More babies

I didn't get much time to look around everyone's entries for the Less is More challenge yesterday as my friend, who isn't remotely crafty, came round to my house for lunch with a card kit she bought whilst with me on one of our recent shopping trips to Chesterfield.  I convinced her she could make the kit so she bought it and she came round so I could help and she could use my stash - they're Christmas cards but it's never too early to start right?   She did enjoy it but she definitely didn't catch my crafting bug (more's the pity as it would be nice to have someone to play with!) but I do think she made a good job for a first attempt (even though she was a bit freaked when I suggesting adding to and changing the designs that were on the box!!!!)

However, I did make a start on my visiting, and I was totally blown away by this card by Vicky as I just love how clean and graphic it isand the little heart is so cute.  I was really inspired to make an even more stripped down version - so I knocked up a couple of quick cards, again for the forthcoming sales I'll be doing for St Lukes (we have a couple coming up in June).  They haven't photographed very well as the colours are so soft (angel pink and summer sky momento)  The hearts are actually sequins.

I'll get around to everyone else later in the week - time for bed now as the weekend is officially over :(

Mini Masterpiece?

The challenge for one layer wednesday this week hosted by Heather was to create a 2" masterpiece on your card.   http://cardz.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/olw-88-mini-masterpiece/

I was TOTALLY blown away and inspired by Heather's tutorial she did on how she created her mini masterpiece, so even though I'm really not great at inking techniques, I decided to have a go.  Once I'd done it and started to write this post I've realised that my version uses the identical colours to Heather's OLW piece so I may have CASEd it a bit too closely (although with no-where near as good a final outcome!!!)

I followed the tutorial and used a penny black grid line stamp, an inkylicious floral stamp (which is larger than the 2" square) and a sentiment from Elzybels (now available as a Penny Black stamp)   I had to draw a border around my square as I got a bit of a bleed under my masking - hope that a 2.1" square still counts ;-)

It's soooo not a masterpiece, but I am proud of it for a first attempt and I really love the effect so will definately give the technique another go.

Wee little babies

This week is theme week at Less is More and the theme is cards for babies or children http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/week-68-theme.html

I decided to make a couple of cards to go into the St Luke's box - baby cards always sell well.  I used the onsie jumbo wheel from stampin up and coloured (copics) and cut out 2 of the images - one pink, one blue - very predictable ;-)   I mounted them onto a white panel embossed with baby feet and some colour co-ordinated mats behind.  I stamped the gorgeous sentiment from Waltzingmouse Compact Sentiments onto matching paper.  Cute and very easy to assemble.

Anniversary Silhouttes

The challenge this week at CASual Fridays is to use punches or dies http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cfc53.html

I thought it would be a great opportunity to use a couple of the new Marianne dies I won recently over at Make My Monday http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/

I die cut the couple from black card, mounted them onto a 5" square of grey which I punched with a Martha Stewart punch around the page punch set and finished with a Waltzingmouse sentiment.  Very quick and clean and simple, but not creatively very stretching - perhaps I'll try and give my mojo a workout and try again later in the week....

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.

Colourful Christmas

The challenge this week at 52 CCT is a colour challenge - to use purple, green and silver  http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/color-challenge-5.html

At first I thought it was an odd colour combo - but then I found a set of green and purple craftwork card parts I'd bought a couple of years ago so obviously I was attracted to and it does actually work really well (thanks Mynette for making me look at it again!)

I used a purple base card and a piece of pearl lime green cardstock that matches the craftwork cards set and stamped on it a new gorgeous tree from Dimension stamps that I picked up at a craft fair on Sunday.  I embossed it with primary indigo powder from WOW and added some purple stickles for extra sparkle and silver for the star on top.  I added a strip of embossed silver cardstock and finished with a purple sentiment circle from the craftwork cards set.

Colour Curious

Well, those of you who know me, know that my favourite colour is teal - I make cards with it, have it all over my house and even bought a teal wedding dress!

So when I found this quiz  What color are you?

and then got this result:

you are teal #008080

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life can be bright or dark, depending on the situation. You are flexible and see things objectively.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

it really made me smile :-)

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.....................

There She Goes Mother of All Blog Hops

Welcome to the 3rd annual Mother of All Blog Hops sponsored by There She Goes Clears Stamps!   Over the next two days, we (customers and trendsetters!) will be featuring some of our favourite There She Goes Clear Stamp sets!   Not only that, we’re going to give YOU a chance to win some fabulous prizes!

