Spirit of Creativity

Bright & Bold

2012-02-17T00:30:00.000Z

I can't believe that another fortnight has whizzed by but it has! It's time for challenge #59 at CACB and this time our theme is bright and bold. I don't often use colours this bright, but I must say that I enjoyed it. I digitally paper pieced the image of the rose trellis into one of the unlined journalling tags. The red and blue bps are from the polished stone brights collection and the pieces of gold paper (including the paper pieced butterflies) are from the 8x8 Gold collection. All except the ribbon are from Crafty Ann's. The rest of the DT have come up with some crackers as usual and are well worth a look.
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' Stash my neglected stash is the ribbon - I haven't used any for ages!
The Crafty Pad - the letter 'B' (butterflies & blue)
Digital Tuesday - Use your stash
Truly Scrumptious - All creatures great and small
PaperPlay - Critters

I hope you'll be able to play along with us again this fortnight and thank you for dropping by today.

Another Diamond.....

2012-02-15T12:27:00.000Z

At least it would have been. It's our Queen's Diamond Jubilee this year and if my parents were still with us, they'd be celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary today so I'm thought I'd share two layouts with you. I first started scrapping back on 2003 in order to preserve and document family photos so that future generations would know who was who etc. I got some done and then had to put the album to one side for various reasons and have only just been able to get my hands on it again recently. I will say at this point that my early efforts are mostly somewhat cringe worthy now and I would do things very differently! However the very first page I ever scrapped isn't actually too bad so I'm going to show you that and how I've also re-done the page for a digital album I'm creating.
This first page is a photo of my parents on their wedding day - all the photos are sepia and my mother chose her favourite to have hand tinted. This photo was in a frame in the living room all their married life. Sadly, their wedding day was also the day of the funeral of the late King and I can remember Mam telling me how difficult it was for them to get flowers so her bouquet was a little sparse. I do think the florist did a good job with what little she had to work with though - red carnations and green feathery ferny stuff (not good on plants, sorry!)

As you can see, the page is very simple - all I did was mat and layer and add some rub on roses either side. Fast forward to 2012 and you can see the difference the best part of a decade makes.......lol!

I've created this one using the Cream Dream Scrapbooking Kit for most of it. Although this is a digital scrapbook at the moment, I may well print it off to have as a physical one too. It's been lovely to create this page though and I do wish they were here for me to have been able to do a full scrapbook of their wedding for them as a present but I'm sure that where ever they are they'll be celebrating!

I'm entering this page into these challenges:

The Pixie Cottage - Anything but a card
Crafting for all Seasons - Love is in the air
PaperPlay - Love Letters
By the Cute and Girly - Love is in the air
Crafty Calendar - Love and Marriage

Happy Anniversary Mam & Dad!

COC The New WOW??

2012-02-11T13:53:00.000Z

This card is for Progressive Challenge 11 at CDAC and when I saw this lovely image by Happi Scrappin' Doodles my immediate thought was to do a white on white card with the only colour being on the image topper. I usually like to have strong colours on the image for this type of card though and I'd just received the new limited edition pack of promarkers and couldn't wait to use them. The only trouble was, the pastels didn't look quite right against the white - so I decided to go with cream instead. I used some stardream card that must have been sitting unused in my stash for about a year but I decided that it was time to stop stroking and start using! It's actually more creamy than the photo shows and the effect is lovely. I've used some scraps of textured gold card for the mat, flowers, flourishes and home made brads and some platinum stickles in the centre of the flowers. I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Rainbow Lady - Have a heart
Sweet Stampin' - Clean & Simple
Allsorts - Free & Easy February
The Stamp Man - texture
PTW - Anything Goes
Sketch 'n' Stash - Free choice sketch. My new stash is the image and promarkers and my neglected stash is everthing else. I chose sketch 7, one of my favourites.

Oooops!!

2012-02-03T11:52:00.000Z

It's time for the new challenge at CACB and I almost forgot to post my card! Our theme for this one is "Love is in the air". It doesn't have to be valentines so I have gone for anniversary. It's our anniversary later this month and this is my card for hubby. I've used the Cream Dream Scrapbook Kit from Crafty Ann's for pretty much everything. Even the locket is part of the kit - I made the photo sepia toned and split it to put us in each half of the locket. I want to make a sepia scrapbook of our wedding photos and could see this card becoming a page with very little alteration.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Joanna Sheen - Love is in the air
The Paper Shelter - Love is in the air
Truly Scrumptious - One or more hearts
Colour Create - Light and dark browns with white and/or cream
Little Red Wagon - Valentine's or Love

I hope you'll get the chance to play along with us this fortnight and do check out the rest of the DT - as usual, they've created some wonderful inspiration.

Rose Trellis

2012-01-28T17:12:00.000Z

I'm going to start this post with an apology for the quality of the photo - but I'm afraid it's the best of a very large, very bad bunch! No matter what I tried, some of the colour just seems to be leached out of it. The base card is actually cream not white. The panel is Rose Trellis just new in Crafty Ann's this week. I've coloured it in photoshop because I originally intended to use it on a digital scrapbook page then changed my mind.I backed with a piece of one of the papers from the Gold Collection before printing it - the paper is a victim of the 'leaching' too - in the photo, the centre looks white but it isn't. I've used my score board to emboss lines down the unadorned part of the base card which doesn't show up too well. The sentiment is a stamp I've had for ages and rarely use and I think it took longer to find it than it did to make the whole card - but it seemed to be just right with the roses. I stamped that with versamark and embossed with gold detail ep.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

LiM - sketch (it could have been created for this image, thank you girls)
Stampin' for the Weekend - Embossing
PCJ - Floral
MAWTT - Blooming Marvellous!

Thank you for dropping by today and for all the lovely comments you leave.

Save The Earth!

2012-01-23T17:39:00.000Z

This is my second card for round 10 of the progressive Challenge at CDAC. This time the image is by Bugaboo and as soon as I saw it, I knew I'd be teaming it up with one of my favourite sentiment stamps from rubbadubbadoo. I decided to keep to a limited colour palette which I think has worked quite well. I've coloured the image with promarkers but digitally paper pieced the chair.The spotty bp is from my stash and the white pearlescent paper has been put through an embossing folder. Apart from the image, almost everything is old and mostly neglected I'm sad to say! I did enjoy making it though. :-)

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

CPS - the fab Sketch
I love promarkers - Anything Goes
Card Makin Mamas - Something Old
Saturday Challenge - Food and Drink (she doesn't have a drink but between the cookie - double chocolate chip of course - and the chocolate bar, she doesn't have a spare hand. lol!
2 Sisters - Embossing.

Thank you for dropping by today, hope to see you again soon :o)

We Are Sailing.........

2012-01-21T16:44:00.000Z

This is my first card for the current round (10) of the CDAC progressive challenge. I'm slightly out of my comfort zone with the way I've interpreted the sketch from The Pixie Cottage Challenge because I've left off the bigger bp I'd normally use and allowed the base card to take it's place. This is because it's a rather nice pearlescent blue and I didn't want to take the easy way out by using white card stock as my base. I'm still not 100% sure about it, but I'm leaving it alone. The smaller piece of card is 'white with a hint of blue' and has a needle cord texture but the photo doesn't show this up. The navy blue piece has been put through an embossing folder. All of these pieces of card have been in my stash for too many years to remember - in fact I had to dust the navy piece before I could use it, I'm ashamed to say! The image is one of the freebie ones for this round of the progressive challenge and is by Fire Cracker Designs which I've coloured using a mix of digital paper piecing for the sky and water and promarkers for the rest. I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Tanda Teaser - Scenic scenes
Creative Craft - The colour blue
Truly Scrumptious - Something forgotten (all the pieces of card stock)

That's another of the birthday cards done I need for this month! Thank you for stopping by today.

What's New Pussycat?

2012-01-20T00:30:00.000Z

Another fortnight has zipped by at the speed of light which means that we have the new challenge at Crafty Ann's and this time the theme is "What's New Pussycat?" This can be new stash you got at Christmas or just treated yourself to, or a new technique etc. Crafty Ann's has just branched out into digital Scrapbook Kits so I have used the Traditional Christmas one to make a front page for a 12 x12 digital scrapbook for Christmas 2011. I've put one of my all time favourite Santa images behind the frame which is from Joanna Sheen's Victorian Christmas CD rom. This was the very first CD I bought from Joanna and it's still one of my most used. I built up the floral arrangement on the lower part of the frame with various items in the kit. Although it's a digital kit, there's no reason why papers and items can't also be printed off to create a dimensional card or page as I have done with the 6x6 card below:

I'm also entering these projects into the following challenges:

ABC Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Use a digital image and /or paper (think I've got that pretty much covered, lol!)
The Stamp Man Challenge - Use Red

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you'll get time to join us this fortnight.

What A Wonderful World!

2012-01-18T23:14:00.001Z

I made this card for my partner and forum friend for this month's card swap on creating rainbows forum with the theme "What a Wonderful World" and now that I know she's received it I can share it with you. Most of the papers and elements are from a new scrapbook kit that will be in the shop by the weekend. The image is a new one too - Cone Flower and Butterfly and it's in the shop now. The brown bp is from the polished stone range and the flourishes are Marianne Designs. I created the frame for the cone flower using the string of pearls that's part of the new SB kit and coloured the image with promarkers.
I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Card Patterns - the sketch
Crafty Calender - new news (everything is new except the brown bp and the flourishes
Fab 'n' Funky - Bingo (I chose the middle vertical line which is: digital image, flourishes and lots of layers
Creative Belli - Fancy Frames

I'm happy to say that my partner liked her card and I hope you do too. Thank you for dropping by today.

CACB #56

2012-01-06T00:28:00.000Z

Good friday morning! It's the first Crafty Ann's challenge of 2012 and our theme this time is Let's Think Hot! I've chosen to go with hot colours and what looks like an idyllic hot place too. My main image is Fabergé style egg, tropical beach and the bps are from the mottled stone collections - all from Crafty Ann's. The egg is mounted onto one of the unlined journalling tags that I've digitally paper pieced. It's another card for one of the many birthdays these first couple of months of the year. I'm also entering these challenges:

Pile it on - Anything Goes
Inky Impressions - Anything Goes
The Paper Shelter - Anything Goes
Fussy and Fancy Friday -Birthday

I do hope you'll be able to join us for our first challenge of the year. :-)

Happy Birthday

2012-01-05T18:46:00.000Z

Here's another of the birthday cards I need for this month. I really enjoyed making it too. One of my favourite things about making my own cards is being able to do something I'm unlikely to find in a shop. This is another entry for round 9 of the CDAC progressive challenge. I've used one of the blank globes from Crafty Ann's which is one of the supplied images this time and I've teamed it up with one of the images we got for round 3 - the Oak Fairy from Gurukitty. (For more details of how this challenge works, see my post here.) I copied and pasted one of the leaves several times so that I could use them in the globe in place of the more traditional snow or glitter and I'm rather pleased with the result. I paper pieced both the base and the globe behind the fairy. The large backing paper, pearls and gold diamond shaped border are all from the Sweet Sage scrapbook kit and the two green squares are from the earth tones embossed dots collection. The greeting was done in photoshop.

I have a Top Tip for you too (for Top Tip Tuesday): have a good look at your stamps and digi stamps and see if you can't find another use for them than they were maybe originally designed for. Globes are usually associated with winter or Christmas cards for example, but there's no reason why they can't be used to create something a little different for other occasions too. You could give your stamp and digi collections a whole new lease of life and your mojo a helping had too! :-)

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Incy Wincy - Anything Goes
Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes
Sunday Sketchers - the lovely sketch
Pile it On - Anything Goes
Tuesday Throwdown - Use something shiny.

Thanks for popping in today - see you tomorrow!

The Celebrations Continue

2012-01-05T00:30:00.000Z

As this is my first post for 2012, I'd like to start by wishing you all a very happy and healthy New Year!

This is the first of several birthday cards you're likely to see over the next couple of weeks - I need 5 for January and 2 for February, so that should keep me out of mischief for a while! This one uses some elements from the very first scrapbooking kit from Crafty Ann's which is called Sweet Sage. The main bp, flowers, pearls, lace and butterfly are all from the kit, and I've overlaid the butterfly from the kit with the gold outline from the Butterfly 1sheet. The greeting has been added to the bp before printing off.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Joanna Sheen - Celebrate
Heart Song Inspirations - Anything Goes
Kaboodle Doodles - Celebrate
PTW - Anything Goes

Thank you for your visit today.

Merry Christmas One and All!

2011-12-24T12:55:00.002Z

My computer's been down all week so I didn't think I'd get this made, never mind posted! (Big kiss to my wonderful hubby!) I'll have to keep it short so I'll give you a quick run down of what I've used and the challenges it's for.
Items used:

Mottled stone, tartan, silver and polished stone backing papers from Crafty Ann's
Blank Snowglobe from Crafty Ann's and Labrador puppy present from Patti's Creations. Both of these are part of the images supplied for round 9 of the CDAC progressive challenges. For full details see the post below this one
3D Short petal flower from Crafty Ann's
Silver ribbon and silver peel off

The challenges:

CDAC Progressive Challenge
Seems a Little Bit Sketchy
PTW - Last Christmas card of the year
MWATT - Cats & Dogs
Colour Create - Blue, Silver & White

Hope the festive season is all you could wish for!

CDAC Progressive Challenge #9

2011-12-18T14:50:00.000Z

We've reached the next round of the CDAC Progressive Challenges. Each challenge lasts for 6 rounds with a grand prize drawn at the end. The way it works is that we sign up (it's free to do so) to take part at the start of each 'batch' and are provided with 5 images to work with. As long as we enter at least one card using at least one of the images we will get the 5 for the next round and so on. The good thing is that if we miss a round or decide to join in after it has started, we can buy back in for just $1 - great value.
This time around is slightly different and among the images are a couple of blank snow globes that we can team up with any images in our stash so they can be for anything not just Christmas cards. I've done a Christmas card here but plan to do more with non Christmas images too, as soon as I get chance. We have a month so hopefully I should manage it! ;o)

For this one I've used the blank Snow globe from Crafty Ann's and put one of the other images that's part of the package this time into it. It's Button Bear from Digi stamps 4 joy. He looks completely jiggered after decorating his tree, bless him! I couldn't bring myself to disturb him so I've just left his glittery snow sitting in the bottom instead of shaking it up! lol! I've paper pieced the base of the globe and the two bps are from Crafty Ann's. The snowflake adorning the corner is a Kanban one that was part of a prize I won - I'll be looking out for some more of these.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Crafty Hazelnut's - Anything Goes for Christmas
One Stop Challenge - Christmas Sparkle
Stampin' for the Weekend - Christmas
Charisma Cardz - Last minute Christmas makes
Paper Play - Christmas
CFAS - Christmas Cards & Projects
Creative Card Crew - 'Tis the Season

Thank you for stopping by at this busy time.

CDAC Progressive Challenge

2011-12-12T12:11:00.001Z

I'm dashing to get this entry into the CDAC Progressive Challenge round 8 before the deadline. There's a couple of days yet, but I'm at the stage of needing 48 hour days so don't want to leave it any longer. The image is Bakster Helps from Just Some Lines coloured with promarkers and I just couldn't resist the caption which is computer generated. As I'm still a dinosaur when it comes to books I think I'm going to use this tag as a bookmark. It'll make me smile every time I open my book anyway :-)
I'm also entering my tag into these challenges:

OLLCB - Anything but a card
Craft Your Passion - Tag You're It!
PTW - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz - No Cards!

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope yours is a good one.

Bingo!!

2011-12-02T10:21:00.001Z

Well, it's challenge #55 at CACB and our final challenge of the year - gulp! These years go by ever more quickly and it's getting scary! Our challenge this time is Bingo/Tic Tac Toe, call it what you will. You can choose any line - horizontal, vertical or diagonal - or go for the 4 corners it's up to you.

