My Time to Craft - New Baby

Another week at MTTC, where the challenge this time is to create a card for a New Baby!

I love making baby cards and one of my favourite things to use is an image of a pair of feet, this one being a case in point. What is it about babies' feet which is so appealing? I guess because they are SO tiny.

I'm always doing the pink/blue thing, so this time I thought that I'd make a card for someone to send to parents among that rare bunch of people who resist the option of finding out the sex of the child before he/she is born.

It wasn't a possibility in my day... the only time anyone had a scan was if there was a potential problem or risk attached to the pregnancy.

Both stamps used on this card were bought on eBay and I think are quite old, but I love them both. The embossing is Cuttlebug and the border punch is from SU.

Have a good day everyone!

One Stop Crafts - Paper Piecing

Here's Audrey the farmer from The Stamping Boutique once more. This time she's dressed in denim dungarees, which I paper pieced from a free download, denim paper from the Canon Scrapbook site. I shaded it a little with my Copics to give a little more depth.

She is mounted on my comparatively new Nesties and adorned with flowers from my similarly aged flower punch and embosser. I used tiny buttons for her straps and the flower centres. They are so small I have to pick them up by jabbing them with my pokey tool!

The deeper blue DP is also from the Canon site. If you've never looked at it, do pay a visit, it's well worth it!

I'm so grateful to Suzi a talented member of our DT at One Stop Crafts for giving us this challenge, it's a super technique and I really don't do enough of it! SO come along and join us!

One Stop Crafts - Feeling Fruity

I love this pear stamp, it looks Jacobean somehow; reminds me of tapestries and the like. Sadly I don't know what make it is, as it is unmounted.

I heat embossed the image with gold and partially coloured it with Perfect Pearls mixed with water. I think the paper is from Laura Ashley's range. The sentiment is from Papermania and the corner embellishments are from a Cuttlebug die.

This image maybe not the first thing that comes to mind when one reads the title for this week's challenge from One Stop Crafts, but it is a fruit!

My Time to craft - Make it Manly

Why is it that cards for men seem much more of a challenge than anything else? I think that with all the pretty stuff that is available for cardmaking, we are drawn to that and the poor old chaps don't get as much!

This image is one of the Jolly Nation series, which I have coloured with Copics and cut out to put into a little relief.

The paper is from HOTP and the tiny footballs were punched out of a piece of backing paper from Cuddly Buddly.

I made the sentiment on the computer using a free downloaded football font called 'Bend It' ... no prizes for guessing where that name came from!

DO come over and join in the fun at MTTC this week, we'd love to see your cards!

My Time to Craft - Lovely Lace

The strip of lace which I found in my sewing box, was exactly the right length for this card! What a piece of luck! I tried to echo the lacy look by using my eyelet punch from SU, and snipping the strip of punched card, almost through, between the scallops so that it would curve around the circle.

This lovely delicate lavender paper is a digi download from Cuddly Buddly entitled Fairy Fun.

The image is another lovely spring flower, (I have the snowdrop too) from Personal Impressions.

The little sentiment stamp from SU was bought second hand on eBay, I wish I had the whole set, but this stamp is one of the most well used in my entire collection. It's such a useful size, but it was made in 1998 which was long before I found my way into the wonderful world of card-making!

Another DT card for My Time to Craft. Do come and join in the fun!

One Stop Crafts - Spots & Dots

I love this little 'flat out' bear from Penny Black, and he seemed perfect for a Get Well card.

The theme for our challenge at One Stop Crafts this week is Spots and Dots, so I started with the spotty paper, a download from Pollycraft and added a few dots around the image in a little doodling. There are also a few dots (holes) in the border for which I used a punch from Stampin' Up.

The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Do join us with this challenge, we'd love to see your work!

My Time to Craft - Kids Cardz

My daughter's friend recently gave birth to a baby girl and Libby asked me to make a card for the the little chap who was now the 'Big Brother'. He is madly keen on tractors, so this is what I did for him. The image is a digi download from Cuddly Budlly, which I laborously coloured with my Copics. There is a ready coloured version in the set which is entitled Heartly Farm 2.

It's cut out and mounted on 3D pads and the sentiment was generated in Word Art and printed directly onto the card.

My daughter was pleased with it... let's hope George is too!

This is my DT card this week for My Time to Craft! DO come and join is!

Girly Happy Birthday

I've been trying to get this card done for about the last 4 days, but with my granddaughter staying here, my time seems somehow otherwise occupied!

It's for a few challenges

Creative Card Crew - It's a Celebration

Daring Cardmakers - Aquamarine

Moving Along with the Times - Sketch & One for the Girls

The image and papers are from Pink Petticoat with Cuttlebug's 'Victoria' embossing folder used for the white panel.

The sentiment is from Papermania mounted on Nesties. The flowers were made from my cut and emboss punches which I got with my latest stash from Farnborough Show.

I must admit that I've kinda got into the habit of using 2 ribbons at a time, I rather like the mix of satin and organza.

That's about it!

Sew Simple - One Stop Crafts Challenge

The DT at One Stop Crafts were SO lucky to be able to choose an image from The Stamping Boutique for this week's challenge. There are SO many wonderful images that it was very

difficult to choose and so I shall be revisiting the store for more! DO take a look as they are our sponsor for this week. You may be lucky if you join in with the challenge!

This one is entitled Audrey the farmer and is a real cutie.

