Olypmic Torch Relay

No card tonight but a couple of photos of the torch relay as it ran past our offices about 6.30 pm this evening.  I'm not sure who it is carrying it as I can't seem to find a list anywhere which matches the bearers numbers to their names!  Looking at photos - she could be Chloe Rutkowski a local charity fundraiser - but I can't say for sure - she was number 131.  (Edited - someone managed to find out the real name - she is Sophie Whittam, former figure skater turned figure skating fashion designer!)  There was quite a crowd on the street and the police struggled to keep the road open enough for the large sponsors vehicles to get through but our car park is elevated from the street so we still got a decent view.

I think the crowd in town for the lighting of the cauldron was even bigger as Seb Coe did the last leg as Sheffield is his home town (sorry he was Seb here way before he was Lord so Seb he'll stay!) 

Strawberries, Cream and Grass....

Well it's my final day to guest over at Make My Monday - thanks so much for having me ladies.  This week we are being inspired by all things Wimbledon and have a red, cream and green colour challenge for you and that's where the strawberries cream and grass come into it.  Being a bit of a tennis fan I decided to take the theme a bit more literally and add Wimbledon (the championships start today btw) into my card inspiration.

I love this little guy from the Magnolia Winner Takes it All release (in fact it was my favourite Magnolia release so far so I have quite a few of them!)  I coloured him in copics and then paper pieced his outfit and the ball.  A little matting and layering, some craft candy dots and a nice strawberry coloured based card and he's ready for the opening rounds (although his outfit would be frowned up at Wimbledon as they like you to only wear white!)

Have fun with the theme, and watching the championships if you're that way inclined.  It's the only sporting event I follow properly so I'll be glued to the little TV in my craft room for the next couple of weeks - maybe this year will be Andy Murrays?  We can but live in hope.....

Think Pink!

That's the challenge this week at CASual Friday's http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cfc58.html to make a card mostly in pink as it's national pink day (yesterday I believe).  Now pink is not my normal go to colour but I have just received a new set of stamps from skipping stone designs that was made for pink so here's what I created with it.

I punched a strip of pink dotty paper with a MS loop punch and then die cut a label shape from pink glitter paper to mount my image onto which I deliberated let hang off the card for added interest.  I stamped the bra onto white card and coloured with copics and added a few pink gems to be the "button detail" on the bra.  I finished by adding faux stitched detail around the label shape and two of the matching sentiments from the set in black.  I love the humour of this set.

OK, off to nurse my post hen party hangover.......

Paperpiecing for LIM

This week's challenge at Less is More is right up my street - paper-piecing is probably my favourite technique after colouring.  So as I had a little time this morning as I've pulled out of the fair I should have been doing for St Luke's due to the horrendous weather and the fact that my gazebo wouldn't stay up in it, I had time to play along first thing.

I used the fabulous "well read" stamp set from MFT and paper-pieced the image with a selection of papers from My Minds Eye "on the bright-side one" which is full of chevrons, spots, denims and wood grains - I love this paper!  I used a few plain scraps too for flesh and cushions.  Finished with one of the sentiments form the set (it has 7 reading related) and a few more chevrons for carpet.  Simple but so effective.

I'm going on a Caribbean themed hen night tonight and I've made a little keepsake for everyone to wear (we're not doing the whole dressing up thing so I thought this was a nice tasteful and subtle thing for us all to wear)  I haven't played with shrink plastic in ages but once I got the technique right - producing a whole row of "hula Anya's" (greeting farm) was lots of fun.  I did each with different hair and flower colours.

Fingers crossed that the weather is bit drier this evening or we'll all be sporting a "just got out of the ocean look"!!!

Retro Donkey

It's my blogging buddy and fellow St Luke's DT member Jenny's birthday today - hope you're having a lovely day Jenny despite the awful and very un-midsummer's-day-like weather!  Obviously a birthday needs a birthday card but for some reason I really struggled to make a card for Jenny which is odd as we share the same taste in lots of stamp designers.  However several attempts went in the recycling pile and I was about to give up and send something I'd already made until I happened upon this week's sketch at retro sketches and thought - donkey!  (yes, I know, I'm weird!)

