New Teenager

I was asked to make a card for a friend to give to her God daughter for her 13th birthday. I found it a little tricky to know where to pitch the style for this age, until I saw the sketch at CASe this Sketch

...and then I knew what I wanted to do.

I simply partially inlaid her name covered in Wink of Stella and added a panel with her age encrusted in gems.

Job done!

This makes me happy

Today the mailman brought me a package from Simon Says Stamp... always a thrill!

This time it contained, among other things, this set of stamps from Mama Elephant! I think this little bunny is just the cutest thing.

This really made me happy!

I thought the scrap of gingham paper looked a little like a picnic blanket. It's mounted on a Dienamics pierced rectangle, with a stitched heart, also from Simon Says Stamp.

It follows the sketch from Colours and Sketches

The next one is my ever favourite Penny Back chicken... guaranteed to bring a smile to my face!

You might have guessed that this makes me happy, (it makes me happy just to be stamping and colouring them)  secondly the fact that she has some mail... especially if it contains some crafting goodies! 

I love these stamps from Art Impressions , they are such fun and I also love the topic of this particular one... Wine!

Here I used a background embossing folder of corks from Darice, a paper pieced sofa, and an image coloured with Mirage Pens. The sentiment is computer generated in VNI Thufap2 font.

It was fun doing these cards!

Burlap Hearts

I bought some sheets of burlap some time ago and I love how it adds texture to a card. It cuts beautifully with dies and here I added some double sided sheet to the reverse of the fabric before cutting. The hearts are from Little B.

The backing strip is a print, made using a piece of bubblewrap on my Gelli Plate. The flowers are from Stampin' Up. I'm not sure of the make of the little sprigs of foliage! The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

It's for Color Throwdown & CASe this  Sketch

     

I've just had a new chair delivered... I'm delighted! 

This one swivels as well as reclines, so I can swoosh around to look out of the window if I have a fancy to!

Mini

This is a really small card... 10cms square (approx 4ins), one of a set of six cards I made for thank you cards for a friend. The butterfly therefore is tiny! From Stamplorations, it's hand cut and mounted on a SSS stitched square, which in turn  is on a Spellbinder square, with  a larger embossed one behind it.... couple of pearls and that's it.

I bought a fabulous evening dress today, just need to book the cruise to wear it on now!

The challenge at CASology is Mini... this is certainly that!

More chevrons and butterflies

Here is another card with chevrons and butterflies, but different ones from prevously.

Here I used a chevron stencil cut from acetate on my Portrait cutting machine. I used a file bought on the Silhouette store this time.

I inked in  Ranger Shabby Shutters and SU Pistachio Pudding inks, before removing the stencil and staming some leaves from Stamplorations.

The butterflies are also Stamplorations stamps inked with Scattered Straw Distess Ink.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

The panel was cut with a Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle die and I added a few pearls and some wink of Stella to the buterflies to finish.

It's for the challenge at Color Throwdown.

What lovely colours!

Another video... Mixing Embossing powders

I made this video a few weeks ago but the editing software I was using didn't allow me to upload it to YouTube. Today my son showed me what to do to get round the problem and so here it is. I have blogged the card before but I thought I would just pop it here again together with the video.

Isn't it great to have clever children!

Chevrons

I drew the chevron pattern for this stencil in the drawing program of my Silhouette software and then cut it from acetate on my Portrait. I have found it really useful!

Here I daubed Rusty Hinge, and Wild Honey with a little Scattered Straw Inks through it before cutting the panel with a Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle, lengthening it slightly to suit my card base dimensions.

The die cuts are from All Occasion Dies (butterflies) and Simon Says Stamp (floral spray). The sentiment stamped in SU Pacific Point Ink is from Clearly Besotted.

It's for the challenges from Colours and Sketches

and CAS on Sunday challenge, Chevrons.

My son's dog Minnie was 'done' this week. Instead of the old Elizabethan collar, she is wearing a little suit to stop her from biting her stitches!
It looks kinda cool! Happy to say she is feeling fine!

Wings

I just love the chicken and duck images from Penny Black and here is another of them. This was simply stamped, coloured and cut out before mounting on dimensional  pads to accompany the computer generated sentiment in Crayon Crumble font.

More memory Box wings here, partly inlaid on a black, stamped and clear embossed panel with a Clearly Besotted sentiment!