To find out how, please go to the There She Goes’ blog and read the simple instructions.

 

I'm really excited to be playing along for the first time as I LOVE TSG stamps and was really lucky to get to be able to showcase probably my all time favourite stamp set - the LOVEBOTS!

I used 4 of the 7 stamps that come in the set on my card.  I started with a little film strip die into which I stamped the tiny shadow image of the weighing scales bot, showing more of him in each frame to give the illusion of it being an actual film strip.  I then coloured and fussy cut the matching outline image and placed him over the film strip.  The chevron background was embossed before diecutting with an "industrial" folder.  I stamped one of the sentiments between the two robots directly onto the card - I'm quite a CAS girl so despite having a huge stash of DP I don't use it often. 

For the larger robot, I stamped him 3 times, coloured with copics and decoupaged areas of him so that the hearts really were flying out of his tummy doors (you can see the dimension in the photo below better)  It took a little time to fussy cut the hearts but with the aid of some tweezers to hold the little pieces it is possible and the effect is worth the effort!

 

Please click on the InLinkz below and follow it to the next blog!

 

I hope you love the robots as much as I do - when you hope around you may some of his friends ;-)   Good luck in the prize contest.

 

CASual Birds

As I'm on holiday today - I get to play along with CASual Friday's a full 12 hours earlier than normal :-)  Today's challenge is to feature birds.  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cfc52.html

I had my cricut out last night mass producing cards for our local Cats Protection League from whom we got our lovely Lottie a few years ago so I like to do what I can to support their totally volunteer run rescue services.  I made them packs of cards with this image from the Cindy Loo cartridge.

As it was still out, I thought I'd use it to make my CASual Friday card for a change too (I really should use it more than I do, especially as I'm now after a Cameo too!) 

This time I used the From the Nest cartridge and just used two colours and two images - the phrase goes with a different bird not the caged one - but I thought it would be a good card for someone leaving home for the first time.  The only non-cricut bit is the chain I've hung the cage from which is actually a row of tiny silver spacer beads from my jewellery making stash.

It is actually not raining here today for the first time this week so we might go out for the day.

Catch you later

Butterfly flashback...

I've not played along in Flashback Friday for a while so as I'm sitting here working through over 500 blogposts I needed to catch up on in my reader, I thought I'd post a quick flashback to my first ever card featuring butterflies.

I created this card in February last year (took me a while to get into butterflies it seems) and the original can be found here http://craftilicious-yorkshire.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/bellarific-friday-again.html

 If you want to play along, all you have to do is find your first butterfly card, post a new post with the old card and link it up here http://flashbackfridaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/flashback-friday-230.html

Stamped Vase

I'd seen glass stamping done but was always a bit scared to try it in case the glass shattered under the heat of a heat gun.  However, I found a heavy bottomed vase and thought that would be strong enough so I had a go and made this as a gift for my friend who loves purple.

I used Stampendous Jumbo Cling Peony stamp set just with embossing powders on two sides of the vase.  Because the stamps are unmounted it is possible to "wrap" them slightly around the corners.  To make it easier to see if I had got them lined up, I used a "dirty" embossing ink pad so I got some colour on the vase before I added powder.  I masked off areas of the swirls I didn't want by using seloptape on the stamps when inking.   It is a bit scary at first and does take a much longer time for the powders to melt on glass than it does on paper but the finish is quite effective so I will have another go - maybe on something rounder next time.

I am going to enter this into this month's Stampendous Impressions challenge which is simply to make a gift so this definately counts! http://stampendousblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/a-new-may-challenge-and-a-winner-for-april/

Exciting News

Just a very quick post with my super exciting news as for the first time ever today - I'm in print!

If you're rushing out today to get the new issue of PaperCrafts Inspirations then jump to page 88 and you'll find one of my cards :-)   I'm just a little bit excited!!!!

It's made all the more exciting as on the same page as me, completely coincidentally are my blogging buddies Lynne and Jenny from my DT over at St Luke's Charity Cards challenge - all in print together for the first time.

If you don't get the magazine then you can see all our cards via their website link  http://papercraftinspirations.themakingspot.com/blog/issue-100s-beautiful-blogs

Personally I'm off to the newsagents right now..............

Flowers, stockings and peas........

I've had some extra time to play this week as I'm on holiday so I've done quite a few challenges so I have a couple to show you today.