I've gone for the far right vertical line for mine. There are bows on the garland and I think the rest is self explanatory. This is the money/voucher wallet that I've designed for this year, the gold garland and silver bp are both from Crafty Ann's. The gold book plate where I've added the greeting is part of something I'm working on but not available just yet.

I'm also entering my wallet into these challenges:

Joanna Sheen Challenge #1 - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Craft Your Passion - Tis the season
Creative Craft Challenges - Free for all
Fab 'n' Funky - Anything Goes
Stampin' Royalty - Anything but a card
Cooking It Up With Katie - Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
C.R.A.F.T. - Christmas Present

Thank you for your visit today and I hope you'll pop over and join us for our final challenge of the year and help to make it extra special.

Who?? Me???

2011-11-27T13:02:00.001Z

This little one reminds me of a youngster 'caught in the act' and it made me smile when I saw it. The card is for progressive challenge #7 on CDAC and the image is from Sew Many Cards. I've coloured the image with promarkers apart from the sky background which I've used a digital backing paper for. This bp and the gold strip are from Crafty Ann's but all the other elements - including the frame, lace and corner flourish are from the Pam Lefors' Believe in Yourself kit. I first saw Pam's kits on Jen's blog. Jen does some fabulous digital as well as actual scrapbooking and I've always loved the layouts she's done using these kits so I decided to treat myself. I haven't put a sentiment on the card because I wanted it to have the feel of a page which I think has worked quite well. This is the beauty of digital papers and elements - all those in this kit are for 12x12 layouts but resized perfectly for a 6x6 card. There are a couple of other challenges I'm entering it into:

Sketch 'n' Stash - the fab sketch and my new stuff is pretty much everything!
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes

I've really enjoyed making this and I hope you've enjoyed seeing it, thank you for visiting today.

A Tale of Three Challenges.......

2011-11-22T00:47:00.001Z

I have two cards to show you today - it didn't start out that way, but events ended up dictating! You see, I had one of those times when I was looking through challenges and a card started to form in my head inspired by three of them and as each challenge played it's part, it changed a little......

I started out with Less is More, who want silhouettes on our cards this week and I was already mentally reaching for my Joanna Sheen's Dancing With Shadows CD.....then I saw new challenge at Christmas Card Challenges which is black and white so decided to go with one of the Christmas images. Seeing as I was planning to use a CD, I thought I'd check out the challenge at CD Sunday while I was at it and saw that their challenge is trees. So far so good........but then the creative side of my brain woke up and things went a little awry! I decided it might be nice to add whatever image I chose to a frame and went to and fro between several before deciding that I rather liked the top one. The original image has a green background so I removed that in photoshop.......then thought I'd see what happened if I had a bit of a play with bevel and emboss and drop shadow and I was really quite taken with the effect so I sorted out the frame part and I was good to go. Have you spotted the flaw in this plan yet???? That's right, having spent quite a bit of time getting it how I wanted it, it dawned on me that the image doesn't have any trees!!! Back to the CD I went and this time made sure I chose one with trees! In this instance, the background is already white but I cleared it anyway so that I could do the same thing with the bevel and emboss and drop shadow. I like this effect because it helps to give the image some dimension and like a lot of us here in the UK, I'm keeping my cards flatter this year because of the horrendous cost of posting them. Anyway, I liked the first image so much that I decided to make both cards up. Less is More and Christmas Card Challenges can have both and CD Sunday can have just the bottom one :o) The sentiment is one of my favourites and has been stamped with versamark and embossed with a black sparkle ep that I've had for ages and forgotten about. I printed them off onto glossy paper and added glitter to various parts of the images. I think you'll see this better if you enlarge the pics.

Thank you for visiting today, and remember my warning - if you want to enter a challenge you need to keep the brief in mind!! lol!

Oh! Oh!!

2011-11-18T08:48:00.000Z

It's time for challenge #54 at CACB and this time we have an either/or challenge for you. You can either follow the sketch or the theme of monochrome or do both. I've followed the sketch and almost managed monochrome but not quite! What I've used:

Bps from polished stone and gold collections
One of the labels from the unlined journalling labels sheet
Santa got stuck in the chimney digi
Stars from the embellishments sheet (all of these are available from Crafty Ann's)
Papermania hand made glitter paper
Frosted lace stickles
Gold edged red ribbon from my stash

I digitally paper pieced the base of the snowglobe then added some of the stars to it before printing it off and colouring the rest with promarkers and stickles. I also digitally paper pieced some of the gold bp into the journalling label. Some slightly larger stars in the 4 corners finish it off.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Craft Your Passion - Let it snow
Incy Wincy - Top left to bottom right diagonal of the Tic Tac Toe grid
Little Red Wagon - Paper picing
The Paper Shelter - Snowflakes
Fab 'n' Funky - Baby it's cold outside
MWATT - Let it snow!

I like this sketch so I decided to make another one!

This one uses:

Bps from the Crinkled, Embossed Dots and gold collections
Label from the unlined journalling tag sheet
Smooth gold frame #2
Pre-coloured poinsettia sheet (all from Crafty Ann's)
Crystal glitter on white ds foam tape (doesn't look much in the photo but looks lovely in real life)

I created the 'brads' in photoshop then cut them out and shaped them by running the ball of an embossing tool around the edge on the wrong side. The result is effective and attaching them with pinflair glue gel keeps their shape nicely.

I'm entering this one into these challenges:

Digital Tuesday - Christmas Time
Paper Sundaes - Digital Images

and I'm entering both into:

CHNCC - Whatever lights your candle (I'm going with the Whatever bit)
PIO - Traditional Christmas

Thank you if you've stuck with the post this long and I do hope you'll be able to join us this fortnight and also to check out what the rest of the DT have done, their work is gorgeous!

Christmas Wreath

2011-11-17T15:34:00.001Z

Hello Bloggers, today's card is for 4 challenges. I've used the pre-coloured Holly Wreath from Crafty Ann's and added some stardust stickles to the berries which isn't showing up to well in the photo. The greeting in the centre is computer generated and I placed it before printing it all off onto some canvas effect card. All I've done with it other than that is dry emboss lines around 3 sides and add 3 strips of dst that I've glittered at the top. The 4 challenges are:

Less is More - One layer and leaves
CHNCC - Whatever lights your candle
Christmas Card Challenges - Holly or Wreaths
PIO - Traditional Christmas

Thank you for dropping by today.

Last Gasp!!

2011-11-14T23:12:00.001Z

Oh boy, I am sooooo last minute with this one for one of the challenges it's untrue! It's for round 6 of the first progressive challenge on CDAC. We get 5 images for each round and unfortunately I've only had chance to use this one so far. I will use the others though because they are lovely. This one is Candles by Daisy Doodles which I've coloured with promarkers and stickles. The sketch is courtesy of Sketch 'n' Stash - my new stash is the image and neglected stash is the burgundy card. The large bp is from a pad that I got free with a magazine a couple of months ago. There is also a stamped and embossed greeting at the bottom of the large burgundy panel but with the light being so poor at this time of year, it isn't showing up too well. I'm also entering this card into Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge which is called "Whatever lights your candle" this week, and PIO which is "Traditional Christmas" plus at least one other challenge.
I've really enjoyed making this even though I haven't been able to get a photo that does it justice - if the light is better in the morning, I'll try again and then replace it.
Thank you for visiting today,

Shoppin' Till She's Droppin'!

2011-11-10T18:14:00.001Z

Do you think Christmas might be drawing nearer??? I haven't many to do now and it's so nice not to feel under pressure to get a load finished. Long live challenges! I can't even remember how many photos I took trying to do this one justice.........and I still haven't managed it!! This was the best I could come up with. In real life, it sparkles beautifully but I just haven't been able to get the photo to pick it up. I've used my favourite Kenny K image again and created a mat for her using a label from the unlined labels sheet that I paper pieced with one of the crinkled papers and laid onto one of the gold frames so that it created a border rather than a frame. (These last 3 items are all from Crafty Ann's). I've added star dust stickles to all the 'furry' areas of her clothing. The background papers are white pearlescent put through a couple of embossing folders and some more of the papermania hand made glitter paper. I'm entering my card into these challenges:

PCJ - Embossing
Inky Impressions - Glitter it up!
The Sweet Shop - sketch
Creative Craft Challenge - Minimalistic
Top Tip Tuesday - Make your own backgrounds
CHNCC - Bright colours and/or sparkle

That's another one I can cross off my list! Thank you for visiting today.

Holly Fairy

2011-11-10T18:06:00.001Z

Good morning bloggers - another Christmas card today. This one features the Holly Fairy by Ching-chou Kuik that was part of a prize I won a few weeks ago. I've coloured her with pro markers and used crystal stickles on her wing and platinum stickles on her hair. I must admit that it wasn't until after I had coloured the background that it occurred to me that I might struggle with papers! Fortunately, two earth tones ones came to my rescue. The large piece is from the Abstract 2 earth tones collection and the central strip is from the Embossed Dots earth tones collection and I used a couple of strips of the papermania hand made glitter paper to give it a lift. I've embellished with a robo die cut for the greeting and a couple of 3D short petal flowers printed onto the back of gold mirri with the platinum stickles in the centre. I wouldn't normally use these shades of green for Christmas, but I rather like how they worked. Sadly, all the lovely glitter isn't showing too well in the photo.
I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' Stamp - sketch
Digital Tuesday - Anything Goes
PTW - Christmas
Tanda Teaser - Traditional Red & Green
CHNCC - Bright Colours and/or Sparkle

Thank you for calling by today and I hope you are having a good one.

Humphrey

2011-11-10T16:15:00.001Z

I got this Humphrey's Corner stamp free with a magazine a few weeks ago and finally got around to using it. I've coloured it with promarkers and stickles and cut it out with a nesties label. the main bp is from the Crinkled Collections at Crafty Ann's. I seem to be getting worse when it comes to getting a good photo though and I've no idea why! In real life there is some lovely gold stickles at the top right hand corner and the image and mat are sitting on a lovely piece of handmade papermania glitter paper - but could I get a photo to show them? Could I fudge!! I hope you can get the idea all the same though. I'm entering my card into these challenges:

ABC Christmas - W is for Winter Sport
C.R.A.F.T - Cute
CHNCC - Bright colours and/or Sparkle
Sketch Saturday for the sketch

Thank you for dropping by today.

Helping The Economy At Christmas!

2011-11-07T11:31:00.000Z

This has to be my favourite Kenny K image and she has appeared on more than one of my cards this year so I decided to do something a little different and create a girly shopping trip. I flipped one of the images to face the other way so that they looked less like a chorus girl line up, lol! As soon as I saw how it looked with the three of them, I knew who this one would be going to.........a forum friend who has well and truly done her bit for the economy at the NEC over the weekend..........
I used one of the unlined journalling labels to create the mat they are on by paper piecing one of the gold papers into the shape and then overlaying it onto one of the smooth gold frames so that the frame provides the edge. The other two bps are from the new crinkled collection (all from CA) and the sentiment at the bottom is computer generated and the only embellishments are the home made gold mirri 'brads'. The topper and two pieces of red bp are raised from the card on foam pads which doesn't really show in the photo and neither does the crystal stickles I added to all the white parts of their clothing unfortunately but it does look lovely and sparkly in real life.
My card has been inspired by several challenges:

Stampin' for the Weekend - Sketch
The Paper Shelter - Christmas Fun
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Bright Colours and/or Sparkle
Winter Wonderland - Make your card sparkle
One Stop Craft - who are celebrating their 3rd birthday and want things in threes (I've got 3 girls, 3 digi images and 3 papers)
Kenny K's Krafty Girlz Challenges - Celebration Time
By the Cute and Girly - Christmas Girls

Thank you for dropping by today, I appreciate your visit.

Let it Snow!

2011-11-06T17:09:00.000Z

How are you coming along with your Christmas cards? I'm down to needing less than 10! It's been fabulous making them all year for different challenges - they're as much of a pleasure as they should be and all different which is even better.

This one is for several challenges and I'll tell you about those in a moment. First I'll tell you what I've used. The two bps are from the gold collection and the polished stone collection. The gold one is 8x8 which makes it very easy to resize to fit onto a 6x6 without having to cut any of the design away. The white mat is made from white pearlescent paper cut out using the robo before putting it through an embossing folder. This one is a new one and a new company to me too. It's made by efco and the embossing is lovely and deep. The snowman snowglobe is from a pre-coloured sheet and I've re-sized the star from the gold embellishments sheet and added them to the base in my graphics program before I printed it off. The text is computer generated. The two snowflakes were part of a challenge prize I won recently and are from Kanban.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Creative Card Challenges- Fancy edges
The Pixie Cottage - Make a Christmas Card
CFAS -Texture
Charisma Cardz - Cutesy Projects
Bah! Humbug! - Snowmen

I hope your day is going well, thank you for calling by.

Floral Frenzy

2011-11-04T10:37:00.000Z

Another fortnight has whizzed by at the speed of light and here we are with another challenge at Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog.

This time our theme is Floral Frenzy. This card changed so many times during the process of making it, it's untrue - and I'm still not sure how I feel about it to be honest. I've used the silver version of Butterfly 1, overlaid it onto a piece of digital paper then used the dodge tool in photoshop to do some faux 'bleaching'. It's a lovely effect. I cut it out and shaped the body and wings before attaching it with pinflair glue. I was originally going to place it onto a very large version of the 3D Short Petal Flower, but as I was laying out card, I decided I didn't like it so created the cluster instead. I used the petals from the 3 layers of the large flower to create a border instead and that's the bit I'm not sure of. The blue bp is from the new Crinkled Papers Collection 2. Everything is available from Crafty Ann's.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Southern Girls - to be inspired by a song (Love is like a butterfly)
Sweet Stampin' - Anything Goes
PTW - Anything goes + a bit of bling or sparkle. (although it doesn't show too clearly in the pic, the blue bp is matted onto a piece of papermania glittered hand made paper)
Raise the Bar - No embellishments (as in 'hardware' embellies but paper ones are allowed)

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you'll get the chance to join us at CACB this fortnight.

Wishing on a Star

2011-10-31T13:24:00.000Z

Good afternoon everyone, I have another card for the Christmas box today. I'm loving the CAS look, especially for Christmas cards so have gone with it again. I've used the star and bow from the gold embellishments sheet and the round ornament from the gold ornaments sheet - both from the metallics range - to create the topper. I've mounted both with 3D foam pads to give them dimension. The photo doesn't show it too well, but I've also added diamond stickles to the centre design of the ornament. The large die cut it's all sitting on was cut out using the robo and put through the swiss dots embossing folder. The sentiment is the free cover stamp with the Craft Stamper magazine that will be in the shops on friday (I subscribe) which I stamped with versamark and embossed with gold detail ep.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

MTTC - Quite white
The Pixie Cottage - Go for gold
Bah! Humbug! - Die Cuts
Winter Wonderland - CAS
Less is More - Stars

I hope your Christmas cards are coming along nicely too :o)

Sweet Dreams!