It's quite a complicated sketch, but all those oblongs really called out to me and this is what I came up with which I hope Jenny will like :-)

I started with the fabulous donkey from There She Goes (currently out of stock - sorry!) stamped on kraft, coloured with pencils and fussy cut.  I also knew I wanted to use my new emoticon washi tape (hiding in the middle) and some cork for texture so decided on a blue and yellow colour theme.  All the papers are from my scrap box so I'll be popping into the snippets playground this week.  The sentiments are from the donkey set and the round one from craftwork cards (ready printed) and the die cut stars are MFT.  Finished with some buttons and gems, an eyelet from my much underused crop-a-dile and a bit of gingham ribbon.

I'm entering the following challenges with it:

http://retrosketches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/retrosketches-16.html  follow the sketch

http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cupcake-197-something-in-eyelet.html   use an eyelet

http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/pixies-crafty-snippets-challenge-25.html  use up those bits of paper from your snippet stash

It would also pass muster for our current "furry" challenge over at St Lukes http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/our-little-furry-friends.html  - well hair is a kind of fur right????

(Hopefully mr postie has delivered this now and I'm not showing spoilers!)  Happy Birthday Jenny!

Crystal Anniversary

As we've been away for 3 days this weekend, I lost out on my normal crafting day this Saturday and thought I'd struggle to catch up on a lot of the challenges I wanted to play in, however it one of those fortunate coincidences that sometimes occur in crafting, I can combine some of the challenges I play in.

Firstly this week's Less is More challenge is looking for something shiny http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/week-72-theme.html and CASual Friday are looking for cards with acetate or vellum  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cfc57.html   Well, one of the reasons for the party we travelled to this weekend was our friends 15th Wedding Anniversary - which is Crystal - well that's shiny and the card I made them featured a glitter embossed vellum flower with a crystal centre.  I also thought I could add a 3rd and final challenge - this week the Paper Players are celebrating their 100th challenge by asking you to look back and select any of their former challenges
http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/exciting-newswelcome-to-our-100th.html  So I selected challenge No 33 - "Love is in the Air"   This is the card we gave to our friends.

The flower is made up of two different sized floral stamps by stamps by Chloe and a matching leaf sprig - all glitter embossed on vellum and fussy cut.  I dry embossed a strip of white card with a spellbinders folder and adhered it to a strip of white glitter card.  The sentiment is by Waltzingmouse and stamped in silver with the addition of some tiny gems for extra shine and sparkle.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Well good morning all and welcome to a new week and with it a new Make My Monday challenge - my 3rd as a Guest DT member.  Here in the UK, it's approaching midsummer with our longest day of daylight fast approaching - pity the weather didn't get the memo though as the rain feels much more autumnal!   The girls have the theme this week as "a midsummer nights dream" to tie in with midsummer's night using the Shakespeare play of the same name with it's fairies and surreal scenes as inspiration - after a lot of head scratching - this is what I managed to come up with.

My starting point was the gorgeous topper sent to me by the lovely lady behind Cardmakers Delights as I thought the two fairies in the teacup were quite midsummer night's dreamy.   I layered it onto a pink nestie lable, tied some vintage seam binding ribbon around it and added a couple of pearl pins.  I mounted it onto a card covered with DP and added a dream themed sentiment and some sequin butterflies.  I mounted the lable at an angle and added some diecut swirls and some paper roses.   I don't tend naturally to this style - I love it but find it hard to do and am much better at CAS but this became my Sister-in-Law's birthday card and she loved it so I must try to do fussy more often!

I do hope you'll join in with this week's challenge - I think it's a great fun challenge to start off the week.

Wooden inspiration

With our long weekend away I had totally forgotten it was Blog Party day....  I was really inspired when I saw the inspiration challenge too, so despite the 450 mile round drive we've just got back from, I had to rush into the craft room and have a go. 

This is not what I originally had in mind - my brain is a bit too frazzled from the drive and the party and I needed it to be simple so I took my inspiration from the colours, the panelling and the vases and this is what I came up with.

I stamped and embossed the greeting (compact sentiments) onto soft teal card and then over stamped the wood grain effect using the way out west background stamp with London Fog grey ink.  I dry embossed a border to look like the panelling detail and emphasised it with a white gel pen.  I created the vase using one of the teardrop shapes from the tiny trees set by cutting it out and cutting off the point.  I stamped one of the branches from that set, added some orange flower brads and stuck the vase over the top.