The challenge this week is to have some form of sewing on the card. My machine has a problem where it continues to sew after I have taken my foot off the pedal, so for me it's faux stitching this time. It's probably straighter than if I'd tried to use a machine.

I use a Tim Holtz ruler, which has holes along one side, which helps me to get the pierced holes evenly placed before I add the pen lines.

Real or faux... have a go!

It's also for the challenge from Crafty Catz - Shades of green

Scallops!

My son-in-law has a birthday very soon. I don't quite know why I chose this image... it seems a little random, but I thought that it was kinda cute.... so this is what he's getting. I don't seem to have an abundance of images which are suitable for chaps. I gave him a rugby player last year, as he's a season ticket holder at Bath Rugby. I don't know if he has an affinity for mooses. He's certainly got more idea about reading than this chap (the book is upside down).

I thought the fancy knot that I learned how to do while ago would look preferable to a ribbon and also that I would keep the scallops simple.

It's for the scallop challenge from Digital Tuesday.

WOYWW

Here are the remnants of yesterday's card making session. I tried my hand at making an Oriental card. Took me a few tries to come up with what I actually did and this is the detritus! I'll have to have a bit of a PUSH OFF or PUSH ASIDE or whatever the expression is to make space for any more crafting today!
Swing right!
This drawer contains my sets of Cuttlebug alphabet dies.(Plus a few other 6x2 dies) I use these a lot for the personalisation of cards. They are particularly popular for people who have different or unusual spellings of their names. I know that some recipients have been delighted to have a personalised card for the first time in their lives as these cannot be easily purchased commercially. I usually use the Olivia set for the initials on my personalised Wedding Invitations. It has become a bit of a signature for me. Scroll down my blog for an example!
This drawer could do with a little reorganisation. I'm not really sure what is the best way to store dies. This contains a variety of makes so they don't fit into exactly identical spaces.

Join in the fun (WOYWW link on my sidebar) come and have a snoop with the rest of us!

Christmas Wedding Stationery

This is just a very quick post as my daughter asked me to blog this stationery which I made for friends of theirs some time ago!

She has some other friends who wanted to see the sort of thing that I do, so where better to show them than on my blog!

The couple who commissioned this stationery had wanted to have the rich red as an accent, but liked the colour so much they decided to have it as the main colour and use ivory as the accent. The bridesmaid's dresses for this Christmas wedding were this beautiful rich red colour.

This picture shows the Save the Date, Main Invitation, Thank you and place cards. You can also see the table plan on another post. (Click on Wedding on the Labels section on my sidebar to see the rest of my wedding stationery) I did do menus for them too, but I don't know what happened to my sample of that.

Oriental Card

Making this kind of card is a little bit outside my comfort zone, but when I saw the challenge from Sophisticats today, I remembered that I had this stamp which was a freebie from Craft Stamper Magazine. Until now it has remained unused in its little packet, but the joy of challenges is simply that... to challenge you, to stretch you into making things that otherwise would have remained untried.

I don't actually know what the characters on this stamp mean, if anyone can translate, I would be delighted to know what it says.

I decided to use the colour choice form Colour Create this week which is Red, Black and Off White... I used ivory.

The fancy border is from a Cuttlebug die, which because of its Curls and Swirls, makes it eligible for the challenge from Tuesday Taggers this week. They have a challenge sponsored by Crafty Individuals who supply fabulous crafty items and are giving a fabby prize, so why not check them out!

Also Corrosive Challenge - Asian Theme

The flowers are from a Woodware punch!

I'm off out now to do a little shopping!

Such a cute bear!

This is just a quick posting as I have to drive to the garage to pick up my husband, whose car needs a small problem fixing. It went in last week, but they didn't quite sort it so it's going back again today.

This card, using Helen's bear, Roger, a digi image from Ellephantastic Cards and Crafts, is for the challenges from Just Cute Bears, which this week is mint and brown. The sketch is from 2 Sketches 4 You.

The papers are from Clare Curd's Signature range. It's such a huge block of paper, I'm not sure when I'll get through it all, but I'll keep at it!

I used one of my favourite set of sentiments from Hero Arts.

It's very simple... but I like simple and I hope whomever receives this card will like simple too!.

My Time to Craft - Just for Mum

I love this stamp by Personal Impressions and the gently coloured image seems perfect for celebrations at this time of year. I like to use it for Mother's Day and Easter too, but it would be equally at home on a sympathy or regular birthday card.

My SU Eyelet border punch has been used again for both the straight and the curved edging.

This dear little greeting, which I have obscured once more with the watermark, is from Inkadinkado. Someday I'll learn how to use that software efficiently!

This is another DT card for My Time to Craft, and if you haven't joined in with our challenges previously, a card for a mum would be a great place to start! DO hop over and see the other DT creations.

Thank you!

This card combines a few challenges.

CCEE Colour challenge - Ruby Red, Creamy Caramel & Black

Crafty Angels -Photo Inspiration ... I used the colours

Cards & Things - Sketch

I don't have the exact colours described but these are as close as I can get with the stocks I have available.

I love the simple sketch from Cards & Things, but I have moved the embellishments slightly to balance the elements I used.

The photo inspiration from Crafty Angels, depicts a rich red which is why I chose to combine it with the colour choice from CCEE.

The background and image stamps are from Hero Arts and the sentiment is from SU.

I used the Cuttlebug Victoria embossing folder on the deep red section.

Now I need to press on and make a few more Mother's Day Cards!