Firstly I made a "white" flower for this weeks Make my Monday challenge http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/mmm-week-48.html

The literal challenge was Lily of the Valley as it's this months birth flower and all I know about this flower is that it is NOT one of those!  I have no idea what it is, or what colour it should be, but I think it looks OK in white so lets go with it ok....   I just did very quick watercolouring with distress inks (bundled sage, forrest moss and peeled paint with a hint of spiced marmelade for the stamens).  I did use a tiny bit of  bundled sage on the "white" petals to give some subtle shading.  I used an embossing folder for the mount and cut it by hand after embossing and finished with a craftwork cards sentiment.

Next I made 2 cards using the great sketch this week at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown (I'm loving this challenge and have almost a full shoebox of Christmas cards already and it's not quite half way through the year). http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sketch-challenge-5.html  I made one card with the sketch as is, and a second with it turned on its side.

For this first card I used my favourite Christmas pun stamp "peas on earth" coloured with copics, some paper from My Minds Eye 12 Days of Christmas and a fab greeting one of my local stores got made up so we can do localised greetings.

For this one, I turned the sketch sideways, used an old Magenta framed stocking stamp, stamped twice and paper-pieced the second layer of stockings in pink cardstock coloured with pencils to match the paper (same MME stack) and finished with a No Peeking sentiment from Waltzingmouse.

Right - off to get some jobs done.  Catch you later.

Happy Birthday CASual Friday

It's the first anniversary this week of the CASual Friday challenge - can't quite believe I've been playing along every week for a whole year (I think I missed maybe 2 or 3 challenges tops).  To celebrate the challenge this week is to create a birthday card - http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cfc51.html

I used a couple of sets from There She Goes - the super cute Birthday Bots and Numbered Days.  The main image is part coloured with copics and part paper-pieced.  I used a smaller present stamp from the same set, coupled with a dienamics filmstrip die to create a little "movie" of the present arriving just by stamping it as an outline inside each cell by masking off the others as I went along.  Finished with the sentiment and a couple of drifting balloons.

I am also entering it into the celebration challenge this week at One Stop Craft Challenge http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/challenge-181-celebrations.html 

Happy Birthday CASual Fridays - looking forward to another year of great challenges :-D

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.

Mellow Yellow

It's colour week at Less is More and as luck has it their "yellow" challenge matches in with two other colour challenges I wanted to play in so I've combined the three as both Annabelle Stamps  and Our Creative Corner want us to use kraft, lemon and white.

Chevrons and zig-zags are everywhere in papercrafting at the moment so for once in my life I'm "on trend" lol!  I used a sheet of double sided DP from My Minds Eye "on the bright side" 6x6 pad and hand cut the chevron side for the white and lemon upright strip.  I used a dienamics die to create the horizontal strip from the other side of the chevron paper which is a soft yellow with a tiny dot and some black for contrast.  I finished with a felt flower I made with a paper quilling technique, a simple sentiment from Waltzingmouse and a few random lemon gems.

Yellow is normally a colour I avoid in card making but this is such a sunny cheerful card (on a dreary day where I'm hiding inside from the 38,000 football fans about to descend on Hillsborough) that I must remember to use it more.

Spectacular Spectacles!

I'm kind of new to the world of Moxie Fab but I'm really glad I've found my way in as I'm so inspired by the pictures and trends Cath posts there.  So, I thought I'd throw myself in at the deep end and enter one of their challenges - this one is all about the trend for spectacles in papercrafting images and the images she collected are fabulous - I love the black and white dress http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2012/04/spectacular-spectacles-challenge.html

I went with a whimsical approach and this is my card:

The card is mostly computer generated - I designed the layout of the sentiment in word using text boxes to get the alignment how I wanted it.  The large glasses are clipart that I I printed onto card, cut out, stuck onto acetate and cut again popped up with pinflair glue.  I had drew the dotted red line and then stamped a couple of rows of matching red spectacles on the basecard with a stamp from papersmooches.

Hope it makes you all smile :-D

Christmas Buttons

This week's 52 CCT is an embelishement challenge to use buttons and bows and I've combined with the current tic tac toe challenge at The Paper Players where I chose the middle line "blue colours" "my choice - buttons" and "ribbon"

I used a dark blue strip across a white DL card and added a strip from an LLB strip stack which looks like snowflakes under a microscope.  I added some ribbon, a bow and some die cut buttons and then added some tiny buttons to the bow an on the hat of the penny black image. 

Cafe Florals

I was really inspired by the colours of this weeks Play Date Cafe Challenge when I saw them and then I went and almost missed the deadline for playing along so I'm squeezing a quick card in before the link closes.....

