4.html

I started with a blue base card and decided to go for a total snowflake fest.  I cut a blue snowflake (MS punch) and stuck it onto a nestie circle adding a button and twine bow to the centre.  You're probably all fed up of it already but I couldn't resist returning to my new favourite paper inlay technique this time using my memory box snowflake die.  I stamped a sentiment from Amy R in pearl blue ink (hard to see on the photo but is says The chill of winter is warmed by friendship) and then ran the white card through a snowflake embossing folder.  I might make more of this design as it was quite quick (even with the inlaid border)

Less is Green

The first Less is More challenge of the month is always colour and this month it's three shades of green  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/week-62-colour-challenge.html

I really liked the new inlaid paper marquetry technique I tried for the PDCC challenge this week so I decided to give it another go for this challenge.

I added the positive from one green strip to negative of the other, created a scalloped frame with nesties and added a sentiment from Penny Black.  I finished it with some gems for a tiny bit of sparkle so it would be eligible for our First Anniversary challenge over at my charity fund raising blog in aid of St Luke's Hospice.  All you need is some glitter, gems or something sparkly and you can enter for a chance to win our mega prize package worth around £50 so why not combine your green with some gems and join us  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

Thanks

Play Date Butterfly

I just adore the colour combo at Play Date Cafe this week and as it happens I had already been playing with two of the colours for a new technique, so I decided to make it into a card with the addition of the avocado. http://theplaydatecafe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/play-date-cafe-pdcc126.html

I started by covering the back of a strip of grey card with double-sided tape and die cut the butterfly from it.  I lightly adhered it to a sheet of paper and then carefully removed the positive shape, ensuring that all the negative shapes stayed in place on the backing paper.  I die cut the same butterfly from the blue mist card (this was actually an already sticky piece of card stock fro DCWV) and then I added the positive into the space left behind by the grey one so you end up with a flat surface a little like wood marquetry but with paper.  (I actually kept the negative blue bits and added them to the positive grey so I have another two tone butterfly but with no background)

I die cut a ring using two round nesties to create a frame for the butterfly from a lightly patterned DP and finished with a pair of PTI sentiments in versamagic oasis green which is the closest ink I had to the butterfly.  I really like the shape the ring and the strip created and might make a set like this with images in the centre of the strip.

Get your geek on!!!

I needed to make a card for teenage boy this week and they are always quite tricky but then I saw this kenny k image and thought it was quite glee (boy in question is at theatre school) so I went with it.  I decided to push my comfort zone further by using a colour challenge to set the colour theme and this weeks's Colour Throwdown gave me some lovely bright colours http://colorthrowdown.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/color-throwdown-186.html

I'm also entering it into this weeks Kenny K's Krafty Girlz challenge which is April Fool - an image which makes you smile and this one certainly does!  http://kennykkraftygirlzchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/april-fool.html

I coloured the image with copics, layered onto dp to match the colours from the challenge then made a greeting in word and created a triple layer ribbon from it.  Finished simply with a brad and a few stars cut with a MFT dynamics die.  The final touch was some glaze on the glasses and some glitter on the mirror ball...

Geek Chique nes pas?

One Layer Challenges

I've done a couple of one layer cards this week - both with Waltzingmouse stamps as their sketch challenge this week is one layer  http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/challenge-91march-31-2012.html

I thought the lace stamp from the new sets would pair up well with the vintage dress form so did some simple matting and layering in black and blue and finished with some tiny crystals.

I have to say that one layer is usually something I'm pretty good at these days so I opted to do one layer for this week's anything goes over at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown too  http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/anything-goes-week.html  but I I don't think I did a great job with either card!  This is what I came up for their challenge:

I used a couple of Waltzingmouse sets in simple red and green on a golden pearl base card (doesn't show on photo)  It's a bit bleurgh really - I think my mojo has gone on holiday for Easter early!

Beary Happy Birthday

It's my Aunt's birthday today - she's a ripe and lively 81 years young (honestly, we have days out shopping and I have to have a lie down when we get home - she gets in and starts doing the garden!!)  I knew I wanted to use this bear image as she loves teddies but I needed some inspiration for the layout and thankfully this week's annabelle sketch challenge came to the rescue.