2011-10-30T17:27:00.001Z

I'm one of the few to have resisted the allure of the kindle - I still love to get a real book in my hand and I've been meaning to make myslef a new bookmark for ages. I've had a fancy for making a corner one seeing as I haven't done one before and when I saw this lovely image that's part of the package for round 5 of the first progressive challenge on CDAC it seemed perfect because I always read before going to sleep. The image is by Just Some Lines and I've digitally paper pieced the bear and used stickles stardust on the cloud, halo and wing. I did the die cut on the robo and layered both things up onto a piece of lilac (yes really!) glitter card. It's really rather lovely in real life and I'm looking forward to using it tonight :)

I'm also entering my bookmark into these challenges:

Crafty Purple Frog - sparkle
Paper Sundaes - Bookmarks

Thank you for your visit today

Christmas Bunny

2011-10-29T11:38:00.000+01:00

This is for round 5 of the 1st Progressive Challenge at CDAC and I'm just getting my entry in by the skin of my teeth this time! I've used the lovely Christmas Bunny from Digis by Phooka and coloured using a mixture of digital paper piecing and Promarkers. I think this image is lovely for a child so have kept the rest of it very simple. The papers are all from Crafty Ann's and the sentiment is computer generated. The mat the bunny is sitting on is one of the unlined journalling labels. I'm also entering my card into these challenges ;

Passion for Promarkers - for a child
Tuesday Throwdown - Primary colours
Inky Impressions - Anything Goes.

Thank you for your visit today :o)

It's a Man's Christmas!

2011-10-27T11:33:00.000+01:00

Good morning bloggers - last minute dash to make the Bah! Humbug! Challenge this week which is to make a Christmas card for a man. I've used one of the new crinkle papers and one of the polished stone papers for this one. The image is just a new one in the shop, Narrow Boat Scene. I've made the picture a sepia tone by changing the colour of the image itself and sponging with several shades of inks. Then I added some diamond stickles to give it a bit of Christmas sparkle although that doesn't show too well on the pic. I've had the idea for this in my head since the weekend, but getting it out of there proved to be a pain - I got there in the end though!
I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' Stash - the sketch and my new stash is the digi
Charisma Cardz - Anything Goes
MWATT - No Girls allowed!
PCJ - Use a digi
Tanda Teaser - Sepia Tones

CACB #52

2011-10-21T00:30:00.000+01:00

Another fortnight has gone whizzing past and we're at Challenge #52 at Crafty Ann's - this time our theme is Clean and Simple. I've done quite a few CAS cards lately, and they are growing on me but I think they can be especially useful at Christmas time when we have a lot to make and also to try to keep postage down a bit. For this one I've used a piece of papermania gold hand made glitter paper for the base layer and the faux brads, then I've layered up two of the new crinkle papers from collection 1 and a scalloped mat. The image is the Christmas Garland that I've part paper pieced and part hand coloured. The sentiment is computer generated. I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Fab's Big Christmas Card Challenge
Top Tip Tuesday - Layer it up
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Baubles or anything hanging
Christmas Card Challenges

Thank you for visiting today and I do hope you'll get the chance to join us this fortnight.

Bearing Gifts

2011-10-20T12:06:00.000+01:00

I was fortunate to win a lovely prize in a recent Creative Craft Challenge. The prize was a goody bag from Just Tracys Crafts. I don't think I've ever had a prize arrive so quickly, so thank you Tracy! A lovely goody bag it was too, introducing me to a couple of ranges that are new to me. My prize consisted of a Wild Rose Studio paper pack (Wintry Christmas), a Wild Rose Studio clear stamp and a pack of Kanban self adhesive snowflake stickers. The snowflakes are white in real life by the way - I have no idea why they have a pinky tone in the photo, especially as the other colours are true! I've used some of everything I received on this card. I chose three of the lovely co-ordinating papers to create the woven corner and added stickles to the dots. The lovely stamped image was coloured with promarkers and I used the same star dust stickles on her hat and frosted lace stickles created the snow. I then cut the image out with a nesties die. The sentiment is from a See D's set and was stamped with Brilliance pearlescent lavender ink. I thoroughly enjoyed making this and learned something along the way - colouring the image while trying to watch Australia v The All Blacks in a rugby world cup semi-final leads to the necessity to stamp another image and start again!!!! lol!

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

I love Promarkers - Ain't it cute?
The Crafty Pad - Monochromatic
Christmas Card Challenges - Stickers
Fab's Big Christmas Card Challenge - Snowflakes
OLLC - Let it snow

Thank you for dropping by today - see you tomorrow! :)

Santa's Treats

2011-10-19T15:50:00.000+01:00

I'm in real Christmas card mode at the moment - this is the first of 3 Christmas cards I've got done over the last 3 days. I'll be entering it into 3 challenges but the first one I'm going to mention is Bah! Humbug! where the theme is Christmas Food. The only stamps I have that feature Christmas food are very small ones so I decided to draw a new digi to fill the gap. I've called this one Santa's Treats with his mince pie and a drop of egg nog. He's been very polite too and left a note of thanks! This last bit comes from my past - when my daughters were small, my Dad came over each Christmas eve after they had gone to bed to put their presents under the tree, and ate the mince pie and drank the wee tot of rum they left out for Santa as they went upstairs, then left a note of thanks in Santa's name. My mother was always the one to write birthday cards etc, so they didn't know his handwriting. They used to look for the note that was left on the plate with the crumbs and the remnants of the rum when we went downstairs on Christmas morning and were always thrilled when they found it!
The main bp is from the 8x8 Gold Collection and the other two are from the new Crinkle Collections. The central mat has been created using one of the unlined journalling labels and backed with a piece of hand made glitter paper from papermania - the photo isn't doing this paper justice I have to say - the sparkle is fabulous. The sentiment is computer generated and added to the gold bp before printing and the only other embellishments are the 3 home made 'brads' that I punched out of a scrap of the glitter paper. Everything apart from the glitter paper is from Crafty Ann's.
The other two challenges my card is for are:

Thank you for dropping by today. :o)

Teen Birthday

2011-10-11T11:00:00.000+01:00

This one is for our Granddaughter's 14th Birthday. I do find teenager cards can be quite difficult - it's striking the balance between too young and too old I think. I've been rescued this year by a lovely stamp by Elaine Cox that I won in a Sweetpea Stampers Challenge a couple of weeks ago. Isn't she lovely? Perfect for a 14yr old I think. I've coloured her with promarkers and added a touch of glitter with a clear sakura sparkly pen although this doesn't show up too well in the photo. My bp's are all from Crafty Ann's - the brown and orange from the Polished Stone collections and one of the crinkle collections that aren't in the shop just yet but will be by the end of the week. The text was done in photoshop and added to the brown bp before printing it off. The only embellishment is the 3D short petal flower in the top right hand corner. I've just used one layer this time though. I printed it onto the back of the gold mirri and have added some tiny papermania adhesive shimmer dots to the centre. I've also used one of the next size up of the shimmer dots to give her an earring.

Challenges entered:

Sketch 'n' Stash - the sketch (my new stash is the stamp and one of the papers)
MAWTT - Autumn Leaves
PaperPlay Challenge - Autumnal Colours
Stampin' for the Weekend - Colours of Autumn
Kaboodle Doodles - Let's see those leaves
Digital Tuesday - Fall Colours (all my papers are digital)
In a Sweetpea Dream - Anything goes

Thank you for visiting :o)

Mystical Halloween

2011-10-10T11:14:00.000+01:00

I don't usually make Halloween cards, but this is my second for this year and I've really enjoyed making them both. The backing papers are new ones that I've been working on and normally I wouldn't use just the one design in different colours like this but on this card they seem to go with the mystical quality I was after for this one. This is one of the images we received for the 4th round of the first progressive challenge over on CDAC. It's a Delicious Doodles image and I love it. The shaped mat she's sitting on is from the unlined journalling tags sheet as is the sentiment plaque. I paper pieced it and digitally 'sponged' around the edges with brown to distress it slightly which was good fun to do. Then I decided to experiment - I printed the backing mat and uncoloured image off on glossy photo paper so that I could colour with promarkers. I wasn't sure whether this would work because I have some silk finish photopaper that doesn't like promarkers at all. As it happens, I like the effect on this paper, but because it dries so quickly you need to work fast and you can't blend the colours in the usual way. On the upside though, you don't need more than one colour to do the shading! You aren't left with a glossy finish, but the textured finish you do get is a nice contrast and the colours are still very vibrant. I don't have a dark purple pm so the hair and shoes are a combination of amethyst and cool grey 5.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

CDAC progressive challenge1, round 4 - Halloween/Mystical and using at least one of the provided images.
Creative Craft - Sketch
Digital Tuesday - We like to party
The Paper Shelter - Halloween Party
I love Promarkers - Spooky
Joanna Sheen Forum Challenge - Halloween

Thank you for dropping by :o)

Halloween Mischief!

2011-10-10T00:10:00.000+01:00

Well my lovely little muse has struck again! As soon as his Nana shared a photo she took of him in his pumpkin suit, I couldn't resist and the pencil and paper had to come out and Halloween Mischief! was born! I used one of the unlined journalling tags as a mat and distressed the edges by sponging with brown. I used the same tag for the greeting, just making it smaller. The main bp is from the black & orange collection and the side panel is some orange card with a fine corrugation that I've had in my stash for ages and that I backed with some back card to create a narrow border down the two long sides. I cut a swirl using a Marianne's die out of the same black and finished the design off with some faux brads. Tip: use a hole punch, a piece of foam and two embossing tools to create faux brads out of scraps of card stock. That way you can be sure of having the right colour to match your project - and if you get yourself a divided box, you can punch lots out of tiny scraps of precious card stock such as mirri so that you get as much as you can out of it.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Top Tip Tuesday - the sketch
Gingerloft - Use the colour orange
Crafting for all seasons - Pumpkin
Charisma Cardz - Black & Orange
Joanna Sheen's Forum - Halloween

Thank you for your visit today and for the lovely comments you leave, they are much appreciated.

The Holly And The Ivy

2011-10-07T10:19:00.001+01:00

It's that time again already - Challenge #51 at CACB is to be inspired by a Christmas Song - any Christmas song! I couldn't get "the holly and the ivy" out of my head, I don't know why - it isn't a particular favourite but it stubbornly refused to budge! I don't have any ivy stamps or backing papers or dies so it was rather annoying - anyway, I eventually took the hint and decided to draw an ivy corner which is going into the shop as soon as I've posted this. What I've used with it are the pre-coloured holly wreath, one of the Christmas baubles and a bow from the embellishments sheet. (All from Crafty Ann's) The bauble and bow were coloured in photoshop and the ivy corner was coloured with promarkers (satin, forest green and pine). The greeting is a Humphrey's corner stamp that was part of a free set from a recent magazine and I've distressed the main base layer at the edges.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Heart Song - Anything Goes
PTW - Anything Goes
Truly Scrumptious - Distressing
Cooking it up with Katie - Fun, Fabulous and another F word - mine is 'festive'

Thank you for your visit today and I do hope you'll get the time to join us this fortnight.

Upside Down Post!

2011-09-30T16:44:00.000+01:00

This is one of those posts that I do back to front and show you the picture further down so that it minimises the chances of hubby seeing it if I inadvertently leave the page open on my computer. I've got in early with his Chrismas card this year!

I've had a few people tell me that they'd like to see the poinsettia with script and border image that I used in the last post in more detail because those I used for those cards were small to keep the sketch right. I hope you'll be able to see this one okay. I've used the predominantly red version here but it also comes as a predominantly green version. The background behind the script is clear so that you can put it over any digi paper you want to or print it onto any coloured paper you have in your stash. I've put one of the sheets from the 8x8 Gold Collection behind it and used one of the others for the base card. I placed it so that the gold paper looks like a mat behind the main image and then matted it onto a piece of mirri card leaving a very narrow 2mm border. I cropped the same image so that I had just the poinsettia and some of the script to minimise waste and printed it off another two times so that I could decoupage it which gives the card lovely dimension. The red paper is from the woodgrain brights collection and I've matted all three pieces onto gold mirri too. (There are 3 pieces but it isn't so easy to see that in the photo because of the flowers. The flowers are the 3D Short Petal and have been printed onto the back of the gold mirri before cutting out. The sentiment is computer generated and the only embellishments are the papermania glittery dome stickers and the two stickles glues in the middle of the flowers and the poinsettia.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' Stash - my new stash is the Poinsettia digi and the glittery stickers
Fab's Big Christmas Challenge - Poinsettias or Christmas birds (but Fab is happy for you to link any christmas theme)
The Pixie Cottage - Pop it up
Simon Says - Anything Goes, and they are trying to get to 1,000 entries
Charisma Cardz - Love (it is for my hubby)
Christmas Card Challenges - Hand made flowers

Take Two!

2011-09-27T18:14:00.001+01:00

My offerings today are very much CAS! I'm beginning to realise that I haven't appreciated the creative freedom that CAS can give us and it's fab for Christmas cards when we have so many to make. The challenge at Less is More this week is a Sketch and when I first looked at it, I thought I'd never pull it off without the recipient checking the envelope to see what had fallen off! I knew it could be done because of the fabulous samples done by Chrissie and Mandi - I just didn't think that I could pull it off. (What a wuss!! You could be forgiven for thinking I was brand new to card making instead of having been making them in all sorts of different styles for 8 years!)
Working on the basis of 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' I decided to go for it and these are what I came up with. When I showed the card with the red poinsettia last week, it got a very good response so I've come up with these two that have the faux embossed border and a script background - this script is different to the one used on the Gold and Silver versions. One being predominantly red and the other predominantly green. They have just gone into the shop today. They are png files so you can overlay them onto digital bp before printing them off if you want to. I overlaid these onto one of the sheets from the 8x8 Gold collection, then resized to just 6cm x 6cm. I love this aspect of digis, whether I want the image to take up the entire front of and 8x8 card or just a small area on a 6x6, I can have it. The sentiment is computer generated and printed directly onto linen effect card stock.
I'm also entering my cards into these challenges:

Rainbow Lady's - White space
Allsorts - Keep it simple
Fab's Big Christmas Cards Challenge - Poinsettia and/or Christmas birds.

Thank you for visiting today.

You Might Want Your Sunglasses!

2011-09-25T16:13:00.000+01:00

I have another card using a Ching Chou Kuik image today. The image is coloured with promarkers (thank goodness for the new nibs!) and I've resisted the temptation to give it a mat which is unusual for me, but I'm trying to take myself out of my comfort zone more often because I think it's great for creativity. The main bp is from the mottled stone collection and the brown one of from the embossed hearts collection. The orange piece has been on my stash since the year dot - It has a nice, very fine corrugation to it but I don't use orange very often so we have another step outside the old comfort zone! The third step is the distressing, something else that doesn't seem to come naturally to me - it does help to give the layers texture though and I do seem to be getting better at it. I don't have a 'proper' distressing tool but my thread cutter for embroidery silks seems to do a decent job although I probably won't be able use it for cutting anything else now...........

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Heart Song Inspirations - use the colour orange
OLLCB - dies and punches
Digital Tuesday - People (the yellow and brown dps are digital)
Crafting for all seasons - Fall Colours
Sweet Pea Stampers - Fall colours
Passion for Promarkers - Sketch
Paper Sundaes - Anything Goes

Fortunately this card is destined for someone who loves bright colours!

Italia!

2011-09-23T00:30:00.000+01:00

I'm sure these weeks are speeding up as the year goes by! I can't believe it's a whole fortnight since our last challenge at CACB but another one is here already. This time our theme is Around the World so I have gone to what is probably my favourite country, Italy. I've used Venetian Mask 2 and digitally paper pieced it. Even the shiny bits that you can see are digital papers. After I paper pieced the gold and shiny blue parts (they weren't shiny when I first did it) I played around in photoshop with bevel and embossing and such like which is what made them shiny. It's worth having a play with whatever graphics program you have to see what you can do with it - you may get some pleasant surprises. I created the 3 dp's especially to compliment this mask but they've had a good response from the DT so they could well find their way into collections in the not too distant. I've distressed the edges - something I normally shy away from so goodness only knows why I decided to do it this time! I do like the result though, which could well be a first. The stitching is faux - done with a pokey tool and a promarker and again is something I normally shy away from, I think our last challenge must have got to me, lol! The Italia text is computer generated and the only embellishment is a feather. All in all, I really enjoyed making it and am going to share it with these challenges too:

Kaboodle Doodles - lots of layers
Incy Wincy - Distressing
Fab 'n' Funky -"It's a hard theme" - do something you normally shy away from
Gingerloft - Vintage or distressed

I hope you'll join us in taking a trip around the world from the comfort of your craft space this fortnight.