I die cut the flower (memory box wild blooms) from dusky card stock and rounded the corners.  I stuck magenta and seedling behind to "colour" the flower and drew a dotted line around the flower heads.  I added a greeting (pti) on a fancy cut piece of cardstock - the same I used for the stems.  I added a little strip of white cardstock embossed with leaves to the opposite side of the card  for balance and again rounded the corners.  I tied some ribbon on the diagonal into a simple knot over the stems to finish.

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...........

Time for men.......

No, not naked men, or men in uniform - sorry to disappoint - just a masculine card on the theme of time......

That's the challenge this week over at Make My Monday http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/mmm-week-47.html   which seemed the perfect opportunity to ink up an as yet unused Bo Bunny Time set.

I used the "round" sketch over at Less is More this time to create the card combined with this theme and went for shades of brown.

I die cut a scrap with a circle and used the waste to create a mask into which I stamped a kaiserkraft clock background and used a papertrey ink sentiment underneath.  I stamped the pocketwatch image onto so soft beige card and fussy cut and shaded lightly with a couple of pencils in brown and ochre.  I stamped the hands and cut and fixed with a brad - notice the time - if you look at most clocks for sale they will normally have ten to two as the time - and why?  Well it makes a happy smiley face and apparently that makes us more likely to buy them - you may notice that digital clocks show the same time, clearly the psychology behind it was totally misinterpreted by their marketing teams!  It's not showing up on the photo but I finished with a gold pearl spritz on the clock and popped it up on dimensional foam.

I'll be back again later with our new challenge over at St Lukes - it will be a nice easy one for regular LIM players ;-)

Graphically Less is More

For this week's challenge the leaders of LIM have come up with a couple of sketches in their inimitable clean and simple style of course.  I decided to go for the square option rather than the circle and the squares took my thoughts to Mondrian so today I'm CASEing a world famous artist - get me ;-)

I started with a 6cm square of white cardstock, drew some pencil lines to get the shapes I wanted and then went over them in different thicknesses with my momento marker and coloured some of the squares in blue, red, yellow and black - Mondrian's standard palette.  To add my twist, I covered the whole square with WOW Neutral Shimmer Embossing Powder - I love this powder - it makes thinks look like they are covered with frosted glass.  Mounted onto a black square of card and finished with a matching graphical sentiment also in black (from a sadly retired Elzybells set)

I'm waiting for the postman to arrive with some new stash - how come when he only brings bills he's here at 10 am but when I actually WANT the stuff he doesn't come until late afternoon :-(

CASual showers

CASual Fridays  challenge this week is April showers bring May flowers - well we're certainly getting the showers in northern England - we had a months' worth of rain in Sheffield in less than 48 hours this week and it is officially the wettest April on record for the city in 130 years!   Lots of the rivers around us are on flood watch again and some (thankfully further away from our house) have burst their banks already.  We were flooded back in 2007 and haven't seen the rivers like it since then - I have everything crossed that we're not in for a re-run but the forecast for Sunday looks pretty bad again :-(

Anyway, enough of the weather forecast - back to the card.  I was definitely influenced more by the April showers than the May flowers, but there are flowers on my card so I think it still fits.  For my design I used the sketch from Annabelle Stamps but gave it a CAS interpretation. 

I turned to my current favourite stamp range - Stamping Bella's Uptown Girls - and opted for the image which came to mind with the current weather - Lolly and her brolly and decided to paper-piece it.  I went for a cute yellow, blue and green floral paper for the brolly and wellies and covered them with glossy accents for the wet look and did the same with the green raincoat.  I trimmed the card front enough to take the scalloped glitter edge and finished with the sentiment that came with the stamp.

All the papers for paperpiecing were from my scraps box so I am also going to join Pixie in the playground this week http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/pixies-crafty-snippets-challenge-17.html  If you've not played along before, it's a weekly challenge all about using up the bits all us crafters insist on keeping ;-)  Race you to the swings......

More flakes

I fancied having another got at both this weeks' Less is More challenge to use charms, and this weeks' 52 CCT snowflake challenge but I've had a lot on this week so only got chance to play tonight.  I decided it was a great chance to combine the two and as  I also wanted to join Mynette's frame stamping technique link party I threw that in the mix too!

I used a nestie lable 2 to cut the apperture, stamped around with 3 snowflake stamps in shades of blue and ran it through a snowflake embossing folder.  I stamped an Amy R stamp onto the base card inside the apperture and hung the snowflake charm on blue twine above it.