Quick and simple but all I had the energy for after the travelling and this weekend's party - I'll link up now before it's time to catch up on some of the zzz's I've missed out on.  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/june-2012-waltzingmouse-stamps-blog.html  I'll hop around tomorow when I'm more awake!

World of White

It's colour challenge week over at 52 Christmas Card Challenge and this month the challenge is ALL WHITE - http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/june-color-challenge.html  Now  a year ago, this would have freaked me out big style!   However, thanks to the challenges over at Less is More each Saturday I've learnt to push myself and we had a White on White week there last year, which I ran from, but then ended up making several cards and I now really love the WonW look.

This was a pretty simple card just using a couple of memory box dies, a stamped sentiment, silver ink and some stickles.  I die cut the deer, which are normally in a row, 3 times and layered them up to add some dimension by making them look like chipboard.  I covered them in stickles.  I then cut a piece of card slightly smaller than my base card and die cut the top of it with the house and tree border die.  Another layer of stickles for the hill line and a couple of fake hills for the deer to stand on and job done!  Oh, and I finished with the sentiment (hero arts) stamped in silver (well it wouldn't show in white!)

Right, I need to go and put together the birthday banner I just cut on my cricut ready for this weekends' party....

Catch you all later ;-)

Masculine Flashback Reminder

Just a quick reminder that if you haven't already linked up, you still have a few days left to trawl through your blogs and find your FIRST MASCULINE CARD and link it up to the Flashback Friday Challenge that I'm Guest Hosting this month.

Here's a link to Amy's reminder post where you can see some of the cards that have already been entered http://flashbackfridaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/feature-saturday-for-flashback-friday.html

Don't forget, you can win a great prize from Perfect Presentation and you don't even have to make a new project just type up a quick post - challenges don't come much easier than that!!!

Paper-pieced polkadots and circles

I should have been doing a whole lot of things to prepare for going away at the weekend for our friends 40th (not to mention starting to bake 72 cupcakes...) but after our rubbish weekend and as my hubby went out I decided I needed a bit of me time, and that always involves a little paper and scissors action!  So I looked around at a few challenges and decided to combine a few to create this fun card:

Firstly, I had yet to make a card for this week's CASual Friday challenge which is all about polka dots, and both TSG and crazy for challenges were looking for circles which I thought would go with the polka dot theme and as I decided on my TSG camera with dots as my main image I thought it was prime for paper-piecing which is this week's challenge at do you stack up.

I stamped the camera onto some grey pearl card and then again onto blue.  I cut the blue portion out, coloured the dots with a white gel pen and glaze and paper-pieced them onto the base image.  I stamped the image onto colouring card and coloured the lens with copics, glazed the centre and pieced it on top.  I pieced in the little hearts and button details.  I cut some circles from polka dotted DP with a nestie and punched some little grey pieces to overlap and finished with a white embossed sentiment onto a black ribbon.  The stamps are both from the great new TSG set - Oh Snap


Here's the list of challenges that inspired the card:


http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cfc56.html

http://doyoustackup.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/dysu-75-paper-piecing.html 

http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/tsg160-circles.html 

http://crazy4challenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/crazy4challenges-c4c140.html 

MMM Father's Day

Good Morning and welcome to another Monday - now Monday's are not normally my favourite day of the week, but throughout June, they are a little more exciting that normal, as I get to be a guest DT member over at Make My Mondays http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/ and this week the challenge is simple and timely - make a father's day card ahead of this Sunday's day to celebrate all things fatherly....

I used one of my favourite masculine images from Elzybels - who can't relate to this beary image of a Dad "resting his eyes" half way through the papers following Sunday lunch?  I paper pieced the arm chair and then cut a bear from white smooth cardstock and used a pointalist colouring technique with copics to give some furry definition.  I pieced the newspaper on top and although it doesn't show too clearly it is creased and popped up with silicon for added dimension.  I mounted him in a double cut nestie circle on top of a embossed background.  The sentiment is from Stampin Up.

I am also going to enter this into the following father's day / masculine challenges:

http://cardsformen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/challenge-12-fathers-day.html

http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ 

http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/challenge-186-fathers-day.html

http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/pink-elephant-tpe52.html

One Layer with a flourish

That's the challenge this week at Less is More - a one layer card featuring flourishes http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/week-71-one-layer.html

I didn't get time to play yesterday as I was at St Luke's "Summer" Fair (I use quotation marks as summer was very far from Sheffield yesterday - we couldn't get the gazebo up for the strong winds and it was a pretty disappointing day all round.

