CHEERS

This is my final week as Guest Designer over at Just Us Girls and I have so enjoyed it!

The challenges have been great fun and it was wonderful to be amongst such a fab team of designers.

This week's challenge is Anything but a card!

I can't think why, but my first thought for this challenge was a wine bottle tag.... I wonder what the psychologists would have to say about that?

The particular bottle that this tag is encircling is one of my favourites... a wonderful Chardonnay!

Cheers everyone!

 

I love you

I had fun messing around making this card this morning. I saw this sketch over at the Paper Players and thought I would have a go.

This cute bunny is by Alexandra Renke and comes with a little three legged stool, but today I thought I would let him have a go on the swing. I found a scrap of wood texture card and used that for the seat. In order to give some perspective I used a die which actually makes one quarter of a frame, I've had it for a long time and have no idea where it came from. It's from a set which makes different sized frames. I merely punched holes in each end and threaded through some twine.

The rectangle is actually dry embossed with clouds etc, but being white on white is scarcely visible!

This bunny reminds me of Anita Jeram's Little Nut Brown Hare in Guess How Much I Love You....hence the sentiment.

The seat and the bunny are stacked.

AAA Cards 

I'm sorry you can't really see the clouds, but I did emboss them!

Addicted to stamps and More

 

Little One

The challenge at CAS on Friday is to use TINY images.

This little die is from a set by Simply Graphic. I gently coloured a backdrop for the bunny with Distress Oxide ink using a blending brush and popped him in a frame. 

I think that the next time I use one of these dies, I'll use a square cornered frame, with no stitching. I think that that may suit the design a little better.

The sentiment is from a set by Poppy Stamps.

 

Hope your day is Fabulous

It's already week four of my Guest Designer Spot at Just Us Girls.

There is a picture for inspiration this time and the theme feels decidedly Nautical!

I chose the colours, some elements and the stripes as inspiration for my card.

My son's birthday is upcoming, he is very fond of boats and all things nautical so I think that this card may be finding its way to him!

Do join in  with the fun over at Just Us Girls, we'd love to see your creations.

 

Scandinavian Holiday

A simple 'Twinchie' card for the challenge at AAA Cards

Simple stamping from Hero Arts stamps, and mounted on a die cut square. I was grateful for my stamping platform to get a good impression of these solid stamps!

Just Add ink

The Male Room

Happy Birthday

This background for this, is from a piece of card created by what I call Relaxed Shaving Foam technique. If a print is taken from shaving foam immediately after mixing in some colour, a marbling effect is achieved, however if the foam is left to sit for quite a few hours before taking a print the outcome is very different. The foam starts to break down and does not hold the colour in  swirls, anyway I rather like it, I find the results a little more subtle than the marbling. The daisies are from dies by Memory Box

This card is for the Occasions challenge at Watercooler Wednesday.

I was fortunate enough to have my card for their last challenge selected as the winner, for which I would like to thank the DT enormously. I really appreciate it!

Addicted to CAS Geometric (Hexagonal aperture)

Happy Little Stampers

The sun is shining, seems like a good day for a barbecue!

Have a lovely day

It's week three of my Guest Designing spot at Just Us Girls and this time it's a colour challenge.

This is the first outing for my Concord & 9th Sketched Dots Turnabout stamp. I used SU Lost Lagoon, Smoky Slate and Barely Banana inks. I think I must be a bit of a messy inker as I had to wipe the stamp between the dots as I had managed to get ink on the gaps and I was worried that if I pressed too hard I would get smudges on the print. (SU stamp pads are quite large... that's my excuse) Fortunately it worked well!

I had recently ordered some teal card from Paper Mill Direct, which is where I source all my cardstock and so wanted to use it for this project. Hence the die cuts and the mats.

Colour challenges are always interesting, why not give it a go and join in the fun!

 

Have a lovely day

Recently I discovered a new (to me) challenge blog called Global Design Project so I entered a card for their challenge... to my delight, that card was chosen as one of the winners. This week I thought I would enter their new challenge which is to 

 CASE = Copy And Selectively Edit 

one of their designers, all of whom are extraordinarily talented.

This is the card to be CASed

For my submission I chose dies by Simply Graphic, some of which I stacked, and kept the whole thing monochrome. The part I have omitted is the splodge background, I did toy with the idea, but that that  is the bit that I decided I would 'selectively edit'.

Our granddaughter will be coming today for a stay, her school term has finished but her brother is still at school for a while longer, so she has us to herself for a while. I'm looking forward to a bit of fun!

The Flower Challenge 

Spots or Stripes

Happy Little Stampers

Anything with Dies

Fusion

This card has some of the same elements, same colourway, but a different challenge. It follows the sketch from FAB Friday ish.

This one feels a little trendy for me, I'm usually a bit more trad, but I think it kinda works! Just love dies by Simply Graphic!

 

The sun will come out tomorrow

When my daughter was small, she loved the film Annie. The song which is quoted on this card was one of her favourites and I think that the sentiment is very upbeat and it's an attitude I have had all my life. If today is not a good day... then tomorrow will be better!

I cut a stencil from Mylar using a die to do the raindrops. I simply dabbed some Versamark through the stencil ... I did think of leaving it to dry but decided to add a little clear embossing powder for a little extra shine. The sentiment was computer generated in 'Are you serious' font.

I won a challenge at CAS on Friday a little time ago and so this time I have a Guest Spot with them.  I feel very honoured.

 

Thanks

Here I am in my second week as Guest Designer for JUGs, this time the theme being Recycle.

For my card I took the packaging from a shipment which arrived today from Amazon. The card itself is apparently already recycled material, so this is Recycle x 2!

The skeleton leaves are from Sizzix dies  and the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp. 