Whiter Than White!

2011-09-22T17:18:00.000+01:00

Good afternoon bloggers, here I am again with another CAS card. I've used a lovely stamp by Ching Chou Kuik and coloured it using promarkers. The new ultra fine nibs that you can get to fit over the existing bullet nibs are ideal for detailed stamps like this and I've been really indulgent with myself and used my two favourite colours here - the gorgeous turquoise shades and the lovely lilac shades. If you're interested, I created the mottled look to the background by going all over the area with a blender pen first then adding my colour while it was still wet, then using the blender pen again in a circular motion each time. I then cut the image out with a nesties label die. I'm loving white on white atm so I decided to do some paper weaving using white pearlescent paper strips and to give them more texture and definition, I've used 4 different cuttlebug folders to create two pieces for the diagonally opposite corners. I finished it simply with daisies punched from the same pearlescent white and added a tiny pearl to the centre of each. I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Less is More to help towards the 1,000 target
Southern Girls - Anything Goes
Rainbow Lady's - white space
Sweet Pea Stampers - Your favourite colour

Thank you for visiting today.

Here We Go Again......

2011-09-21T12:07:00.000+01:00

I think you might be able to guess where this one is headed!! lol! That's right, it's another for the girls' 1,000 target and Less is More. CAS cards are ideal for Christmas I think because I don't like coming up with one design and making all my Christmas cards to that one design so I can still make lots of different designs and get enough made. This one uses a cuttlebug embossing folder, and a gold ornament and star from the metallics range. I've added glitter peel offs around the edge of the embossing just to give it definition. I've had these peel offs a while, I bought quite a few because I liked them (unusually for me) but have found that they peel back off again pretty quickly so stopped using them for ages. I've got round it now though by drawing a line of glue with a Quickie pen and adding the peel off to that so I'm a happy bunny and can get them used up. There is more glitter too - I've picked out some of the embossing with stickles frosted lace but this is a very subtle glitter and doesn't show too well in the photo. The other challenges I'm entering my card into are:

CHNC - glitter
Truly Scrumptious - Clean And Simple
The Paper Shelter - Anything Goes

Hope your day is a good one!

Another LiM Card!

2011-09-20T16:22:00.001+01:00

If you'd said to me a week ago that I'd be gaily turning out CAS cards like I am this week, I'd have found you a darkened room to lie down in!! I seem to be developing a taste for them though. It started out because I wanted to try and help the girls at Less is More reach their 1,000 target, but the more I'm doing, the more I'm enjoying it. I've always liked them when other people have shown them on their blogs but just couldn't seem to get them right myself - it just goes to show that anyone can improve with practice! lol! This is entry #3 from me and is very simple. I've used my favourite corner flourish stamp and embossed with detail gold ep then picked out various parts to add some wee dabs of diamond stickles to. The Butterfly is the gold embossed effect from the Butterfly 2 sheet and I've digitally paper pieced it and added more of the diamond stickles. I cut two out so that I could add a second layer of just the body and two top wings - this makes all the difference to it when you see it in real life. I think I could have made the butterfly a bit bigger, although I don't think it would want to be too much bigger than this. I'm also entering these challenges:

Stamp with fun - Anything Goes
PTW - Creature Comforts

Thank you for dropping by and I'll be back with another one soon........

LIM again...

2011-09-18T17:45:00.000+01:00

Here is the third card I promised you! WOW! Three in one day - of course it might be Friday before you see another one.......
This one is also for the 1,000 attempt at Less is More.......the only thing is that I'm not sure that it qualifies on account of most of the white space being on a layer. I'll let the girls decide and if they say no, they can remove it. I enjoyed making it anyhow so I'll tell you what's what and which other challenges it's for. The image is from Just Inklined and is one of the 5 images for round three if the 1st progressive challenge over at CDAC. I coloured the image with promarkers and cut it out so that it was at the top of the panel then emossed the lower half with a new embossing folder and embossed two straight lines with my score board so that I could stamp the greeting between them - and that is basically it other than a blue mat to help make it 'pop'. These CAS cards are starting to grow on me I think! I'm also entering it into these challenges:

PTW - Things with wings
Alphabet Challenge - Q is for quick and easy
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - A Birthday Creation

Swirly Christmas

2011-09-18T16:53:00.000+01:00

Here is the second post I promised you in my previous post. It's been inspired by several challenges starting with Bah! Humbug! This week the girls want to see flourishes or swirls. This stamp from Sheena Douglass is one of my favourites and I've embossed with halo gold ep which has a lovely sparkle to it. As I've also been inspired by the Limettes at Less is More, the only other thing I've added is this Poinsettia with script and faux embossed border from Crafty Ann's. It is available in both gold and silver but I've been having a bit of a play with other colours which is why this one is red. I have to admit that the jury is still out as to whether it will find it's way into the shop so feel free to leave your thoughts if you wish. Back to the Limettes - as the girls now have over 1,000 followers they thought it might be fun to see if they could reach 1,000 entries this week so I'm doing my bit to help. This is the first of two I've got made - what have you done to me girls?????? The theme is Anything Goes as long as it's CAS. I also had Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge in mind which is why I opted for the sparkly ep because Hazel wants to see sparkle (and what is Christmas without it??) ABC Christmas want something beginning with S so I've gone with swirls and MWATT also want sparkle - there is some extra sparkle with the diamond stickles in the centre of the poinsettia too.

That's quite a lot of bases covered for one CAS card I think!

Let's Celebrate!

2011-09-18T15:56:00.000+01:00

Good afternoon bloggers, thank you for dropping by today. I've been a busy little bee and this may even be the first post of three today!! This card is for my B-I-L's birthday. He likes his x-box and other stuff like that so this image from Mo Manning is perfect for him. I've even coloured the chair appropriately although the skin tone won't be quite right seeing as he and my sister have just come back from cruising the western mediterranean! The flash has bleached the skin tone out on this anyway, it's slightly darker in real life. I've kept the card very simple - the two bps are from the polished stone collections and the text is computer generated and added to the two brown pieces before printing off. I've used sketch #7 from Sketch 'n' Stash because this fortnight they have given us the freedom to choose any from their past catalogue. I've had the image for a year and only used it once so I think it qualifies for neglected stash!

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Top Tip Tuesday - Birthday Time
DP2 Challenge - Celebration!
Crafting For All Seasons - Birthday

I'm off now to make hubby a coffee - poor soul is in the process of trying to replace the garage roof but the weather isn't playing at all nice! There's no choice but to get it done before winter sets in though :(

I'll try to get back with the other two I promised but if I don't, I'll do them tomorrow.

Seeing Double!

2011-09-13T17:26:00.000+01:00

I'm gonna let you into a little secret - just don't tell anyone else, okay? Good - one layer cards TERRIFY me! I'm not kidding, I've only just finished breathing into the paper bag....... I have to confess that I do like me layers! Making this one has stretched me though, and that's a good thing - in fact I could have entered it into our current challenge at CACB, lol!
I've coloured the Faberge Style egg in photoshop and given both some depth and dimension with drop shadows and bevel and embossing. The friendship sentiment and brads were also created in photoshop and are lovely and shiny in real life. I do like how it has turned out, but am still fighting with myself not to add something else to give it physical dimension.
I'm entering it into these challenges:

Less is More - seeing double
MTTC - a kaleidoscope of colour
Raise the bar - All white backgrounds
Alphabet Challenge - P is for Pretty Pastels

I don't know whether I'll ever be totally converted to one layer cards but I do like the CAS look, so you never know.........

It seemed like a good idea....

2011-09-13T16:51:00.000+01:00

...at the time - honest, it did! The current challenge at Bah! Humbug! is paper weaving - something I haven't done for ages but always enjoyed. This time I decided to do something a bit different and see if I could do it digitally in photoshop. This is because I'm determined to learn how to use as much of what photoshop has to offer as I can. The end result I am thrilled with, but by 'eck I could've made a couple of dozen in the same time doing it the old fashioned way! I'll be quicker next time I want to do it because I know what I'm doing now - says she more in hope than confidence! All the papers are from Crafty Ann's as is the central topper which is the silver Poinsettia with script and 'embossed' edge from the new Metallics Range (don't forget these are on bogof until the end of the month). I printed it out twice (cropping it so that I didn't have to waste ink printing what I didn't need) and cut out the poinsettia to layer it up. I've backed this with silver mirri card to give the card a little more oomph - well, it is for Christmas! I've finished it off with some silver glitter peel offs in the two corners and one in the middle of the poinsettia. I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Fab's big Christmas cards challenge - Poinsettias or Christmas birds
Digital Tuesday - Celebrate the season (any season)

Thank you for dropping by today.

CACB #49

2011-09-09T00:30:00.000+01:00

Another fortnight has rolled around again already and it's time for challenge #49 at Crafty Ann's. This time we want you to make yourself uncomfortable - do something you'd normally shy away from. When I first started this scrapbook page, it was intended for the scallops challenge last month but it ended up taking me well out of my comfort zone and there was only one to put it in!! I've created a digital scrapbook page and had set myself the challenge of doing one without the aid of a dedicated scrapbooking program and creating it solely in a graphics program. The dedicated programs are great because they have different elements and papers already built into them and you can buy others to add to them. You can use any digital papers and elements though and like I have done here, use a graphics progam which is a great way to see if digital scrapbooking is for you before you lay out your hard earned on a specific program. What took me out of my comfort zone was learning how to create the scalloped edges I wanted and once I had mastered that, I had a ball! The new metallics range was created with digital as well as actual scrapbookers and card makers in mind so they were ideal. I've just used gold here because I've been wanting to creating a sepia version of our wedding album ever since I finished the coloured one 4 years ago and I just never seem to find the time and although I'll eventually make a 'real' one, in the meantime I can enjoy creating a digital one.

I've used 3 papers from the 8x8 gold paper pack, and 1 each from the polished stone and embossed hearts earth tones collections.The hearts and winged hearts are from the Gold Embellishments sheet. I put the photo behind the smooth version of frame #2 and one of the great things about a digi is that I could fiddle about with the shape slightly so that it suits the bits of the photo I don't want to lose. I used the textured version of the same frame to create a plaque for my journalling and as you can see, I've made the size and shape suit the text. I've re-sized and added another two of the hearts to look like heart shaped brads.

Creating this has given me a lot of pleasure so I want to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone too - you never know what it might open up for you! I'm also entering my page into these challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
YNS & Charisma Cardz both want us to be inspired by a song. Well, 'our song' is My Best Friend by Don Williams.
2 Sisters Challenge Blog - Friends. We genuinely started out as very good friends.

Do pop over and see the inspiration from the rest of the team, they have produced some stunning work despite (or maybe because of?) being uncomfortable, and I hope you'll share your inspiration with us too.

Mischief!

2011-09-08T00:05:00.000+01:00

This is for a rather special lady but I won't say any more than that in case she reads my blog before she opens it. I've used the new Mischief! digi and coloured it by digitally paper piecing the floor, wall and basket and have used promarkers for the rest. I sat the image into one of the smooth silver frames from the new metallics range and used one of the other smooth silver frames for the sentiment which is computer generated. I've embellished with white punched daisies that I've added pearls to, Marianne Designs flourishes cut from silver mirri card and home made 'card candy' made from the same silver mirri. I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Top Tip Tuesday - Easel card
Little Red Wagon - use a die cut
Simon Says Stamp - Multifold cards/creations
Raise the bar - paper piece
Totally Gorjuss - Sketch

Thank you for dropping by today.

May the Spirit of Christmas.....

2011-09-07T17:15:00.000+01:00

The current theme at Bah! Humbug! is to make the sentiment the focal point of the design. When I want to do this I ALWAYS reach for this stamp. I must have had it for a good 8 years now and it finds it's way either onto or inside almost every Christmas card I make. It's made by PSX and unfortunately I don't know whether it's still available - but you'd have to fight me for mine!! lol! I've stamped with versamark and embossed with gold fine detail ep. The bow and bauble are both from Crafty Ann's and I've given the outlines a gold embossed look digitally and used a gold twine to join the two. This is probably the cleanest and simplest Christmas card I've ever made but I do rather like it. I'm also entering it into:

Less Is More - colour theme, metallic
The Paper Shelter - Embossing of any kind
Pile it on - B is for......anything beginning with a B! (Bow & Bauble)

Thank you for dropping by today :o)

Progressive part 2!

2011-09-04T15:59:00.001+01:00

We're on to round two of the current progressive challenge on CDAC and once again we have 5 images to play with. This time they all have a back to school theme but as I don't have a need for anything back to school, I decided to make a card to go with a present of a book. I've used this cute digi from Jen's digi stamps and got the distinct impression that the little fella couldn't wait for me to finish the card so he could get on with his book!!

I had a fancy to go with an autumnal look because I love the colours of the season even if it has come around before we've even had summer this year!! My only embellishments are the gold short petal flowers and the textured 'brads' that I'm playing around with. The jury is still out as to whether I like them though I must admit. I've used two bps from the mottled stone collections and one from the embossed dots collection.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

PTW - the lovely sketch
Digital Tuesday - Going Buggy
Moving Along with the times - hand made flowers
Stamp Something - September digi day
Card Making Mamas - Going digital (everything is digital)
Saturday Challenge - the colours of autumn

Thank you for dropping by today.

Here come the girls!

2011-08-31T10:48:00.003+01:00

When I saw the current challenge of 'Here Come The Girls' at Bah! Humbug! my favourite Kenny K image just had to come out again. I used one of the unlined journalling tags to create a nested style shape and played about with it in photoshop and came up with that rather interesting effect - don't know if I can ever repeat it, but rather liked it as a backdrop for this lovely image. The dp is from the embossed stars brights collection and I've simple teamed this with some bright white that I also made the faux 'brads' from. I coloured the main image in photoshop and have added some stardust stickles to all the white 'furry' bits and also to the faux 'brads'. The text is computer generated. I really enjoyed making this and was inspired by several other challenges too:

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - build it up (at least 3 layers)
Sketch Saturday - really liked this one.
Pile it on - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! - I reckon she is!
Charisma Cardz - Glitter it! - any excuse for this is a good 'un!

That's another one into the Christmas box, and I must say that this is a much more civilised and pleasurable way of getting them done rather than a last minute dash!

Tea? Don't mind if I do!

2011-08-29T15:40:00.000+01:00

I'm just about squeezing in with a couple of days to go for the first round of the first progressive challenge on CDAC. There are a whole lot of great entries so far. For each round we get 4 images to play with but because I've only had time to make one card, I haven't had time to use them all. I did manage to combine two on this one card though! I've used Chef by Jenlee for Digistamps 4 Joy and Tea pot and cup by Sandi Huggett. I chose my colour scheme by choosing my papers first and I love turquoise and various shades of. I know you don't usually get fuchsias in these two shades but I had a fancy for a monochromatic look - you'll be pleased to see that I was a bit more traditional with the cakes though! The I've given each layer a gold mirri mat and embellished with home made 'card candy' made from the same mirri. The text is computer generated and printed directly onto the main dp.
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Cooking it up with Katie - this week's recipe is: something wet (tea - if I'm being too cheeky with this Katie, just remove the entry), a brad or two or three and add a border
Card Patterns - another fab sketch
Heart Song Inspirations - Anything Goes and/or Favourite colour combo

Thank you for dropping by today, I hope you are having a good one.

It'll be all white on the night!