We've had rubbish weather again tonight and we've just got soaked to our pants while we tried to unblock the drains before the kitchen flooded - it's been one of those weekends all round :(

Anyhow, I managed 10 minutes to make a quick thank you card for my friend who sat for 6 hours in the cold and rain with me at the fair and I used the LIM challenge to do it with.

I don't know who made the set of stamps I used but there are a variety of lovely flourish designs in it - I chose a "straight" one to create a frame for my simply thanks greeting which is by Waltzingmouse.  I stamped it in pink and added a little stickles to the dots in the design.  Very quick and simple but I think it speaks for itself.

I won't get much time for crafting this week but I have a few projects to share while I'm busy preparing for one of our best friend's 40th Birthday party this weekend.  We are crossing everything that the long range forecast of an even worse weekend next weekend is very very wrong........

Wishful thinking.....

I think I was wishing for a return to warm weather last night as I decided to play along in the Paperplayers current summer themed challenge  http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/challenge-98-jaydees-theme-challenge.html as we are in for a wet and windy day today and not much of an improvement for the weekend either.........

I decided to combine the theme with a sketch and colour challenge - Retro Sketches  http://retrosketches.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/retrosketches-14.html  (whoops missed the deadline...)  and Play Date Cafe as I LOVE the shades they've chosen this week http://theplaydatecafe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/play-date-cafe-pdcc135.html

See, it's definitely NOT flip flop weather in the UK today but these flip flops made with my new PTI die really make me happy despite the rain.   The border die is cut from a wave patterned sheet of DP using the tessatina die from memory box and the sentiment is Kraftin Kimmie.

Keep your fingers crossed for a drier day tomorrow as I'm doing the Summer Fair for St Luke's and I'm outside :(

Bon Appetit!

Something a little different from me today - not a card - but a set of napkins!  I'd been wanting to have another go at stamping on material and when I saw this cute cutlery stamp it just called out to me (well I am Sheffield born and bred so cutlery is in my genes as my Grandfather was a little mester)

I simply stamped the image in the corner of 4 linnen napkins and added a "bon appetit" sentiment to the name plate and heat sealed it with an iron and greaseproof paper so the napkins are now washable at 30 degrees.  I've made them into a a little gift set and they will be going in my Folksy store.   I have plans to make more with bride and groom on as I think they'd make nice wedding gifts too.

I'm going to enter them into this weeks MAWTT challenge which is anything but a card http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/anything-but-square.html

Velveteen Technique

I had a couple of disasterous attempts at Mynnette's Technique Tuesday technique last month which was velveteen stamping but didn't think I'd have anything to share as they just didn't work so I gave up as I was close to the deadline.   http://mynnettestechniquetuesday.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/velveteen-stamping.html However, the deadline has been extended, and following some further helpful instructions for the stupid (that's me btw!) I realised where I went wrong (thanks Mynnette) so I finally have something that worked!

It was a totally new technique to me, and providing you read the instructions properly and use the right ink (doh!) then it works perfectly so do check out the technique if its new to you too and give it a go.

I used my favourite Hero Arts Set in the foreground and an Elzybels leaf in the background which you can see most clearly in the flower head (the velveteen technique in action!)  I finished with an embossed white sentiment in a label aperture on the green base card.

Bling and Holes

I needed an Anniversary card this week for some friends and thought that a combination of a couple of challenges would be ideal for it - CASual Friday's "bling" and Annabelle Stamps "paper piercing".

I started with an oval nestie and stamped a cake image onto it in pink, over stamped a swag design in darker pink and added bling to each swag.  Next I drew a swirl design onto grey card and pierced it before rubbing out my pencil lines.  I mounted it onto pink card stock so that it showed through the pierced holes and finished with a sentiment on a tiny lable.