 The sketch challenge can be found here  http://annabellestamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/absc048.html

The image is from fizzy moon and is coloured with copics with the addition of glitter.  I cut it with a nestie and mounted onto another scalloped nestie and added a gem to the centre of each scallop.  I cut a decorative strip using nestie edgeabilities and added a large gem to the center of each decorative element and then used the die to edge with a narrow pen.  The sentiments are from 3 retired elzybells sets.   It's quite a bit "pinker" than my normal cards, but I think it's quite cute.

It would also be a great card to enter into our charity cards challenge which this month is all about bling and we have a £50 prize package up for grabs. http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

CASual Song Inspiration

This week's challenge at CASual Friday's is to make a card inspired by a song - I decided to take one of my husband's favourite bands Kraftwerk for my inspiration and their song is called "The Robots".

I used the super cute set designed by Torico from There She Goes stamps - I have all her robot sets they are just wonderful.  These 2 are best friend robots - I stamped them onto grey card, shaded with pencils and then added some googly eyes before fussy cutting them out.  The stamps also come with a smaller solid block matching stamp which I stamped repeatedly to make a background before adding one of the sentiments from the set.


http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/cfc46-and-last-chance-for-dt-call.html

When looking for this set, I pulled out another one of theirs so decided to make another card for this challenge and also this week's challenge at There She Goes which is to use metal embellishments.  This card is inspired by the Christmas song "Little Donkey".

I don't think its particularly clear from the photograph but I have decoupaged the "butt" on the donkey, with and extra layer for the tail and the fluffy hair, stamped on kraft card and shaded again with pencils.  I added a strip of metal embossed with stars and also die cut some large stars from the same metal - the stars fit the theme at TSG and also echo the sentiment.

http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/tsg150-metal-embellishments.html 

Get your bling on!

I can't quite belive it but it's been a whole year since I started my charity fundraising blog in aid of St Luke's Hospice in Sheffield and all you lovely ladies out there in blogland have donated over 2000 cards in that time.  For our anniversary challenge I thought that a little bit of bling was appropriate so it's time to pull out your gems, glitter and metalics and give us something that sparkles!

My inspiration card was designed as an anniversary one either Golden or Ruby - a special cake with added bling, I left the sentiment off though so I can add it if it sells at a sale as I take a selection of stamps with me to personalise as required.  I gues it could work for birthdays too actually as it's just a cake.  The stamps are papermania, stamped and embossed in gold with gold bling and ruby ric-rac.

As it's a celebration on the blog, we need a big celebration prize so we have all these goodies up for grabs if you take part in our challenge this month.

It was pretty hard to photograph, so if you can't quite make it all out, it consists of the following:

A rainbow pack of felt sheets

A ribbon girl kit (yellow)

2 packs of antique gold effect embossed stickers

2 packs of assorted flowers

2 sheets of unmounted fairy and flower rubber stamps

a set of Papermania Christmas cling stamps

a Ladybug Crafts Ink Magnum cling stamp

4 packs of seed beads

a bunch of gold pearl sprays

a bunch of iridescent flower sprays

a bunch of gold leaf sprays

and a perfect Bow Maker MkII

The total value is over £50 so well worth an entry.  We award on merit, not random draws so give us your best work and all this could be yours!  We look forward to seeing you.

http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/happy-anniversary-to-us.html

LIM Dasies

It's another Saturday which means another new challenge over at Less is More and this week it's Lucky Dip and we have a photo to inspire us.  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/week-61-lucky-dip.html

I decided to use both the inmage and the colours as my inspiration, as, as luck had it, the postman arrived with a parcel of new stamps for me today - I've been lusting after this new Hero Arts Lotus Leaves set so decided to treat myself once I started to feel better last week.

I just used momento inks and stamped the flower directly onto the card with pear tart, cut a spare strip of card mounted onto pink and then stamped the same flower using pear tart, angel pink and rose bud mixing the inks directly on the stamp.   The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse stamped in London Fog.

Do come back and check out my blog later as it's our first anniversary over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge tomorrow and we've got a mega prize bundle on offer and a nice easy challenge to go with it  ;-)

Paper bauble

I was really thrilled that my polar bear card was selected as joint top honour in last weeks's 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Challenge.  This week's challenge is to use decorative papers  http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/embellishment-challenge-3.html

I opted for something quite simple as my crafting time is still limited by not feeling well.  I cut 5 ornament shapes from my DP using a nestie, scored each down the middle and folded in half, sticking each to the other to create a 3D ornament.  I mounted that onto a green pearl base that was also cut with a fancy nestie and I embossed a christmas script stamp onto it in gold.