The butterflies were cut from a piece of card coloured with Aqua Tint inks and over-stamped  and heat embossed in silver.

My 6 year old granddaughter Daisy was staying with us this week and this is one that she made... with a little supervision over the use of the heat gun! She loved doing it and has taken it home for her mummy!

This is the card I added to the Less is More blog for the Wings challenge this week. Is this chicken cool or is it cool?

Another chicken one here, this time without the legs and sitting on a nest! They are such fun aren't they!

I found a piece of card in my scraps drawer which I made by squishing plants and flowers between two pieces of card through my Cuttlebug. The colours always turn out so interestingly I added some Glamour Dust to the base of the  Memory Box butterfly which is accompanied by a sentiment from Clearly Besotted!

I could do card after card for this challenge, but I think this is enough for now!
Have a  great weekend.

Orange u glad!

My grandchildren have returned home today and so this afternoon I had a little play with some Aqua Tint Inks.

I looked at a YouTube video and then just messed about a bit. I'm sure some really interesting effects can be achieved with them. This is simply a die cut taken from a piece of card that I had applied a simple wash of colour onto a damp surface.

Looking at this card now I think that it might have been easier to simply colour the stems black, but in fact I die-cut them separately and then pieced them together! The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted and the die from Memory Box.

I used a pierced fish tail pennant from Die Namics  to make the panel on which the poppies rest, cutting part way and turning it to make both ends identical.

AAA Cards have this challenge, so this is for that. I don't often think of using orange, I don't know why, it's such a happy colour!

Monochrome

Don't you just love technology?

Yesterday, my laptop refused to acknowledge the presence of my current SD card and I was wondering how on earth I could get pictures of my cards into my laptop. A search for a camera cable proved fruitless and so I thought that as a last resort I could take pictures with my phone and email them to myself. 

However, this morning my laptop has had a change of heart and has decided to do the business and the pictures are now accessible on my computer!

Hence the picture for CASology's Monochrome challenge.

In fact this card didn't start out quite with this design but an inky finger put paid to my original concept. It started out as a tent fold rectangular card.

So I cut off the offending smudge and remounted the remainder of the card on a new base.

I took a strip of newsprint downloaded from the internet and over-stamped it with leaves from SU's Kinda Eclectic set.

The butterflies are from Memory Box and  All Occasion Dies with a few gems added. The sentiment is from  Clearly Besotted.

My grandchildren are returning home today... I may have chance for a little crafting... or a little nap!

Newsprint

I fiddled around with various stamps I have in my collection for the newsprint element of this card, for the challenge at Colour Q, before downloading a little from the internet. It was much more in-keeping with the other parts of the card.

The image stamps are all from Stampin' Up of varying years (Kinda Eclectic, Papillon Potpourri and Joie) and the sentiment a new acquisition from Avery Elle, purchased at the craft fair last Sunday. The top two butterflies were punched and the lower one cut out by hand.

I added a few metallic studs to the centres of the butterflies.
And now I need to get the chicken into the oven for Sunday lunch!

Fairy Kitty

This is my first attempt at colouring with my Chameleon Pens!

What a strange experience! It's like I'm doing things backwards. I usually regard my light source as coming from the right, so I begin colouring on the left of my image in the darkest shade, however as the Chameleon Pens go from light to dark, I felt a little stumped, I tried turning the image upside down, but as yet I haven't got used the amount of time it take for the pens to infuse with blender fluid in order to lighten them, I guess it will be a case of trial and error, with rather a lot of the latter.

Anyway this is a Day for Daisies image for their current challenge which is to use Glitter. I have glittered the wings of this fairy cat. The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted and the tiny Hearts from Simon Says Stamp. The panels are cut with SSS stitched rectangles.  I extended the second largest rectangle sideways on, to cut the front panel for this card which measures 125mm x 150mm  or 5in x 6in.

This one would actually fit with our challenge at "Less is More" this week, which is One Layer  - Love, but I'm entering it for  The Paper Players colour challenge!
Actually I'm not ... I've just seen that I missed the deadline!!!!

It's a digi image printed on an angle, then masked and over-stamped with a Kaisercraft Tiny Dot background stamp.

Once the mask was removed I coloured in the hearts with Copic and Mirage Markers and then added Glossy Accents. The sentiment is from Mama Elephant.