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cfc55.html

http://annabellestamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/say-it-withpaper-piercing.html

MMM Pearl Birthday

As I was lucky enough to be chosen as the winner for April over at Make My Monday I get the opportunity this month to play along in all their challenges as a Guest Designer - and I'm really thrilled to be part of the team :-D

The first challenge this month is PEARL BIRTHDAY so a nice easy and open theme - any type of Birthday card as long as it features pearls.  Here's my sample:

I decided to go quite classical using a cameo set from Waltzingmouse stamps - I embossed the frame with a white pearl powder and fussy cut it out adding a liquid pearl drop at the base of each shape to bling up the pearl element.  I stamped a simple cameo from the set and cut with a small nestie.  The sentiment is also Waltzingmouse and I forced them into a curve on my acrylic block before stamping so that they fit the frame.  I die cut a couple of swirls from the same pink card and attached them behind some ribbon with a pearl slider and finished with a few more pearls to the swirls.

Go and check out what goodies the regular Make My Monday Design Team have to share with you all this morning and do play along with the challenge (well it is a bank holiday so an extra day to play for all of us!)  http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Centenary Sketch

The Jubilee may be everywhere this weekend, but it's not all about the Queen's 60th - yesterday, Waltzingmouse launched their updated sketch challenge website with their 100th sketch - so that's a kind of Centenary right?  Here's the sketch:

I have a card commission to make "something nice" for a lady in her 70's so I decided to use the sketch as a springboard for inspiration and this is what I came up with:

 

I used several different co-ordinating papers from the First Edition New Leaf paperpad.  I used the lace stamp from the French Country set over one of the sheets and used two different sentiment sets to form the Happy Birthday.  The border die is PTI, the leaf is Cheery Lyn and the frame is a Spellbinders label.  The flower I created myself using two different sized scalloped punches, water and scrunching (as per my earlier tutorial - see the link at the top of the page)

Here's the link to the challenge if you want to play along  http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/challenge-100june-2-2012.html

Red White and Blue

Well it is the Jubilee weekend, so what else could this month's colour challenge at Less is More be?  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/week-70-colour-challenge.html  Once I'd extricated Lottie from my lap (see end of post) I had a play and made a couple of cards for the challenge.

For my first card I got out my papermania portobello road papers and made 3 flowers in red, white and blue using them and a scalloped circle punch.  I printed the sentiment about being a Queen for a day and cut it with a nestie and mounted it onto more the red paper from the set.  I deliberated hung it off the card and trimmed it back.  I stamped a crown by Dimension 4th stamps, coloured and glittered it and added some gems.  To assemble I added some union ribbon (papermania), a marianne D die cut swirl and a stamp from a papermania set (could have done with a better ink match to the printed sentiment though!)

I'm also entering this one into One Stop Craft Challenge this week which wants red, white and blue and crowns or diamonds  http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/week-185-queens-diamond-jubilee-crowns.html 

I'm also entering this one into the Cool Britania challege at MAWTT 
http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cool-britannia-mawtt.html

For my second card, I went cute but still CAS.  The image is a Pollycrafts digi, coloured with copics and fussy cut.  The sentiment is computer generated again and mounted ribbon style onto some blue card from my snippets drawer.

I'm entering this one into the Cool Britania challege at MAWTT  as well
http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cool-britannia-mawtt.html

This one would also be perfect for our new "furry friends" challenge over at St Luke's this month  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/   we have a great stamp set from Waltzingmouse up for grabs if you fancy playing along.


My crafting time this morning started later than normal as the weather has gone cold so the cat was seeking warmth, and it seems I was it!   It's very hard to craft one handed ;-)  She was definitely interested by what was on my laptop today too....

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.

Dude's Rule!

Dude's Rule is Susan's challenge this week for one layer Wednesday  http://simplicitybylateblossom.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/one-layer-wednesday-90-dudes-rule.html  and as I was still in "Father's Day" mode last night I decide to have a go and make another card for the charity sale coming up.  I wanted to play with the splatter background technique that is around at the moment, and I have to say I wasn't that successful............

I stamped the rosette in two shades of momento blue direct to the card and masked it off (I think the stamp is jenny browlin) and stamped the fabby "No 1" from the new Waltzingmouse relations set into the centre in black.  I then masked it off using a post it and took the pipe out of a spritz ink bottle to do the splatters.  However, a couple of my splats landed too near to the mask and as the ink is soooo runny, it bled underneath.  I added a fathers day sentiment (stampin up) to the side.  Bit messy but OK for a first attempt - just a shame about the ink bleeding - I think I'd use paint and a toothbrush for the splatter next time like we used to do in nursery school ;-)

I'll be back later with our new challenge for St Luke's which I hope will be a lot more popular than our month long one layer challenge has been as it seems we scared you all off with it!