Once this was made, I was umming and ahhing about whether or not it needed a little something, so I added a few cascading dots.

Which is best? With or without dots?

Why not join in the recycling fun over at Just US Girls... you know you have something just itching to be recycled into a card!

 

Happy Birthday

Here I began by inking a background with a couple of shades of Distress Oxide inks and then heat embossing a WOW background stamp in silver. From this I cut the butterfly die, plus 2 more from white card. I stacked the white die-cuts and inlaid them with the inked versions. The frames of each butterfly are quite flimsy, so in order to get them stuck to the card front accurately, I dry embossed the die into the card to give me the exact position for securing outlines. This meant that all the inlays fit perfectly.

Seize the Birthday

Addicted to stamps and more

Happy Little Stampers 

Watercooler Wednesday 

Be Merry

Since stamping this polar bear from Hobby Art, I've completely lost him. I have the carrier sheet ready for him to go back but the stamp is nowhere to be seen. I have had my granddaughter here doing some 'making' but I don't think I can blame this on her.  

You may wonder why a bear has antlers... this stamp doesn't have antlers, but my grandson has a Christmas tree ornament of a polar bear with antlers, so I thought I would try to make him a card to go with it. To make him I found a copyright free image of antlers on the internet and dropped it into Word. I had stamped the bear image onto a piece of copy paper (which is thin and allows the image on my laptop screen to show through when held against it) so then I adjusted the size of the antlers until they fit the bear's head. Once printed, I could then stamp the bear to fit with the antlers.

I thought that I would enter this into the challenges at 

ABC Christmas 

O Off to One Side

2 Crafty Critter Crazies

Anything Goes

12 Months of Christmas

Christmas in July

 

You are my Sunshine

Recently I discovered that my usual supplier of cardstock, Paper Mill Direct, had ceased producing their hopsack and hemp textured cardstock in white, so I have been searching for a replacement. This particular card by Papermania has a reasonable texture, but there my love for it ends.  It's rather a stark white, not easy in the eyes, (I prefer a softer white) and it is very flimsy. I think I was caught up in the look of the texture online without noticing what the gsm was. SO for this card, the square panel is double stacked and the sun and the sentiment label triple stacked.

The rainbow is by Taylored Expressions, although I lost the heart from that die cut so this one is just another heart (the TE die has the rainbow and the heart in one and I didn't want to cut out another rainbow! 

The sentiment is computer generated in 'Are you serious' font.

Global Design Project

This is rather unenterprising in that it's the same layout as my last card for CAS Christmas, but I just fancied trying a poinsettia in white! I used a really deep green for the back panel and some tiny sprigs of holly as garnishes. The 'joy' on this card was considerably easier to stack, as the letters are all in one piece!

Support

I have made a card similar to this before, using this MFT die set. The insert of the bra is just plain, but I wanted to give a lacy effect, so I looked through my embossing folders to see if I could find one which would give that lacy look. I have used a different one previously, but discovered that this one of Small Flowers from Nellie's Choice fit the bill admirably.

The die set is called Support Hope and I think was intended to support women with breast cancer, but this sentiment, which was shown to me by a friend who was going through another sort of cancer, expressed just how important the fellowship and strength of friends are when times are tough!

I generated the sentiment on the computer in Formal 436 font, which I thought matched the black bra well.

CASology

 

Get Well Soon

I saw this sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and thought I would have a go.

I found a piece of scrap card which I had smooshed with Distress inks and some Inka Gold. It didn't look incredibly exciting so I over-stamped it with some script and a few splodges. The flowers are by Memory Box and I simply added a few tiny die cut circles as their centres. They are the waste from a border die (the holes)

This month I am the Guest Designer at Just Us Girls and this week's challenge is Script, so I think I'll add it to that as well!

 

Sending Prayers

 

This is another card for the challenge at CAS Mix Up

After I had coloured the vellum by dropping on various colours, plus a little Ranger mixative, I allowed it to dry before die cutting. I couldn't decide whether the butterflies would look best with the vellum as the filigree layer or the under layer, in the end I decided to use both versions on the same card. My friend, who is a priest, said that sadly she needed some bereavement cards. I thought that this sentiment would be fine for either illness or bereavement.

The background panel is dry embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and the butterflies are from Simon Says Stamp.

Today I have been working on some 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration invitations and I've developed a real crick in my neck, I could do with a massage!

JOY

Here's a card for the challenge at CAS Christmas.

I've had this poinsettia die for a very long time and I don't actually remember the make. At some point there may have been some little dots for the centre of the flower, but I couldn't find the die, so I used the waste from a border die with holes in as the stamens etc. The flower is coloured with a couple of shades of red and a couple of shades of green alcohol pens. The die itself is a trio of petals/leaves in one piece so I cut three for the flower and two for the leaves.

The sentiment was not exactly a 'joy' to make as I got it into my head that I wanted a certain size and a certain type of font, which I didn't have in my die stash, so I did this with my Silhouette Portrait.  Cutting something this fiddly from 250gsm card is quite tricky. The bits are tiny and I stacked the letters three times ... it was a real tweezer job! I was however satisfied with the overall look at the end.

Addicted to CAS - Christmas

My Time to Craft Christmas - CAS

Merry Little Christmas - Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers Christmas - Anything Goes

Big Hugs

I began this card by following the layout of the sketch as Fab Friday

Having decided to keep the colour palette to monochrome, I looked for scraps to use up. I had the remnants of some newsprint card, which I had used some of for a Paper Anniversary card, some music manuscript left over from a birthday card, some bits of plain white and black card plus a sentiment which is a negative image. It looks a little busy, but maybe the recipient will spend some time looking closely at all the elements, trying to work out what they all are!

I have some Golden Wedding Invitations to make, I'd better start getting creative!