LIM Take 3 Challenges

This week's Less is More challenge is to pick 3 of their past challenges and combine them.  I decided to start with Challenge 1 as my basis as I didn't find the blog until week 2 so missed the first one!

My chosen weeks were:

Week 1 Pink Black and White
Week 12  Off centre
Week 14 Embossing (although this was one layer week and I haven't made a one layer card so it may not count)
Week 16 Butterflies
Week 43 Bit of Bling

This is the result:

I cut 4 butterflies with my embosslit die but I "un-embossed" the top layer so I could emboss it more on both wings.  I stitched the 4 layers together and added some pink gems to the middle.  I inked a Hero Arts swirly grass in black and added the butterfly to it grass.  I cut two of the tiny butterflies and inked the embossed areas in pink, added a couple of clear gems and finished with a sentiment from the same Hero Arts set in pink.

Thanks for all your comments last week - I seem to be over the worst of the effects from the  tablets and am no longer a dizzy-dummy :-)

CASual Contrasts

This week's challenge at CASual Fridays is to contrast bold black with soft pastels  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/cfc45-and-dt-call.html

I decided to make a little card for my husband who has been great during my recent health scare - I really wouldn't cope without him and think this sums him up perfectly.

I made a paperpieced row of pastel crayons using my new There She Goes stamp set and created my sentiment on the computer.

Christmas Animals

I was really sorry to have missed last week's 52 Christmas Card Challenge with not feeling very well, so as I felt a bit better last night I managed to make a card for this week's animal theme and also a second using last weeks red green and blue colour theme.

For this week's challenge I used this super cute father and son polar bear image from Birdie Brown (digi) which hardly needs any colouring and stood them on a simple "sentiment shelf" the bottom edge of which is a nestie lable.  I finished by edging it in a white pencil border.

I used the same blue base card and another digi from the same artist to make another simple card using red and green in my colouring to match last weeks theme (I can still say I haven't missed a week now, even if I am a week late!)  I just love this snowman cupcake image.

Easter Bunny

I'm a little late with my mid-month reminder for our Spring Into Spring Challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge.  As it's going to be Easter soon I decided to make a little Easter bunny card in bright spring colours.

You still have 9 days to enter our challenge and could win the latest issue of PaperCrafts Magazine and a wonderful set of Waltzingmouse stamps (£20 in value) so do play along if you can.  We're heading for record entries this month so do help us get there.

LIM Masking

This week's challenge at LIM is masking  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/week-59-theme.html

I'm still feeling really dizzy and have been off work all week and am signed off for another while we try to get my high blood pressure under control.  The dizzyness is caused by the meds and HOPEFULLY will lessen as I get used to them but they doubled the dose on Friday and I feel like I'm back to square one!  Back again on Tuesday so we'll see what they say then....   Am getting pretty cheesed off as I haven't managed more than about an hour in my craft room in the last 8 days and can only manage 10 minutes here and there online before I feel dizzy again, so I'm sorry I've not been reciprocating your visits this week.

I was determined to try this weeks challenge and managed a quick card this morning before the meds kicked in.

I used my new Paris themed stamps from Waltzingmouse, stamped the Eiffel tower in black, masked it and stamped the border strip twice in green (I think it's a design from the metro).  Added a simple sentiment and a couple of floral gems to finish.

Thanks for visiting and sorry if I don't get back round again this week.  I'm really missing visiting my blogging buddies :-(

Fabby green peacock

I took just one floral image stamp from the newly released French Country set but as soon as I saw it it screamed peacock to me so here's my entry for this months Blog Party and as it also fits this weeks sketch I'll enter it in this weeks challenge too.

The photo isn't great so unfortunately the metalic shimmer on top of the colouring isn't showing up at all.  To make my peacock I stamped the foral image 5 times, coloured with copics added shimmer with sakura glaze pens and cut each out to form the fan tail.  For the body I stamped the same image but carefully inked only the edge and not the floral centre twice.  I cut out the whole central teardrop of one for the body and used just the narrow point of the other with a rounded edge for the head and added three tiny strips for fan on his head and finished with a little peacock coloured glitter.  Teamed with a green background and sheer green ribbon to just about scrape into this month's theme (sorry Clare didn't have anything Celtic!) and used one of my favourite sentiments from the Frame It set.