Embossed Christmas

This week's 52CCT challenge is to use heat or dry embossing on your project http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/embellishment-challenge-5.html

I decided to go all Scandinavian with trees as my theme and a red and natural kraft colour theme.

This really was one of the quickest and most simple Christmas cards I've ever made, but I really like the effect so may well make a set of them.  I used a hero arts stamp and emboss set to create the bottom panel (stamped first in rhubarb stalks momento ink).  I used my grand calibur so I could run the car through open and get the embossing just where I wanted it.  The strip with the merry Christmas on it is a gorgeous washi tape I got on ebay from Singapore.  The finishing touch is a painted wooden Christmas tree I got in the John Lewis January sales which just adds a little "pop".

It's very humid here tonight but the rain we should have had about 5 hours ago has finally arrived so hopefully we'll start to cool off a little - let's get the rain over and done with before the extended Jubilee bank holiday weekend - although the chances of breaking the bank holiday rain tradition look pretty slim :(

Manly paper

The challenge this week at CASual Fridays is to use Decorative Papers on masculine cards http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cfc54.html   Well as I am trying to make some more father's day cards for the St Luke's Summer Fair on 9th June, this was perfect timing so I've made a couple for this challenge.

On this first card I've used a couple of different digi papers, the background strip is a Sherry K digi and the dotted kraft is basic grey.  The sentiment is from a couple of different waltzingmouse sets and the big stars were die cut (mft die) from double sided sticky sheets and covered with gilding flakes (I'm loving this technique - you need to run the sheets through your die cutter 2 or 3 times but it makes easy and dramatic embellishments).

 

For this second one I used another of the Sherry K digi papers as the basis for the design and used my favourite masculine stamps from the Crafts Meow to match - I stamped and cut the moustache onto a die cut circle and added a sentiment from the same set underneath.  The strips of paper were from my snippets box and the sentiment circle was cut from another Sherry K sheet.

It's the first time I've used digi papers and I have to say I like the flexibility they offer and they certainly help me get over my "but if you use it you won't have it any more" issues.....   If you like them, she is currently having a 3 day 50% off sale and there are even 3 packs you can get for free:-)  http://www.sherykdesigns.com/shop

Throwing my hat in....

I've been umming and ahing all month about whether or not to enter this year's Gallery Idol competition run by PaperCrafts Magazine.  I found the theme of "encouragement cards" a bit tricky and am not sure my card making is up to "idol" standard.  But, as the saying goes, you've got be in it to win it so I finally had a go this weekend and these were my two efforts:

The sentiments on both cards are from the There She Goes Hang On set.  For the first I stamped a musical background, mounted 2 die cuts one in black card one cut from double sided sticky sheets and covered with Yorkshire Dales gilding flakes.  The second is just a tim holtz brick wall embossing folder on kraft with a little pumice stone ink, some black mats and a knotted "rope"

Shapes and Toppers

Well today's Less is More challenge of shaped cards was a bit of a curve ball!  I wasn't sure what to do but then I remembered that some of my cricut cartridges have cards on them.  They cut a shape just at the front though so I cut them and then traced the design from the front to the back and cut it out to make them properly shaped - I didn't think that through on my first one - a heart which really doesn't stand on it's point lol!  It will probably become a gift tag on a present I think.

 The butterfly was much more successful for a shaped card - the base is more stable and it was a more sensible size (both were cut to 3 inches on the cricut - I get very frustrated with the sizes that come out as they bear NO resemblance to the actual size you ask for!)   For both cards, the cricut eventually, after many sheets of wasted cardstock, cut both a base card and a topper (from Damask Decor cartridge) and I coloured the topper with distress inks and pearl spritzing.  The sentiment on the butterfly is by Paula Pascal and I hand wrote the one on the heart to follow the curve.