It's also for Addicted to CAS's Mask challenge!

My grandchildren will be arriving imminently for the week, It's half term for them so by the end of the week I shall be ready for a rest! 

One Layer Love!

We had a wonderful show of cards for our Birthday challenge last week at Less is More and this week it's back to One Layer time.

I have three cards to show this time!

Here is a simple card with stamps mainly from Simon Says Stamp with a few hearts from Stampin' Up's confetti set. The envelope has been coloured with Spectrum Noir pencils.

This is a digi image from Meljen I believe. 

I masked a square and coloured the image, before painting it with Rubber Cement, to protect it whilst I inked the sky with a sponge dauber.  I then removed the paper mask and erased the rubber cement.

The sentiment is computer generated in Crayon Crumble font.

This last one is a Penny black image coloured with Spectrum Noir pencils, blended with blending solution and a paper stump.

The heart was twinkled with Glamour Dust and it's accompanied with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted. 

He is such a cutie isn't he!

I have just bought some Chameleon Pens... I think I need a little practice, so until I've improved, you won't be seeing any evidence of my efforts.

Sending Love

Here's a quick card following the sketch from Case this Sketch

And the colours from the Card Concept

The 'Sending' word is from Simon Says Stamp and the 'Love' from Tattered Lace. The Os and Xs are from Cuttlebug.

I don't remember the make of the little flower die, but I added some flowers from a Sizzix die to emphasise the blossoms. They are slightly larger than the ones underneath, but are the same shape. I cut all the die-cuts from White card and coloured the elements with Copic Markers.

The embossing on the vertical panel is from a new Crafter's Companion  Hessian EF.
It is of course a Clean and Simple Design... as are all my cards!

You are pawesome!

My son and his wife have a dear little Parson Russell terrier called Minnie.

Here she is!

From time to time she is looked after by her maternal Granny (Clare) whom she loves dearly. SO this little card is from Minnie to Clare for Valentine's Day, to say thank you for looking after her.

The paw die is from Joanna Sheen Signature Dies, mounted on a Little B Heart which is in turn mounted on a Simon Says Stamp heart. The sentiment is computer generated in Crayon Crumble font, die cut with a Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle.

The cue word at CASology is LOVE so this is for that!

Mixed Embossing powders

I felt really inspired by this card below by Loll Thompson on Happy Little Stampers

I loved that she had mixed some embossing powders to make the background. It's something that I love to do but had forgotten about for quite a while! It was great to have the nudge from her.

So my card uses an Inkylicious flourish embossed with Frayed Burlap Distress Embossing Powder, mixed with Enchanted Gold and Gold Twinkle Embossing Powders.

The butterflies, cut from vellum, are from Memory Box and All Occasion Dies, coloured with Pink Pirouette and Strawberry Slush inks, and edged with a little gold. I over stamped the whole of the front with Pink Splats from an SU Gorgeous Grunge stamp.

The sentiment is from Penny Black and the front panel is cut with a stitched die from Simon Says Stamp.

It's for Colours and Sketches

 and Happy Little Stampers, Embossing!

.

Colour me Blue

A challenge which I don't believe that I have entered before is the Colour Me Challenge which this week has Night of Navy Monochrome as their choice.

This card has no stamping, but rather a lot of Cuttlebugging! Which at one point posed a bit of a problem as my fairly new, replacement Cuttlebug broke. The first of my updated model ones cracked and was replaced by Hobbycraft and this one lost a bolt and washer and had something rattling around inside it and consequently didn't work at all. Fortunately Hobbycraft replaced it yet again without any quibble. My old Cuttlebug came out of retirement briefly, I'm glad I didn't throw it away!

Anyway, the embossing on this card was from a Crafter's Companion Distress EF. The 'hello' die is from Technique Tuesday, the tag from Paper Smooches and the two little butterflies a new purchase from the Portsmouth Craft Show, made by All Occasion Dies.

This is simplicity itself. I was trying out my new Memory Box butterfly die, which I had been waiting for for quite some time, but which I managed to pick up from Oyster Stamps on Sunday at the show too.

The sentiment is SSS. The navy backdrop on this looks like black but it is in fact a really deep shade of blue.

As ever, I stuck double sided tape on the back of the card before cutting these delicate die-cuts.

OOps! I was too late to link this up... I should look more carefully in future!