Do accept my apologies if I don't manage to reciprocate all your visits today but I am suffering with very high blood pressure and the meds I'm on are making me so dizzy all the time that I'm really not managing to be online for more than a few minutes here and there.  I'll try to get around to see all the green loveliness whenever I feel OK.  Thanks for visiting - I do love the 17th.....

Cowboy script

I'm not having a good day today - I've been having headaches which it turns out are due to high blood pressure so I was put on meds yesterday which are making me throw up and swell up too - oh joy!  I was looking forward to a quiet day of crafting but feel to dizzy to sit up properly.  I did manage this weeks's Less is More challenge before the tablets kicked in as it was a nice easy one layer card....

The challenge was to feature script on your card other than your sentiment, so I went straight to my favourite Waltzingmouse sets which are all about cowboys.  I embossed the background border and the cowboy in black to form a silhouette and then used the background text border twice just with versamark ink to create a watermark effect which I think shows up brilliantly on kraft.  I embossed one of the senitments above to finish it off and add balance.

A Special Sweet 16 Request

I've made a card tonight to send to the daughter of one of the bloggers I follow - Laurie Schmidlin of Just Give Me Stamps.   Her daughter Alison is having a tough time with the return of some neurological issues follow her brain tumour removal of 3 years ago and she is turning 16 later this month so Laurie has asked if we can send her a card for her birthday  http://justgivemestamps.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/03/nothing-is-impossible-and-a-request.html    Well, that's a request I can't ignore - and if you've got a little time to spare this week perhaps you'd like to send her one too - wouldn't it be lovely to have hundreds of cards to cheer you up on your birthday - especially lovely handmade ones!   Laurie has set up a PO Box address and you can find the details here http://justgivemestamps.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/03/overwhelmed.html

I used one of the brilliant new Kraftin Kimmie superwomen stamps - I thought it was appropriate to remind Alison how great she is and strong she's been.  Coloured with copics and I added glossy accents to her leggings and gloves to give them a more leather like look and added lots of glitter to the bodice as every superhero needs some glitter and gloss!  Some die cut stars (MFT) and a sixteen sticker. 

I'm entering it into this week's stamptacular sunday challenge which is "text me" and just needs to have some text on the front.

Christmas Sketch

I'm just making this weeks 52CCT Challenge by the skin of my teeth - my normal weekly crafting schedule has gone way off track!  This week was a sketch, so I managed to do a SUPER-QUICK card just tonight which fits it.

3 simple rows of snowmen cut from a sheet of DP from My Minds Eye 'Be Merry' and a complimentary sentiment in a matching colour.  Not earth shatteringly original but I like it and think it works - I may make another but think I'll try the sentiment in red to match the scarves.

A Special One Year Old

Just a very quick share as this week we have a special first birthday in the family, and a special birthday needs a special card.

I coloured a birthday tilda that had an empty hand to hold all the birthday balloons which were cut with a whimsey die and I added black cotton behind each.  I stud her on some matching ribbon and stamped a sentiment with an old Hero Arts alphabet stamp.  The sentiment on the balloon is also whimsey and the 1 is a die cut, coloured and glittered.

Neutrally Less is More

I just don't seem to have had the time to get into my craft room this weekend so I'm very late with my entry to this week's LIM challenge, which is a colour challenge being the first week of the month and this time the challenge is to use neutral colours.

I do love neutrals, and in particular kraft cardstock and I particularly like browns (although I don't know why as a 70s kid I grew up in a totally brown house and hated it!!) so chose the two as my colour combo.  I started with a snippet of kraft - actually the back of a previous card I'd ruined, so this will be my entry to Pixie's Sunday Snippets challenge too - the only requirement is to make a card from snippets and not to cut into a fresh sheet so do join in the fun (oh but mind the pogo sticks in the playground!)  I stamped my Waltzingmouse woodgrain stamp in jumbo java ink onto the snippet and mounted it onto some dark brown card (also an offcut from a 12x12 sheet).