While the cricut was doing its stuff, I had a play and made another card - not for any challenge so I'm just sharing it before I go and to enjoy the sunshine.  This was made with a gorgeous topper I received in the post today from Tracy - the lovely lady behind Cardmakers Delights who was stalking me yesterday (private joke!)  She asked me if I'd like to try some of her toppers - for free (see told you she was lovely) the only catch was to make a card and blog it.  Well, it wasn't hard at all to agree to that, she has some gorgeous designs and now I have them in the flesh I can also vouch for the quality of the cardstock and printing.  I decided to be all "jubilicous" and make something patriotic with the lovely vintage keep calm topper included in the pack - I opted to keep it simple with an embossed flag behind, a blue mat and a matching regal bow.

Flashback Friday Guest Host

Well today is an exciting day as, following my win last month, I get to be guest host over at Flashback Friday today, and I even get to choose what this month's flashback will be.  So - pop on back to the early days of your blog, find your FIRST MASCULINE CARD and link it on up to the flashback party :-D

It's easy-peasy lemon-squeezy - no new cards to make, just take a browse back and marvel at how much your crafting has changed.  There are even prizes - how good is that???   Our sponsor this month is Perfect Presentation

The prize is choice of 3 files in any format from pdfs, to svg cutting files there is something for everyone!

To get the party started, we have a bit of a blog hop for you to feast your eyes on - you should have started over at Flashback Friday, and then I'm your first hop.  Here's my first ever masculine card (and coincidentally my first ever easle card too!)

I made it back in April 2010 using a LOTV topper some scraps of dp some ribbon and some alphabet stickers.  Not as horrendous as some of my other firsts!  The original can be found here http://craftilicious-yorkshire.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/blue-easles.html

Now it's time to carry on the hop and see what other masculine goodness the Friday Flashbackers have to share:

Alyssa  http://critterlyss.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/flashback-friday-challenge-24.html

Leanne  http://leeartsncrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/flashback-friday-24-blog-hop-guest.html

Amy   http://tsurutadesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/flashback-friday-240-blog-hop.html

Leigh Ann  http://stampingwithannieb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/flashback-friday.html

Happy Friday - thanks for visiting :-)

Tara  

Feeling felty

It's the blog party today (although a little delayed) which meant I had time to make something!  Those of you that know my blog will see stamps from the house of mouse make a pretty regular appearance - they are my go to sets in my top stamping drawer for ease of access, so I do love to play along in the monthly party of all things mouse :-D  The challenge this month was to use felt in your card.  http://www.waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/may-waltzingmouse-stamps-blog-partylets.html

I'd been avoiding this sketch all week as it terrified me, but last night whilst trying to think of something felty I hit upon an idea that I thought would work with it:

I cut 5 tiny pink hearts from an old sizzix die (it's actually the centre of the letter o in a LOVE die) from yummy dark pink felt and stuck them in place of the squares on the sketch, adorned with a tiny pale pink gem.    I then used two sentiments from Compact Sentiments part two (the eagle eyed amongst you may spot the different layout to the smile one - I VERY carefully cut the "you" off the stamp so I could put it where I wanted it - I can still use it as it's meant to be as well so don't panic) popped up with dimensional foam with gently inked edges.  I think it will be my anniversary card to my husband next month.

I'm also going to enter this into CASual Friday's dies and punches challenge and the Dies to Die for anything goes with a die cut challenge.

Can't wait to see what everyone else has brought to the party.

x

Nativity

The theme over at 52 CCT this week is Nativity http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/theme-challenge-5.html

At first I didn't think I had any nativity stamps but a search through my stash found 3....   Someone needs to make a stamp index and soon!!!!!!   I decided to go for this cute and as yet uninked LOTV stamp

Very simple card - coloured with copics, cut with nesties and layered with some DP from DCWV and some gold mirri and finished with a gold tinted sentiment from Craftwork cards.

After all the miserable weather, it's now really hot and sticky so I'm off to have a cool bath before bed.

Bright Bite

I really loved the vibrant stack of macaroons that was the Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab last Tuesday and as soon as I saw it, it brought one of my stamps to mind, and I finally managed to get it coloured over the weekend. http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2012/05/tuesday-trigger-bright-bite.html

The way the macaroons are stacked reminded me of this stack of teacups by Papermania so I decided to make a very simple card just translating the colours from the stack into my teacups.  I coloured them with copics and added a little glitter here and there.  The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse Frame It.

I'll be sending this across the pond to my blogging buddy Deborah - hope that's not spoiling the surprise but I know you like cup images, and wanted to send you something bright to drive away the homesick blues.