2011-08-26T12:52:00.003+01:00

Well I'm so far behind today that'll it'll be tomorrow before I get this posted if I don't get a move on!! It's time for Challenge #48 at CACB and this time our theme is: It'll be all white on the night! The only colour should be on the main image. I've become rather fond of WOW backgrounds so really enjoyed making this. My topper has been created using the textured gold frame #3 (which isn't as dark as this in real life) that I've digitally paper pieced a piece of mottled stone paper (from collection 5) into. The butterfly is brand new and will be going into the shop today with some other new digis. The butterfly sheet has 3 of the same image on it - there is the usual black and white line art, a gold embossed outline effect and a sliver embosses outline effect. I've used the gold embossed outline here and digitally paper pieced it with various papers. All are from Crafty Ann's. I've sussed out another way of digital paper piecing that is easier and quicker so I'll do a tut on that as soon as I get the chance. I cut the butterfly out and shaped the wings before adding it with pinflair gel glue so it has lovely dimension to it. I've used a pearlescent white paper to create the backing for my topper. I used a corner punch without the guides to create the two edges and put the whole thing through a papermania embossing folder and added the pearls after I'd attached it to the card. The only other embellishments are the lovely Marianne Designs flourishes top and bottom.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Card Patterns - the lovely sketch
Ooh-la-la - No backing papers
PTW - Dies to die for
The Paper Shelter - Die cuts and punches
Heart Song - Shabby Chic and/or Pearls (I've just gone for the pearls)
Sew Many Cards - Edge punches (I hope using the corner punch as an edge punch counts)

Thank you for dropping by today, and I hope you'll get the chance to come along and WOW us this fortnight.

Wedding

2011-08-24T12:53:00.002+01:00

We have quite a few nephews and nieces between us and this weekend one of them is getting married. This is the card I made for them and have taken the opportunity to personalise it. The lilac dp is from the embossed hearts, pastel collection and I cut some pieces out using the robo which I've alternated with pieces of pearlescent white cut the same way The main image is from the Love is all around sheet 1. I digitally paper pieced the sleeve and coloured the rest in photoshop. The heart frame is in the shop in gold or silver in the metallics range but as yet, not in this colour, as is frame #2 that I used to create the sentiment plaque. The plaque was backed with the same dp. You can't really see it in the picture, but the heart has been added using pinflair glue gel which has given it a lovely dimension and shape. The only embellishments I added where the row of padded iridescent hearts along the bottom and the white organza ribbon and although you can't see it, there is some stickles on the bracelet and cufflink.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Kaboodle Doodles - Ribbon
Tuesday Throwdown - Dimension & Texture
Tanda Teaser - Monochrome
Allsorts - You've been framed
Fab 'n' Funky - Mono Madness.

Thank you for your visit today and I hope that whatever you are doing, yours is a good one.

Donald Where's Yer Troosers!

2011-08-20T11:20:00.000+01:00

In case you're wondering about the title, this song pops into my head every time I use this image, lol! The card is for my nephew's birthday and I thoroughly enjoyed making it. I've used 3 dps from Crafty Ann's. The tartan is from Collection 1 and I created a torn edge look digitally and printed it directly onto the base card. The other two papers are #4 from the gold collection in the Metallics range and the red polished stone from the brights collection. I created a torn edge look for the horizontal red strip and laid it onto the gold piece before printing. All the gold strips and the red panel I laid out on an A4 sheet in word so that I could get them the right size to cut out. The red panel behind the image is the same paper and I've lightly distressed the edges. The image is Fit As A Fiddle and I've coloured it with a mix of digital paper piecing and colouring. Apart from the tartan for the kilt and the tam o'shanter, I also used a piece of the woodgrain for the violin and added some highlights to it.

The sentiment is part of the FAAF sheet and says"kick up your heels, it's your birthday!" I overlaid the sentiment onto a piece of the gold dp and put the gold frame #2 over this to make a little plaque, adjusting the frame to suit the sentiment. The frame, image and home made 'card candy' have all been added with 3D foam to give dimension.

My thanks to the following challenges for inspiration:

Sketch 'n' Stash for the lovely sketch
Paper Playtime - Anything Goes
Tuesday Throwdown - Non-stamped sentiment
The Pixie Cottage - Big on Birthday
Inky Impressions and Rainbow Lady's Challenge - Song (Donald Where's Yer Troosers!)
One Stop Crafts - Bold & Bright

Thank you for stopping by today, hope you have a great weekend.

A Pearl......Or Two!

2011-08-12T11:45:00.004+01:00

I think I need to start this post off with an apology for the quality of the pics! The light was awful and seeing as I have a light box and a daylight bulb, I think we'll just leave my photography skills out of it!!! lol!

This card is for my brother and s-i-l who are celebrating their pearl wedding anniversary on monday. It's also my sample card for CACB where our theme is Scallops and/or Fancy Borders. I've started off with a scalloped 8x8 base card and then kind of gone to town with the new Metallics Range from Crafty Ann's and just launched this week. To celebrate the launch of this new range, they are on special offer of buy one, get one free - so make sure you don't miss out.

My main dp is from the silver collection - these papers are 8x8 so I shrank it slightly before printing so that it would look right against the scallops. I laid the Morning Glory (using the hybrid version so that I still had white areas for colouring in) onto another of the papers from the same collection and also used the same one for the sentiment plaque that I put behind the smooth version of silver frame #2 and altered it's size and shape to suit the text (this is one of the things I love digis for!)

The white panels in the opposite corners have been dry embossed for extra texture and I've mounted the Morning Glory panel onto a mat that I cut with the robo. My embellishments are the lovely Marianne Designs flourish, 3 of the silver 3D short petal flowers from the Metallics Range and lots of pearls.

Even though I was to the wire time wise, I still really enjoyed making this and it came together how I hoped it would so I'm really pleased with it. I suppose I'd better nip out and get it in the post now - but before I do, I'm entering it into these challenges:

Incy Wincy - something old, something new. (My old is the pearls because as soon as I have opened my last packet, I go and buy two more so I've had them for a bit and my flourish die. The new is all the metallics stuff)
Papertake Weekly - Grow Your Own. Use flowers that you have made yourself - although I printed these flowers off, I cut them out and shaped them by hand to two layers
The Sisterhood of Crafters - Anniversary
The Pixie Cottage - I've used both the sketch and the theme of say it with flowers
Cooking it up with Katie - Emboss A Summer Punch (embossing, summer and punches or die cuts)
Cute Card Thursday - Clean and Simple
Fussy and Fancy Friday - Use a lot (3 or more of your favourite embellishment. I've used 3 flowers and lots of pearls.)

Thank you for visiting today, I do hope you'll get chance to join us at Crafty Ann's but be sure to pop over and check out the wonderful samples from the rest of the DT and welcome our newest designer, the lovely Leesa (aka The Navy Wife).

White Christmas

2011-08-05T11:51:00.002+01:00

Good friday morning bloggers - at least, it is as I'm writing this! I made this card a few weeks ago and haven't got round to blogging it yet. I was reminded though when I saw this week's Bah! Humbug! theme of WOW. I only tried wow for the first time earlier this year and really like the effect even if hubby thinks it could do with a little colour! The embossed tree is a papermania folder that was free with one of their magazines earlier in the year. All I've added to it are a few pearls and a satin ribbon bow. The mat it's sitting on was designed using the silhouette software and cut out with the robo - in fact it was the first one I designed after downloading the software. The topper was added to some silver mirri card and apart from stamping the Merry Christmas I decided to leave it at that.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Tanda Teaser - Ribbons and Bows
PaperPlay - Christmas in August
Raise the Bar - Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by today, I hope it's a good one for you.

CACB #46 and a sneaky peek

2011-07-29T00:30:00.000+01:00

It's Friday and time for the next challenge at CACB - geez but these fortnights are coming round at an alarming rate! This time our theme is Summertime.......and the living is easy....

I know I'd love my easy living summertime to be somewhere like this and I'd love a souvenir like this egg to bring back home too. :) I've used the Faberge Style Egg, Tropical Beach digi. One of my favourite ways of colouring scenes is to use lots of layers of ink and sponging it onto the image from the edges inwards starting with the palest colour and finishing with black. On this occasion I decided to see if I could replicate this look when colouring digitally and I'm really pleased with the result. I found I got the best results using the spray can setting. The dps and flowers are a sneaky peak of the some of the metallics collection coming to Crafty Ann's very soon so look out for them and a special offer when they hit the shop. Although the daisies come with leaves, I decided to use a Marianne's designs swirl in the same gold mirri card backing the narrow strips.

I'd also like to share a tip with you - when you are using digi products, whether they are bps or images, you can design your card in a graphics program or MS Word so that you only print out what you need and can see whether it is going to look how you want it to before you start. It saves on ink, paper and mistakes.

The picture on the left shows the card as I designed it with the elements to be printed and the picture on the right shows them all separated out and ready for printing. I made a 6x6 card and got all the elements out of 1 A4 sheet of rather nice silk finish card stock and not one drop of wasted ink. You can still use this method with an uncoloured image of course.

I'm entering my card into these challenges too:

Paper Sundaes - Beachy or Summer
Sketch Saturday - the sketch
PIO - Fun in the sun + as many challenges as possible
Top Tip Tuesday - Make it girlie
Creative Craft - Let's 3D it (the flowers are 3 layers each and the egg has been shaped and added to the card with pinflair gel glue
CFAS - Beach/Ocean
Stampin' Royalty - Summer!!!

Thank you all for dropping by today and I hope you'll get the chance to join us this fortnight.

Wishing You a Shapely Christmas!

2011-07-18T17:32:00.003+01:00

Good afternoon fellow bloggers - today's card has been inspired by several challenges. I'm breaking from the norm today though and not going into too much detail because you are getting a sneaky peak at some new things being worked on at Crafty Ann's. I can tell you that the ornament is available as a black and white digi stamp along with two others and the red bp is from the woodgrain brights collection. I've added some gold text to it for this card.

The challenges I'm entering this card into are:

Craft Your Passion - Text it
Creative Inspirations - Christmas in July
Creative Inspirations Wednesday - No flowers at all
Charisma Cards - It's in the stars
Bah Humbug - shaped cards
Stamp Something - Christmas in July
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Seeing stars

I hope you like this early sneak peak and thank you for dropping by today.

Two for the price of one!

2011-07-15T00:30:00.000+01:00

It's time for our new challenge at CACB and challenge #45 is: Dry Embossing. I love adding a bit of texture with my folders so have had fun for this one. I'm showing you two cards this time because I wanted two on a similar theme for two members of the same family.

For this one I've used three bps from Crafty Ann's - Mottled stone from Collection 5 (the big piece), Polished stone, brights collection (purple) and Embossed Hearts, pastel collection for the paper backing the roses. The image is from the Pre-coloured Pink Roses sheet. The embossing folder that I used is the cuttlebug swirls. I've finished it off with some punched daisies and added some stickles to the centres although they don't show too well in the photo. I'm entering this card into these challenges:

Top Tip Tuesday - the sketch
Kaboodle Doddles - Use those scissors (the image of frame, bp and roses have been printed off as one and I cut it out around the frame before mounting it with foam pads to the embossed piece)
CYP - Just for you
Simon Says - Anything Goes

For this one I've used two bps from Crafty Ann's. The main one is a Mottled Stone again - is from collection 7 and a pastel version from collection 5 which I made really pale so that it was almost a cream to put behind the daffodils which are from the Pre-coloured Daffodils sheet. This time my embossing folder is birds and swirls. I've finished it with ribbon strips and butterflies that were part of the silhouette studio library and cut out with the robo. I added gold stickles to the bodies. I'm entering this card into these challenges:

The pixie cottage - sketch and theme of Wrap it in Ribbon
C.R.A.F.T - Butterflies
MAWTT - Favourite Things (ribbon, digi images, dry embossing)
Creative Belli - Custom made bellies

Thank you for visiting today, I hope you'll pop over to CACB and find time to join us - you'll be most welcome!

Sending You Hugs

2011-07-01T00:30:00.003+01:00

Good friday morning bloggers! It's time for a new challenge at CACB and this time the theme is Get well/Thinking of you/Just because. It's lovely to be able to send someone a hand made card or gift when they need a lift and the fact that you were thinking of them when you made it and took the time and trouble to do so means it can carry with it a wealth of love and healing so I really enjoyed making this one - although I'd much rather it wasn't necessary.

My dp is from Funky Collection 1 and is the first time I've used it but it won't be the last! The image is the Peacock Fan and I've coloured this digitally in photoshop. The mat it's on and the sentiment.......label (I don't know what to call it so if you have any suggestions, don't be shy about leaving them!), I created using the silhouette software and cut them with the robo. I'm particuarly happy with the main mat - I cut out some circles to go in the centres and went round the very edges (with a foam mat underneath) to shape them but when I laid them in place it didn't all look quite right so I decided to try putting the mat through a swirls cuttlebug folder before adding the shaped circles and it transformed the whole look! The sentiment label is raised in the middle and the two fancy pieces glued to the card which also adds extra interest. The sentiment itself is from a papermania clear set that I got ages ago. The partial border on the right hand side was created from the waste pieces from the sentiment label - I had cut more than one as a "just in case". Tiny pearls in the gap at the bottom stop them from looking like waste and using them helps to tie the whole design together. More pearls adorn the other two corners to complete it.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges with thanks for the inspiration:

Kaboodle Doodle - Going in circles
Top Tip Tuesday - Things beginning with "T" (Turquoise and if it isn't pushing it too much - tail feathers)
Ai Factory - Embellish it. My favourite embellishment is probably pearls, they can transform a card.
Truly Scrumptious - Things with wings
The Paper Shelter - Anything Goes
My Mum's Craft Shop - something old, something new (the image is new and the dp is old)
PIO - Going round in circles and at least one other challenge.

Thank you for visiting today and I hope you'll get chance to join in with us this fortnight.

Walkies!

2011-06-24T17:14:00.002+01:00

Good afternoon bloggers, my card today is for a forum card swap so I hope my partner doesn't pay me a visit before she receives it. I've used Daschsie from Crafty Ann's and coloured him in photoshop. I've added a ball for him to play with from the A Safe Pair of Hands set. My bp is from my stash and came with a graphicus guild paper pack a couple of years ago. I have a drawer full of these and have decided that it's time to stop stroking and start using!! Then I went a bit mad with the gold mirri........... I've cut the main image out with a nesties die then drew around the same one onto the back of the gold mirri to create a mat for it that only has a narrow border - I find that I don't always get the result I want if I use the next size up. I printed the 3D short petal flower onto the back gold mirri before cutting it out and shaping it. Then I have to thank forum friend Mags for giving my robo a new lease of life! Thanks to her, I learned that the Silhouette Studio software is compatible with the robo so I downloaded it to give it a go and have created some lovely mats and borders with it over the last few days Including the one you see here with the embossed bird and grasses panel. This panel is separate and added on top because originally I had a piece of paper in the centre of it but decided I didn't like it and decided to put an embossed panel on top. The inner circles are home made mirri card candy and finish the panel off beautifully in real life. The leaves that I've put with the flower were also cut out using the robo and are part of the library that comes free with the software. The ribbon is narrow white satin that I cut out of a new t shirt (the loops that keep it on the hanger in the shop and get in the way when you are wearing it!) All in all, I've really enjoyed how the creative process has evolved as I've gone along with this one and I hope it gives my partner as much pleasure as making it has given me.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

The Pixie Cottage - Outdoor fun
Crafty Creations - Let it shine! (I think all this gold mirri is pretty shiny)
Creative Belli - The letter G (gold)
Crafting for all seasons - Summer
Truly Scrumptious - Sketch
Stampin' for the weekend - My Favourite things (digis, embossing, gold mirri)
Sew Many Cards - Dry Embossing
Top Tip Tuesday - Cross it - (my ribbons)

Thank you for dropping by today, it's always lovely to have you visit. :o)

CACB #43

2011-06-17T11:56:00.001+01:00

Puff! puff! pant! pant! I'm meeting myself coming back again today so I'm a little late getting my post up! It's time for Challenge #43 at Crafty Ann's and this time it's Christmas in June - simple as that so it's a great opportunity to top up your stock of cards or do something ready to decorate your home with.