I'm also entering it into these challenges:

Crafts and Me - Embossing
Pixie Dust Studio - Embossing

Material Girl

I needed to make a birthday card for my niece so looked around blogland for some challenge inspiration and I think I came up with a record number of challenges to combine (well for me anyway!)  I started with the above sketch and the idea to use material and that sparked off an idea to stamp onto material so I pulled out one of my new Uptown Girls from Stamping Bella and stamped her dress onto some lovely tilda fabric.  I love the texture this adds to a card and can see me repeating the technique on lots of my images as its much quicker than colouring too!!!!   I stuck the fabric to card first to stiffen it and help prevent fraying.

I also fancied lots of layers so that covered another couple of challenges, and I used some K&Co dp and my MS punch around the page pansie punch.  Some buttons covered another couple of challenges, making it for birthdays is another and adding some sparkle and shine in the form of glitter brings in a 3rd.  I stamped my sentiment onto some twill ribbon and folded it for interest and texture.  I tied more ribbon around the image where the ribbon on the stamped dress should be and fastened it with a pearl brad.


I am entering the following challenges:

Quixotic Inspirations - Sketch
Cupcake Craft Challenges - Use material
Crafty Emma's Challenge - Button It
Ladybug Crafts Ink TLT Challenge - Birthdays
Pile it on - Sparkle and Shine
Stamptacular Sunday - Loaded with Layers  3 or more
Milk Coffee - Lots of Layers
Stamping Bella - Flowers
Waste Not Wedensday - Use up your stash  (buttons)

Hydrangeas

It was my Mother's Birthday yesterday and I was really inspired by a scrapbook layout from the fabulously talented Gabriella Polaco a while back where she showed a great technique for making hydrangeas  http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.ca/2012/03/welcome-spring-with-pretty-bloom.html  My mum loves flowers of any kind so I knew an interpretation of her scrapbook layout would make a great card for her and this is what I came up with (sorry the colours are really off - the base card is much more pink than the red it seems here so does go much nicer with the blooms - but as the grey skys refuse to move we're back to fake light photos!)

Here is a close up of the pot (cut from a cricut cartridge, as was the branch) which does show the flowers in more realistic colours - they were cut with a MS punch from dotty bazil card and glued on with pinflair glue with a liquid pearl centre.

The frame for the sentiment is waltzingmouse and the sentiment is computer generated using the new scriptina front which I much prefer as they've fixed the kerning issues.  The little bird was fussy cut from some freebie papers with one of the magazines this month.

I can report that it went down very well and has pride of place on the mantelpiece :-)

I am entering the following challenges:

Moving along with the times - Flowers or Garden
Little Darlings - Flowers
Prairie Fairy Fridays - Anything with flowers
Aud Sentiments - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Anything Goes

Dragonflies and ferns

I've played along in a couple of Hero Arts Challenges this week and managed to combine two into one card.  I've used the sketch from the April contest challenge http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/april-2012-contest-details/

and combined it with the challenge from A Blog Named Hero which is to create a window in your card
http://ablognamedhero.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge-2-cards-with-view.html

I wanted to go for an earthy feel to the colours as I wanted to play with my new stamp and die set and wanted to use the fern as my focal image with a few dragonfly accents.  I used a cream base card, added 4 strips of cardstock to a kraft sheet and die cut a window from it.  I cut a frame for the window in black to add contrast and then stamped a simple hello in the window.  I stamped the fern in green and brown die cut it and offset it over the window and had the dragonflies fluttering up the card - kind of looks like they're escaping the swamp!

4th Birthday

It's my local craft shop's 4th Birthday this week - the very fabulous Craft Den - and today they are celebrating with a demo day- Lynne the owner is demonstrating the Grand Calibur (on sale at a very special birthday price, better than any I can find on the internet if you fancy one) and she has Kay from Indigo Blu stamps doing lots of lovely demonstrations until about 4pm today.

Naturally a card was required and as I just picked up the spellbinders labels from the Den a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd use them and the tropical leaf cheery lyn dies as the basis for the card.

I used my favourite of the new Waltzingmouse release stamps which co-ordinate with the label die and the matching border to create the background for the large 8x8 card.  The colours were from last weeks Colour Throwdown but I wasn't quick enough getting it done to join the challenge.  The sentiment is from Imagine That.  I made the felt flower by cutting out 3 flowers using a marianne flower die and folding them into 3rds and sticking together for dimension.  The 4 is a chipboard letter covered in the same felt as the flower.