The main element is a new die (poppystamps small tilda) which I cut twice - the first at its full size I cut from a sheet of double sided glue, stuck down over the woodgrain stamped image and then covered with my favourite glitter ever - the dark brown sugar coating which I just LOVE.  I then cut another from the remaining kraft card snippet but this time I cut off the outer loops.  I stuck it on top of the glittered one but slightly offset it.  I stamped the sentiment and die cut it with my smallest round nestie and stuck it in the middle.

Will get over and have a look at what everyone else has been doing in this challenge now.

CASual Baby

It's Friday night so time to play with the CASual Friday Girls and this week the challenge is a CAS baby card, they must have known that my new Magnolia stamps had arrived today - the new release is all about familiy and they're super cute  :-)  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2012/03/cfc42.html   I decided to play with the little boy first as I wasn't in the mood for pink.

I also thought I take the opportunity to join the paper players again this week as they want a card to feature something old and something new, well my stamp is new, so I selected some old papers to go with it.  The alphabet DP is what remains of the very first 12 x 12 sheet I bought many moons ago and the blue strip is from an old DCVW sticky backed matt stack.  http://paperplaychallenges.blogspot.com/2012/03/12-week-9-something-old-something-new.html

I coloured the baby Edwin on kraft again with my faber castell pencils and carefully cut him out to mount him on the card.  The senitment which I think is really lovely, is from a Fiskars set all about babies.

As there is a lot of kraft going on, I'm also going to enter my card into the follow challenges which all want kraft card to be featured:

 http://thespottedchick.blogspot.com/2012/03/thats-krafty-thursday-59.html

http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/2012/03/k-for-kraft.html

Catch you later.

Sherriff of Kraftingham!

If you follow my blog then you'll probably have figured by now that I LOVE to colour on kraft card - it just gives such a different look to colouring on white, particularly when using pencils and blending solution.  So when I see 3 challenges that all want kraft projects, well frankly, it would be rude not to join in!  I also got a new stamp in the mail today (new to me anyhow) and I just knew that Edwin as Robin Hood would be particularly perfick on kraft. 

As it's for a fella, I also thought I'd play along with the new challenge at Cards for men which is a lovely sketch. http://cardsformen.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-5-sketch.html

I had to go green, as Robin wouldn't hide in the canopy too well in any other colour, so I selected some appropriately leafy DP, some forest green mats and some yummy printed kraft paper to keep it all tonal.  Coloured with faber-castell pencils with a little blending and finished with 3 craft candy dots to match the sketch and he's all ready to take on the sheriff :-)

If you fancy pulling out your kraft stash then hop on over and join the challenges below:

 http://thespottedchick.blogspot.com/2012/03/thats-krafty-thursday-59.html

http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/2012/03/k-for-kraft.html

http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-171-colour-on-kraft.html

Spring into Spring for St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge

It's the first of the month so time for our new challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge and this month we're looking for you to get in the mood for spring with flowers, animals, colours or anything that makes you think of spring!

We have a brilliant prize package this month - a gorgeous set of floral stamps donated by Waltzingmouse stamps and the latest issue of PaperCrafts magazine.

For my card I opted for flowers in spring greens and yellows using my favourite new medium of the moment - felt!  I love making felt flowers both with floral dies or just using old fashioned quilling techniques with a pair of sharp scissors which is what I've done here for my tiny yellow pom-poms flowers.

I started with a white base card, added a strip of white with some embossed line detail and I added a pansy border in yellow swiss dots on either side.  For the feature panel I came over all Morticia from the Adams Family and cut the flower heads of my stamp and die set (Sizzix/Hero Arts combo) and just used the stalks stamped in 3 shades of green ink and coloured with copics.  I arranged them top to tail to add interest and make them fill the panel and then added my felt flowers to the ones that were the right way up.  The flowers are simply made from a 3 cm strip of felt, folded in half lengthways and stuck with strong thin tape.  You then simply cut from the untaped end to where the line of tape starts at regular intervals to create your petals and then simply roll using a quilling tool (or toothpick) and seal the edge with more tape.  The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse's Frame It set.

You've got a whole month to play along with the challenge so do pop over to the blog to check out the challenge even if you only want to play for fun, there is NO obligation to donate your cards if you don't want to.

I'm also entering my card into the following challenges:

Cute Card Thursday - Signs of Spring
Aud Sentiments - Happy Birthday