I love to decorate the house for Christmas (some of you may remember that last year it went to the extent of making a cover for the tissue box) and have decided to go down that route for my DT sample. I love the range of things that are available for us to decorate our homes with at Christmas time but I also like to have some hand made things too.

I have specifically made this as a decoration for us, but I originally designed this as a card and the instructions for making the basic gatefold card with recessed frame is here. You can fill this with anything you like and it's great for housing decoupage. I've used the pre-coloured poinsettias and 3D small peteal flower which I printed onto the back of some gold mirri card. Both are done to 3 layers with plenty of height between the layers. The flourishes are a mariannes die. I've used another of the mariannes dies on the front along with one of the pre-coloured poinsettia faberge eggs which I shaped and added with 3D foam. This image is only one of 6 colourways and you get all six on the one sheet. Of course the great thing about digi stamps is that you can make them whatever size you want. All the white bp is pearlescent paper stamped with a solid poinsettia stamp that I've had for ages and embossed with sprinkle & sparkle guilded ivory embossing powder.
I'm not entirely sure that it's finished yet but I've plenty of time to think on it!!

I'd like to offer you two tips at this point: 1. if you are planning to do something a bit more time consuming than usual and need to do it to a deadline, DON'T leave it to the last minute!!!!! 2. if there is something that you know you'll use a lot (I do with these poinsettias and 3D flowers) print (or stamp) a full sheet off and cut them out while you're watching your favourite TV programme then you'll have them to hand should you fail to follow the first tip! I plan to use this second one myself very soon!! lol!

My card is also for these challenges:

Lexi's Creations - No sentiment
Kaboodle Doodle - Floral Showcase
MTTC - Xtra images (more than one - I think I've got that covered!)
Top Tip Tuesday - Open theme
Southern Girls - Anything Goes
Winter Wonderland - Christmas Flowers.

Well that's it I think! Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you'll get the chance to play along this fortnight.

"Whateva!"

2011-06-14T18:21:00.000+01:00

Eeee - but I enjoyed making this! I actually won this Kenny K digi about 6 months ago but haven't got around to using it until now. The prompt came from this week's Bah! Humbug! The challenge is called "whateva" and we're to think teenagers. As soon as I saw this challenge I knew what I was going to use and I think she's perfect. I've coloured her in photoshop using my bamboo. I always take a lot longer colouring this way but I do enjoy it and progress a bit more each time. I don't think the photo shows it but I've used crystal glitter on all the 'fur' areas. I've framed her with one of the tags/labels I'm working on and managed to make it look like a 3D frame. The swirls are a marianne die and the flower is the 3D Short petal flower from Crafty Ann's, printed onto white pearlescent paper with gold stickes added to the middle. The red dp is the embossed dots from the brights collection and the white pearlescent strips were put through a Docrafts border embossing folder. The sentiment is from a See D's set and stamped onto another of the label/tags (elongated and squished slightly - love digis for this sort of thing). I've edged this with stickles and added a red pearl at each end.
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Winter Wonderland - swirls & pearls
Kenny K's Krafty Girlz - Favourite colour. (At Christmas, it has to be red - bet you wouldn't have guessed if I hadn't told you!!)
Crafty Sentiments - Add some sparkle

Thank you for dropping by today and for the lovely comments you leave.

A Safe Pair of Hands!

2011-06-09T15:20:00.001+01:00

Good afternoon bloggers! I had good fun creating the card I'm sharing with you today. I've used the new digi set that's being sold to raise funds for the Great North Air Ambulance, "A Safe Pair of Hands". You get 4 sheets with this great set, 2 b & w line art and 2 coloured and ready to go. One of each sheet contains 2 goalmouth scenes and the other one of each are the individual elements so that you can use them seperately or create your own scene with them. All for just £1.50p. If you'd like to help this great cuase, this is a great way to do it and you'd have digis to play with too!

You can see bigger pictures if you click on the link above, I've just put them all together here as one to save space.

For my card, I decided to create my scene using the individual elements so that I could place them just as I wanted them. I created the background in photoshop and used the hybrid versions of the digis so that they would remain white when I printed them off which I then coloured with promarkers. I also printed 4 footballs off to use as embellies which I shaped with a very large ball tool. The shape of the image has been done using one of the labels/tags I'm working on. I've used polished stone and woodgrain effect dps and faux stitching on both. I haven't added a sentiment yet because I haven't decided who or when it will be for. I have decided that it's for the following challenges though:

Sketch 'n' Stash - sketch, new digi set and very neglected stamp set for the brown faux stitching
Passion for Promarkers - I'm glad I could do this to fit the current challnge of blue and brown because it was originally intended for last week's!
Digital Tuesday - In the garden/outdoors
PTW - Anything Goes
Fab 'n' Funky - Magnificent men (well, this little chap will be one, one day!)
CYP - Anything Goes
Stamp Something - digi day
Fussy and Fancy - Card for a man or boy

Thank you for dropping by today, and for the lovely comments you leave - each one is very much appreciated.

Something A Bit Special!

2011-06-03T11:44:00.001+01:00

I'm sharing this blog post with two rather special and talented people. At the beginning of May there was some activity in our family that we could all have done without when my 10 year old nephew and neice were involved in a riding accident. I blogged about it here so won't repeat it all again now, but as both of them are keen card makers, I hit on the idea of making a card kit for each of them to make their own Get Well cards! Both have done a fabulous job - and as they fit the criteria for our challenge at CACB which is to use more than one image, they have joined us at GDs. I'll share their cards first:

Zoe's card has used the Easy chair from Crafty Ann's and Video Girl from Mo Manning. All the card & bps were from my stash. We are entering Zoe's card into these challenges too:

Inky Impressions - Shine on (silver mirri card)
2 Sisters - Anything goes
PCJ - Anything Goes

Jamie's card used A Safe Pair of Hands from Crafty Ann's and card and bps from my stash. This digi set is being sold to raise funds for the Great North Air Ambulance and as they airlifted Jamie to hospital this is our way to say a huge thank you. Now, I may be just a tad biased, but I think these are two very talented 10yr olds - and Jamie effectively only had the use of one arm when he coloured this! We are also entering Jamie's card into these challenges:

CYP - What a Guy!
Do it with digis - All about the boys
Fussy and Fancy Friday - Card for a man or a boy

Okay - now I have to try and follow these!! We sometimes get inspiration from unexpected quarters and the inspiration for my card came from this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show! I was very taken with a garden called "The Art of Yorkshire" in the small gardens category and the combination of images that I used just took shape in my mind's eye. It was a lovely garden and to me, it deserved better than the silver medal it was awarded by the judges - it did win the people's choice award though so obviously others agreed with me.

I've used Bridge Over Stream and a couple of images from In the Artists Studio - both from Crafty Ann's and which I've coloured digitally. The main bp is from Embossed Dots, pastels collection. The 'lace' is a rubber stamp that I've had for ages and I stamped it onto silver paper and embossed with silver detail ep. I put the two pieces of pearlescent white paper through an embossing folder for extra texture. This is one of those cards that I really enjoyed making because of the way it came together - when I get such a clear idea in my mind's eye, it doesn't always translate!
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' Stash - sketch and my neglected lace stamp
Incy Wincy - nature
Scrap Creations - Blue, Yellow & Green
Fab 'n' Funky - What'eva

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you'll get the chance to come and play along with us at Crafty Ann's this fortnight.

Ebony & Ivory

2011-05-28T13:10:00.000+01:00

Good morning fellow bloggers, I want to share something that's a little bit different for me today. This card is to fit an ebony and ivory theme for a swap. I've had this stamp for quite a while and it's the first time I've used it. I've quite often done sepia toned pictures and this time decided to give the black and white look a go. I stamped the Sweet Pea image with tuxedo black ink and coloured it with all five of the cool grey promarkers and a spot of black. I've highlighted parts of the image with stickles although this doesn't show up too well in the pic. Then cut it out with a nesties labels 4. The large bp is from the black & white collection from Crafty Ann's. To embellish I've used black satin ribbon, black & white punched daisies and black and white pearls.

The challenges that inspired me for this one are:

Priscilla Styles - the fab sketch
Passion for Promarkers - 2 of something, I've gone for the 2 colour option with black and white
MTTC - use a die cut
I love Promarkers - Pearls
Theme thursday - texture and/or layers
Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes.

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you have a great weekend.

Awwwwwww!

2011-05-21T10:13:00.001+01:00

Good saturday morning to you all - I hope the weather is nice where you are for the weekend. Yesterday was one of our GD's 2nd birthday and this is her card. I've gone for a monochromatic look this time and, trying to avoid the 'pink trap,' have used aquamarine instead. The two bps are from Crafty Ann's as is the 3D Flower in the bottom right hand corner. I've used the 3D Daisy and leaves and made the flower to 4 layers in 2 sizes out of pearlescent paper then popped a pearl into the centre. The main image is Bunny in a Box from Delicious Doodles which I've popped into the centre of a tag that is a work in progress for the shop. I've coloured it in photoshop and am very pleased with the result. I'm getting quicker at digital colouring but it still takes me a lot longer than using something like promarkers. What's really great about it though is all the colours at my disposal.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Incy Wincy - Clean & simple
CYP - Cutie Patootie
Fab 'n' Funky - Make your own blooms
MAWTT - Sketch
Alphabet Challenge - Clean & simple
2 Sisters Challenge Blog - Use a digi (main image and daisy)

Thank you for visiting today and for the lovely comments you take the time to leave.

CACB Challenge #41

2011-05-20T00:30:00.001+01:00

Well another fortnight has zoomed by already and it's time for Challenge #41 at CACB. This time our theme is Oriental. I love doing oriental cards but seem to have got into the habit of using lilac for them - must move out of my comfort zone for the next one!!! I've gone for a more muted look with this one. I've used polished stone for the two bps and created a bp from the polished stone and the coloured lanterns for the lower strip. The digi stamps that I've used are: blossom kimono, blank lantern (I've added the Happy Birthday text before printing it) and one of the cherry blossom branches. My colouring is mostly digital along with promarkers. I cut the kimono out with a nesties label 4 and have edged this and two of the bps with stickles. I've also added some tiny drops of gold stickles to the centres of the blossoms on the branch but the photo doesn't show this. I've finished it with 3 'brads' made from a scrap of the darker bp.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Kaboodle - tic, tac, toe. I've used a digi, a die cut and glitter
PTW - Bloom & grow
Gingerloft - Plant a tree
Paper Sundaes - Birthday
OSAAT - Anything Goes
By the Cute & Girly - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Sparkle & Shine
Truly Scrumptious - Anything Goes
CFAS - Anything Goes

Thank you for dropping by today and I do hope you get the chance to join us for this one.

CACB #40

2011-05-06T13:07:00.004+01:00

Well not to put too fine a point on it, it's been quite a week! I really thought that for the first time since we started the challenge, I wasn't going to be able to get my sample card done. I finally managed to finish it off this morning. The reason that I'm so behind with it is because my beautiful 10yr old nephew and niece were involved in a riding accident last weekend when they were on a long weekend break with their parents at Centre Parcs. It would seem that there was a shotgun fired on the nearby Lowther estate which 'spooked' the horses and they were thrown. My niece has cuts, grazes and bruises and seems to feel that she got off fairly lightly but my nephew had to airlifted to hospital with a broken upper left arm just below the shoulder and a broken right lower leg which at this moment is in a full length cast. They are at home but it's all go atm. I'd just like to insert a HUGE THANK YOU! to the Great North Air Ambulance for whom my sister has nothing but praise.These wonderful people receive no official funding at all and rely on donations to find the £3.6m they need each year to provide this vital service for Cumbria, the North East and North Yorkshire. If you'd like to show your support and gratitude, follow this link to their facebook page.

Now onto my slightly belated card. Our theme this fortnight at CACB is Happy Birthday! I've used a new digi called H on Accoustic. The bps are from the woodgrain collection and the embossed dots collection, both from the earth tones. I've slightly distressed the edges of these with Brilliance galaxy gold. The main image was coloured with a mixture of digital paper piecing (tutorial here) for the sky, bandana, shirt and jeans and then coloured digitally in photoshop using my new wacom bamboo pen & touch. Colouring like this isn't a quick option and I need a lot more practise, but it's a great tool and it's great having so many different shades of colour.

I've finished off with a See D's stamp for the greeting and some homemade gold mirri 'brads'.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' stash - free choice of one their lovely sketches. I've chosen no 7
Creative Inspirations - Digi Day
CYP - Anything Goes
PTW - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Paper Piecing
Cooking it up with Katie - Use green, add some punching (homemade brads and the corners of the mat under the main image), and two of something (I've used two bps and used two pieces of each)

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you have a less eventful fortnight and get the opportunity to join us.

An Old Favourite

2011-04-26T13:33:00.001+01:00

The challenge at Bah! Humbug! this week has caused me to re-visit an old favourite. The theme of the challenge is the great man himself - Santa Claus or Father Christmas. Like most people, I have umpteen stamps and images of Santa, but this one from Joanna Sheen's Victorian Christmas CD has been a firm favourite from the moment I clapped eyes on it - I think it's because it's so gentle. I've stamped some holly corners using a free stamp from a docrafts magazine and embossed them with halo gold sprinkle 'n' sparkle embossing powder and matted the Santa image onto some gold mirri cut out with a nesties shape and I rather like the way it looks like it's in a frame. The bp on the bottom of the card is one I created to go with this image (there are some bps on the CD for this but I felt like a change). The bow is from the embellishments sheet and I drew a 'ribbon' to put behind it and printed them off onto some beautiful yellow pearlescent paper that I've had in my stash for eons and embossed with fine detail gold embossing powder. I just finished it off with homemade gold mirri 'brads' and that's another one in the box and assigned to it's recipient ready for writing later in the year. :D

As well as the Bah! Humbug! Challenge, I'm entering my card into Craft Your Passion who want layers and Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challege where Hazel wants us to bring a little bit of Easter into Christmas by using some yellow on our cards. Thank you all for the inspiration!

CACB Challenge #39

2011-04-22T00:30:00.001+01:00

I can't believe that it's time for another challenge at Crafty Ann's already! It's true what they say about time speeding up........
Anyway, on to the card. I'm getting well ahead because this one is for our GS's 19th birthday in June. Our theme this time is Fancy Folds - these can be the card itself or on the card - or both, as I've done here. The folds don't have to be complicated and I've chosen an easel card. I decided to keep it fairly simple colour wise and let the tartan take the lead.
The image is new to the shop and came about as the result of a request - something to reflect the energy of traditional scottish music! I must admit to being stumped at first so I did what I always do in this situation, and left the thought to 'ferment'. Sure enough, part way through an episode of NCIS, this image started to form in my head. I was a scottish dancer for 10 years and I think that's where the idea started and 'Fit as a Fiddle' was born!
I shrank a piece of the tartan paper (from Collection 1) in photoshop and digitally paper pieced the kilt and the Tam O' Shanter. (There's a tut for digital paper piecing here if you want it.) If you shrink rather than crop the paper, the pattern reduces too to make it the right size for the image. I coloured the rest of the image using promarkers.
I used the same tartan at normal size for my backing papers and made the piece for the easel into a frame. The stamp in the bottom right hand corner is a quotation by Mark Twain and the rubber stamp is from Sweet Pea. It doesn't show in the picture but the black card on the base has been put through the c/bug argyle folder and the sentiment, which is one of the three on the Fit as a Fiddle sheet, has been cut out with a nesties label die. A few black pearls and some homemade 'brads' finish it off.
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Stamp with Fun - Birthday
Scrap Creations - Digital
Pixie Cottage - Happy Birthday
I love Promarkers - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz - jokes and laughter (anything to make you smile/laugh)

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope you'll get the chance to join us for this challenge.

