Fly Away

Here is my entry for A Spoonful of Sugar challenge 73, which had this sketch to follow.The image is a Penny Black stamp called Fly Away which I coloured with prismas and OMS. The papers are WRMK Tiffany pad and some lush brown shimmer paper from Kanban. I rubbed on the 'play' and '2gether' messages onto two large green brads from my stash and the ribbon is also from my stash, the metal sentiment word came from a magazine freebie.

I liked this sketch, sometimes less is more and in this case it is. Pop on over to ASOS and see for yourself what the DT have come up with.

Lin

Brain Training

I have attempted something this week which I have seen many of you do before. A multiple combined challenge. When you have ME thinking things through sensibly is really hard work. Sometimes it's like your brain is in a fog. However, luckily for me I spotted a few challenges that had similar themes, so thought I would have a go. Just wondering do the rest of you write them down so you can check them off or is that just me.

Anyhow, the challenges covered in this card are Stamp Something, which required brown plus, but the predominant colour being brown. Next over to Stampin' for the Weekend who requested brown, orange and green. Over to Secret Crafter and the challenge there was autumn colours. Which brings me finally to the last challenge from Mojo Monday which was to use this sketch.So now I have thoroughly given my brain a workout I'm actually quite pleased with the result.

The image is a Penny Black stamp from their Victorian Country range called All Dressed Up, coloured with prismas and OMS. Just love those PB stamps. The papers are Bloom and Grow to mat the image and the lovely K&Co paper, and the gorgeous brown background is from Papermania. The ribbon I dyed several times and boy did it make my hands messy, until I managed to get approx the colour I wanted and the flowers are Floral Doodles.

I have never thought much about autumn colours except to marvel at nature when the leaves are turning but I have discovered I quite like oranges and browns.

I was also intending to enter in the Roses on Paper challenge too, but this will show you the foggy brain, it never registered with me that they required a stamped image from particular ranges and I had used the wrong one. C'est La Vie!

Lin

Mo's Challenge Blog #1

Mo Manning has got a brand new challenge blog up and running.

For the very first challenge the card had to be made in 'Bella's' favourite colour, which is purple, or perple as Bella calls it. Also to include a Mo Manning stamp. Now that bit's not hard as she is the most amazingly talented artist and there are plenty of her gorgeous digital creations to choose from.

I opted for a brand new one called Tea Party. Now anyone who already reads my blog will know that, like Bella, purple is also my favourite colour so I set off to colouring this one out with all shades of purple. I added a couple of blues a touch of green and some yellow for her hair as she was in danger of being too purple.

After I finished colouring her in then the problems started. Had I lost my purple mojo. Nothing seemed to work. Was she shaded in the 'wrong' purple, is there a wrong purple?

I had some rather nice Kanban Duo Reflections card, which comes in a plain matt sheet, a mirri sheet and an acetate sheet and I settled one of the matt ones for the background, but somehow I managed to ruin both it and the mirri version, leaving me with only the acetate one left to play with.

The frame is a Carol Wilson one and I backed it with some silver mesh fabric, and lifted the whole thing with foam tape.

The ribbon was a jewelled self adhesive one, but I didn't like the gems so I changed them for the lilac flower gems instead.

There are some gorgeous DT cards for this particular challenge. Do please go and check them out.

My next DS from Mo will have to be the card making one I think.

Lin

First past the post

Assuming I get this typed out in time I think I might be first past the post with the Cute Card Thursday challenge to make a 'charming' card. The challenge was to use a charm somewhere on the card.

I have been up since the crack of sparrows this morning and was feeling creative so this one came quite easily. I had already coloured in the gorgeous Bildmalarna stamp with Lyra Aquacolours and was wondering how to use her when this challenge actually inspired me to finish the card off. I had a few garden charms, one was a watering can which was the identical shade to the watering can on the image, but it was too 3D and stuck out too far, it might look better on a scrapbook page I think.

I trimmed her out and matted her onto a spellbinders pendant and used the matching border to that pendant to make a border on the card which I threaded through some pretty floral ribbon to lift it a little. The flower is one of the Woodware range I think and the centre is a dovecraft brad. Just love those brads. I tied the charm behind the flower, and finished off with a sentiment die cut from the Creative Cardmaking magazine's first issue.

The three pictures here look a little different as I have been fiddling with the settings in Photoimpact to see if I could improve the original pic. The bottom two are as my camera captured the card, but the light is not quite bright enough. The main picture I enhanced the light. It's still not quite right, but better. Oh for a super expensive camera.

Lin

Trick or Treat

I mentioned in my earlier post how I had loads of ideas for the challenge over at Saturday Spotlight but that they just wouldn't translate to paper. Some of that was because I lacked a stamp and couldn't find a digi stamp to do what I wanted. So I cheated and trawled the kiddies colouring pages.

Again I need to apologise for the slight blurring. Doesn't seem to matter what I do the camera is giving this slight haze. I guess I am getting older and maybe there is a slight shake to my hand.

Anyhow so I found a colouring page for a magician and then one for something yummy. Coloured with my favourite OMS and prismas with a touch of sparkle on the ribbon on the hat, the cape and bow tie, again sadly not showing up on the camera; matted up onto some gorgeous basic grey with a scrap of ribbon and some rub on letters and bingo Halloween II. I promise not to turn this into a sequel like the movies and keep on knocking these out.

Hope no one minds a second bite of the cherry but I knew if I didn't make this now I would forget the idea in a week and I thought it might fit the requirements quite well.

Off to get ready for the winter flu jab. Wish me luck

Lin

It's Halloween Jim but not as we know it!

Since I started blogging this card has the dubious honour of having given me the biggest headache and made my thinking cap shrink till my brain thought it would implode. Over at Saturday Spotlight with Hidden Potential, a brand new challenge blog, they wanted a halloween card but not using any traditional halloween images. Clearly the hidden potential in this case is the opportunity for the card to be a halloween one but without looking like a traditional one...... I think my potential was on a break because I really struggled with this one.

I had a few ideas but none of them would translate to paper. I settled on this cute Mo Manning image of Cinderella in mid sweep as I could see the broomstick being used for something other than cleaning, but how to convey that? In the end I gave her a thought bubble about starter motors.

The font for the halloween message is called Halloween Match. The background I printed from a spider web and seperate spider I found online. Cinders is coloured with prismas and OMS and I wish I had picked oranges or something more halloweeny as I spent at least two hours trying to match some paper to her colouring. In the end I caved in and edged her in spooky black.

Several times I considered just abandoning the project but I was determined that ME or not my brain was NOT gonna beat me. You would have thought a witch would be better equipped to portray halloween!...............

BTW sorry for the blurred look on the main pic, I think it has something to do with the brightness of the red and the stark contrast of the black and white against it. If you open the pic up to a new window and view it full size the blurring seems to clear a little.

Lin