Happy Birthday Handsome

 

Here is another contribution to the CAS Stencil Challenge.

This time I opted to use translucent embossing paste on dark card stock, with the addition of Gold Glamour Dust.

The stencil is from The Crafter's Workshop.
I thought that the image was a good choice for a chap, which is why I went with this sentiment which was a freebie from a magazine.
The twinkle on this image is really very pretty, but I'm afraid that my photographic expertise isn't sufficient to show it off to its full potential!

Our grandkids have arrived for the weekend so my crafting time is over for the moment!

Elephants

Queen of Bloggers, Darnell has another Twofer Challenge which this time is Zoo Animals.

  

I find these challenges really challenging... which is what they should be I guess.
Here I used some super cute images from Neat and Tangled. They give such a fabulously crisp image. I coloured the elephants with alcohol markers and so decided to cut them out because of colour transfer to the back of the card. 

The square card is to welcome a new baby and the rectangular one for an occasion such as Mother's Day or birthday... where the sentiment is computer generated. It looks to me as though either elephant could be speaking to the other!

The cut outs are mounted on dimensional pads after having finished the edges with an embossing tool to give a more softened look.

Here a little die cutting has been used. Welcome and balloon from Paper Smooches, thread from Memory Box and slatted heart from SSS.

We are just waiting for 2 of our grandkids to come back for the Easter Weekend and tomorrow we're hoping that we can join with the third one for the day! I love seeing them all together!

Exhausted!

My granddaughter said that I was awesome!

This last week we've had two of our grandkids staying with us for the first week of their Easter break.

At this time of year various National Trust properties hold Easter trails sponsored by Cadbury's Chocolate who provide Easter Eggs as prizes.  

We have done many trails this week! 

Granny is suitably exhausted, but with the amount of chocolate on tap you can see why I was thought to be awesome! It was however great fun! For the last one we did, we were joined by my littlest granddaughter Cleo and the three cousins all had great fun together!

Now to my card. It 's an Art Impressions stamp with a computer generated sentiment. I coloured it very gently so as not to show through on the inside of the card!

It's for the challenge at Addicted to CAS

Addicted to Stamps and More  - Anything Goes

Me my elf and I

Challenged once again by CAS Christmas Challenge I had to find an Elf!

I knew I had one somewhere... just one... however it took a while to find it, so during the process I popped over to Bugaboo Stamps and purchased this digi image of a seated Elf! I think it's quite a cutie.

I made the card with the elf I'd rummaged for in my stash, but thought I might try again... see that card below!

SO I began to work on the Bugaboo image (above)!

However once coloured he had to have something to sit on and a host of ideas came to mind, but none was particularly exciting. Then I decided to see if he could sit on an embossed something or other. I was thinking of a wall and tried that but was more pleased with this section of music manuscript.

SO I cut him out, sat him on it and added the sentiment from Paper Smooches.

One less card to make in the run up to Christmas!

I don't know the origin of this elf but it's a stiff plastic stamp and stamping a fine line is quite difficult. The sentiment is from MFT but sadly the spelling of favourite is wrong for a British recipient, so one of my buddies from across the pond may see this one coming their way

Birthday Butterfly

The theme this month at CAS Stencil is to use Embossing Paste. These challenges are SO good for me as they make me use techniques sometimes forgotten, sometimes new and sometimes ones which need a little refining of my technique (to put it politely).  Actually some need a lot of practice!

The first pot of embossing paste I picked out of my stash ... I couldn't open... it was totally stuck, probably due to the fact that it wasn't cleaned up properly before closing the last time I used it!

Anyway I digress!

For this card I cut a stencil out of vellum from a Memory Box die, through which I applied some Sweet Poppy Pearl White Embossing Paste. It was quite pretty as it was but I thought that a tiny sprinkle of Gold Glamour Dust over it would make it even prettier, which I think it did!
Using vellum as a stencil is great as there is no clean up involved... I just throw it away when I'm done!

I cut a berry spray from vellum which I just popped onto the paste whilst it was still wet. The butterfly, from Cutplorations was cut from white card and the top layer glued and sprinkled with the same gold  Glamour Dust. I had though that it might look a little too fussy but I liked the effect as the gold twinkle is so delicate.

I treated the sentiment in the same way but thought it looked a little tacky, so I added another layer in plain white card over the top. A tiny bit of the gold peeks out which looks really nice IRL. 

Sadly I don't remember where the sentiment die came from!

CAS Stencil Challenge

This coming week we will be having 2 of our grandchildren staying with us as it is the beginning of the Easter holidays! By mid-week all three will be here! What fun!

Nature

Using a stamping platform such as the MISTI makes using watercolour stamps really easy. It means that you can stamp parts of a large stamp such as this one, in small sections and still get it perfectly in place. I used three colours of markers on each berry and a couple of shades on the branch. I was really pleased with the result.

The stamp is from Penny Black and the die cut sentiment from Creative Dies.

I added a little clear Wisp of Stella over each berry although it doesn't show up too clearly on this photo.

This is my DT card for the Christmas Challenge at Happy Little Stampers

Where as ever it's an Anything Goes Challenge with the optional twist of including something linked to nature. 

Making Christmas cards throughout the year saves so much stress as Christmas approaches so do come and join us, it has worked for me!

One Layer for Happy Little Stampers

 Sometimes it's a little difficult to give definition to a one layer card, but a simple technique is to dry emboss a frame. Here I used a little pierced rectangle die to surround the Blockhead stamps image. As this is image has no defined edge I think it would look a little odd by itself on a one layer card. I had to emboss from both ends as the die was slighted shorter than the image itself. I coloured the flowers with watercolours as alcohol markers show through to the inside of just one layer.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted. I am very fond of combining script and printed fonts for sentiments and this set  does just that. It would be nice to know the name of these fonts so that I could use them on my computer! 

This is my DT card for the CAS challenge at Happy Little Stampers... if you don't often try one layer cards, now might be a good time to have a go!

We would love to see you join us!

Baby

Today is my first day back in may craft room after a couple of weeks spent to-ing and fro-ing between here and Bath on granny duties. 

Later today we are going to meet some friends for lunch whom we met on a cruise some time ago (I don't remember exactly how long ago it was). I dressed in the clothes that I will be wearing when we go out and so I didn't want to attempt anything messy in my card making this morning. Hence die-cutting and dry embossing.

I wrote the word 'baby' on my Silhouette, welded the letters and offset them before cutting out in pink for the background and white for the word itself. The heart shaped balloon from Paper Smooches was added to the card on dimensional pads and the string was cut with a thread die from Memory Box.

I decided to add a little twinkle to the pink parts of the card with some Glamour Dust.

I am adding it to the challenges at Addicted to stamps and More - Clean and Simple

AAA Cards - Dry Embossing

Just Us Girls - Photo Inspiration

Dies R Us   Challenge # 118 -Anything Goes - (Paper Smooches & Memory Box Dies )

Clean and Simple on Friday - Baby

Each Thursday I look after my youngest grandchild Cleo and I have started taking her to Baby Ballet classes! She loves it! Here she is ready for her class, She doesn't have baggy Nora Batty tights on, they are leggings which she wore over her ballet socks to get to the class...  it was a little chilly that day! Does the expression 'Good toes, Naughty toes' bring back any memories for any of you?