Tropical Paradise!

2011-04-11T12:00:00.002+01:00

This card was inspired by several challenges and I really enjoyed making it. The tropical beach FSE, has been entirely coloured using digital paper piecing. There is a tutorial on how to do this here. The papers I used to do this are:

funky collection no:2, paper 10
woodgrain effect, earth tones collection, papers 1, 4 & 6
polished stone pastels #1
polished stone brights #6

I've used the same funky collection paper as my main dp too. I've used some lovely white pearlescent paper for edged with a fiskars edge punch and the punched daisies have been punched from the same paper. The greeting is a See D's stamp embossed with white detail ep and embellished with a home made 'brad' and diamante gems. A satin ribbon that started off white and was coloured with cyan promarker finish it off.
I'm entering my card into these challenges (thank you for the inspiration) :

Truly scrumptious - sketch
Cute Card Thursday - totally tropical
Pixie Cottage - paper piecing
Gingerloft - We've got the blues
Pile it on - Say it in style (bling up the sentiment) and combine with as many challenges as possible.

Thank you for dropping by today, but I'm afraid I've got to cut and run now - I've just had a rather exciting delivery! More about that another time............... :D

CACB #38

2011-04-08T09:19:00.001+01:00

Good friday morning fellow bloggers, it's a lovely day here and I hope it is where you are too. It's time for challenge #38 at CACB and this time we want you to Raise a Smile. This can be using humour on your card/project or it can be to make someone feel good, it's up to you. I've chosen to make a card that I hope will make it's recipient feel good. I've combined Mo Manning's "What's cookin'" image with the Aga from Crafty Ann's. I digitally paper pieced the wall and floor tiles (there's a tutorial here for how to do this) before printing the combined images off and colouring the rest with promarkers then cutting out with a nesties die.

The dps are both from Crafty Ann's - from mottled stone collection 6 and embossed hearts autumn tones. I've added some faux stitching to the emobossed hearts piece which isn't showing up so well in the photo but looks quite effective in real life. I got the friendship cake recipe from this website and added it to one the new journalling tags that will be in the shop very soon and backed both onto a piece of mottled stone paper from collection 5. I've finished it off with homemade gold mirri 'brads'.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Die Cut Dreams - Use a food themed digi (I've used two here)
PTW - Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations - Punches & dies
Inky Impressions - Die Cuts
By the Cute & Girly - Anything goes

Thank you for dropping by, I hope you'll be able to join us again and do pop over to see the rest of the samples from the DT, all are lovely and some of them made me chuckle as soon as I saw them.

Another New Year Diet??

2011-04-06T16:24:00.002+01:00

I've been singing since last Friday - I think I'm driving hubby mad though, because I can't stop singing "When Santa got stuck in the chimney!" It's the girls at humbug hall to blame though, for the current challenge at Bah! Humbug! they want cards that make you giggle. As soon as I saw this, I knew what I wanted to do - but I had to draw it first. I decided to create a new snowglobe sheet with Santa stuck in the chimney because a snowglobe seemed the perfect home for an image like this. The new sheet also has 4 sayings and I've used one of them here. They all begin with "When Santa got stuck in the chimney he began to shout" and the one I've used here finishes with "I wish I'd joined Weight Watchers!!"
I added the sentiment to a tag from one of two new sheets of journalling tags that will be in the shop very soon too. My colouring medium is promarkers and white glitter. I've gone for the red and white theme again and used some lovely red mirri that I've embossed for the snowglobe base and white pearlescent paper for everything else. Red mirri homemade card candy finishes the corners.
Thank you for the inspiration again girls and I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - Glitz
Crazy 4 Challenges - the sketch
Charisma Cardz - Bling and sparkles
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes

Thank you for dropping by today and for the lovely comments you leave.

CACB #37

2011-03-25T00:30:00.001Z

It's hard to believe, but another fortnight has whizzed by and it's time for a new challenge at CACB! This time our theme is to be inspired by an Elvis song. There's lots to choose from but if you need a reminder there's a link on the challenge blog to a great list. The DT have come up with a great selection for their sample cards, not all of them his best known songs. I've gone for 'Blue Christmas' - the only trouble is that I can't stop singing it now!!
I've used the tartan from the black and blue dp collection and the royal blue polished stone from the brights collection as my dps with some white pearlescent paper that I cut out with the robo. The sentiment is computer generated and the image is from the pre-coloured faberge style egg poinsettia sheet and I've added some stickles to bling it up a bit and shaped it before adding it to another piece of white pearlescent paper cut out with nesties labels 4. The white brads are home made from the white pearlescent paper.
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Fab's Big Christmas Cards Challenge - use a curl and/or picture
CCC - No rubber stamps (digi stamps are allowed though)
Inky Impressions - Monochromatic.

I hope you'll get the chance to join us for this challenge - I think Elvis had a song to cover every eventuallity so hopefully you will. :o)

Music & Movement

2011-03-24T14:00:00.000Z

This was an enjoyable card to make that I did for a card swap with the theme of music and movement. I don't make the smaller cards very often and this one works out to be roughly A6 in size. I've used nesties labels dies to cut the base pieces and all the mats but this is the one I can never remember the number of, sorry!

I've used a mixture of digis and rubber/polymer stamps here. The main image has the classical guitar and rosebud over laid onto Abstract 2 dp (all from Crafty Ann's) and coloured with promarkers. The base of the card uses the same paper that I've stamped using the free butterfly stamp from the current issue of Craft Stamper with lettuce distress ink. I stamped off and used the 2nd stamping on the paper so that the colour was more muted. I've also overstamped with a music stamp and london fog memento ink. The pink butterfly is the same Craft Stamper stamp using the twilight brilliance ink pad on a scrap of pink dp. I've kept it fairly simple other than that and my only embellishments are the 'gems' acting as a stop for the easel and a couple of small die cut flourishes.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Gingerloft - use die cuts and or punches
LRW - butterflies
Creative Inspirations - No square cards
The Crafty Pad - Use a digi
Fab 'n' Funky - Do it more than once (use more than one fold)
Colour Create - pastels

Thank you for your visit today, I'll see you again tomorrow.

CACB #36 & CDACCC19

2011-03-11T11:46:00.000Z

Sorry to be so slow getting my post up today, it seems to have been non stop since I opened my eyes this morning and at 11am, it feels like it should be at least 5pm! At least I can't complain about boredom!! lol! I have two cards to share with you today and am entering both into several challenges.

This first one is for Crafters Digital Art Centre's colour challenge 19. (There's a link to it in my side bar.) Crafty Ann's group is hosting this challenge this time. There is a free digi sheet for you to use for the challenge and you can see one of them on the card above. The colour part of the challenge is to use shades of purple, lilac and pink instead of the black and red we traditionally use on oriental cards. The freebie image is a sheet of two lanterns and you can use either or both. I've used just one on my sample card and have teamed it up with a new cherry blossom digi that is just new in the shop along with some other new oriental style images. The lanterns that are part of the challenge will go into the shop when the challenge finishes.

I've used the hybrid version of the cherry blossom digi and laid it directly onto the polished stone bp in two places before printing it out. The digi itself remains white when you do it this way which allowed me to colour

it with promarkers. It makes it look like part of the bp though and is a really nice effect. I coloured the main image with promarkers too and cut it out using a Marianne Designs die which frames it beautifully.

The second card is for the new challenge at CACB and at Crafty Ann's this fortnight we have an either/or challenge for you. You can use the sketch or the theme which is Spring or both. My sample card is using both and is my husband's birthday card - Shhhhh - I'm relying on you not to tell him! I've used dark brown woodgrain effect and a blue mottled stone from collection 5 bps and used the hybrid digi of the other blossom branch on the sheet and the bird on blossom branch directly onto the bp again. If you aren't sure what I mean by hybrid, it's simply a jpg with the background removed and saved as a png and you get this version, a jpg and a traditional png version in a zipped file. This is what allows the image to stay white when it's overlaid onto a digital bp. Once again, my clolouring medium is promarkers
I'm entering my cards into these challenges:

Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes (Both cards)
OLLCB - It's a man thing (the bird card)
Your Next Stamp - Feeling Blue, to have blue on your card (the bird card)
Simon Says - Anything Goes (both cards)
Southern Girls - Use flowers (both cards)
Moving along with the times - Card/project for a male (the bird card)
Frosted Designs - photo challenge (the bird card)
Gingerloft Challenge - Use those flowers (both cards)
Pile it on - up, up and away (bird card)

Phew - this feels like a marathon post! Thank you if you've stuck with it all the way to the end and it would be lovely to see you at both challenges.

Running Late...........Again!

2011-03-10T13:25:00.001Z

I'm running late again! The Bah! Humbuggers! must despair of me sometimes. I'm actually a little past the closing time for the current Bah! Humbug! Challenge which is embossing but I enjoyed making it so much that I'm going to link it anyway and thank both them and Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge (also embossing this week) for the inspriation.
I decided to go for more or less white on white because I do like this look. I've used a linen effect card for the base card and white pearlescent paper for the rest. The four squares were cut out using a punch then put through two different cuttlebug folders and the mat behind the image was cut out using one of the nestie labels from set 4. The image is from the pre-coloured Faberge style Egg Poinsettia sheet and the whole lot was placed inside an embossed square I did on the base card. A very easy card to do but really enjoyable none the less.
Thank you for dropping by today and for taking the time to leave a much appreciated comment.

A Vickie Quickie!

2011-03-06T19:09:00.000Z

This card was made for Nana Vic's group challenge over on CDAC. Vickie posts a digi for the group every fortnight but doesn't leave it up for very long. If you miss it though she will have it in her shop very soon I'm sure. This one is slightly different in that it doesn't come as you see it on my card. All the separate components are there for you to make up your own frame in the style and size you want it to be. I started off by removing just the background in photoshop. This leaves the image part white and I overlaid all the pieces to create my frame onto a piece of mottled stone backing paper from collection 5 then printed them off as one. I coloured the image with promarkers. The sentiment in the middle is one I made up and printed off the computer. I cut this out with a nesties label and coloured some white pearls with lilac promarker to embellish the corners. I thoroughly enjoyed myself making this and am entering it into these challenges too.:

Passion for promarkers - Sugar Rush must be pretty and girlie
Creative Inspirations - In the garden
Stamp Something - March digi day

Thank you for dropping by today and for all the lovely comments you take the time to leave.

CACB Challenge #35

2011-02-25T09:23:00.000Z

The new challenge at CACB has rolled around again and this time we're asking you for a birthday card. There's lots of Christmas Challenges helping us to get well prepared so we thought that it might be a good idea to add one to the birthday box. For my card, I've used the free papers that were on the challenge blog for you to collect all last week (hope you managed to get yours) and let them dictate the colour scheme. I've used Venetian mask 3 and coloured it with promarkers and added some turquoise glitter that I've had for years and some gold stickles. The glitter is slightly coarser than I normally use but the colour was perfect and it really sparkles in real life. I've distressed the edges of the two papers with a cutting tool that I bought years ago for cutting threads while I was cross stitching and works perfectly for this. I've embellished the corners with a clear stamp from a set that I've had for so long that I can't remember where I got it from or who made it - nor can I remember the last time I used it. I've embellished with white satin ribbon and a square buckle from the embellishments sheet which was coloured with promarker and stickles. The sentiment and image were cut out with nesties labels 4 and finished off with some little pearls coloured with the promarker again to match.
I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Incy Wincy - use punches or dies
Sketch 'n' Stash - the lovely sketch & my neglected stamp
Creative Inspirations - Distress
Truly Scrumptious - Swirls & Pearls
Rainbow Lady - Shabby Chic
Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes

Thank you for dropping by and I hope you get the chance to make a birthday card and join us this week.

CACB #35

2011-02-11T10:33:00.000Z

Another fortnight has rolled around already and it's time for Challenge #35 at CACB! This time the theme is Love Is All Around. You can go for any love themed occasion - wedding, valentines, anniversary, friendship etc. I've gone for friendship for my sample this time. My bp is the lilac embossed hearts and I added the "...and two friends" sentiment before printing it off. The triple hearts is from the Love Is All Around 1 sheet and I've stamped the cat and dog into the top two hearts. The cat and dog are both rubber stamps from Anita's that are among the first I ever bought so many moons ago. I love how we can re-size digis to accomodate whatever we want them to. All of these images have been coloured with promarkers. The 'stop' for the easel is the short petal flower that I coloured with a combination of twinkling H2Os and promarkers. I painted first then went over the top with the promarkers which has the effect of strengthening the original colour while the pearlescence of the twinkling H2Os still comes through. (It's a lovely effect and I think I'll give it a go with a Santa stamp at some point, his red clothes would be lovely.) I've mounted the main image and flower onto white pearlescent paper cut out with nesties labels 4 and finished off with homemade 'card candy'/brads, punched flowers and leaves, a couple of flat back pearls and diamond stickles in the flower centre.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Stamp with fun - Love
Paper Sundaes - 2 or more images
Rainbow Lady's Challenge - It's all about love
PaperPlay - Hearts & Flowers but not valentine
CCT - Hearts & Flowers
Digital Tuesday - From the heart
Papertake Weekly - Have a heart
MTTC - Hearts & Flowers
Passion for Promarkers - Let there be love
Frosted Designs - Use the word love

Phew! There's certainly lots of love around this week - let's hope it lasts all year! I hope you'll be able to join us for this challenge and don't forget to check out the inspiration the rest of the DT have for you - it's nothing short of fabulous!

It's a Conspiracy!!

2011-02-10T11:44:00.000Z

I'm not one to see conspiracy theories round every corner but I'm convinced there's one surrounding this card! All the components have been printed off, cut out etc ready for use since Saturday, I finally got it put together on tuesday but it's taken until now to get it onto my blog! Even then, I'd just started the post and my computer blue screened on me - I can't help but wonder...........
Anyway, I'd best be quick because I'm running out of time for some of the challenges. I've used wood grain effect bp and the pre-coloured holly wreath from Crafty Ann's. The sentiment is computer generated. I cut the holly wreath out and mounted this and the buttons onto white pearlescent paper that had been put through the swiss dots folder. All in all a very simple card but one I enjoyed making. It's for these challenges:

Bah! Humbug! - Buttons & Bows
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Use a digi
Sew Many Challenges - Anything Goes
Stamp Something - February digi day
Fab 'n' Funky - Tempting Texture.

Thank you for dropping by today.

Tropical Sunset

2011-02-01T14:32:00.001Z

My mojo seems happy to play just lately so I am taking advantage and going with the flow! This one is a birthday card and I've had a lovely time making it. I've used the Faberge Style Egg, Tropical beach which I've coloured with various inks and ink dusters and a couple of grey promarkers to give extra depth. I printed off the egg stand onto gold mirror card along with the diamond shaped buckle from the Embellishments sheet and heat embossed them with fine detail gold ep. I've used star dust stickles for the 'stones' in the buckle. My main bp is from Funky collection 3. I've mounted the egg onto a piece of white pearlescent paper wchich I've cut out with a nesties label (4 I think). Another piece of white pearlescent paper and a piece of matt gold card have both been put through different cuttlebug folders and the card has been finished off with a piece of white satin ribbon and 4 gold mirri 'brads' made using a 1/4" punch.

I'm entering my card into these challenges:

Friday Sketchers - the lovely sketch
Stampin' for the Weekend - Getting warmed up
Pile it On - Punch it
Paperplay - Layer it up
Southern Girls - Dry embossing
Inky Impressions - Emboss it
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes.

Thank you for dropping by today and for all the lovely comments you leave.