I am entering this into this weeks Annabelle stamps challenge which is to create your own background with stamps and not to use DP.  http://annabellestamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/say-it-witha-stamped-background.html

Christmas snowflakes

The theme for this week's 52 Christmas Card Throwdown is snowflakes http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/theme-challenge-4.html and Moving Along with the Times http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/merry-christmas-from-mawtt.html also want to see Christmas cards this week so I'm entering my card into both challenges.

I started with the DP and went for non-standard Christmas colours of pinks, purples, blacks and greys.  The papers are from a papermania 8x8 stack and to finish I simply embossed a die cut shape with black glitter embossing powder and then embossed a wooden snowflake with, appropriately enough, snowflake twinkle embossing powder.  An AB gem adds extra sparkle to the centre.  The sentiment was embossed over the DP strip with fine detail white powder.

Simply Charming

This week's challenge at Less is More is much nicer than last week's doodling - much less head scratching had to be had this morning - all that is required is to use a charm on your card.

I have a big pot of charms but haven't really used many of them before but I do like the finished look so will have to remember to use them more often.

I used a set of music themed stamps from Technique Tuesday and stamped a musical background onto some kraft paper and then embossed one of the sentiments from the set over the top in silver.  It's been really difficult to photograph so if it's not clear, the sentiment reads "Music is Love in search of a word".  Mounted onto black card and wrapped twine around and hung my grand piano charm from it.

CASual sketch

The challenge over at CASual Fridays today is a sketch  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/cfc49.html

I decided to have a play around with some new washi tape I got with a magazine and used that to be the basis of the design and made a frame with some nesties to represent one of the square's on the sketch and finished with a pink paislee chipboard, also free with a magazine for the other.

The sentiment is from Hero Arts, as is the dragon fly which is from one of their sets that comes with sizzix dies.

Birthday commission

A quick commission card I've made tonight - all I was asked for was "unusal and sister" and this is what I came up with.

I've made a gatefold card and covered both sides with a strip of gorgeous DP from a tilda stack (winter garden I think) and stamped a couple of frames from Waltzingmouse which are only fixed to the left hand panel so it can still be opened up.  Sentiment is also Waltzingmouse.  I finished with a couple of spellbinders leaf springs and some matching decorative photo corners.

I do think it has a kind of shabby-chic feel which is not my normal style but the papers leant themselves to it. 

I'm going to enter it into the Charisma shabby-chic challenge http://charismacardz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge-15-shabby-chic.html

Cool runnings

Unfortunately this one is not in the form of a Jamaican Bobsleigh Team (sorry, poor joke but that's one of my all time favourite films so I couldn't resist the pun of a title!).  No, this is just a card for the birthday club at work the recipient of which is a keen runner....

I shadow stamped the papermania runner silhouette stamp to give the impression of him running towards us, did some simple matting and layering and finished with some brads and an embossed birthday sentiment on a faux ribbon.

There are quite a few male hobby/sport challenges around this week so I'm entering it into the following:

Make my Monday - Male sports/hobby  http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/mmm-week-45.html

Secret crafter saturday - a card for a man  http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge-181.html 

Our creative corner - boys and their toys  http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/our-boys-and-their-toys.html 

Everybody Art Challenge - Card for a Man  http://everybody-art-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge189-mannerkartecard-for-men.html 

And finally, as it's on kraft cardsock, I'm entering into the current Krafty Thursday challenge over at the spotted chick's hen house  http://www.thespottedchick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/thats-krafty-thursday-60.html  and it fits with N for Neutral over at ABC challenge too http://abc-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/n-for-neutral.html 

Shades of black......

Just a quick card today to meet the deadline for the challenge and it's a new one on me!  When Chrissie and Mandi challenged us last year to make a White on White card for Less is More, that was the first time I'd tried it and found it difficult at first but grew to love the effect, so when Annabelle stamps last week wanted us to "say it in black" http://annabellestamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/say-it-infriday-13th-black.html I decided to have a go at my first black on black card.   My thoughts went straight to sympathy, although I guess all black may be too dour but I actually think it worked out to be quite uplifting:

I think it's the bird heading to heaven that makes it less harsh.  I stamped him and the grasses and embossed with clear powder, added some velvet ribbon and then embossed the hero arts sentiment in white pearl, which came out kind of grey, but that makes it fit better somehow.

I'm also going to enter it into this weeks Craft Room challenge which is simply to add ink (ie no digis) http://craft-roomchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/ink-it.html