Love........

2011-01-29T12:30:00.001Z

This is one of those posts that will have the write up first and pictures below - just in case "him indoors" glances over my shoulder while my blog is open on screen. Eeeee - the lengths we have to go to sometimes!

This weekend, we're having a heart themed group hop over on CDAC:

It's running until 9pm PST on 30th January (5am 31st Jan GMT) so there is still time to join in. 13 groups are taking part and all are donating an image, or in some caese, sheet of images to be won - not by one person but by every person who completes the hop. There are also some individual prizes on some of the groups along to way too so if you are a member of CDAC, make sure you don't miss out and if you aren't a member yet, why not join? It's free and is full of all sorts of resources - just click on the link above.

I can't show you Crafty Ann's contribution to the freebie pot, but I can show you a card I made using some of the elements on the sheet. It's for my husband for our anniversary in February - and you know what it's like trying to do something suitable for a man! I've used the single heart image from Love is all around 2 to create the easel card base and mats. The rest of the images are from Love is all around 1 which is the free sheet and will go into the shop when the hop finishes so if you don't get to do the hop, you'll still be able to get the sheet should you want it. My dp's are from the embossed hearts collections.
The mat underneath the winged heart is sliver mirri that I put through the printer then emossed with fine detail silver ep. The text says "On our Anniversary" repeatedly - I then cut this out with a nesties labels die. I added the text to the winged heart in MS Word. My colouring medium is promarkers for all the images along with some silver glitter on the wings. I've finished off with punched flowers and leaves and some pearls and crystals. I really enjoyed making it and hope my hubby will think it special - but I think I should show you it now!

I'm entering my 'labour of love' into these challenges:

AiF - For the boys
Alphabet Challenge - M is for men
Charisma Cardz - Valentine/Love
Pile it on - Love is in the air

Thank you for your visit today and for the lovely encouraging comments you leave, they are much appreciated.

CACB #33

2011-01-28T00:30:00.001Z

It's already time for another challenge at Crafty Ann's and this time the challenge has been chosen and hosted by our lovely Kym. The theme is Silver, gold & white and I loved making this card. As soon as I saw Kym's theme I knew I wanted to use 3D Flowers. I think it's because of the gold flowers that I used on the poinsettia wreath that I made for last Christmas. (Click here if you want to see it.) I did the flowers slightly differently this time though - for the wreath, I printed onto the back of the mirri and embossed the lines with an embossing tool before cutting them out but this time, inspired by the lovely Irene, I printed onto the metallic side and heat embossed with fine detail ep in gold and silver as appropriate. I've done gold on gold and silver on silver but I think it would also look good the other way around.

My bp is white pearlescent and I've also used a strip of this instead of ribbon throught the Marianne Design die cut. I cut my two circles out using the robo and added gold mirri 'brads' to all the scallops.

Of course it's been somewhat of a challenge trying to get a decent photo with all the shine, but it's one of those cards that feels well worth it. It's already on it's way to a rather special friend for her birthday.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Sketch 'n' stash - the sketch, neglected - robo
The Sisterhood of Crafters - Anything Goes
Crafty Creations - Heat it up (embossing)
Pixie Cottage - sketch and/ or Flowers (I've just used the flowers)

I will certainly use this colour scheme again and I do hope to get to see your interpretation too so why not pop over to our challenge and join us?

Meet Daschsie...

2011-01-26T16:48:00.000Z

Daschsie the Dacshund is a newbie digi in the Crafty Ann's stable and he came about as the result of a request from a lovely blogging/forum friend, Ann. This is the first time I've used him and I must say that I've become rather fond of the little fella!
I've been inspired by several challenges and I'll list them in a minute but first I'll tell you what I've used. The 2 dps were in my stash from when I was a Graphicus Guild member (well, I had to use them sometime!) and I edged them with gold pentouch pen. I coloured Daschsie with promarkers and cut him out with nesties and added the background with duster brushes before taking it out of the nestie. The next size up was cut from gold mirri card and put through a cuttlebug texture embossing folder. I punched 5 flowers and 3 leaves from gold mirri (won't be doing that again!) to embellish and added pearls to the flower centres. Three gold mirri homemade 'brads' finish it off.
The challenges my card is for are:

Digital Tuesday - the sketch
Simon Says - Animal Antics
Fab 'n' Funky - delight in your digis
CUIWK - Recipe: use a current challenge, texture and a punch
MTTC - emboss, emboss, emboss
OLL CB - 3 of a kind
Craft Your Passion - 2 Patterned papers

Thank you for visiting today.

Pleeaase!

2011-01-25T13:47:00.000Z

Don't you just want to take sympathy on this little fella waiting so patiently for someone to pull the cracker with him???? The theme at Bah! Humbug! this week is Christmas Crackers - nice and easy thinks I.......until I went to check my not inconsiderable stash and couldn't find a rubber stamp or digi image with a cracker on it anywhere that is! There was only one thing to be done so out came the sketch pad and pencil and as a result there are now two new Christmas sheets in Crafty Ann's featuring crackers!

I've used Cracker Teddy for my card and had fun blinging it up a bit. The main bp has been in my stash for ages and I think is from Artylicious. The silver mirri mat was part of a kit from QVC eons ago - it's gorgeously shiny, but I couldn't get the photo to show that today. It has Merry Christmas repeatedly debossed into it. My 'brads' are all homemade mirri card ones and I've used a red mirri flourish (a Marianne Designs die). My colouring mediums are promarkers and glitter for the tinsel and the 'fur' bits on his hat.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Mojo Monday - Sketch
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Bling
OSAAT - As You Like It
Glitterbabe's Challenge - Anything Goes with Sparkle
Passion for Promarkers - Let it shine

I've thoroughly enjoyed playing with my teddy bear and I'd like to thank the girls at Bah! Humbug! for inspiration on two fronts this week! :D

January Birthday

2011-01-17T15:40:00.000Z

January is one of those busy months for birthdays and this card is for the only male in the line up. I've used the lovely sketch from CD Sunday and because it's for a man, I've tried not to make it too cluttered. My bp is from Joanna Sheen's Fashion Boutique and I printed off 2 squares - the bigger one as the main bp and a smaller piece that I'd overlaid one of the pockets from the Jeans & pockets sheet onto. The iphone is a pic from the internet and just slotted inside the pocket. I coloured a piece of white satin ribbon with indigo promarker and finished it with homemade 'brads' in silver mirri and from a scrap of the denim paper.

My card is also for these challenges:

Creative Inspirations - Celebrate
Stamp Something - Anything Goes
One Stop Craft - A card for a male
Gingerloft - Celebrations
Pile it On - Anything Goes
PCJ - Let's get digital

Thank you for dropping by today.

CACB Challenge #32

2011-01-14T09:30:00.001Z

I can't believe another fortnight has gone by already - where is this year going to??? lol! This is a card I've thoroughly enjoyed making. Our challenge at CACB this time is "Ring in the new but don't ring out the old" and we want you to use new and old together. It can be stash, techniques, inspiration or equipment as a few examples. I've used a new digi stamp - the Faberge Style Egg - country scene and coloured it using a favourite technique by applying several shades of blue and a black ink from memento and brilliance with duster brushes. I've used new inspiration from lovely DT member Irene and printed just the base out onto pealescent silver paper and embossed with fine detail silver ep. I must say that I'm delighted with the effect. I've shaped this slightly before mounting it onto a nesties label die. I've used two neglected punches to embellish the corners and my much loved embossing folders to emboss the pearlescent paper. I was inspired by Digital Tuesday to try something I usually shy away from - white on white.......and I LOVE the effect so I won't be shying away from it again!

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Crafty Purple Frog - new designs/techniques
Stampin' B's Design Team - Use a die cut.
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Something New
Craft Your Days Away - Anything Goes
Saturday Challenge - Tons of Texture

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed making this card and I hope you'll get the chance to come along and join in with us for this challenge and give me lots to come an 'oooh & aaah' over.

First Card in 2011!

2011-01-11T12:32:00.001Z

.....and it's a Christmas card! Last year, thanks to Bah! Humbug! I had enough hand made cards despite major house refurbs going on for 6 months so I intend to do even better this year. I've made myself a promise that the insides will be completed at the same time and they will be tucked inside an envelope ready to write out and post - what's more, I'm making them with my list beside me and each one is being assigned to it's recipient and numbered as I make it!
So, to this card. I've used 2 digi paper bps - embossed dots from the earth tones set and a red mottled stone. I was delighted when the Bah! Humbug! theme was holly and or fairies this time because I got to use the pre-coloured holly wreath that I created last year and never got to use myself. I've also 'hung' one of the pre-coloured ornaments from it before overlaying them onto a piece of the embossed dots paper before printing them out. All of these are from Crafty Ann's. The sentiment is a stamp I've had for a long time now and I stamped it onto another piece of embossed dots paper and cut out with a nesties label die. I've simply finished it off with some border peel offs and homemade red & gold mirri card 'brads'.
It feels good to have got my first card under my belt and I'm entering it into these challenges:

Bah! Humbug! - Holly and/or Fairies
Kaboodle Doodles - Do it with digis (must have at least one digital image)
ABC Christmas Challenge - Anything christmas Goes
Stamp Something - January digi day

Thank you for dropping by today.

CACB Challenge #31

2010-12-31T11:31:00.002Z

You know, I love Christmas but it really seems to addle my brain - I almost forgot to post my card this morning! It's time for the final challenge of 2010/first challenge of 2011 at CACB and this time we have something we haven't done before. The theme is Same But Different - the same part is that the Faberge Style Egg, tropical beach image has to be used on your project to qualify and the different part is how you choose to use it. The good news is that for the duration of the challenge, the image is a FREEBIE! To get yours, all you have to do is pop over the challenge blog.

I've made my first ever tri-shutter card with this one. The main image has been coloured with promarkers then scanned into the computer for the smaller images (they're tiny and my eyes wouldn't be up to colouring them by hand lol!) I cut the main image out and shaped it before adding it to a piece of white pearlescent paper. The bp is from mottled stone collection 6. I've embellished with Marianne die swirls, bows from the embellishments sheet and homemade 'brads'.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges:

Paper Sundaes - Cut It Out - you have to have cut something out with Scissors
My Time to Craft - Brand Spanking New - (the image)
Digital Tuesday - Anything goes
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes
MAWTT - Birthdays & Circles

I hope you'll all come along and grab your freebie and share all your inspiration with us at CACB. If you like the new egg, there are several others available at Crafty Ann's including another scenic one.

CACB, Challenge #30

2010-12-17T09:44:00.000Z

Good morning fellow bloggers - today sees our final challenge at Crafty Ann's before Christmas and we're making it nice and easy for you so Anything Goes! If you're still making Christmas cards or projects, do share them with us and if you're sick of Christmas projects now, share anything you like as long as it's new. In my case, I have loads of birthday's in January so I need to be thinking about them now. The squirrel has to be one of my favourite images and is one of the earliest I drew. I stop myself using it too often so I still get a lot of pleasure from it when I do. This is the first time I've coloured the image with promarkers though. I usually use coloursoft pencils which I get a really good result with but this time I decided to bite the bullet and go for it - this was braver that it sounds because I was running to the wire time wise! I'm quite pleased with the result though so I'll be happy to use promarkers again. I created the background while the image was still in the nesties die with ink dusters and shaving brushes which work just as well. I used I used distress old paper and tea dye to create the ground and brilliance pearlescent sky blue to create the sky area. The bps are from Tartans Collection 2 and Mottled Stone Collection 6. The mat behind the squirrel has been cut from a piece of woodgrain effect from the earth tones collection. The bp's and Squirrel digi are all available from Crafty Ann's. The sentiment is computer generated and the card has been finished with 4 of my handmade gold mirri 'brads'/'card candy' in the corners.

I'm also entering my card into these challenges who all also have the theme of Anything Goes:

Thank you for visiting today, I hope you'll get chance to join in with us for our last challenge before Christmas and that you will check out our very last challenge of the year starting on 31st December which is something we haven't done before.

Non Christmas For A Change!

2010-12-12T10:16:00.000Z

This card is for several challenges and I know it will be recognised by one of the DT of one of them, because she was on the receiving end of it! I had to wait to show you it until I knew she'd received it so as not to spoil it for her. The main image is from Joanna Sheen's Dancing With Shadows CD and I've printed it onto white pearlescent paper.The main bp is from the black & white collection, the two flowers are the 3D Short Petal and the bow is from the embellishements sheet the latter three are all availabe from Crafty Ann's and again have been printed onto white pearlescent paper. I've added black glitter to the centre of the flowers and some chrystal glitter to the edges of the bow although neither seem to be showing up too well in the picture.The flowers and bow have all been added to a satin ribbon mounted onto white pearlescent and black mats. The main image was cut out with a nesties labels die as was the black mat behind it. 4 tiny white pearls and 3 black homemade brads/'card candy' finish it off.
The challenges I'm entering are:

CD Sunday - three of a kind
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - monochromatic
Alphabet Challenge - G is for Glitter
Stamp Something - December digi day (the two flowers and the bow)
CCC - Anything Goes
Little Red Wagon - Die Cuts

Thank you for your visit today and I hope you'll get the chance to join in some of these challenges too.

'Twas Inevitable Really.......!

2010-12-07T12:39:00.000Z

Well, Mo did say that she deliberately drew Kai to be either gender, so having done the blue Kai in a snowglobe, I had to do a pink one too!!! I've thoroughly enjoyed it too! Once again, I've used the Kai in the snow image from Mo Manning and the blank snowglobe from Crafty Ann's and coloured both digitally then added crystal glitter for the snow. The pale pink bp is from the mottled stone collection 5 and the darker pink one is just one I created to go with this image using the same colours I used to colour the images which I've put through an embossing folder. The sentiment is from the Piggin' Good Christmas sheet - again coloured digitally with glitter added. I've added my homemade brads/'card candy' made from a scrap of the darker bp to finish it off. (The snowglobe, mottled stone bp and Piggin' Good Christmas sheet are all available from Crafty Ann's.)
This card was inspired by these challenges:

Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
Truly Scrumptious - Sketch & Think Pink
Theme Thursday - Fun images
2 Sisters Challenge - Sparkly Christmas
Saturday Challenge - Christmas
Digital Tuesday - Baby It's Cold Outside
PTW - Red & Green Must Not Be Seen

Thank you for popping by today.

CACB Challenge #29

2010-12-03T09:35:00.002Z

It's time for the next challenge at Crafty Ann's again already! This time we have an either/or one for you. The theme is Christmas and there is also a sketch so you can do both sketch and theme or one or the other - it's entirely up to you. I had intended to do both until I remembered that it's one of my sil's birthday on the 9th of this month so I thought I'd better do her card instead. I often think that birthdays near to Christmas can get swamped by the festive season so I thought I'd do her card in pastel colours.

All the bps are from Crafty Ann's and are from: mottled stone collection 5 (main piece), embossed flowers collection 3 and polished stone, pastels. Both they and the image were printed onto pearlescent paper so getting a decent photo wasn't easy which is why the embossed flowers paper isn't showing too well. This is definitely one of those cards that looks better in the flesh! The image is Faberge Style Egg Necklace 2 and has been completely coloured with glitters - silver, pale pink and pale blue. The frame is one of the effects you can do in MS Word.The bow is from the embellishments sheet and I've coloured it digitally - it's actually silver although it looks blue in the picture. The rest of the colours are pretty accurate so I wasn't going to fuss over the bow!! lol! My homemade silver mirri/brads adorn the corners.

My card is also for these challenges:

MAWTT - For someone special (my sister-in-law)
Gingerloft - bows
Paper Sundaes - Adorn those corners
OSAAT - Bling it up
Fun at Fairy Knoll - All that glitters

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope that you'll join us at CACB.